#because he would absolutely forget and then inadvertently try to meet the need through like

[prince-liest]

more self-indulgent jgy abo headcanons

I read a fic so long ago that I no longer remember the fandom nor characters involved, but the thing about it that really stuck in my mind was that it was an abo-verse fic that used the concept that omegas have an ingrained biological need for physical (including platonic) affection, to the point where “touch-starvation” was a medical diagnosis

this is obviously extremely up my alley for ALL my blorbos, but consider jin guangyao in particular:

unlike the usual ‘omega pretending to be a beta’ trope, I think that once he is established at jinlintai, he would not really try to let people assume that he’s a beta. being an omega leads people not only into underestimating him, but also into offering him a certain degree of safety in providing a veil of stereotype-associated demureness, placidity, etc. it is more to his benefit for people to see him as a polite young man, perhaps even one who, yes, is a war hero - but people can’t quite imagine what kinds of things he must have done for that. surely nothing too bad.

but at the same time, this is the character who couldn't even serve tea to people as nie mingjue’s deputy without people making a show of wiping off their fingers after touching the cups. people know he is an omega, people judge him for being an omega on top of all the other things he is already judged for, but I suspect that most of the relevant and appropriate people in jinlintai avoid touching him unless absolutely necessary. in a world where casual contact is thoroughly commonplace just due to the socialities set up by their biology, jin guangyao has a personal space bubble of like 2-3 feet because he's the dirty son of a prostitute.

he walks through the halls, ostensibly the second young master of the tower, and feels like he is drowning in the physical manifestation of loneliness.

who does he have left? family? jin zixuan is not close to him, and frankly is likely an alpha raised by alphas to whom it would not even occur to that such needs need to be minded. jin guangshan certainly is aware, but is using it as leverage, allowing and denying contact as he see fits to manipulate jin guangyao the same way he does with his fatherly affection. there are his sworn brothers, but his relationship with nie mingjue is fraught: certainly da-ge wouldn’t withhold contact as punishment or leverage, but that doesn’t mean he wants to touch jin guangyao anymore, nor does he really understand how the necessity of it feels when he grew up with nie huaisang, an omega who has never been shy about taking whatever affection he wants. and er-ge... he just isn’t around enough.

lan xichen is still the best option, and by the time they have the opportunities to see each other, jin guangyao is pressing nails into his palms to stop from just plastering himself up against lan xichen’s side, which surely would be humiliating for both of them. but still, he’s so aware of it any time they’re in the same room, meting out as many small touches as he can get away with without embarrassing himself. lan xichen slips his fingers over jin guangyao’s wrists as he pulls him up from a bow, intending warm affection. jin guangyao doesn’t want to let him know that it feels like being allowed to gasp for a single breath of air before his head is shoved back underwater.

(with nie mingjue, it is worse. da-ge is just as aware as jin guangyao is when they touch, but for all the worst reasons.)

it is the strangest blessing whenever jin guangyao sees nie huaisang. it’s embarrassing, a little - the knowledge that nie huaisang understands, unlike most people in jin guangyao’s life. but nie huaisang takes that embarrassment onto his own self willingly, never hesitating before making a fool of himself in the way that only a terminally younger brother can, and simply flinging himself into his san-ge’s arms. it’s nostalgic, too: nie mingjue isn’t quite so aware of how important touch is with how proactive nie huaisang can be, and so during his days as deputy, it was often nie huaisang who gave meng yao what he could not ask for.

the cultivators at jinlintai look down on him just as the ones in the unclean realm did, but now there is no willing young master to soothe away the tangible, physical ache of it. more often than not, jin guangyao tucks his hands into his sleeves to hide the way his fingertips shake.

anyway this is my petition for jiang yanli to take two looks at this situation and promptly wrinkle her brows just the slightest amount, expressing quiet concern to jin zixuan that it’s strange how she doesn’t see anybody touch his half-brother very much, does she? and jin zixuan is a little confused, a little embarrassed, a little off-balance - he doesn’t feel close enough to jin guangyao to be that casual, but he’s an alpha, he doesn’t get it until jiang yanli explains to him, with a beta’s patience, the value of family bonds to an omega as well as jin zixuan’s responsibility as a brother (older brother? younger? his father claims older, but there’s no way to truly know - ), and isn’t it wonderful, having a little brother?

and then someone pats jin guangyao over the head until he’s feeling a little less strung-thin and out of options, he realizes he has to keep jin zixuan and jiang yanli alive lest he actually lose his mind (sympathy for da-ge? oh no...), and etc etc things end happily ever after, the end, QED.

#the untamed #mdzs #jin guangyao #meng yao #xiyao #3zun #omegaverse #my writing #personal #I think other fantastic candidates for this affliction would be mu qing and jiang cheng #though liu qingge would also be a hilarious option that wouldn't be angsty in the least just HILARIOUS #because he would absolutely forget and then inadvertently try to meet the need through like #physical combat #until it became poor mu qingfang's problem #anyway don't ask me how the happy end happens I'm not actually writing a fic here I just like to dream #I'm a happy endings bitch okay #long post #also feel free to interprety whichever relationships in this post whatever way you want on the romantic/platonic spectrum #I'm not really fussed about it #abo #storytelling post

[awellboiledicicle]

Hawke opens the magic mirror in the basement of the blighted village.

He takes one step inside, lights a torch.

Sees corpse on a table and bones everywhere and blood.

"Smells like necromancy, absolutely fucking not."

He goes in expressly because Astarion points out there might be something valuable inside. He's tense the entire time. They open the thing with the Necromancy of Thay and immediately tries to destroy it. Astarion and Gale try to talk him out of it and he just.

"If either of you become necromancers, i will personally skin you alive and use your bleeding carcass for target practice." "Good gods, it's just a book--" "I said what I fucking said." "Come now, Hawke, I'm sure there's plenty that can be learned from a purely academ--" "Twitch toward that book for any reason other than eating it and orb be damned, you meet your goddess early." Hawke stalks away, the book shoved into his pack for destruction. He'll be damned if he lets someone else come along and start experimenting. Anders waited for him to be across the room before clearing his throat. Gale started slightly, the mage having inadvertently sneaked up on the two. "Gods, Anders-- how you move so silently, I'll never know." "Habit." He pointedly didn't apologize. "And he's right about the book. We need to destroy it, even if he's being... aggressive about it." "Aggressive is a word for it." Astarion sniffed, crossing his arms. "What's the harm in some light necromancy? It'd be useful, surely." "Desecration of a body aside, it's not about useful." He pursed his lips and tried to find a way to put it that wouldn't get Hawke's attention from across the room. "A necromancer... he lost his mother to one. It's a painful subject." Gale looked like he'd swallowed a raw egg. "I.. I had no idea. I feel rather like i put my foot in my mouth, now..." Astarion didn't appear that swayed. "Still-- no one's saying to use it on any innocents. I was just curious about what was inside." He seemed to be steadfastly ignoring the extremely flat look Anders was giving him. "And i'm sure we'd use the power for... good, or whathaveyou." "I would suggest," Anders stooped a little to look Astarion properly in the face, mouth set into a deep frown. "You not get any ideas. For your safety, if nothing else will motivate you." "Anders, why, are you threatening me?" "I'm warning you. If i were threatening you, there would be far less talking." He straightened up and started toward the other side of the room where Hawke was digging through a chest. The rogue glanced up when he approached and huffed in acknowledgement before shoving another bundle of cloth into his pack. It'd make good bandages later, should they run out of potion. "Are you alright, love?" "Will be when we loot the place and get the hell out." He thumped the chest closed and started rummaging through an open crate, shoving aside half rotten ingredients. "Can't have landed somewhere that didn't exist, could we?" "If there exists magic, there exist people who will misuse it." "Should have known from the bodies outside. Keep forgetting they don't just... get up around here."

Just cannot overstate how happy he's going to be to get the fuck out of there. All That Remains flashback moments

#Handers gate au

[bubblesuga]

Weak When You’re Around

Summary: After a drunken night and meeting a tall man at the club, the reader realizes the fun is far from over. 

W/C: 1,921

Genre: college student!au, new relationship, fluff, smut

Tags: mutual masturbation, dom!Namjoon, oral (f receiving), namjoon likes to praise the reader, I’ll be honest there’s not much of a plot it’s mostly just smut lol

As your eyes blink open in the bright sunlit room, the white sheets nearly blind you while you recollect your thoughts. Club. Tequila. Tall man with big arms. 4 orgasms. 

Okay, you know where you are. 

The tall man is named Namjoon, he’s currently a Bioengineering student and spoke very enthusiastically about whatever song was playing in the club. He caught your eye briefly from across the dance floor and you knew in an instant that you were exactly where you needed to be. 

Sometimes, a chance meeting is all it takes.

However, your expectations on how the previous night would fall was completely different to how it ended up. Sure, you knew it was going to be good but good was just far too much of an understatement. It was... ravenous, brilliant, exciting. The man who took you to bed moved in ways that you had never experienced before. Dipping beneath the covers, voicing his arousal and encouraging you to move against him while his tongue danced between your thighs...

The way his lips ghosted against your neck in the aftermath, filling your body with a lull of protection, made you fall asleep in his arms. He inhaled your scent and kept you close, and it was the greatest night you had spent with a man in your entire life. There’s absolutely no way he could get any better.

Glancing to the side of you, you notice the bed is empty. Unusual considering how close he held you last night, for a moment you feel your blood run cold. It takes everything in you not to immediately assume that once he sobered up he lost interest. We’ve all been there. 

Slipping from beneath the sheets, you find the plain grey T-shirt he wore last night and slipped it on. If anything you hope he would allow you to leave in something a little more comfortable than the skin tight deep blue dress that your friend had insisted you wear. As your eyes travel across the room you spot a book shelf that you definitely didn’t see last night. Too involved with the scene in front of you, your surroundings became mere blurs of color because all you could process--all you could see-- was Namjoon. 

The book shelf is tall, made out of real oak and the scent of old books is evident. A specific title catches your eye, The Apology by Plato. 

A small giggle leaves your lips as you pick it up and begin flipping through the pages. Though your conversations about each other’s interests were short lived last night, you could tell that Namjoon was the type to have this book in his posession. 

“Something funny about my books, Princess?” 

You glance at him briefly, taking in his shirtless appearance. He wears black boxers and nothing else, and looks just as delicious as last night. Even experiencing how much he satisfied you last night, you feel you could jump on him once again. 

You smile softly, “I just knew you’d have a book like this.” 

Namjoon wraps his arms around your body, pressing his chest to your front and slipping the book from out of your hands. Carefully, he places it back on the book shelf and presses a small kiss to your exposed shoulder, “What’s that supposed to mean?” 

Your hands move up to his arms, patting softly while you think of how to word your response. For a moment you forget that you had only met this man last night. Instead, your mind is filled with a familiar feeling of comfort. Your stomach swarms with butterflies at the way he holds you, an intensity you don’t think you’ve ever felt in previous relationships. You forget about his question, leaning back into his touch and resting your head delicately on his shoulder. 

Namjoon takes the opportunity to slip his fingers to your jaw, turning your head and pressing a soft kiss to your lips. 

“You looked so good beneath me last night,” he breathes against your lips, “I love making you feel good.” 

A soft swipe of his tongue against your bottom lip instantly has you reeling in his touch yet again. You turn to face him better, wrapping your arms around his neck and pulling him even closer to you. 

There’s a searing white hot burn coursing through your lower abdomen, it feels irresistible and follows where ever Namjoon’s fingers lead. He snakes his way beneath his shirt and tuts his tongue, “You got dressed far too early, my darling.” 

“Undress me, then.” 

A giggle leaves your lips as Namjoon swiftly lifts the shirt off of your body. You take note of the way his abs flex the moment he gets a look at your body, his eyes consuming you hungrily. It seems he didn’t get enough of you, either. 

“Lay down on the bed for me,” Namjoon gestures to the messy bed, tugging the blankets away, “spread your legs.” 

The heat intensifies, excitement dripping between your legs. Your mind races with possibilities of where this may go. If it’s anything like last night, you know it’s going to be good. 

Obeying him, you lay on the bed with your head propped up by two pillows. He folds his arms and glances at you expectantly. Slowly and carefully, you bend your knees and slide your legs apart. Namjoon’s eyes fall to your pussy and drink in the look of it glistening beneath the morning sun. 

“Touch yourself.” 

You tilt your head, “What?” 

“Touch yourself. Tell me how it feels, make yourself feel good.” Namjoon explains, pulling the chair from his desk out and sitting on his backwards right in front of your spread legs. 

Heat rushes to your cheeks and you cough away your embarrassment. He wants you to touch yourself in front of him? He’s just going to...watch? 

“Go on now, don’t be shy,” he encourages, “you weren’t shy touching me so you can’t be shy touching yourself.” 

There’s a certain amount of hesitation in your movements. It’s not like you haven’t done this before. You almost routinely slip your hands beneath the waistband of your panties and play whether it be to fall asleep or to relieve stress, yet it seems much more intimate when you have someone watching you. Yes, it’s someone who has seen you before-- touched you--yet it’s different and you can’t quite put your finger on why. 

Slowly, your hand dips between your legs. 

Namjoon’s eyes darken at your movements, a gasp leaving your lips while you collect your own wetness and swivel your fingers around your clit. Namjoon smirks, his attention trained in on your body. 

You continue your movements, slowly dipping your fingers low and ghosting your hole. He gnaws on his bottom lip, “Start with two fingers.” 

“Yes sir.” Your breathing quickens as you slip your middle and ring finger into your cunt. The top wall of your opening twitches at the contact and Namjoon sees the way your body jolts. 

“Faster.” his breath is shaky now, and your eyes stay trained on his face while you do as he says. The amount of pleasure coursing through your body far exceeds last night just by the way Namjoon’s voice sounds commanding you.

“Tell me how it feels.” 

A moan leaves your throat and finally you toss your head back, losing yourself completely in the pleasure. Your movements continue to quicken as your orgasm approaches. Just as you feel the knot begin to tighten and the heat begin to spread, you feel the bed move. 

Your fingers are carefully pulled out and your head leans forward. Namjoon meets your eyes, and he slips your fingers into his mouth and sucks you clean. 

He groans, “Mm, just as delectable as last night.” 

His eyes don’t leave yours as he dips his head below and wraps his lips around your clit. 

The bands of your orgasm releases immediately, your back arching off of the bed and a loud yell of Namjoon’s name falling from your lips. He consumes you wholeheartedly, pinning your hips to the bed until he drinks in every last drop of your release. 

As he pulls back and the stars leave your vision, you watch as he wipes his mouth clean. 

“I was going to have you make yourself cum,” he chuckles as he speaks, “but I couldn’t let myself have you cum without me being the one doing it.” 

“Fuck, you’re incredible.” you giggle as you try to catch your breath. 

Namjoon crawls his way up to you, wrapping his arms around you and kissing your forehead. “So I’ve heard,” he hums proudly, pulling the two of you off the bed, “let’s go get breakfast.” 

“Wait,” you tilt your head, “what about you?” 

“Oh,” the apples of his cheeks turn red and his eyes disappear behind a shy smile, “that won’t be necessary.” 

He gestures to his boxers, a prominent wet spot on the front. You bite your lip, “When did that happen?” 

“About the same time it happened for you,” he slips the boxers off of his body and you swallow at the sight of his cock, even soft it’s magnificent, “you were so lost in playing with yourself you didn’t see me doing the same.” 

The mutual intimacy had been lost on you because it was true, you couldn’t take your eyes away from his. All you could focus on was the way he was watching you. 

“Which was,” he continues, slipping sweats over fresh boxers, “the hottest thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life.” 

Again you’re reminded of how much he praised you last night, how much he told you he loved your body and inadvertently wiped away every single insecurity you’ve had. 

Slipping back on the shirt, Namjoon tosses you a different pair of sweats. 

“They’ll be a little big but I’m sure you can tie the strings tight enough.” He explains, running a comb through his hair. You nod, dressing yourself and carrying yourself out of his room with him. 

He leads you to the kitchen where two bowls are already set up and ready for cereal. Pouring you a bowl, he hands you milk and you sit in a comfortable silence while you eat. 

Every once in a while, his foot would brush against yours and that same smile from earlier takes over his features. 

Despite knowing him for less than 24 hours, you feel comfortable with Namjoon. He’s made you feel welcomed, like you were meant to be in his arms. Something about the way he spoke to you made you want to curl up beside him forever, and it’s taking everything in your power not to make things move too fast. You’re unsure if he even wants a relationship with you, or even a single date, so you try to quiet your mind to the best of your abilities. 

After you finish up and Namjoon cleans your dishes, you stand in the door way, fiddling with your fingers nervously. 

Namjoon glances at you, “Yes, darling?” 

“So I was wondering if- uhm, you’d like to go out sometime? Like, on a real date?” your words are shaky and Namjoon smiles at you fondly. 

“Of course I would,” he drys his hands and walks to you, “how about dinner and a movie Saturday night?” His fingers intertwine with yours, his thumb stroking the back of your hand gently. 

“That sounds amazing.” you smile up at him. 

His grin is wide, pearly white teeth shining, “Great, it’s a date then.” 

#kim namjoon #namjoon x reader #kim namjoon x reader #namjoon x reader smut #bts smut #namjoon x reader fluff #namjoon fluff #namjoon smut #bts fluff #rm x reader #namjoon x yn

[atruththatyoudeny]

Happy 28th! A new month - so new fics for you to find and enjoy! I can’t say it enough: all the authors in this fandom are truly amazing! Thank you so much for continuously sharing your hard work with us ♥ Here are the 14 fics I read and enjoyed this month:

A Hungry Heart | jacaranda_bloom | Great British Bake Off AU - famous/not famous - cliches - pining - angst - smut - 27k Harry Styles, florist and Great British Bake Off contestant, loves many things. He loves his flower shop, he loves baking, and there’s also that little crush he has on pop star Louis Tomlinson. But when Louis arrives on set as the surprise guest judge, Harry’s worlds collide. Throw in a cup of cuteness, a teaspoon of teasing, and a pinch of pining, and there’s all the ingredients for an epic love story, or absolute chaos. Or the one where the Bake Off tent has never been so hot, and it’s got nothing to do with what’s in the ovens.

Teenage Rebellion Never Worked Out So Well | panda_bear21 | arranged marriage - friends to lovers - 55k “I’m an adult!” He glanced down at Harry, who seemed anything but at the moment, where he was definitely on the brink of a temper tantrum. “We’re both adults!” Jay glanced to Anne again, before breathing out a heavy sigh. “Yes, but you’re both adults that do not have jobs and who live off of our money… Which means, you have to do what we say… or you’ll have to find a new place to live.” “You wouldn’t do that.” Louis dared, hoping his glare was enough to guilt trip his mother into calling the whole thing off. Or to tell them that it had all just been a huge joke and they weren’t actually being forced into marrying a complete stranger. “Oh, but we would.” Or the super cliché arranged marriage fic where things escalate way too quickly.

Heartbreak Hotel | noellehenry | time travel - 1950s - historical - pining - 29k British popstar Harry Styles is thrown back in time after an unfortunate accident on stage. He wakes up in a small town in the US in the 1950's, where life is slightly different from 2015. With help from Niall and Liam he tries to adjust to his new life; without mobile phones and a world wide web to keep up with the world and where showing interest in nice cute boys with bright blue eyes is a no-no. Time travel and 1950's AU where Liam is an English teacher, Niall owns the Best Song Ever record shop, James runs Corden's Diner, Elvis fan Louis is the cute boy with the blue eyes and Harry..... just tries to survive really.

Playdate | Larry_you_know | getting together - misunderstandings - kid fic - fluff - 7k When Harry’s sister asked him to pick up her son at a kids' birthday party he sure didn’t expect to be stunned by the blue-eyed brother of the birthday twins. Using his nephew to see Louis again, he falls hard and fast. But how does one turn a playdate into a real date?

tread lightly on my ground | fairytalelights | a/b/o - mpreg - touch-starved - miscommunication - friends to lovers - touch deprivation - smut - 21k No, that's the tragic part of this, the part that makes Harry feel like the universe is playing a cruel joke on him. The father of his baby is exactly right, exactly who he always imagined himself having kids with. He just imagined them married, bonded. Happy. He didn't imagine them barely talking, tip-toeing around each other because neither of them is brave enough to talk about what happened between them. He didn't imagine the father of his child not loving him back. or, the one where Harry is having Louis' baby, but Louis doesn't know it's his.

Not Ready for This | berzerkshires | kid fic - single parents - smut - 18k Prompt for HLSummerFest2021: Louis and Harry are both single fathers and their children decide to go out on a date. The dads insist on meeting one another before they agree to let their child go out on this date.

Secret's Safe With Me | alltheselights | boss/employee relationship - secret relationship - toxic relationship (not h/l) - slow burn - smut - 59k But here’s the thing about secrets that people tend to forget—they’re deeply personal things. Tiny pieces of information about someone that they keep locked inside and only let out at certain moments, or to certain people, or not at all. Secrets have value, you see, even if only to the person holding them inside. If those secrets were to be told, if those tiny jagged pieces of someone, the parts they hold most dear, the parts they hide out of shame or fear or regret—if those pieces were exposed to someone, it would have the potential to change everything. When bad turbulence and three glasses of wine have Louis spilling all of his secrets to the man sitting next to him on the plane, it's embarrassing, sure, but it's also easy enough to shrug off and block out of his memory forever. Or at least, it was until Louis went into work on Monday morning and realized that the man from the plane is the new CEO of his company.

Marks On My Baby | thinlines | a/b/o - college/university - friends to lovers - hurt/comfort - angst - fluff - smut - 32k “What’s that?” Harry hadn’t meant for his voice to sound so sharp and even he winced at his own outburst. It was more of a hiss than an actual question, but for now, he was too surprised to care. “What’s what?” The omega asked, eyebrows raised and lips pinched. Harry knew he was probably mad at him for interrupting his rant, but the alpha was too on edge to bother pleasing the boy. “On your neck… Your bondmark spot…” His voice had grown low and deep, almost a growl. Who knew a single love bite on his omega friend's neck would trigger Harry this much? Certainly not the alpha himself.

Rogue | Laventriloque | a/b/o - werewolves - minor character death - hurt/comfort - past abuse - past rape/non-con - soulmates - smut - 95k “No, Liam! How many times do I have to… before you finally… NO WAY … a rogue in our pack?… cannot trust him … don’t care to know him … have enough members to worry about.” He hears more indistinct shouts before he hears pretty clearly: “His own pack didn’t want him!” Sitting here, his precious bag between his feet and everyone in the room looking at him, some with pity, some with disdain, some with curiosity, Louis feels like someone squeezed his heart in their hands and isn’t letting it go. He wills his head to stay up high and his posture to stay confident. He will not flee the room. He will not let that stupid lump in his throat get the better of him. He will stay here until Liam returns. He will take the rejection in stride and move on. Like he’s been doing all his life." -- Louis is a rogue Omega who's suffered through rejection and abuse for the biggest part of his life. He stumbles onto the Styles pack, quite possibly the kindest one he's ever met.

indian summer | docklands | strangers to lovers - hurt/comfort - banter - smut - 30k Harry runs a smoothie shop, which also happens to be an ever-moving caravan. He spends one week in each location and drives straight to the next, always eager for adventure. It isn't until his van breaks down and he needs to call for a mechanic that he starts to ponder his life choices. Louis, the said mechanic, is an anchor in Harry's wild sea, but his hard metal might be too much for Harry's unpredictable antics.

A Silver Lining In A Storm (You Were Lightning, I Was Born) | FallingLikeThis | arranged marriage - royalty - a/b/o - mpreg - minor character death - murder - non-graphic violence - angst - hurt/comfort - 7k Omega Prince Harry had always known that he was going to have an arranged marriage. But after the death of his first fiancé, a man who turned out far worse than Harry thought possible, his subsequent marriage to the man's brother leaves Harry finding it difficult to trust that everything will work out. Especially considering the only responsibility he’s aware of is to give his husband, the future king, an heir.

A Twist of Fate | myfearlesslou | a/b/o - strangers to lovers - soulmates - angst - 35k Since the moment Harry presented as an omega, all he's ever wanted was to have a baby. Fate had another idea in mind for him. Giving up on trying to conceive, he decides to adopt a new born baby boy. After months of loving and caring for the boy, a strange man comes into his life, taking him by surprise. Not wanting to lose the child he's loved from the moment he laid eyes on him, Harry does whatever he can to keep the boy safe and in his arms. Even if that means following the handsome stranger to a part of the woods he's never seen before.

Trust Me Tonight | 28sunflowers | historical - royalty - regency - arranged marriage - first time - mpreg - pwp - 10k After Harry’s eighteenth birthday, his father calls him into a meeting to say that he is to be married to Prince Louis of France in just over a week. Harry is excited, of course. The arrangement is better than any he could’ve hoped for, with such a young, handsome and kind husband. There is just one issue: Harry doesn’t know what happens on his nuptials, or how to get pregnant to give Louis the heir that he needs.

i got a heart (but i don't got a soul) | tempolarriefics | mythical beings Á creatures - enemies to lovers - childhood friends - famous/not famous - soulmates - angel/demon relationship - demon/human relationship - 19k “We’re soulmates.” Louis’ eyes flick from the tattoo back to Harry’s face, where his eyes are shining with excitement. Louis wonders if he is supposed to feel excited, too. He’s supposed to feel something, surely, besides his usual bitterness for Harry. He thinks back to how Lottie had described meeting Sam, how she had known in her heart that he was meant for her even before he said his phrase. He can’t help but wonder if he would be feeling differently if he hadn’t gone and sold his soul. Or, the one where louis sells his soul before meeting his soulmate, harry is a popstar with a heart of gold, niall is inadvertently responsible for harry's boners, liam is a meddling angel, and zayn is a demon who made a mistake

#28th appreciation #fic rec #my fic rec #my reads #monthly fic rec #monthly reads #larry fics #completed fics

[cherrynojutsu]

Title: Like Gold

Summary: Sasuke grapples with love and intimacy regarding his developing relationship with Sakura after returning to the village from his journey of redemption. Kind of a character study on Sasuke handling an intimate relationship after dealing with PTSD and survivor’s guilt in solitude for so long. Blank period, canon-compliant, Sasuke-centric, lots of fluff and pining, slowly becomes a smut fest with feelings.

Disclaimer: I did not write Naruto. This is a fan-made piece solely created for entertainment purposes.

Rating: M (eventual nsfw-ness)

AO3 Link - FF.net Link - includes beginning/ending author's notes

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Chapter 7/?: Catalysts

Sasuke doesn’t indulge in baser needs often, despite the frustrating paradox that is the male endocrine system’s apparent determination to make him do so. He finds it feels… empty, after. Like there’s supposed to be something more, but instead there’s just whatever is situated above his head to stare at while his breathing levels out, an interminable abyss of silence and stars, or tree foliage, or apartment ceiling. Impulses and feelings of a sexual nature are probably normal for anyone his age, but in the past, satiating desires like this has made him feel guilty, given the context.

When he's not plagued by nightmares rife with gore and blood and bodies, or the occasional aching memory, his subconscious takes the opportunity to bombard him with dreams of a suggestive nature, having deduced somehow that it’s the most effective method to get him to… tend to things.

This variety of dream customarily involves pale pink hair, multifaceted eyes, and soft fingertips, branded into the part of his brain that controls his most base instincts with a hot iron.

He notes begrudgingly as he gazes at plain plaster above him, brows furrowed, that ostensibly, it works well enough, if the intricate mess of thoughts and feelings in his head and on his abdomen are anything to go by.

Sasuke would never admit it to anyone, but Sakura has headlined exclusively in nearly every sexually-charged dream he's ever had, and resultingly the majority of his sentient thoughts while indulging outside of dreaming, too. When they were Genin, it was innocent enough; he had reasoned that, being the main girl his age he associated with, it made sense his inadvertent dreams, beyond the scope of his control, involved her. He'd shaken it off in those early days as the by-product of the developing hormonal cocktail that is the pubescent masculine mind, and ignored the part of himself that kind of had a crush on her even then. Or definitively more than a crush, after the Chunin Exams and the hospital and jealousy.

He had tried convincing himself of the same thing at fourteen, once he'd left the village and had attempted to sever all bonds. It didn’t work, though; by that point he knew better, knew what the feeling he was trying to squash actually was.

Which meant it didn’t work at fifteen, either.

Nor sixteen, and definitely not seventeen, eighteen, or nineteen.

All of that has been wholly indecent on its own in the past, causing him to feel shameful every time it happens, and even more ashamed if it’s a rare day where he’s weak enough to act on it, a day where he wakes up mere seconds from an edge rather than minutes.

But this morning, he woke up on the tail end of all of that with the addition of freckles , of all things to fixate on, and he just knows he's never going to forget about them now, that they’re branded into his grey matter in perpetuity. Freckles just above the interior of a shoulder, eight of them, a small scattering he had been pressing his lips to, listening to a softly whispered Sasuke-kun, reaching around her with his only arm, so he could make her say his name like that again.

It is far from the first time he’s touched himself to the thought of Sakura, but it is the first time he’s indulged since they’ve been… together.

Except this time felt… different.

Less like an unrealistic reverie he should try to abstain from and more like an eventuality. Less guilt, too, or rather, almost none, because he’s in a relationship with her now, and he’s pretty sure he’s supposed to have feelings like this regarding her. Not that he is anywhere near ready to do anything about them, because he absolutely is not; he’s not certain he even comprehends that level of vulnerability, to touch another person and allow yourself to be touched by them, though he badly wants to, someday.

No, Sasuke doesn’t indulge in baser needs often… but he did this morning, when he woke up teetering just on the precipice, fantasizing about tiny tan flecks seen and unseen, and he’s trying to work through how he feels about it, this guilt surrounding the fact of not feeling guilty like he ordinarily does, as well as the lingering curiosity he’s struggling to force down regarding how many other freckles Sakura has.

Even moreso, he yearns for soft words that he has often thought may be sentimental to the point of being utterly quixotic. It's why he doesn’t typically submit to this kind of inclination in the first place; it’s meaningless on one’s own, he secretly thinks, though he has nothing to compare it to. No sense of connection or true lasting fulfillment like he imagines there must be, for people to talk about it the way they do; just pleasure that's there for a blinding scattered second and gone the next, with nothing tenderhearted or meaningful in the moments following as his vision refocuses and he picks up the pieces.

He stares at his ceiling, an aporia of longing and complicated compulsions ricocheting in the hallways of his head, or perhaps from his skull to the roof and back again, an absurd push and pull that leaves him with more questions than answers.

Has she ever thought about him the way he thinks about her?

What would it sound like, Sasuke-kun, when she’s like that?

Is it okay to feel like this, now? To think about her in this regard?

Sasuke is accustomed to not sleeping well - it comes with the territory of his lived experience, an unfortunate fact of life he’s somewhat learned to deal with - but during the mission to Sand, he'd slept fairly restfully, though in short increments of five or six hours. That's apparently the tipping point of how long he gets to go without being sojourned by some variety of vision in the night.

He eventually makes his way to the shower, using torrid water and soap to double cleanse what’s left of his mess. That's a big contributor to his consternation, too; it's so embarrassingly messy that it’s impossible to imagine ever doing anything like it with her . He flips the dial to cold after he’s bathed for the better portion of five minutes, because serpens caput is still burned into his retinas, and he’s hoping against hope to freeze it out of himself like he has tried to do with shame in the past.

It doesn’t work; it just induces shivering, algidity overwhelming the senses but doing nothing to distract the mind.

He shoves his face into his book after, desperate for the distraction a proverbial fiction featuring an old fisherman can provide and thinking once again that he needs to acquire a lamp. Anything to get the thought of pressing his lips to her freckles out of his head, because he’s pretty sure if he keeps thinking about it, he’ll have to take care of things for the second time today, and then he really won’t know how to feel.

So when a banging erupts on his apartment door shortly following eight, followed by a shout of, “TEME! I'm here, let’s go!”, all he can think is finally, because he knows it will at least get his mind off of this strange lack of guilt and a curiosity he’s not ready to unpack yet. The book helped, but he thinks he needs the challenge a fight against Naruto can provide to truly leave behind this level of prurience. He doesn’t know how he’s going to look her in the eye when they meet at three as they planned, otherwise.

Sasuke shoves on his sandals and grabs his chokuto before opening the door. “So you finally showed. Thought you'd sleep all morning.”

Naruto’s eyes narrow, indignant and already launching into a retort. Good. Maybe he’ll get some iota of order knocked back into him, enough to put compelling constellations away for the time being.

XXX

Sasuke feels monumentally better by noon. It’s another draw, an absolute whirlwind of swinging limbs that made it impossible to focus on anything else. He didn’t take joy in it necessarily, and he suspects Naruto bruised his ulna bone to the extent it almost cracked, but it helps, the diversion of pain; the tinge he feels when he moves it is a welcome hindrance. They’d stuck mainly to taijutsu and clashing weaponry, so physically, he’s pretty exhausted.

They’re resting in the dirt, making a valiant attempt at rehydrating. It’s moderately hot for this time of year, barely on the cusp of mid April, but it’s seeming like the Konoha heat will be returning with the same vengeance it always does. A small trickle of sweat sinks its way down his back.

Sasuke feels nearly normal again. Or normal to the extent he generally feels, anyways. He gets the urge to do something good - to tip the scale, so to speak.

"...The cutting board works. Thank you." It’s not what he’s most thankful for right now, but it’s a nice thing to say as substitution.

His friend grins at him. "Welcome! It was all me, by the way. Hinata-chan didn't even help me pick it out!" Naruto scratches his head, downing more water. He’s moving rather slowly, as if he is sore, too; Sasuke thinks perhaps he came close to beating him this round.

They stare upwards for a while, soaking in the sun as clouds roll lazily by. Birds fly overhead, finches and song sparrows twittering their selections, collecting materials to build more nests for this new season. It’s another effective distraction, one that fills him with a sense of nostalgia, replacing his earlier sense of compunction regarding the mystifying concept of physical love and the whims that accompany it.

Naruto speaks up after a bit. "Ne, teme, wanna go to the market with me? Hinata-chan asked me to get some groceries and some stuff for the backyard."

Sasuke glances at his teammate and contemplates. It can't hurt. He did want to pick up potatoes to make actual curry with, and he could get some other things, too. He'll still have time to shower before he meets Sakura at the hospital.

"...Sure."

Naruto takes longer to rise than he does, shuffling carefully as if he is in pain, but once he’s standing, he seems fine enough, stupid grin slapped on his face at Sasuke’s agreement to go with. They set off in the general direction of his building so he can drop off his weapon first. He gets dirty looks sometimes, walking around, though it’s not nearly as bad as when he first returned and it doesn’t bother him on the same level that it used to. When he’s with Naruto or Sakura, he gets less of them, but he can't imagine a sword strapped to his back in the market will do much to help his reputation.

Naruto doesn't allow the easy silence to last. "Y'know, teme, it's really good to have you back in the village. It feels like everything's finally coming together. We'll have to do some fun stuff this summer. And also in the fall!” Gears are turning behind cerulean eyes, and he adds, ”...Hmm, and the winter, too!"

"...Yeah." He stares at the mountain, thinking about what cherry blossom trees look like in summer and fall and winter. It will be nice to see the one across the street change colors throughout the seasons. Or the one on the hill, where they're going later today. He has seen their like numbering in the thousands, scattered everywhere on his journey - he’s highly cognizant of them, for obvious reasons - but he hasn’t been granted the privilege of watching the same one through the whole of a year’s growth cycle in a long time.

"Sakura-chan seems really cheery lately, too. Can't imagine why." The second sentence is said flippantly, without any real conviction, as if Naruto knows exactly why.

Sasuke glances at his teammate, neck warming and heart skipping a little at the mention of her. He doesn’t think he’ll ever get tired of hearing that Sakura is happy from secondhand sources; it makes him feel like he’s doing something right for once. Maybe not all his impulses are complicated in nature enough to require dissection, as he was accustomed to doing when he was away; spending time with her is one, and he's been indulging it often.

He briefly entertains the idea of outright telling Naruto that they're together, then, but the dobe is moving on before he comes up with the words. "Well, anyways. Wanna spar Monday morning, if neither of us get a mission by then?”

That’s… specific. Maybe he doesn’t need to say anything to him, after all; he’s sure it’s no coincidence that Naruto is asking about the exact time period Sakura is busy training with Ino, probably as aware of her schedule as Kakashi is. Their old sensei might have told him, he supposes, or maybe Sakura said something; Sasuke wonders when he last saw her.

“...Sure. If you think you can handle it.”

The response he gets is a slug on the left shoulder, but it’s not overly hard. Sasuke narrows his eyes in response more out of habit than any real malice. He sees as Naruto’s hand retreats and slips out of a fist that words are written on his palm. He didn’t notice it throughout the morning due to their hands constantly being locked around weapons or thrown in punches, and he resists the urge to roll his eyes; it's likely a grocery list.

Naruto leans against the brick downstairs while Sasuke drops off his sword, and then they head to the main market area as the dobe chatters. It’s fairly busy, it being a Saturday, but it’s not intolerably so; most people are busy eating around now.

Sasuke is completely unsurprised when Naruto beelines straight for the noodles; naturally he would be out of them. He takes the opportunity to procure a blend of wild rice. Thus far he only has white and brown in his own pantry, and he’s been trying to eat it often. He's always liked rice, but it’s high in calories, too, an easy way to try putting on weight. Another variety to choose from would be beneficial.

He trails after his friend to the baking supplies next, where Naruto examines containers of flour and sugar. Sasuke concludes Hinata must bake, because he’s confident any cookie prepared by the dobe could not possibly be edible. While his teammate is occupied, Sasuke turns the corner and procures a half dozen eggs, a large bag of potatoes, and two different varieties of tomatoes. The extra five pounds of weight held in the crook of his arm doesn’t do wonders for his bruised bone situation, but it’s not wholly unbearable; he’s fairly used to dealing with pain.

“Hinata-chan said to go to the gardening stall on the north end,” Naruto says once they’ve paid and exited the building, so they begin a course in that general direction. “She said they have the best perennial bulbs; that means they come back every year!”

Sasuke twitches, surprised he can even pronounce the word perennial if he’s lived this long without knowing what one is.

“Anyways, she wants to plant some, uh…” His voice trails off, and he peeks at his hand, where Sasuke now sees the names of flowers written in feminine writing that has to be Hinata’s.

Of course. Like he could spell the words, let alone read his own sloppy handwriting.

“Iris, phlox, and uh… echo-na-na-chee-ah.”

“Echinachea,” Sasuke corrects dully, giving him a withering look.

“Sure! That! She wants to plant those in the backyard, kind of line the house with them, since the front is looking pretty nice now. She said to get bulbs; they root better. They might bloom this year, but if not, they’ll for sure come in next year!”

“...And she entrusted you with this?” Sasuke asks, raising an eyebrow.

Naruto just laughs, utterly unphased. “Duh, that’s what the list is for, teme. Hinata-chan is super smart like that. Putting it on my hand makes sure I don’t lose it!”

They meander to the northern edge of the market, past the congregation of other stalls selling seeds and garden starters. It's getting towards the end of planting season for Fire Country, but there is still plenty to choose from here, allegorical gates of green swinging open in salutation. They pass some tomato plant starters, already starting to climb their cages, but Sasuke decides against it; his hand is full presently, and the bone still kind of hurts, and none of them are red heirloom tomatoes anyways, being smaller variations like plum or cherry or grape. He likes all tomatoes, honestly, but if he was going to grow one, he’d just want the one of a favorite to worry about. Repotting a starter would also require a planter, which he doesn’t have; another thing to carry.

The stall Naruto leads them to is probably the nicest one there, judiciously laid out and everything labeled neatly with precise calligraphy. The few tables the vendor has are overflowing with perennial starters, but Naruto goes to the three vertical displays of seeds and bulbs, so tall they are at eye level with both of them. They’re filled to the brim with diminutive packages, printed with large pictures of the flowers they contain the beginnings of, along with genus names and common names in smaller text. The blond examines them, surveying his hand, then the display, then back to his hand again in scrutiny.

Sasuke watches, resisting the urge to sigh and waiting for the inevitable.

“Hmm… I guess this would be a lot easier if I knew what any of these looked like. Gonna have to read them all.”

Sasuke rolls his eyes and steps forward to point to the section of iris bulbs to start with. He gives him a minute to work out which colors to pick, observing the throng of people entering and exiting around them, young and old and in-between.

Phlox are next; he directs his teammate to the appropriate section, where there are quite a few options of hues. Naruto examines them as if he is making a grand decision transformative in nature, mumbling to himself.

“Hmm… She likes blue and purple. Maybe I should…”

His own gaze wanders as he tunes Naruto out, taking in pictures of begonias and caladium on plastic shiny in the sunlight, before his vision locks on the far display.

He wanders over to it as if his body is moving of its own accord.

There are several varieties of lilies, he learns as he scans the packaging, oriental, trumpet, and what is apparently called nerine. White nerine lilies had been the variety his mother grew, lining their yard with curved porcelain petals, clusters emanating from many single stems.

He sets his groceries at his feet to free up his hand, picking up one of the packages to read the instructions on the back. His arm aches as he does so, but he couldn’t care less.

Nerine lily bulbs require good drainage. If there are still puddles in the prospective planting area 5-6 hours after rain, locate another site, or amend the soil with organic material to raise levels 2-3 inches. Nerine lilies also require soil that is somewhat gritty, though it also must be organically rich. Adding compost may increase nutrient content.

In spring, choose a location in full sun. If you are in a hotter region, site them where they will receive morning sun and afternoon shade, and plant the bulbs with an inch of the slender top above the soil surface. The top of the bulb is the area that looks like the stem of an onion. Install bulbs 8 to 11 inches apart for a massed look.

Nerine bulbs develop foliage that gather sun rays and strengthen the plants during the spring and summer months. Flower stalks develop in the fall. Provide water when the plants are actively growing, and very little when they are dormant.

You may cut the final flower stems to display decoratively. This will not hurt the plants and the cuts last long periods of time indoors. After they finish blooming for the year, cut off any remaining flower stalks. Your plants will rest for the winter months before sending up new growth in the springtime. Over time, nerine lilies will form clumps. They like to be crowded, so don’t feel pressed to divide them unless flower production begins to decrease. Clumps can then be dug, split apart, and moved to other parts of the garden, or shared with friends.

When Sasuke looks up, deep in thought, he notices Naruto searching for what he assumes is echinacea, flitting stiffly at random between the first two displays and scratching his head. Wordlessly with the package of lily bulbs still in hand, Sasuke points to the bottom right corner of the first, where several color selections are.

“Thanks, teme!” Naruto plows back to the specified stand and stoops down comically slowly, though Sasuke barely sees, gaze drawn pensively back to the packet he was examining.

The memorial stone has decent drainage, aside from the occasional hard rain like last weekend; that will become less common as the weather warms, and one or two monsoons a summer never drowned his mother’s lilies. Shade in the afternoon could be an issue, though. There’s a large oak tree on the west side that might cast some protection over it, but he only ever visits under the cover of night, so he’s unsure. He would have to examine the trajectory in person to gauge.

He considers the market bag the groceries were handed to him in earlier, studying it closely.

Carefully, he puts the package back where he found it, though his eyes linger on it. He’s no gardener, not like Sakura is, and besides, his arm hurts.

XXX

He’s leaning up against one of the blue columns outside of the hospital when Sakura emerges at three, sprightly as ever. She’s holding the two journals and the medical text from their first trip to the library; she said yesterday that she needed to return them, but there shouldn’t be any new ones she needs to check out just yet. He hadn’t stayed terribly long after they’d finished the tenmusu because he needed to shower and write his mission report, but they’d made plans to swing by the library and journey back up the hillside to read together again. There was also mention of possibly picking up food afterwards, to take to her place. Hazel Wood must be in her tote, hooked around her shoulder.

“Sasuke-kun,” she greets cheerfully. “Whew. It’s getting warm out already.”

“...It is,” Sasuke comments before he extends his hand for her texts, his own already held there, a silent offer to carry them for her.

She blushes as she passes them to him, sliding them into his hand. His eyes drift to the freckle on her cheek, and he wipes his mind blank by sheer willpower alone as they head east. The books aren’t as heavy as the groceries had been earlier, so it doesn’t hurt as much, but he's wondering at this point if the bone might actually have a small crack. He thinks he should ask her to look at it; maybe later, at her apartment.

“My balcony days may be numbered by now, at least until the fall comes,” Sakura observes as they meander.

He contemplates. “...Do you sit out there often?” It is so utterly befitting of her that he thinks he can picture it, her reading out there, surrounded by plants. He wonders if she ever admires the night sky. Their team had stargazed sometimes, on missions that first year as Genin.

Green eyes settle on him from his right. “I like to, when it’s nice out. A lot of times in the summer it gets too hot, though there is an occasional night when it’s cool enough. Fall is really the best for it. You can see the changing leaves from above. Even if it's a chillier day, it’s pleasant with some tea and a blanket in the evening."

He debates for a long moment, but decides against bringing up stout squirrels or chestnut-flavored everything or Naruto slipping on a leaf.

“...It sounds nice,” he comments simply instead, wondering if he’ll be invited to sit with her on her balcony, once fall arrives. They would have to sit kind of close; the space doesn’t seem very big from below, and it's cluttered with greenery.

Sakura smiles up at him, a look that says she agrees with his assessment.

Then, she offers softly, "You can sit out there sometime with me, if you'd like."

His neck warms; all he can do is nod and avert his gaze elsewhere, an abundance of something tender and sweet flaring to life in his belly.

Returning the books barely takes two minutes; they’re wandering towards the outskirts of the mountain in short order. Sakura sprawls in the same spot she did last time, so he takes up the same position, too, leaning up against the trunk of the tree, stable and strong.

And then his eyes catch on another freckle she has, this one near her elbow, and all he can think about is the slightly textured consistency of his ceiling, and whether the impulse to press his lips to her skin without guilt was an okay thing to feel.

She reads and he more contemplates than reads for about an hour, sprawled beneath the scant amount of shade provided by this tree that has lost its petals, trading them in for florets of a greener variety. It’s pleasant, once he can drown his inner disarray of thoughts. He eventually gets through a sliver of his book, though turning the pages is a little cumbersome, tinged lightly with pain. Perhaps he shouldn’t wait until later to ask her to examine his arm.

Sakura finishes her own book, though she keeps the pressed petal between its pages; she must have gotten through more of it while he was on the way to and from Suna. She just reclines there, after, looking up at the sky with her arms at her sides, near exactly the relaxed pose she used to lie in when they were younger.

Sasuke finishes the passage he’s on, and marks his place with the petal she’d plucked from his hair last week, before pointedly setting the text aside and following her eyes to the azure. Fluffy clouds are floating by as the sun inches closer to the west horizon, pushed steadily by the breeze.

“How is Ichika’s recommendation?” She questions.

“...Interesting.” He genuinely is enjoying reading it, despite his aberration.

Her head angles towards him, lying against a gnarled root at a slightly different angle. Her expression is curious, like she’s encouraging him to elaborate.

“Simple, but heavy with metaphors.” He considers for a second, then adds, “You might like it. Poetic.”

Full lips twist upwards. “Maybe I’ll read it next. Her recommendations are usually pretty apt; she gets a good read on people.”

“...How was yours?”

“Hmm.” She pauses, as if thinking it over. “A girl and her mother who get caught up in some bad luck. They inherit an estate - that’s where the title comes from - and supernatural things start happening. It’s kind of a story within a story situation; the grandmother they inherited the house from was an author, so they start going back and reading her writing for clues.”

“...A mystery.” It seems like she’ll read any genre. Mysteries would probably entertain her; she’s always liked to solve things.

She laughs, music to his ears. “Yeah, I suppose it is. It was pretty good. Well written; better than the last one.”

There is a pause.

“...Maybe I’ll read it next,” he echoes, her same words from earlier.

Green sparkles at him, amused before she shifts back towards the firmament.

“...Sounds like a book club.”

It is the most Sakura joke. He huffs a ghost of a laugh as more gauzy clouds drift idly by. It is peaceful, sitting here underneath the same sky as her, observing in easy silence through branches with fresh emerald buds.

And then Sasuke flexes his forearm, shifting slightly, and it still hurts. He considers; she probably won’t mind.

"...I think Naruto cracked my arm bone," he finally confides.

She turns to him, expression fluctuating immediately into one of disquiet, pink brows knotting closer in concern. He blinks and she's standing already, walking over and sitting cross-legged in the nearest open space, an indent in gnarled roots that she navigated through and found a place in as if it were nothing.

Wordlessly, Sasuke holds it out for her to inspect once she’s seated, and she gently rests her fingertips on his forearm.

"It’s from this morning?” Sakura asks, looking concerned in a way that makes his heart thump a little. Or maybe it’s from her hands encircling his skin.

He nods; she must have deduced that they trained earlier. She prods gently before threading green chakra beneath his skin towards the bone, probing for a break.

She frowns. "Oblique fracture in the ulna, though it's very slight and non-displaced.” Her gaze flicks up to him, and all at once, it’s the exam room again, him hyper aware of how close she is to him even though this is clinician Sakura. “I’ll fix it; you really shouldn't have been carrying anything on it."

It takes him a moment to realize she’s referring to him carrying her books earlier, because he’s thinking about the groceries from the market, which were definitively heavier. Her proximity and the aroma of tart berry and the freckle on her cheekbone are all incredibly distracting. Especially the freckle. He peers at her fingers, glowing verdant, and notices one on the inner portion of her right wrist, too.

"...Sorry." He says finally, flicking his eyes back up to her nervously after a long minute is spent mending marrow back together. She inclines her head back down to his arm, apparently accepting his apology for not mentioning it sooner. It's an odd sensation; he can feel the crack fusing from the inside out, ataractic chakra seeping into the diaphysis to fortify.

He feels like he should clarify, so he adds as she works, eyes fixed on her face which has settled in concentration, “I thought it was just bruised at first.” She nods as if that makes sense, working on it for another minute or so without glancing up.

He hopes she's not mad at him. Sasuke shifts his gaze downwards, something in him sinking.

“Flex it, then bend, please,” she requests, not moving her digits; she must need to feel the arm move to determine if it’s healed. He does as she asks and it’s notedly improved, no lingering pain.

“It’s better. Thank you.” He looks upwards just as she does, hoping the jade will still be soft on charcoal.

It is, startlingly so, and she’s flushing all of a sudden, dropping her hands from his arm and rising to her feet a step away, as if she, too, just realized how close they were. It's different here, daylight and not part of their routine like her entryway is becoming.

“You’re welcome,” she says somewhat hastily, complexion darkening. He’s not sure he’s much better; his neck is warm, and he remembers very specifically where each of her fingers had just been on his skin, like the ten points of contact are singed into his epidermis, and likely his grey matter, too.

As he tries to force his pulse to even out, Sakura adds, softly, “You could have just come in with him.”

His brows furrow in confusion. “...What?”

Sakura blinks, countenance appearing as if she is sorting through a problem in her head. Pink dissolves back to her normal coloring.

“Naruto came in with a slipped back rib, earlier today. I assumed it was from sparring with you.” She rolls her eyes, then. “He went and got groceries before coming in; he had them with him. Luckily nothing chilled; he had to wait for a bit.”

"...He didn't say anything about his rib." Now the slow rising and crouching is making more sense.

She sighs, closing her eyes for a second as if something has become clear, but she only replies, "Ah. Of course."

"...Wouldn’t shut up?"

"...Yeah." She turns away slightly, cheeks stained anew for some reason; it makes him curious what their third teammate babbled to her about. "He said as I was kicking him out that he was going to plant flower bulbs with Hinata this afternoon. He showed me the ones he picked. It’s good timing; the perfect time of year to plant some. Pretty soon it'll be too warm."

He lets those words drizzle slowly into his being, a little gentler than a summer monsoon.

"...Our next Hokage can't pronounce echinacea," he eventually tells her.

She chuckles with mirth, a sweet sound he finds relieving; she must have gathered he was present for that endeavor, now, and she can't be too mad at him if he can still make her laugh. Sasuke inwardly hopes she doesn’t gather that he also got groceries; he doesn’t think she’d be very impressed. It was kind of stupid to do that with a questionable arm, in retrospect.

"No," Sakura acknowledges finally, appearing highly entertained. "And he didn’t know what a perennial was until this morning, yet he’s planting an army of them. Probably without reading the directions."

They look over the village together for a lengthy moment in which he considers text printed on the back of a white package.

Then she says his name, so quietly it’s almost a whisper. "Sasuke-kun.”

He angles to her, and sweet jade is on him again, ebbing seafoam cresting as the late afternoon sunlight hits her.

"Thank you for telling me about your arm. In the future, please come to the hospital, if I'm working. You can wait in my office, if you’d prefer. I don't mind; use the window.” Her expression changes to troubled, and suddenly she is no longer the clinician version of Sakura; everything is tinged with something more, something that burns him in its intensity. “You shouldn’t just… suffer in silence, if something hurts. Even if you think it’s nothing. Please tell me."

Oh. She’s not mad, just worried. Heat grazes his ears, and he swallows, staring down at his forearm.

He wants to be close to her. He really does.

"Okay,” he agrees, and means it, carefully meeting green.

They head down the hill together to seek dinner before the rush hits, deciding to go to the yakitori stand she mentioned when he first returned. She chatters about how Naruto wants to have a bonfire in his backyard, once summer’s here and everything is planted.

“...He’s excited about his yard,” Sasuke comments after they’ve ordered, leaning against the wall of the exterior waiting for their takeout. He requested his without the sauce, since Sakura said it’s on the sweeter side for yakitori.

Sakura grins, and she’s really pretty, shadows of a nearby tree dappling her skin, cheeks still red because he paid. It’s only fair; she’s been feeding him. “Yeah, he is. I’d like to see their flowers and garden in the back, eventually. I’m sure once they’ve got it how they want it, they’ll have all kinds of get-togethers back there. Last year we carved pumpkins at their place, instead of at Ino’s and Sai’s; there’s less mess to clean up if it’s outside. He said today that you should come this year.”

“...What?”

She blinks as if remembering something, then smiles sheepishly. “So I never mentioned this, because it happened after I…” She flushes, and she looks away for a second. “...After I sent a letter for the month already, but Sai learned about this artistic thing they do in the Land of Woods, a couple years ago.” Her gaze shifts back to his. “They hollow out pumpkins and carve designs into them, in late October. Warding off evil spirits as they go into the cooler season or something; they put them on their doorsteps with candles in them so the carvings light up the night. It’s odd, but I think it’s become a tradition now. It’s fun, once you get the hang of it. We roast the seeds with salt and Hinata bakes pumpkin bread.”

That sounds entirely odd and completely characteristic of Sai; he supposes there is the artistic angle to consider. Sasuke passed through the Land of Woods three separate times, but never in the fall. “What kind of designs?”

She smiles as if she’s trying not to laugh; his expression must be that of one who is exceedingly perplexed. He supposes it’s not an expression he wears often. “Well, they’re supposed to be scary, I think, but we don’t really do well at making them that way. They’re more funny or decorative. Sai makes pretty good ones, I guess, mean faces with sharp teeth.”

“...What do you carve?”

Her eyes twinkle. “I tried a leaf, the first year, and a crescent moon the second. Sai and I teamed up to carve one for Kakashi-sensei, too, last year; a scarecrow with a cat.”

A crescent moon is not at all what he would have guessed she’d gravitate towards; he thinks immediately of the Six Paths Yin Seal that once adorned a hand he no longer has. Then he comprehends the final part of that sentence.

“...A cat?”

“Oh. Yeah, he got a cat.”

“...His summons are dogs.”

She giggles. “Yeah, Naruto and I thought it was weird at first, too, but he does kind of seem like he’d be more of a cat person overall, the more we thought about it.” Sakura shrugs. “He’s in the village most of the time now, being Hokage, so I guess he thought he could be around enough to take care of one? They’re more low-maintenance than a dog would be. I usually get tasked with feeding it and changing its litter, when he travels to watch the Chunin and Jonin Exams.”

Momentarily, he wonders if Sakura knows what’s under Kakashi’s mask; their old sensei allowing her into his space in his absence may have given her opportunities for some form of low-key reconnaissance on the matter.

Then his brain seizes on another notion, one that’s far more amusing, because she said she teamed up with Sai, and that can only mean one thing.

“...What does Naruto carve?”

Sakura’s grin widens as if she perceives exactly what thought he’s just had. She probably does; she knows him well. “He’s terrible at it. His never look like anything; just orange mush. He loves it, though, and Hinata puts it on their front step anyway.”

He snorts. Figures.

A bell dings, so they peer back in, and sure enough, their food is ready. Sakura steps forward to collect it, thanking the worker, but as she turns, she pauses.

Sasuke follows her gaze, and sees none other than their third teammate in the street, walking their direction and waving emphatically. He’s wearing a different pair of pants, knees absolutely covered in dirt and grass stains.

“Oi, teme! Sakura-chan!”

Sakura glances up to him before swiveling towards the road, their food in hand; Sasuke trails close behind, pushing apart the hanging banners of the stand as he steps beyond the threshold of the restaurant.

“Naruto,” Sakura greets when they’re out in the open.

“...Dobe.”

“Looks like you’ve planted everything,” Sakura says more than asks, gesturing to his pants as evidence.

“Hehe, yep, all of ‘em! It was work, but it will be worth it, later in the year.” Naruto scratches his head, grinning. Sasuke lets those words sink in, too, drenching dead roots.

“And now you’re getting Hinata yakitori as a treat?” Sakura pushes, seeming incredibly amused.

“Well…” Naruto looks away bashfully, grinning ear to ear. “Yeah. Gotta repay her somehow. She has good ideas. I just follow her lead.” He looks back to them, then. “Did you tell teme about all our awesome plans?”

Sasuke’s focus falls to Sakura, who is flushed, biting her lip in a smile.

“I may have started to.”

“Well, good, because our yard is going to be totally the best, and if he thinks he’s getting out of it...” the dobe points at him accusingly, “Then I’ll kick his ass!”

Sasuke scoffs. “As if you could.”

Sakura shakes her head, pink locks fluttering with the motion. “Always with the physicalities... Anyways, I’m sure it will be lovely, when everything finally comes together.”

An uncommonly stretched pause passes where blue eyes zero in on the food container Sakura is holding, before they travel up to the two of them.

The grin shifts to something remarkably tender.

“...Yeah. I’m sure it will be.” He says it with the utmost confidence, like he is as certain about it as he is about the sun rising tomorrow, and Sasuke gets the sense that he is no longer referring to gardening.

The moment passes, and then Naruto is punching them each on the shoulder respectively and sidestepping away towards the yakitori stand. “Anyways, gotta go, so I’ll catch ya later! I’m guessing you have plans of your own.”

Sasuke blinks as their teammate disappears into the restaurant, ears burning a little. When his vision travels down to his right, Sakura is blushing a dark red. She meets his gaze, smiling sheepishly.

They turn to go to her building. The entire way there, Sasuke considers everything in the beginnings of a green that seems endless, nurtured by people from all walks of life. He has been noticing it this whole time, since his return, but now he's thinking about how dull it would be without it, whether it’s dirt roads or lifeless grey granite. This is not the wilds, where seeds sprout unabated. Here, one must put in the work to grow things, find suitable locations and till the soil.

When they reach Sakura’s apartment, his eye lingers on her plants as he follows her inside. She sets the takeout on the table by her window. A shadow of a leaf from the jasmine above them is cast hazily out of focus on her left cheek.

“Would you like any sauce with yours? I could make some teriyaki sauce quick, or I have lemons I’ll be cutting up anyway for mine.”

“...Lemon?” Citrus complements chicken, he knows, but he understands that to mean she’s planning on putting it on hers, over top of the yakitori sauce.

Her lips curve upwards. “I like it on other things, too. It’s good on yakitori.”

So Sakura slices a lemon and it sits on the center of the table between them as they eat. She drizzles her yakitori with three of them, and he takes the other three. The chicken is pretty good, tart with the citrus and seared alongside green onions. It’s still warm, as it wasn’t a long walk to her place at all, a convenient sort of sustenance.

“...What else do you like lemon on?”

She chews thoughtfully, swallowing before answering. “Hmm, a lot of things. Fish, even ones that are usually served with lime. Pork. I like it on vegetables, too. Salads, pasta, rice. Most desserts that include lemon I like, as well.” She pauses again, and adds, “Lemonade, if it’s homemade.”

No wonder they’re always in her fridge. “...And tea.”

His heart flips at the way she smiles at him.

“...And tea,” she agrees.

They watch the streets fill and empty from her window, finishing the meal in a companionable reticence, smelling faintly of citrus rind and shadowed by greenery from above.

He helps her prepare decaffeinated sencha after, trying not to stare at the freckle on her cheek. He’s pondering this morning further, the notions of impetus and yearning, and also the way she says his name, but this time uttered softly under a cherry blossom tree with an invitation into her office, if something hurts.

Sakura cares about him. A lot. Sasuke knows this, has known for years, but it’s the actions of her affection, the way she expresses it purely and simply as if it’s a true north cascading through her veins, that has inched its way into his bone marrow, engraved on the latibule he carved inwardly to avoid dry swallowing life’s more bitter medicines.

As she stirs sugar and honey into her own cup, she asks, “Care for a chess rematch?”

He doesn’t even have to think about it; he nods his assent. It’s time to test something.

They arrange the board together at her table. The first round, Sasuke cautiously plans every move, surveying alternating squares and attempting to predict what strategy Sakura will employ. In some instances, he mirrors her, moving a rook a turn after she does, shifting a pawn out of imminent danger, and so on. It’s a very involved way to play, requiring attentive calculation of each move.

It’s a prolonged match that he eventually loses with a final sweeping motion of her remaining bishop, but it’s fairly close.

“...Again?”

She grins and wordlessly starts setting up the pieces she has captured, so he begins to set up hers. It’s an interesting task, a message of opposites, her setting up his dark figures and him setting up her light ones.

The second round, he simply follows his instincts, negating planning ahead farther than a couple of turns. If he gets an impulse to shift a pawn one way, he does. If his gut tells him to move the knight into her territory or to retreat a rook, he goes with it.

It drags on for the better part of an hour, and ends in a stalemate.

The smile she gives him is breathtaking, a broad and warmhearted validation.

“You’re good,” she comments, jade eyes dancing with joy. He gets the impression that it is not often she gets forced into a draw. He wonders who else she plays with. It can't be Naruto, but maybe Sai or Ino also play.

“...So are you.” He is somewhat reassured now. His impulses used to be ruinous, stemming from anger and anxiety and loss, but perhaps his journey helped in that regard. He just needs to make sure they're rooted in the right things, whether it be logic or affection, and then the major task becomes to feel rather than to overthink.

When he kisses her good night in her entryway, another movie watched and plans for tomorrow later, he doesn’t reach for the freckle the first time, though his hand twitches with the longing to. It’s treasured, this tender pressing of lips that feels like dipping a toe into still water. It is imbued with both of her hands resting on his shoulders again, ten fingertips that have him in her grip more than she could possibly fathom.

He studies her eyes when he pulls away, staring down into soft depths of viridescence. He will drown in them someday, he thinks, slowly but surely working up the courage to wade into the deep end.

The second time he kisses her, he lets himself graze her cheek to truly appreciate the difference, allowing acknowledgment of the impulse, compelled forward rather than backward as if bound by some metaphorical form of northern star situated on the rise of her cheekbone.

Sakura leans into his touch once more as she did yesterday, but this time, she brings up her own hand and delicately lets her fingertips rest atop the outside of his, as if she encourages the caress, thumb brushing against his knuckle as his lips gently brush hers. Her other hand stays resting on his clavicle, a tender embrace, osculant in a way he has hoped for countless times, inclusive of this morning.

It is exactly what he needed, a catalyst of encouragement comprised of a heat that is gentle, coaxing, but still brands him all the same.

Maybe it's okay to want to skim her freckles and more, to allow the affinities he has to breathe. They’re together now; it stands to reason they'll one day venture into territory more uncharted, if he can concede to that kind of vulnerability. Not that he’s anywhere near ready for that - he’s not - but his instincts don’t appear to be all disastrously calamitous. Touching her cheek is something she clearly welcomes.

Sasuke gave in to darker tendencies once. Perhaps it's okay to give in to lighter ones; nothing grows in the absence of light, after all. He brushes a thumb across the high point of her cheekbone once more with her hand encompassing his before they part, embracing a new habit prior to whispering good night.

The way she smiles up at him, skin aflush and glimmering eyes, is everything.

XXX

He inspects the stone and the soil surrounding it for a long while, heavy-heartedly trying to ignore the encyclopedia of names in favor of envisioning what it would look like with lilies surrounding it. Less lugubrious, probably. The trajectory of the tree’s shadow would touch the stone in the evening, he sees, now that he’s here in person. He only ever haunts this place after nightfall when there's less chance of someone happening upon him. He wishes it was more secluded for that reason; maybe healing happens in the sunshine, and that’s why he still struggles with coming here after so many years, creature of the night that he is.

Evenings with Sakura feel like healing, though, and they linger after hours consistently. Maybe next time he’ll visit his dead kin at twilight, a brittle sort of compromise.

He'll see if the impulse still grips him tomorrow, and then decide. He knows his mother would like them. Itachi would, too, although it never feels like he's here, not the same way that it feels like the rest of them are, the air weighted with an accursed brand of perfume pouring outward in all directions.

White lilies may be able to touch the light in his stead for the time being. Even if they don’t grow, he at least will know he tried, and there is always next year. By then, he may have the capability of asking Sakura if she would help him; she’s clearly a capable gardener, and there should be less sediment, if he puts in the work.

By the time he leaves for his apartment, a thin layer has loosened.

#naruto #sasusaku #ssfanfiction #cherry writes #like gold #fanfiction #i said chapter 7 by the end of august and we cut it kind of close but we made it B)

[inkykeiji]

i like the way they run, then fall, then die

character: shigaraki tomura

genre: gore/violence for torture, then smut

notes: this takes place before the events of break my bones but act as my spine! please, please heed the warnings. the entire first half of this is a torture scene. if you’re just here for the smut and would prefer not to read the torture, scroll all the way down to the three stars dividing part one from part two - you can still read the smut without reading the torture if u wanna, all you need to know is that tomura tortured + murdered a boy who had been harassing the reader at university and now he’s coming home. please please please stay safe <33 | title credit: nitro cell by city morgue

warnings: 18+, torture, murder, blood/gore, graphic depictions of violence, daddy kink, spanking with a belt, edging, mild degradation, possessiveness/generally toxic relationship

words: 4.6k

synopsis:

He isn’t usually one for torture—all this pleading drives him absolutely insane, makes it feel like a thousand tiny bugs are crawling under his skin. However, when it comes to someone who has wronged you, well…that’s a different issue entirely.

Men who bother you deserve to be tortured within an inch of their lives, and Tomura will gladly endure their pitiful begging; he wants to hear them beg and plead and cry like the pathetic pieces of shit they are. He wants them to suffer, and to suffer immensely, for even thinking about touching something that’s his, for daring to utter a disrespectful word to something that’s his.

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Bleary hazel eyes open, blinking twice then squinting as they try to adjust to the bright light, a head full of orange curls lolling back heavily. It takes the boy’s hazy mind a few moments to register the fact that he’s tied to a chair, thick rope binding him to it.

Tomura knows the boy recognizes him almost instantly when their gaze meets and his hazel eyes widen in an almost comical manner, breath hitching painfully in his chest as he chokes on a gasp. A wicked, toothless smile spreads across Tomura’s face.

He’d have a hard time forgetting those ruby eyes that, impossibly, seem like they’re glowing under the fluorescent lights of the old abandoned A.F.O laboratory; those same eyes that had glared at the redhead over your shoulder only a few days ago as Tomura caught you in his arms.  

This boy had been pestering you for a while now. You hadn’t thought much of it the first day it happened, wrote it off as some overeager and overconfident college boy, but by the third day you were sure this classified as harassment. Sick of repeating yourself and firmly telling the boy that you have a boyfriend and you’re not interested, you whined to Tomura about it that night after dinner, your head in his lap as his slender fingers carded through your hair—and inadvertently sentenced the boy to death, right then and there.

You’re not sure you’ve ever felt more relieved in your life when you spotted Tomura leaning casually against the Maybach after your last class had ended, the day after you had voiced your complaints. Taking off the moment your eyes met, you ran into his waiting arms, cutting the boy off mid-sentence. Tomura must’ve given that boy an awfully nasty look, because the harassment magically stopped.

Or so you thought.

Nevertheless, the boy manages to spit out a shaky, “Wh-Who are you?” as he begins to struggle against his restraints.

“Aw, come on, you know who I am,” Tomura says like their old friends, walking a few feet towards him with his hands clasped behind his back.

“Where am I? What am I doing here?” his eyes dart around the room wildly, barely pausing on the three men leaning against the wall behind Tomura before they find his face again, big and frenzied.

Tomura’s smile spreads, revealing sharp white teeth. He isn’t usually one for torture—all this pleading drives him absolutely insane, makes it feel like a thousand tiny bugs are crawling under his skin. However, when it comes to someone who has wronged you, well…that’s a different issue entirely.

Men who bother you deserve to be tortured within an inch of their lives, and Tomura will gladly endure their pitiful begging; he wants to hear them beg and plead and cry like the pathetic pieces of shit they are. He wants them to suffer, and to suffer immensely, for even thinking about touching something that’s his, for daring to utter a disrespectful word to something that’s his.

He doesn’t answer the boy’s questions, instead opting to pull out his phone and scroll through it quickly.

“You wanna see the love of my life?” there’s a slight bite to his tone as he shoves the device in the redhead’s face, pale hand gripping it so tightly it trembles a little.

The kid’s eyes fill with tears as he stares at your smiling face, tiny sobs beginning to sound from deep in his throat. His eyes flit between the screen and Tomura, an impending sense of doom looming over him.

“She’s real pretty, isn’t she?” he asks mockingly, a hint of a pout in his voice. “Pretty enough to harass, yeah? Pretty enough to render you incapable of understanding the word no, eh?”

“I’m sorry,” the kid’s already wailing, pathetic sobs beginning get under Tomura’s skin, blunt nails absentmindedly scratching at his wrist and forearm. “I-I didn’t know she had a boyfriend, I swear!”

“Ah?” Tomura stops for a moment, blinking at the kid with wide eyes, mimicking astonishment. “Now I know that’s a lie,” he smirks. “I heard her tell you, several times. Do you have hearing problems? Is there something wrong with your memory?”

The kid stares at him, mouth opening and closing quickly, exhaling shallow breaths in rapid little huffs.

“You seem to be hearing fine right now,” Tomura continues, voice still painfully calm. “And you remember her, and me, so I doubt there’s something wrong with your memory, right?” he stops, only a few feet from the kid now. “Right?”

The poor redhead can’t find his voice, only able to emit these tiny, pitiful sounds in the back of his throat, peppered between his obnoxious sobbing. He shakes his head, then nods, then shakes his head again, movements jerky and frantic.

Tomura’s eyebrows knit, and he tilts his head to the side. “Well, which one is it?” his voice is so casual, and he sounds almost as if he’s worried about the boy’s inability to decide.

Sighing after a beat of silence, Tomura tuts his tongue and shakes his head, cocking his gun. “Shame,” he points the gun at the kid’s head, closing an eye as he adjusts his aim, tongue poking his cheek.

“No!” the kid cries out, squirming against his restraints. “I-I—You’re right! There’s nothing wrong w-with my hearing or my memory, please—”

“Mm, thought so,” Tomura says softly to himself, nodding as he swiftly readjusts his aim and pulls the trigger, shattering the kid’s right kneecap.

The redhead lets out an absolutely bloodcurdling scream, throwing his head back as he thrashes wildly against the thick rope again, the legs of the chair scraping against the concrete.

“Ouch!” Dabi laughs from his spot on the floor, leaning back against the far wall, blue eyes dancing with mirth.

“Ugh,” Chisaki groans beside him, looking away in disgust.

Tomura takes a moment to admire his work, Dabi’s encouraging laughter inspiring another bout of confidence to surge through his chest. He had been close enough that the bullet caused the entire kneecap to explode, sending little bits of bone and flesh flying, thick blood immediately beginning to cascade down the boy’s leg, soaking straight through the denim of his jeans.

“Now,” he continues, speaking over the boy’s shouting with a levelled voice. “I’m gonna cut those pesky ears off your fucking head, since you don’t seem to use them,” he looks over at Dabi and nods once, prompting Dabi to hop up and leave the laboratory.

“But before that,” he stops in front of the kid and leans forward, his face only a few inches away. “Do you wanna know what her pussy tastes like? Hmm? I bet you do. I bet you’ve thought about it, haven’t you?”

He’s still blubbering, Tomura’s words barely registering, ears ringing from the gunshot. Crimson eyes search his face intently, bright with the intoxicating mix of adrenaline and exhilaration that the rush of torture affords him. Tomura wrinkles his nose a little at the snot running down the kids face and onto his lips, face red and streaked with gleaming tears.

“I’ll tell you,” he says, voice dropping into a growl. “It’ll be the last thing you hear before I take those good-for-nothing ears from you—what a treat!” he laughs a little, resting his hands on his bent knees, inching forward just a hint more. “She tastes like strawberries and honey; the perfect balance of tart and sweet. God, her cum’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever tasted, the most decadent cream…Fuck,” he breathes, pulling back with a malicious grin. “Now you got me craving her,”

Dabi returns then, coming to stand beside Tomura, and the kid’s so consumed with pain that he doesn’t even notice the little reciprocating saw in Dabi’s hands.

“Ah, thank you,” Tomura says as he takes it, a devious smile spreading across his face. He turns the saw on, testing it by squeezing the trigger a few times. “Perfect. Now,”

He grabs an ear by the cartilage and yanks, holding it taut from the head. The kid squirms, trying to wiggle his way out of Tomura’s grasp and he growls, asking Dabi to hold his head steady.

The saw slices through the ear like butter, cleanly slashing it from his head in one quick motion. Blood begins to gush from the wound immediately, streaming down the redhead’s cheek, thick, sticky drops dripping off his jaw and onto his collarbone.  

“One,” Tomura counts gleefully, tossing the ear to the side. It hits the concrete with a sickening splat! a few feet away.

“Very Mr. Blonde of you, Tomura,” Chisaki rolls his eyes as Tomura moves onto the next ear, Dabi nearly snapping the kid’s neck as he forces his head to tilt the other way, allowing his boss easier access to the second appendage.

“Oh!” Dabi gasps as the saw neatly slices the second ear off. “We should set him on fire,” he suggests, sapphire eyes glittering at the prospect.

“Oh?” Tomura looks up at him, intrigued, decapitated ear still hanging between his thumb and forefinger. “Do you have any kerosene in your car?”

“Nah, but I could go get some—”

“Can we please finish this, already?” Chisaki whines, pushing off the wall and walking towards the two men. “My lunchbreak is almost over,” he checks his watch, frowning.

“Alright, Mr. Head Chemist, your lunchbreak is almost over. You have to head back to work—we are gonna find some kerosene,”

Chisaki sighs, rubbing at his eyes with his fingers. “Your father would like you at the lab today, Tomura,” he says flatly.

Tomura groans, shoulders slumping as he dramatically throws his head back to glare at the ceiling. “But the lab is so boring when there aren’t any experiments or testings going on,” he complains with a slight pout.

“I could finish him off, if you want,” Dabi offers.

“No! Where’s the fun in that? What good is torturing him if I don’t even get to see him die?”

“Look, I don’t care how you do it, just hurry up,” Chisaki spits, turning to walk away. “I’m going to my car—you better be in yours in five minutes,”

“God, he’s no fun,” Tomura mutters to Dabi, who nods in agreement.

“I heard that!” Chisaki hollers as he continues walking, not bothering to look back.

“You were supposed to!” Tomura calls in response, rolling his eyes. “Damn,” he sighs in disappointment, turning back to the boy. His face is slippery with blood, pouring down either side and streaking his neck and the collar of his polo shirt. He’s gone into shock from the pain, screams cut off into choked little whimpers and hiccups. “Looks like our playtime ends here,”

He shrugs, almost indifferent, cocks his gun again and fluidly aims at the boy’s forehead, pulling the trigger without a second thought.

Wet splatters of crimson stain the concrete, echoing throughout the mostly vacant building, the boy’s quiet little sounds cutting off abruptly. Tomura watches as the light fades from his wide, terrified eyes, watches as the hazel goes from vibrant to dull, and the kid’s head falls back, blood beginning to trickle down the bridge of his nose.

A car honks twice outside and Tomura snarls a little to himself, whipping his head around and glaring at the door to the lab, hanging half open and letting pale sunlight leak in.

His grip tightens around his gun, fingers flexing around the metal warmed by his palm. “I’m gonna kill him,” he seethes, eyes narrowing.

“Nah, don’t be stupid,” Dabi laughs, shaking his head a little. “We still need him,”

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Tomura returns to the penthouse earlier than expected, startling you when large hands wrap around your hips just as you’re removing a loaf of freshly baked banana bread from the oven.

“Aw, baby, playing housewife?” he coos, breath hot against your ear, before taking the lobe between his teeth.

A sigh slips through your parted lips and you lean back against his chest, tipping your head to the side and eyes closing.

“Our bananas were going bad,” you explain softly, in a bit of a trance as nimble fingers rub small circles into your hips.  

“Oh?” he asks, as if he’s genuinely interested, lips leaving a trail of sloppy kisses down your neck. “It’s so cute when you get all domestic,” tender hands slide up your torso, coming to cup your breasts as he kneads them gently, tweaking a nipple through the thin material of your dress.

Your back arches as you try to press into his palms more, quiet mewls spilling from your lips.

“What’s gotten—” you cut yourself off with a sharp intake of breath as teeth sink into your skin. “What’s gotten into you?”

Tomura usually isn’t this…soft. He’s affectionate for sure, but his after work affections usually include slamming you up against the nearest wall, counter, or table and almost violently claiming your mouth with his, tongue invading viciously as rough, eager hands rip off clothing.

“Missed you,” he mumbles against your skin, tongue tracing the fresh bite. “What, daddy can’t miss his baby?” A hand snakes down your body and slips between your thighs while the other stays preoccupied with rolling your nipple between his index finger and thumb.

Little hands fly out to grip the edge of the counter as you yelp in surprise, steadying yourself as he pinches your clit. A dark chuckle sounds deep in his chest, vibrating against your back.

“Already so wet?” His fingers prod at your little hole through the flimsy material of your panties. “Did you miss daddy as much as he missed you?”

“I-I always do,”

“Oh yeah?” Moving your panties to the side, the pads of his fingers tease your slit, collecting wetness. “And did you happen to be thinking of something naughty while you were playing housewife?”

Two fingers push into you just as you open your mouth to respond, a small strangled hiss escaping your throat. It burns a little, tiny hole stretched around the digits, sucking them in.

“Hmm?” he frowns, looking almost concerned. You’d believe he was, too, if it weren’t for that wicked glint in his dark eyes, shining every time you emitted a soft noise of pleasure instead of an answer.

And then he’s curling his fingers against your spot every time you try to speak, frustration building in your chest until you’re finally able to force out, “D-Daddy, fuck me al-already!” lips set in a deep pout and eyebrows pushed together.

His fingers halt their ministrations entirely and he pulls back to look at you, ruby eyes studying your face intently, firmly pressing his lips together. It takes your clouded mind a few moments to register the words you just said, the high, whiny tone you just used…then your eyes are widening and a gasp claws its way out of your throat, shaking your head vigorously as if to say, I didn’t mean it!

“I’m feeling good today,” he begins slowly, voice even and controlled. “So you’re getting off with a few spanks for that attitude of yours. Now go bend over the dining room table,”

His voice sends chills pebbling across your skin, spikes of ice shooting up your spine. You want to protest—he can see it in your eyes, the urge tickling the tip of your tongue. You want to tell him you didn’t mean to talk back to him, promise! It’s just that you want his cock so bad! You swear! Scarlet eyes watch you sharply, daring you to utter the words, looking almost as if he’s hoping you do, just to give him an excuse to lengthen your punishment.

But you don’t want that—a longer punishment means you’ll have to wait even more before his cock’s finally inside you—so you force yourself to swallow the words and nod solemnly, sulking towards the table and draping yourself over it.

Calloused hands run up your thighs, taking the hem of your little dress with them and bunching the material around your waist. He smirks at your cute little panties, hands running over your ass and kneading for a moment before he hooks his thumbs in the waistband, pulling them down your legs. You step out of them and a low laugh rumbles in his chest as he feels the soaked material, bunching it up and stuffing it in his pocket.

The wood of the table is cool against your cheek, your heart palpitating in your chest as you anticipate the first hit.

Except it doesn’t come, and a beat of silence passes before you hear the gentle clinking of his belt buckle.

“No!” you gasp, little fingers curling around the edges of the table as you hug yourself closer to the surface, eyes snapping open and consciously forcing your head to stay pressed against it, not daring to look back at him. “No, daddy, please, not the belt,”

“Aw baby, you’re precious,” he chuckles a little, the sound making your stomach flutter. “Good girls take their punishments without complaint, and you want to be good for daddy, don’t you?”

“Y-Yes,” you whimper, nodding against the table. He hums to himself.

“You will get twenty lashes for your behaviour, and you will count each one aloud,” Tomura explains as he folds the belt in his hands, the leather squeaking softly. “Do you understand?”

You nod again, earning yourself a superficial slap on your bare skin from the back of his hand. It still stings.

“Use your words,”

“Yes, daddy,” you breathe out.

“Good girl,” he murmurs, feeling the smooth leather in his hands.

A tense, heavy silence settles in the air, your chest swelling as you subconsciously hold your breath in expectation of the first blow, crying out when the belt finally collides with your ass. The leather cuts into your flesh, leaving thin welts across the soft skin. Sharp slaps echo throughout the empty penthouse intermittently, mingled with the soft sounds of your uneven breath and pathetic little whines.

By ten, you’re whimpering into the table, tears leaking from your eyes and sharp edges biting into your palms as you grip it.

By fifteen, you’re full-on sobbing and having difficulty staying still, hips wiggling and legs trembling as you cry out the numbers, muffled by the table.

“Daddy,” you hiccup, blinking your bleary eyes furiously to clear them from tears. “Daddy, I’m sorry,”

“I know you are, sweetheart,” Tomura says a little breathlessly behind you, cock straining against his slacks. “You’re almost there baby, five more to go. Be a good girl and finish your punishment,”

The statement makes you cry harder, but you manage to force out the words, “Yes, daddy,” between your wailing.

The last five are, admittedly, the most difficult for the both of you. Your soft whimpers of “Please, daddy,” and “Hurts, daddy,” nearly enough to make him forego the final five. But an intentional brat like you must learn her lesson.

When the final hit comes, you unclench your fingers from the edges of the dining room table and flex them, feeling proud of yourself for taking all twenty. Tomura’s pressed up against you in an instant, his body folded over yours, pinning you to the table.

“My pretty little baby girl, you did so well,” the words are whispered into your hair as cold hands caress the stinging skin, using his feet to nudge yours further apart. “So good for me,”

A hand trails down and between your thighs, nimble fingers slipping between your folds. He groans a little as the pads of his fingers collect your slickness; you’re still so wet.

“Such a good, good girl, getting this wet for me,”

“Please daddy, c-can I—” a little hiccup cuts you off, the pad of Tomura’s thumb swiping across your cheek to catch a stray tear as you struggle to look back at him. “Can I have your cock now?” you whimper out, eagerly pushing your hips back and into his hand, almost as if you’re trying to grind against it.

Christ, what did he do to deserve such a good little slut like you? Your lashes are still wet, little droplets of water clinging to them, soft sniffles still catching in your chest. And you’re staring at him with those wide, glistening doe eyes, your lips puffy from crying, desperately awaiting his answer as your hips move in little circles, trying to catch your clit on his fingers.

You can feel his cock, pressed up against your ass through his pants, and it only makes you crave him more, little hole fluttering around nothing.

“Yeah?” he breathes, lips at your ear. “You want it?” he pushes his hips against you more, laughing a little when you whine and nod your head fervently, rubbing your ass back against him despite the way your sensitive, wounded skin snags on the rough material.

“Yes, yes, please, I-I want it,” you babble, your head gone hazy from the intense, heady mix of pain and desire, no longer able to think about anything else except how badly you need him to fill you up.

“Do you think you deserve it?” his voice drops an octave, smooth and low as two fingers dip into you again.

“Yes,” you respond without any hesitation.

He hums softly to himself, fingers pumping in and out of you slowly, knuckles curling periodically, pressing forcefully against your gummy walls and pulling broken, needy whines from your throat. It’s simultaneously too much and not enough, intense spikes of pleasure that have your stomach swooping as your hips squirm, trying in vain to bounce on his fingers, to speed up the pace just a little more.

“Please daddy,” you’re sobbing again, words garbled through spit and tears. “Please, please fuck me,”

“I am fucking you, baby,”

And you hate how unaffected he sounds, just a slight breathiness to his voice, hate the way you can hear his smug smirk.

“With your cock!” you cry in demand, a violent shiver coursing through your entire body as his knuckles press into that spot again, hard and ruthless in his assault of your poor pussy.

“There you go again,” he says, voice fading into a growl as his fingers begin to viciously curl over and over, rapidly picking up the pace. “Being a fucking brat. And you were doing so well, too…Didn’t your punishment teach you anything? Only patient little girls get daddy’s cock in their soaking little cunts,”

“Oh, daddy, please, please, I-I’m sorry! I just—”

“Maybe I’ll fuck your throat instead,” he muses, sadistic smile spreading across his face as you weep loudly, shaking your head with vigour and chanting out the word no. Tears are steadily streaming down your soft cheeks and Tomura’s not sure he’s ever seen a more beautiful sight. It makes his cock throb, laughing at the way you moan wantonly when he grinds it against you again.

“You’re a greedy little slut, y’know that?” he whispers in your ear as the tempo of his thrusts increase more. “You’re lucky daddy’s giving you anything at all after the tone you used in the kitchen,”

“Bu-But I took my punishment!”

“Oh, my poor baby,” his voice is sickly sweet, fake and syrupy and absolutely dripping with derision. “Poor thing, has to take daddy’s fingers instead of his cock, poor thing has to have her tight little pussy stretched out before she can take my cock, you poor fucking thing,” a hand collides with your ass, the resounding slap! of your skin against his palm ringing in your ears, a pretty handprint already beginning to form on your abused skin.

You nearly scream, cutting yourself off midway to bite down on your bottom lip hard enough to leave little purple indents in the flesh, breathing out harshly through your nose.

“Insatiable little whore, thinking she’s entitled to my cock,” he spits, thumb finally finding your clit and rubbing quick circles into it. He can tell you’re close, pussy pulsing around his fingers, entire body jolting with each swipe of his thumb over your sensitive bud.

“Feet apart, damn it,” he growls as he kicks at your ankles, forcing your legs to spread again.

Teeth bite into your tongue, refraining from nearly blurting out that you can’t help it, it’s too much, the pleasure is practically blinding, your thighs instinctually squeezing around his wrist.

And, God, you’re so close. He knows, of course, is able to read every micro-expression perfectly—every hitch in your breath, every mewl bubbling past your lips, every twitch, jerk, quiver of your body—and every time you’re teetering on that edge, he stops, slows his pace, takes his thumb away completely, until you’re a sweaty, shuddering mess, until you’ve gone dazed and numb from how badly you need to cum.

Finally, finally, when he thinks he’s tortured you enough, when your legs are nothing but trembling jello, when you’ve been fucked stupid by just his fingers alone, vocabulary seemingly reduced to the words daddy and cock—finally he removes his fingers and pushes the head in, and it stings a bit as your cute little cunt struggles to stretch around him.

“How are you still so fucking tight?” he breathes out, as if he isn’t the one who doesn’t ever fuck you with more than two fingers even though he knows that the girth of his fingers are, obviously, no match for the girth of his cock. Merely able to whine in response, you impatiently push your hips back, and then he really fucking snaps.

Before you even know what’s going on, your aching little hole is being filled entirely with one harsh, quick thrust.

He sets a ruthless pace immediately, growling about how much of a little cockslut you are, how you’re practically starving for his cum, how his cock must be all you dumb little brain can think about.

Your sweet cunt is clenching around him after only three drags of his cock against your spot, and the laugh he barks out is nothing short of vicious. His thrusts don’t slow, fucking you right through your orgasm, grunting about how pathetically easy it is to make you gush all over him.

The legs of the table screech as they scrape against the hardwood, Tomura moving the entire piece of furniture with the force of his powerful thrusts. And all you can do it take it, eyes rolling back as your fingers grip the edges of the table again, desperately trying to keep your legs from giving out entirely, body gone limp and bouncing vehemently as his hips piston into you.

Then he’s spilling himself into you, spurt after spurt of hot cum filling you up as his hips stutter, cock pulsing, strands of silvery-blue hair stuck to his forehead and neck.

Christ, you look so gorgeous all fucked out from his fingers and his cock, thick cum leaking out of you and down your inner thigh. The head of his cock drags over your ass, smearing excess cum across your skin, an extra little reminder that you are his, that you belong to him.

It glitters under the low light of the dining room—the sun’s almost completely sunk below the horizon now, the dim neon glow of the city spilling into the penthouse through the large, floor-to-ceiling windows.

“Mine,” he says softly, just a huff of breath forced from his heaving chest, thumb swiping though the cum and rubbing it into the deep, swollen welts.

Yes, you think, too far gone to use your words, throat sore and raw from your crying. Yours, forever.

#shigaraki x reader #shigaraki smut #shigaraki x you #shigaraki tomura #bnha #mha #bnha smut #shigaraki #tomura smut #tw degradation #tw violence #tw gore #tw blood #tw daddy kink #tw murder #tw toxic relationship

[kalee60]

i wish you would write a fic where jock!bucky seduces twink!steve, maybe he hits steve with that pec flex guys do that is both dick-ish and insanely hot at the same time?

Oh Manda - you absolute gorgeous gem! I very much like what you're asking me to create here 😘 I also love, love, love that you sent me a prompt!

I immediately think of sun, summer, ice cream, boys at the beach playing frisbee and our gorgeous Smol!Steve and Jock!Bucky as friends mutually pining (Ha - it's me, it was never going to be anything but this story!)

Once again, my quick little drabble (that I wrote today when I woke up {thanks to my sprinting buddies in discord}) turned into a 4k fic... But I mean - I think that's okay (more stucky for us - right?)

I hope you like where I took this, maybe in a slightly different direction than intended - it's also on ao3 here (with all tags necessary) if you prefer to check them out and read there instead, it'll be part of my stucky bingo fills - Beach and rated M for mild sexual content 😉

If you'd like a fic - here's the post - I wish you'd write a fic... (It might take me a little bit to write - but I will get there!)

Steve was in hell, literally. It was hot, he was sweaty and he was being tortured. Honestly, Steve really loved summer, but at the same time he loathed it. And most of that had to do with the fact he had to sit around in his large group of friends and watch Bucky fucking Barnes sans top and wearing only a small pair of running shorts frolic over the sand at the beach.

Life was unfair. 

How could somebody like Bucky actually exist in real time? He was a complete jock for starters, his looks and size perfect for being naturally great at sports, earning him a football scholarship of his choice (of course). And Steve, well Steve Rogers was as far from a jock as anyone could get. Not that he was horrible in the fitness and muscular department, but he was too little and his asthma still played up to join rugged contact sports. Being 5’4 also didn’t particularly endear him to any of the coaches at college who were scouting for star players. Plus studying to be a high school teacher probably wasn’t sporty enough, and he was leaning towards a specialist English role, not Gym.

So Steve joined the campus gym instead of a sporting team, did weights and classes and enjoyed it immensely. It was where he met Natasha, and that fateful meeting brought him to Bucky and his dickish jock ways and friends.

Though if Steve was to be fair (of which he was - usually) not all jocks were dicks, even if Steve had preconceived notions from high school what college boys would be like. He'd been pleasantly surprised to find that the captain of the football team was not only gorgeous, cocky and a bit of a douche, but also very smart, kind and had a smile that could make Steve’s legs turn to jelly with only a small half tilt.

But it was as he sat on a towel under the shade of a large umbrella that Carol had stolen from her parent’s garden shed, that Steve really felt the heat, and it had nothing to do with the blazing sun above him and the burning sand beneath his feet.

It was all Bucky Barnes and his chest, his slim waist, his tanned olive skin, the breadth of his shoulders, the thickness of his sinewed and muscled thighs that tapered down to calves that bunched up as he jumped and landed to grab the frisbee aimed at him.

Steve sighed heavily as his gaze lingered on the brunette. Bucky Barnes was every mans wet dream, every girls perfect prince, and Steve pulled his dark sunnies over his eyes again, ignoring the pounding in his chest, the throbbing in his groin as he watched Bucky behind dark lenses spring up and prance over the sand, laughing with a wide mouth that could do sinful things to Steve’s body. The worst part was that Bucky was doing all of this with no knowledge that Steve harboured the biggest crush of his life.

It really was unfair.

Sitting back to lean on his hands, stretching his legs out, he saw Bucky glance over at him, and gave a smile. Bucky grinned back and then grappled Sam to the sand to yank the frisbee from his grip. Life wasn’t unfair because Bucky didn’t date guys, he did, very much so, and girls too from what Steve had seen, it was just the guys Bucky dated were typically more like… jocks.

Steve hunched over, trying to not stare too long and inadvertently get turned on, finding it an impossibility as his eyes wouldn’t tear away from Bucky’s frame as he bounded effortlessly over the soft sand, something Steve couldn’t do. He’d almost lost a lung from the trek over to their secluded spot earlier that day. Soft sand was the enemy - that was fact.

“Heads up.”

Startled from his thoughts by Bucky’s deep voice urgently calling out his way, Steve looked up only to see the frisbee coming straight for him. With a reaction that even surprised himself, Steve raised his hand and caught the flying disc with nary a blink of an eye.

Bucky was skidding to a halt on his knees before him a second later.

“Shit, Steve. That was epic, you sure you don’t want to play? You can be on my team - my secret frisbee weapon.”

Steve’s mouth went dry as he tried to listen to the words leaving Bucky, because the delectable man was less than two feet away and the smell of sunscreen, sweat and something virile and uniquely Bucky entered his senses. Steve knew that if sitting next to Bucky in the dining hall was torture when Bucky was wearing his spicy cologne, he’d keel over being enveloped in his sweaty beach scent for longer than a minute. 

God he wanted Bucky to fill him, everywhere. Make him forget his name, take him over and over.

He realised that he still hadn’t answered and heat crept into his cheeks, managing to blurt out, “I’m good for now. Nat’s grabbing ice creams and I don’t want to get a stitch.”

Steve then gave Bucky what he hoped was a soft and cheeky winning grin, but the way Bucky faltered, swallowed tightly, face impassive made Steve wonder if he’d missed the mark on trying to be flirty.

He really was as hopeless as Darcy continually told him.

Steve’s eyes trailed down to Bucky’s broad and lightly haired chest, finding himself breathing quicker, wondering if he’d remembered to pack his inhaler. No, he was sure it was in the pocket of his backpack. Thank god, he might need it in the face of Bucky’s glorious muscles moving in his vision all day.

“If you’re sure,” Bucky finally said in a deep steady voice.

“Maybe later,” Steve stammered, holding up the frisbee with a shaky hand. He had to get a grip.

“Alright, later then, I’m holding you to that.” And Bucky took the disc from Steve’s grip and was off bounding towards Sam, Carol, Thor and Maria.

While Steve recalibrated his thoughts, Nat came back holding only one ice cream cone, licking it slowly with a sparkle in her eye as Clint trailed behind, wearing Nat’s beach bag and carrying the rest of the ice creams, and Steve worried she’d overestimated his balancing skills. But if Nat asked, Clint would do - it was kind of amazing the power she had over him without even trying. Although they weren’t dating (yet), Nat was never cruel, she was playing the long game and really liked Clint, but had been hurt before by some Russian asshole, and Steve knew that Clint, when Nat finally agreed to go out with him would never be the same man again. He’d be lost in deep shock and joy. They were perfect for each other.

A pang went through his gut as Steve watched them, taking a cone from Clint, wishing he had someone that wanted him as much as they wanted each other.

“Vanilla,” Nat commented with a scrunch of her nose at Steve’s choice as he took a lick of the creamy goodness, the chill on his tongue welcome under the heat of the day. “You’re so very basic, Rogers.”

“Hey there is nothing wrong with that. I happen to love vanilla.” A rich voice said from right in front of Steve as Bucky flopped down on the sand, kicking up little grains that stuck on Bucky’s thighs where he was sweating. Steve shut his eyes against the picture before him, once again pleading to any God or Goddess that would listen that it wasn’t fair, that they had to find him someone one day. He just hoped it would be soon, else his dick drop off from Bucky unwittingly giving him blue balls.

“You’re one to talk, you didn’t even want ice cream, just a soda. And a club soda at that.”

Bucky looked over to Nat, flashing her a wide grin, and Steve immediately started to lick his ice cream just to do anything but stare at the crinkling in the corners of Bucky’s eyes, or to watch his lips as they wrapped around the bottle tip. He only half listened to their banter as they kept teasing each other, Nat and Bucky having been best friends from childhood, the reason how Steve inadvertently fell into the group of jocks, for a lack of a better term to encompass all the fit people he was now surrounded with.

Nat had introduced him to everyone after they’d hit it off at the gym in first semester, and Steve had waited for the inevitable teasing to commence about his small stature, but it never came. He was always included, never mocked (unless it was called for, because he was a facts man and couldn’t help correcting people when they were clearly in the wrong) and it was such a novel experience, so how could he not fall immediately in lust with the football captain? One who had smokey blue-grey eyes, sinfully full lips made for kissing among other fun activities and a personality that you could fall into and live inside forever.

“Err, Steve… your ice cream, it’s ummm, dripping.”

“What?” Steve asked, realising that he’d been swirling his tongue over the top of the soft confectionary and that his fingers were now completely sticky as the ice cream dripped over them on to his thigh. “Oh shit.”

Steve immediately switched hands and started to lap at his fingers, tongue darting between them to catch all the creaminess, sucking them into his mouth one by one, only looking up when he heard a muted groan. Bucky was moving before him, squirming in the sand, and as his eyes landed on Bucky, he startled, surprised to find Bucky’s hooded gaze directly on Steve. But his eyes hadn’t landed just anywhere, they were trained to Steve’s mouth, and as Steve swiped his finger through the sweetness that had dribbled on his thigh, Bucky’s gaze followed that finger's movements. Steve without thought, heart thumping hard, confusion and awe flowing through his veins, stuck the digit in his mouth, licking off the stickiness. 

Thankfully, Steve had his sunglasses on, hiding his expression, but he knew his face was burning red at the brash and overt display. Bucky was watching him intently, the rise and fall of his gloriously thick chest heaved, and Bucky’s skin flushed from the exercise or maybe the sun. Steve wasn’t sure.

But it was as Steve licked around the base of the cone again, the ice cream melting quicker in the heat than he could swallow, Bucky’s pecs twitched.

Steve stopped all movement, caught at the tick of flesh, the way it bounced taut, watching with abject lust and desire as Bucky did it again - knowing exactly where Steve’s eyes were trained.

It was such a fucking dick move, a power move to get attention and Steve hated jocks who flexed like that, but on Bucky… on Bucky it was god damn mesmerizing. And it was after the third time Bucky’s pecs jumped, Bucky stood up abruptly and fled saying in a higher pitch than usual that he was jumping in the water, that Steve realised he might not have been doing it on purpose.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Bucky was dead, he was going to die from being hard for... how long had he known Steve Rogers, six months maybe? Well, that was how long he’d survived with a non-stop boner for the blonde man. And he was at the end of his tether.

Steve was everything Bucky ever wanted in a partner, smart, strong, intense, funny, handsome  and a person that he could fall into, spend time with - love.

So it didn't help his little issue to be at the beach that day, watching Steve sit under the huge umbrella on brightly coloured towels in his swim trunks and a loose tank with arm holes so big he could see all the way through to his muscular chest and pink nipples. It was driving him fucking insane. 

Sure he’d seen Steve wearing an array of items at the gym, but he’d never witnessed him so carefree as he was at the beach. He was smiling more, relaxed, joking while big sunglasses hid those gorgeous eyes that would give the ocean a run for its money as to what was bluer.

But what killed Bucky that particular day over every other day he lusted after Steve, what made him clench and twitch all over was watching Steve lick up his ice cream. It was downright obscene, Steve shouldn’t be allowed to do that in public, or at least he should have a warning sticker on his person.

Steve had a mouth made for sucking cock, and Bucky wanted, no, he needed to know what having those lips wrapped around him felt like. Christ, he wanted to know what it felt like to be buried in Steve, maybe even have Steve press into him. Fuck.

There was only one thing for it.

He had to seduce Steve, and he had to do it soon.

But that begged the question - how?

How did Bucky capture the attention of the smartest, funniest, quick witted and grumpiest man on campus? Not only that, but to have Steve take him seriously? Bucky was aware that people thought he was only a dumb jock, that all he had to offer the world was to play ball and shit talk other teams and work out in the gym. Which, yeah of course he did all of those things - but he really was so much more. He was studying economics, was thinking about trying to specialise and work as an international trade specialist after college, and although Bucky really loved playing ball - it wasn’t his whole life. He’d never go pro - well, not without a hell of a lot of luck and persistence, and he wasn't sure he really wanted to take something he enjoyed and make it a living in that way. He’d seen how broken some sports stars bodies were after a career, and he still wanted to be able to walk at forty without having had three knee reconstructions.

But Steve, Steve saw through all of that, he spoke to Bucky like an intellect, like he had something worthy to say, to add to the conversation. Even at the gym after Nat had introduced them (Bucky begging to know who the gorgeous guy she was chatting to on the rowing machines was) Steve and he worked out together, had fun catcalling each other for being weak and helped each other with their forms - something Bucky largely did just to get hands on Steve even though Steve’s form was perfect.

Bucky had been taken with the slight man from the first moment he’d seen him, always under the impression that Steve was too smart to even think about dating a meathead like him, even if he truly wasn't what his physique made him. So he stuck with friendship, but now he wanted more. Was going to ask for more.

“Whatcha thinking?” Nat asked as she swam out to float in the water next to him.

“Nothing much,” He replied, ignoring her knowing hum. He hated that they’d been friends forever and she knew all his tells.

The much needed cold water had soothed his itching skin, and from his vantage point he could look back at their rag tag group of friends, able to stare unabashadly at Steve as he laughed with Clint and Thor about something, staring up at Thor as he... as he fucking flexed in front of Steve.

“Easy boy,” Natasha grabbed his bicep that was taut from clenching his fists, “Thor’s with Jane remember? Steve’s not interested in someone like Thor anyway.”

Bucky’s eyes swung to her immediately. “What do you mean? Because he's a jock?”

Nat let out an exasperated sigh. “No you idiot. Because he’s interest lies elsewhere.”

“Oh,” Bucky’s chest squeezed tight, wondering who had Steve’s undivided attention. And he couldn’t help but watch Steve as Carol held out a hand to pull him to his feet, and suddenly Bucky forgot his disappointment when Steve pulled his tank off, revealing a gorgeous toned body in all its glory. Bucky’s dick stirred. Thank fuck he was hidden in the water.

“You are a colossal idiot. You know that right?” Nat deadpanned.

“I have to ask Steve out,” he blurted. “I need to… I need to be with him.”

“I know,” Nat said with a smirk, and Bucky looked at her gratefully, if she helped he would be fine. “But that really sounds like a you problem. Have fun with that.”

“You horrible cow,” Bucky sniped back, ready to splash her, but she was already under the water stealthily swimming up behind Clint, only to dunk the unsuspecting man. 

Bucky’s attention suddenly caught on movement on the shoreline as Steve stood knee deep, testing the water and with no further hesitation, dove in, coming up for air not far from where Bucky floated. Bucky watched mesmerized as the sun glinted off Steve’s wet eyelashes, before he wiped the droplets from them, smiling at Bucky.

“Oh god, this water feels amazing.”

“So would you,” Bucky whispered.

“Huh?” Steve asked.

For a long moment, Bucky stared at Steve, realising that sound carried over water differently and Steve most likely caught what he said. Seducing someone was hard, even though he hadn’t even tried yet.

Instead of answering, Bucky ducked his head so his mouth went underwater and swam towards Steve like a shark, deciding that he just had to ask him point blank, no messing around with seduction. Slipping up out of the water at the last moment he put on his most predatory smile, Steve’s eyes widening and he looked around, face flushed and Bucky hoped he wasn’t looking for an escape.

He quickly darted behind Steve, wrapping his arms tight around his lithe body, trying not to linger too much as Steve was the perfect fit, felt so good against him; and when he heard the small gasp from Steve’s throat he launched him into the air. Flinging Steve into the water a few feet away.

“You fucker,” Steve exclaimed laughing as he came up for air, and Bucky smirked.

Suddenly with a smirk of his own that made Bucky inhale sharply, Steve disappeared under the water, Bucky feeling him come up underneath his body and with a strength that belied Steve’s small stature, completely turning Bucky on more than it should, he was pushed up out of the water, throwing him completely under as well.

“Jesus, Steve. You should join the team.” Bucky spluttered when he came up for air.

Steve grinned back, pushing wet hair out of his eyes and Bucky stared, lost in how stunning Steve looked in the sunlight, that he was there before him alone in the ocean full of people, “I mean they already have you and Sam as Captains. Wouldn’t want to put either of you out of a job.”

Bucky laughed, “I don’t doubt you’d do it too, Stevie.”

And when Steve stopped smiling, Bucky realised what he’d said.

“Shit, sorry - you don’t like that? Nicknames?”

“No I... I do…” Steve answered softly, and Bucky became lost in a blue that matched the water they were treading.

“Would you get out with me?” Bucky blurted.

“Sorry? Get out of the water?”

Bucky internally facepalmed himself. “No, I mean go out.”

“Out. With you?”

Bucky nodded.

“Err, why me?” Steve asked in a small voice lost on a gust of wind.

Looking at Steve, who stared back at him with questions in his eyes, Bucky wanted to explain how much he’d desired it for months, to tell Steve all the ways he wanted to make him happy, and as a multitude of words sat on his tongue, Bucky suddenly understood Steve might not listen to his reasoning, might not believe him. So he decided to show his intent instead, and swam closer. Steve’s eyes were wide, guileless, Bucky seeing a small spark of something more, and hoping he wasn’t triple jumping over a line, he swam up behind Steve. He felt Steve tense up, anticipating to be flung into the water again, but instead, Bucky pulled him closer so that Steve’s back slotted against his front and leaned in, mouth only an inch away from Steve’s ear.

“Why you? Oh Stevie, you have no idea how gorgeous you are. How much I want you.” Bucky pressed his nose against the back of Steve’s ear and inhaled deeply, sunscreen, salt and Steve’s shampoo filled his senses and he lost his head for a moment, especially when Steve let out a high pitched groan and wriggled back into Bucky. “I want to spread you out beneath me, I want to lick all the sweat off your body, sweat that I'm going to cause from working you hard, making you work extra hard for my dick, because Stevie - I want you, I want you bad, and I think you might want me back just as much.”

Bucky hoped he wasn’t completely off base with his desires, that Steve really was just as interested, and when Steve ground back against him, skin sliding against Bucky’s, letting out another moan at the friction when he felt Bucky hardening up underneath him, Bucky knew it was going to be ok.

“Yes…” Steve whimpered as his shorts caught against Bucky’s dick, pushing backwards.

“You want that baby?”

“Fuck. Yes, I do.”

“How much?”

Steve spluttered, and Bucky couldn’t help chuckle at the noise. “What do you mean?”

“How much do you want it?” Bucky knew he was being a prick, making his pec’s tense against Steve’s back, pulling him onto his lap as they floated in the water, before wrapping a leg around one of Steve’s pulling it to the side, making Steve gasp gorgeously.

“A normal amount,” Steve husked back.

“Oh, you want me a normal amount - is that all?” Bucky smirked before licking a sloppy stripe up Steve’s neck at the same time as he snuck a hand down the front of Steve’s swim trunks, gripping his dick tightly, feeling the impressive length and girth for the first time. Fuck, he was definietly not taking switching of the table. But not anytime soon. First, he wanted to take Steve apart in every way conceivable.

Steve meanwhile, was liquid in his arms, going slack as Bucky took his time to explore while they floated in circles not far from the shore, but far enough out they wouldn’t get in trouble. He hoped. 

The moans tearing from Steve’s throat were getting louder though, Bucky loving every noise punched out of Steve as he stroked harder under the water, the friction and pressure of the water making him slower and more languid than usual. And Bucky wanted to make Steve call out with no thought or boundaries, nothing to stifle his pleasure, he needed Steve coming in his arms, again and again.

“I think you might just want me a little more than that.” Bucky rasped against Steve’s neck, sucking a bruise onto his pink skin, giving Steve’s dick another sharp tug and before he knew what was happening, Steve was shaking in his arms, whimpering out a release and Bucky was speechless. Utterly speechless as he continued to stroke Steve slowly, carefully as he jerked in his hand.

“Holy fuck, you’re stunning, gorgeous, the absolute best,” Bucky rambled into Steve’s neck, nipping kisses and pressing his lips against him in absolute awe at what had just occured.

Suddenly Steve moved, spinning himself around to straddle Bucky and he went under for a moment as their weights shifted and came back up spluttering, only for Steve to launch himself so his lips pushed against his. Steve took over, devouring his mouth, and although Bucky was the one in control, holding them both up, he’d never felt so out of control as Steve writhed and ground down as best he could in the water. Shit, Steve was going to be a handful and Bucky was there for it.

As he kissed back, grabbing the back of Steve’s head, holding him still as he pressed his tongue in deeply, a huge beach ball smacked into the side of his face. They jumped apart with a gasp.

“Don’t make me go get the hose!” Nat yelled out as she and Clint swam around nearby. “It’s about time you dolts wised up, but this is a public beach with you know - families.”

Bucky watched as Steve’s face flushed a perfect shade of red, and he couldn’t help but grab him again, giving him a quick intense kiss, claiming Steve until he struggled for breath, to show Bucky’s intent was clear and true. It was pure perfection.

“We’ll pick this up again later.” Bucky promised.

“Later.” Steve replied breathlessly.

Suddenly Steve pushed himself away from Bucky, grabbing and throwing the beach ball, hitting Clint dead on the nose. The surprised yelp from both Clint and Natasha made Bucky laugh.

“Oh it’s so on, James,” Nat yelled out.

Steve piped up from his side, “you wish, Romanoff - we’re gonna take you down!”

Bucky beamed.

“Yeah!” he called over to them, dodging the ball that came directly for him as Nat and Clint shit-talked. And as he and Steve swam out to retrieve the ball floating behind them, Bucky turned to Steve and gave him an overtly salacious wink. “And once we take them down, I’m going to take you home and show you what going down is all about.”

Steve burst out laughing. “Really? That was incredibly lame, especially for a savvy sex-crazed jock.”

“You’re not interested in my proposal then?”

“Oh I’m interested,” Steve grinned, licking his lips and Bucky caught his breath. “But if you’re going to use dad jokes on the regular - I might have to start calling you something else in the bedroom.”

Steve then threw the ball, Nat ducking at the last minute, and Bucky didn’t even feel when the returning pitch slammed into his head; Steve’s words creating a delicious cacophony of images and filthy thoughts in his mind instead.

Bucky had always known that Stevie Rogers was going to be both the life and death of him, and as he rubbed his head, grasping the ball in one hand, ready to throw it, he couldn’t wait to see where their adventure would take them.

But first - Clint had to pay.

#stucky #mywriting #friends to lovers #college #bottom Steve #implied switch #beach and fun #melting ice creams are a real issue for libidos #gift for Manda - the best and brightest of them all #prompt game #kalee answers

[tamagochiie]

pairing: timeskip!kenma x fem!reader

synopsis: You come home late from your cousin’s funeral, and though Kenma didn’t expect much from you but perhaps a few leftovers you’ve managed to steal away from the dinner, he finds you with a surprise: a sleeping child cradled around your neck and a teenage boy hovering behind you.

Your poor boyfriend wondering what in the hell it is you’re plotting…

tags: angst and fluff, time skip!, slight spoilers if you squint

warnings: mentions of death, mentions of depression, cursing

w/c: 2.2k

tagging list: @angrylittleriri​ @chims-kookies​ @gooseyhouse​

a/n: hello! welcome to the second chapter of the series! i’m posting this a little later than expected because wifi is really trying to cock block me from posting :’) i honestly wasn’t expecting people to like or interacting with this fic, so my heart is super warm right now :>  

anyway, I hope you enjoy!

happy almost new year! see you all next week!

master list

<< life as we know it | life as he’s known it >>

You wonder what the younger version of you would think if you went back in time and told her she'd be eating at a dining table filled with food that wasn't microwavable, and the air wouldn't be filled by the sound of metal clanging and scraping against each other, but instead be filled by the lilting giggles of a little boy; his older brother pressing him to keep it down; and Kenma's casual yet awkward attempt to relate to the two.

She would probably cry.

Your parents' work piled up to the late hours of the evening and spilled into the morning, leaving you in a constant state of dejection. The house would be barren, nothing but the faint ticking of the old grandfather clock to keep you company. But even if your parents were home, it would still be the same; the air cold and unmoving.

Your parents were not warm nor were they emotional, and maybe that's what drew you to Kenma; he was quiet, rarely affectionate, and gave you more than enough room to breathe. Sure, there were the occasional forehead kisses, the head pats, the 'how are you doing' texts, and sometimes if he was brave enough, he’d interlock pinkies with you in public.

But you grew selfish, finding yourself wanting a little more each time you saw him, and you weren't sure if it was okay.

Was it okay to yearn for things? 

Was it okay to ask for more?

But Kenma saw through your facade of accepting things as they are and right into your neediness. He was willing to give as long as you asked or even when you were too shy to do so. He even gave you his whole life without sparing a second thought even if the realization that he had done so came much later.

"Here, let me." Kenma slips his hands over yours, taking the plate from within your grasp to wash it in your place. He bumps his hips against yours, causing you to stumble away from the sink.

You mumble a thank you before resorting to wiping down the dishes and setting them on the rack.

You delight in his banter. He asks you about your day, stealing glances between you and the stack of dishes before him while you give him the run down. He listens to you intently, gaze wandering a little longer when he hears an exasperated sigh escape your lips, but you let him know you're just fine.

"What about you?" You ask, tilting your head and playfully moving it in front of Kenma's face, blocking him from the plate he needs to scrub. "How was your day?"

He hums, tiptoeing over you to finish the chore like the diligent little worker he is. "It was another day," You frown at him and his lack of effort to push further. He rolls his eyes, chuckling at your pouty face. "I played another trial game with Eiji—"

"And how'd that go?"

"Oh, he's absolute shit—ow!" Your slap against his arm resounds throughout the apartment, causing Yuki and Eiji's to jerk their attention towards you both. You mold your face into a look of ease, sparing them a warm smile, telling them you saw a fly.

"The hell?! I wasn't finished!" The pudding head seethes. "Sure he was shit, but he was still better than you."

The cocky grin slipping across his lips matching with his lidded eyes has you throwing your hands, erupting a series of ow's. "You're such an ass, you know that?"

"Yeah, the ass you chose." He sneers, handing you the last plate to dry.

He rubs his arm in an attempt to soothe the stinging, glaring at you begrudgingly. It takes you a while to ease back into his trust, but you do, and he picks up where he leaves off as if he wasn't in any pain  to begin with.

He tells you about his little trip to the convenience store with Yuki for his strawberry milk, and the foreign, constricting feeling that wouldn't leave his chest until they came back home. How he couldn't let go of Yuki's hand when they were in the store, and if he did, it would send him in a state of sheer panic.

"Must be your mommy instincts kicking in," You joke, and he only rolls his eyes.

He also admits inadvertently turning all your favorite whites into various shades of pinks and blues. As someone as analytical as Kenma, he was challenged by the task of separating the lights from the darks. 

You snort, earning a scowl from your boyfriend and a string of explanations to defend his case. But it isn't the mistake that makes you laugh, but rather how far you've come after a month of adjustments and an unfortunate series of events.

The first two weeks were exceptionally trying. No one spoke a word and everyone walked on eggshells. Eiji was still too shy to look at you, his responses down to a bare minimum and quieter than a whisper; Yuki cried almost all the time over every little thing, and the vein in Kenma's neck was threatening to pop every time he did.

It didn't help when you and Kenma would end your nights at each other's throats, bickering till you fell asleep. And when morning came, you'd be greeted by the emptiness from his side of the bed.

And it helped no one when the two of you would avoid each other, never crossing paths or breathing a word the moment you came home until it was too painfully awkward to continue.

Two and half hours charged with petty arguments, things of the past, and all the little things that came in between only to have finally arrived at one conclusion: You weren't parents and you weren't Akihiro-san. You were your own people and it was okay to do things differently.

Even if different meant that Kenma might call the kids by the wrong name or forget the fact he's living with someone else other than you. Even if different meant that you'll be absent-mindedly teaching Yuki a few curses to add to his vocabulary or forgetting to enroll them in school.

The truth is no one from the family was going to return your calls, and you were probably going to spend the rest of your twenties making up bedtime stories and giving pretty bad advice to someone just a few years younger than you.

Which brings you here, wearing your bathing suit as you share your bubble bath with Yuki because he wanted to play with the rubber duckies he whined and moaned at Kenma to buy for him at the store.

Lathering his hair with shampoo, Yuki's head leans against your chest, eyes gleaming beneath the bathroom lights. He beams at you, giggling at the ticklish feeling as you massage his head. He brings attention back to his ducks, making crashing sounds as he splashes them into the water.

"Is that how ducks swim?" You ask, washing away the soap from his hair. "Don't they just kinda...float around?"

He shakes his head before twisting his body to face you. He's got a tough expression plastered on; brows furrowed, his jaw clenched, eyes unwavering.

A very serious boy.

"These are special ducks," He explains, raising one to your face."These are battleship ducks."

Your lips fall to an 'o', still not picking up what he's putting down but you pretend you do.

Is this what kids are into these days?

Yuki goes on to tell you about his special ducks; something about lasers in their eyes, super special flying skills, and...echo location? You ask him if he's sure—if you heard him right, but he's as firm with his stance as he is with the death grip he has on his rubber duckies.

You drain the tub before rinsing yourselves beneath the warm water of the shower. Yuki flips his hair around, air drying himself as he steps out of the tub. You tell him to brush his teeth while he waits for you to finish rinsing.

"Hey, Oba-san," Yuki's call is muffled by the foam of the toothpaste still in his mouth. "Are you and Kenma-san married?"

You nearly fall when you slip off of your bathing suit and into your pajamas.  "Ah, no, Yuki. We're not."

"But aren't you in love?" He asks, oblivious to the sudden shift in the atmosphere, spitting into the sink and washing his mouth.

Your eye twitches and you swallow the lump in your throat before it goes big enough for you to choke and die. "Uhh, people don't always have to marry right away just because they're in love..."

"But Kenma-san said he's been in love with you for four years."

"I—Yeah, well—"

"That's sounds like a really long time, Oba-san." You can't tell if he means to sound condescending. You can't tell if your mom has awakened from the grave and possessed the young boy because she woke up thinking she had a few more things she'd like to pester you with.

"Well, Yuki," You gather the little patience you have left, taking a deep breath as you step out of the tub. The bathroom tile is cold against the soles of your feet, sending a shiver down your spine. Enough to keep you sober for trivial conversation with a six year old boy. "Love—Love kinda looks different for everyone, Yuki."

You choose your words carefully, not wanting to say anything that might confuse him.

You help him into his clothes, his hair leaving wet patches onto his his dinosaur pajamas. He listens to you intently, looking right into your eyes. "There are people marry the moment they meet—or at least after a short while—because they can't help but feel sure?” 

And you can’t help but feel flustered at your own explanation, not too sure with your words, “...and other people don't do that. Some relationships move at a faster pace and other's move a bit slower; and Kenma-san and I...we're happy with how things are right now."

He hums, nodding his head as if he understands. "Even though Eiji-san and I are here?"

"Yes, little love." You assure him with the new nickname, booping his nose. "Even though you're both here."

You grab his towel and dry his hair. You pat down the tiny puddles of water on his face and neck, noting to wipe behind his ears.

"But," Yuki mumbles through the material of the towel, swatting your hand away to to catch his breath, "sometimes people don't like different..." Yuki pushes the towel to this side, his glossy eyes meeting yours and your heart cracks. "They didn't like my dad 'cause he was different."

"H-He didn't love someone th-that looked like y-you..." Yuki bites down on his bottom lip, keeping it from quivering and fixating his eyes onto the tiles of the floor to prevent himself from choking on his words. "H-He...He loved someone that look like Kenma-san."

You understand what he means. You know full well. Their father was gay and because of that, your family ostracized him without wasting another breath. As if it was easy as blinking.

You knew what their father had been going through, you had enough time to help, yet you stood idle, doing nothing but add to his loneliness.

You kept all the sunshine Akihiro-san shared with you during your bluest days, even when it had been so obvious he needed it more than you.

But not once did you ever think about returning a sliver of it. And you wonder maybe if you hadn't been so selfish and naive, a silver lining would've been enough to avoid something as painful as this.

Instinctively, you pull him close to you, threading your fingers through his still damp hair. You shush him and press kiss on the crown of his head as his petite figure trembles in your arms. You let him sob into your shirt, his fingers twisting the material in anguish.

And it breaks your heart that a little human like him would not only know the meaning of anguish, but how it feels to have it tear through his heart.

It takes a few moments for Yuki to catch his breath and for you to ease him. He slumps onto you as he regains his strength. You tell him you're sorry because you are and because you don't know what else to say.

You try to use his strawberry milk and his brother as an incentive to keep him from crying again. And after a few minutes it works.

You trail closely behind him when he walks out of the bathroom. He begins to run when he gets closer to Eiji, the  pitter patter of his wee little feet carrying in the apartment.

You watch as Yuki thrusts himself forward into the arms of his brother, and Eiji doesn't fail to catch him. The sight before you leaves you gawking in silence, watching Eiji unravel into his big brother form as  he lifts Yuki to the ceiling, playfully sniffing his under arms, the crook of his neck, and even his little bum before complimenting him, "Good job, you smell just like flowers."

His giggles float in the air, swarming around the apartment as if he hadn't been crying just a few minutes ago.

And as you watch the scene unfold do you  decide to step out of the sidelines, using this warm moment shared between the boys as your driving force to keep the last of your cousin's light safe. 

#Kozume Kenma #Kenma x reader #Kenma x y/n #Haikyuu!! #Kenma imagines #Haikyuu Imagines #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu headcanons #kenma headcanons #kenma kozume headcanons #kenma hcs #kenma fluff #kenma angst #haikyuu fluff #haikyuu angst

[killugonficlibrary]

Killugon: College AU

"There’s no way these lovestruck cantaloupes are passing their classes.” ~worm in theory

2 Series. 21 Works. 1 Tumblr.

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Oh My God, They Were Roommates by korns  ( T | 125,170 | 27/27 )

After a terrible first semester, Gon transfers to a university in San Francisco where he gets a stellar deal on a one-bedroom apartment.

At least, it was a stellar deal until he moves in and realizes that he inadvertently signed a lease with a complete stranger as a roommate. Not only that, but his accidental roommate is the single hottest guy in his major, Killua Zoldyck, and everyone and their mother is trying to get with him.

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Critical Hit by korns  ( T | 55,847 | 11/11 )

After a medical crisis, Gon's confined to bedrest and he needs to do something—anything— to keep his mind occupied, even if that thing is the latest game on the market: Hunter Vs Hunter. Gon becomes consumed by the world of gaming and streaming where he finds a famous, furious, and devilishly handsome streamer by the name Kill.

When Gon's dorm friend introduces them in a match, Kill's fanbase goes crazy because of one simple fact: That Gon is an absolute newbie who can kick Kill's ass any day, any time.

Kill won't stop until he ends Gon's winning streak—even if that means flying Gon out to a nation-wide HvsH tournament to face off, kick ass, and meet for the first time.

Series Part 1 of Trending: Kill’s Lifestyle Vlogs

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No Filter x Serial Dating by korns  ( M | 71,287 | 14/14 )

Gon is a serial romantic with an addiction to online dating. Killua is the barista stuck taking the orders of every date Gon Freecss reels in. It wouldn't be an issue if Gon wasn't such a hot topic—star running back for the Yorknew University football team as a freshmen, member of the most iconic fraternity at Yorknew, and general campus heartthrob.

When Gon convinces Killua to be his gym buddy, it sounds and feels like the friend zone. But who knew the #GymLife was so gay anyway? Certainly not Killua.

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[Series] college is a scam, here’s why: by callmebyyourmango ( T | 4,228+ | 2 Works | WIP )

college is a scam. these fics will tell you why.

CURRENTLY PUBLISHED:

1. group projects require comfort [ 1/1 chapters ] 2. core requirements are unnecessary and expensive [ 1/1 chapters ]

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[Series] Warning Signs by vitrifica ( E | 14,671+ | 2 Works | WIP )

Wet dreams are making Killua's life hard- especially when he realizes his best friend is starring in them. When a storm traps Gon and Killua together for the night, can he keep his fantasies in check?

CURRENTLY PUBLISHED:

1. Caution: Wet [ 2/2 chapters ] 2. Tripping Hazard [5/? chapters ]

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Tease by kornspiracy  ( E | 132,115 | 22/22 )

No fucking way, Killua thought. There’s no way Gon is a porn star.

He clicked onto the account’s profile page. There, in perfect clarity, was a picture of Gon Freecss’ face.

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The Only Exception by yahlreh ( M | 124,844+ | 28/? )

Sex. That's all Killua wants. Afterall, love doesn't exist in his mind, but that all comes to a close as soon as he meets his new roommate - Gon Freecss. Upon meeting the happy, go-lucky boy, Killua can't help but want to indulge on him, but it never seems to be enough as he allows his heart to constantly get in the way.

Warning: This story is heavily laced with mature themes and sexual content. Read at your own pace.

Spotify Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7g4EuDtd1xAvvu7mXnzz9H?si=78f0fb13b62c4d5d

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phantom pains by sunsetters (sanitized) ( T | 43,957 | 11/11 )

Killua moves into his new apartment.

He's not alone.

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The Bells Are Ringing by DecemberCamie  ( T | 4,432 | 1/1 )

“Gon,” Killua interrupted. He was clenching his jaw so hard it hurt. “Why don’t you have any pants on?!”

“Hmm? Oh, but I do! I have my-”

“That’s your underwear!” Killua’s voice jumped an octave. “That doesn’t count!”

“Yes it does! All the important bits are covered, so it definitely counts!”

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Dragons vs Foxbears by  DecemberCamie  ( T | 4,972 | 1/1 )

When Gon first meets Killua, he’s drunk and stumbling through some party Zushi dragged him to after losing the match. He doesn’t know what bar he’s in, what time it is, or how he got there. He doesn’t even know Killua’s name when he challenges him to a fight. All he knows is the white haired guy is wearing the opposing team’s colors—

And then Gon is on the ground.

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To Break Pose by DecemberCamie  ( T | 4,695 | 1/1 )

Gon asks Killua to be his model for his full-body art portrait project. It takes some begging, and bribing with chocolate, but eventually Killua agrees to help.

The thing is, though, Gon never expected for Killua to model nude.

The other thing? Gon finds he really doesn't mind this new development.

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College AU [Tumblr] - DecemberCamie  ( T | 739 | 1/1 )

“How about a challenge to speed this up?” Killua started, lifting his gaze to lock on Gon. “I quiz you, you answer. If you answer right, you get a reward.”

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Socially Unacceptable Pickup Lines by korns  ( T | 7,948 | 1/1 )

Gon Freecss is the new lone wolf on a campus founded on cliques, frats, and sororities for paranormal species. With everyone and their grandmother trying to recruit Gon, the co-op where Killua and his rag-tag team of mixed-species seems to be the last place on Gon's list.

Until Gon agrees to visit under the pretense of meeting a ghost and maybe, possibly hitting on Killua while he's there.

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Thinking In Circles by korns  ( T | 10,362 | 1/1 )

After signing a lease together, Gon takes Killua out to celebrate and their innocent night turns into a kiss on the front lawn of a frat house. As a flaming asexual, Killua is mortified and pitched into a downward spiral. To top it off, they're both bound for a two-day road trip to their shared internship in the middle-of-nowhere Utah.

Stuck together and on the cusp of an existential crisis, Killua has to decide just how, exactly, to broach the nature of their relationship.

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Don’t Hold Back by Anon_Co_op  ( E | 12,761 | 2/2 )

Gon cussed, thinking of all the different ways to call himself an idiot.

They all sounded like something Killua would say.

Would Killua still call him that if Gon said he was in love with him? . Or, Gon and Killua's 'friends with benefits' arrangement takes the 'un'-expected turn for the worse(?)

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there’s glitter on the floor after the party by reeyachan  ( T | 1,195 | 1/1 )

Gon never drinks.

And Killua wonders why in the world he would decide to try it now, of all days, of all nights. Why now, when it's less than 12 hours before graduation?

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freudian slip by slowlange  ( E | 15,171 | 1/1 )

“Our entertainment for the night. Or at least, I hope it is.”

Leorio throws a confident gaze to his audience before pulling something much, much smaller than a blunt.

Or, Killua and Gon trip on molly together. The events that ensue may or may not change Killua for the better, and show him that there's more out there that life has to offer.

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Cracked Lens by bluphacelia  ( T | 7,949 | 1/1 )

A soft peel of classical music assaulted his senses as a soft yellow light spilled into the hallway—a night class? He continued forward, trying to keep his footsteps quiet. He felt the tug of curiosity and he glanced through the door, eyes flittering past easels and canvases and he stopped—paralyzed. There in the midst of art students was the perfect portrait. 

-- Gon finds something he didn't know he was looking for.

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Art & Honey by wtfquitplayin  ( M | 4,402 | 1/1 )

Killua is forced to go to a party, forgets his lighter, and meets Gon.

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Stellar Date by losing_sanity_fast  ( T | 3,627 | 1/1 )

Canary wins a date with Gon in a lottery, but she's a) a lesbian, b) in a relationship so she doesn't want to go. As a joke Killua decides to go instead of her. Gon already has tickets and a reservation so he just rolls with it.

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Dungeon x Hunter by sub_divided ( G | 13,683 | 4/4 )

Every Sunday Killua, Gon, Leorio and Kurapika meet up to play "Dungeon x Hunter" (loosely based on DnD 5e) with Leorio as Dungeon Master. Why is Leorio the DM, you ask? Well, these nerds all met at the college roleplaying club two years ago, but recently, with Kurapika in law school and Leorio in med school, and Killua and Gon taking harder undergrad classes, no one has time to meet up anymore. Therefore, Leorio has taken it upon himself to DM their sessions, just as an excuse to get everyone together once a week.

Alluka, also a college student, is staying with Killua during the Christmas Break. Having heard about these Sunday roleplaying sessions from Killua, and especially about the antics of a chaotic multiclass druid/barbarian who keeps adopting all the animals (Gon duh), she asks if she can come along. The crew welcome Alluka into the nerd fold as romance gradually blossoms between Gon and Killua, and Leorio fights to keep Kurapika from ghosting them all as a stress response to lawschool deadlines.

Basically a heartwarming slice of life story about nerds playing Dungeons and Dragons. I'll be updating Wednesdays and Sundays until all the chapters are posted.

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First x or x Hundredth by gomicchi  ( M | 1,837 | 1/1 )

Killua pays very little attention to his philosophy lecture. Gon tends to his duties as a part time groundskeeper. The first case may or may not be related somehow to the second.

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Wait, We Had a Test Today?! by itiaskia ( M | 21,096+ | 4/? )

College is certainly an experience, to say the least.

It's a time for self exploration, learning lessons, making terrible decisions, and meeting people you either never want to leave or never want to see again.

Gon didn't really know what to expect, but it wasn't what he got. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The one where everyone meddles in Killua’s and Gon’s relationship by tulip05  ( M | 6,327+ | 4/? )

Killua thinks Gon likes girls, more specifically Retz, and that they're the perfect couple. Gon thinks Killua is way too cool for him. They're both wrong. Good thing they have friends to meddle.

#KilluGon #hxh #killugon masterlist #long post #au: uni #curator gabs

[haileyyanneupton]

🍷drunk🍷

HAILEY UPTON X JAY HALSTEAD

UPSTEAD AU ONESHOT

masterlist | series masterlist

prompt: you’re drunk and walked into the wrong apartment and fell asleep on my couch. oh god, you’re going to be so confused in the morning

Hailey wasn’t one to drink more than a beer or two when she was out at a bar, but tonight she was alone, kind of sad, and ready to forget the events of the last few days. She had just broken it off with her boyfriend who of course refused to leave the apartment that they had been splitting the rent on for the last two years, leaving her somewhat stranded. Working out where she was going to sleep tonight sounded like a problem for future Hailey as she made her way into the bar and planted herself on a barstool, calling for a glass of whiskey as she took a swig from it and the liquid burned on the way down. One whiskey turned into six and eventually, Hailey was wandering the streets trying to work out exactly where her best friend Vanessa’s apartment was. Was it smart? No. But what other choice did she have?

Eventually, she made her way to what she was sure was Vanessa’s apartment, pulling a bobby pin from her hair to pick the woman’s lock. Somehow, even in her inebriated state, she still managed to successfully work out how to get inside, having enough sense to re-lock the door before collapsing on the couch. She was tired and she knew Vanessa wouldn’t mind once she learned about what her asshole ex had done; he wouldn’t even let her go back to get her things. Hailey was just trying to forget about him and go to sleep for the night as she collapsed onto the couch.

Jay had been asleep in his bed when he heard the squeaking of his front door and light footsteps on the floorboards of his second level apartment. At first he thought that it was his imagination, though his paranoia still got the best of him as he searched for an object he would be able to use to defend himself with. Slowly but surely, he tiptoed his way to his bedroom door and allowed it to swing open just wide enough for him to see the rest of his apartment in full view, his brows falling into a puzzled v shape.

On his couch was a blonde haired woman, her beauty still preserved in her semi-comatose state as she slept softly.

Jay couldn’t help but let out a small laugh. So, he wasn’t imagining things, but it was suddenly very, very clear to him that he was under no threat — despite the fact that she had totally committed a felony by breaking into his apartment. Sighing lightly in relief, he scurried back to shove the baseball bad he had been holding in his hands back underneath his bed and pulled one of the blankets from his bed, draping it over his arm as he headed out to his living room where the woman was sleeping. Her eyes — though they were closed — looked slightly puffy as though she had been crying, leaving Jay to frown sadly; he had always been deeply empathetic — the sight of anybody else being sad tugged at his heartstrings every time.

Ensuring he was as quiet and gentle as he possibly could be, he threw the blanket hanging from his arm over the woman and lifted her head up ever so slightly to slide a pillow beneath it, the smell of alcohol helping him put the pieces together as he frowned yet again — he was sure she was going to be so confused and probably even a bit frightened when she eventually woke up in the morning. Racking his brain for an idea as to how he could soften the blow for the woman when she awoke from her peaceful slumber, he went over to where his makeshift office was and pulled a piece of paper and a pen from his drawer, jotting down a quick note and leaving it on the coffee table before retiring back to his bed for the night.

🍷🍷🍷🍷

As Hailey blinked her eyes open the next morning, three things happened one after another another like a chain reaction.

First was the realisation of everything that happened in the last twenty four hours. The breakup with her boyfriend, the whole 'drinking her body weight in whiskey’ situation, and the whole 'having to crash at Vanessa’s apartment’ thing. She groaned as (most) of her memories flooded back to her.

Next was the realisation that she actually wasn’t in Vanessa’s apartment at all. The walls weren’t the same shade of white as Vanessa’s were, the couch was a black leather rather than the bright red one that her best friend had, and she was sure that Vanessa hadn’t suddenly changed the entire layout of her apartment. Sitting up, she took in her surroundings with a sense of panic washing over her as she spotted the piece of paper sitting on the coffee table, addressed in a way that inadvertently bought a smile to her lips.

To the really pretty girl asleep on my couch,

I know you’re probably really freaked out right now, but let me explain.

My name is Jay, and when you read this I’m probably hiding in my bedroom so that I don’t scare you. But anyway, you picked my lock last night and crashed on my couch. I don’t know who you are but you looked kind of sad and I could tell you probably had a few drinks, so I just put a blanket over you to keep you warm and figured it was lucky you picked the lock of the guy who finds this kind of hilarious rather than the guy next door who either would have shot first and asked questions later or the guy downstairs who calls the cops every time someone knocks at his door.

If you want to come and say hi or whatever, just come knock on my door. I’ll be awake. Unless you’re up before 8am, which I figure is pretty unlikely.

Anyway.

If you want to come say hi, come to my bedroom door. If you want to escape and pretend this never happened, that’s cool too. Completely up to you.

I hope this isn’t creepy or anything. I just thought that you were probably safer here in my apartment than wandering the street during the night which is why I let you be.

Sincerely, Guy-who-is-trying-to-do-the-right-thing-here (also known as Jay).

Finally, the third thing happened. The regret and embarrassment came washing over Hailey like a wave as she fell back onto the pillow behind her head, gluing her eyes closed as she let out a huff. This could not be happening. It had to be a dream, right? How could so many unpleasant things happen in such a short amount of time?

Hailey was just about ready to get up and scurry out of the apartment with her tail between her legs when she glanced back down to the note that the owner of the apartment — Jay — had left her. He seemed like a nice guy, and it wouldn’t be fair to him if she didn’t at least offer up a thank you. The silence in the apartment echoed through her head, the tension on her side of the door evident as she carefully peeled the blanket off of her legs and folded it up neatly, placing it down on the end of the couch. Every move she made was methodically planned out and meticulously executed — for what, she didn’t know.

She had always been the brave one. The first one to step up to a challenge no matter how big or small, the first one to speak up and be completely unapologetic about it, too. It wasn’t at all like Hailey to be standing there the way she was, pacing back and forth slightly as her fingers drummed against her thigh, yet here she was. In a stranger’s apartment. After literally committing a crime while blind drunk and now having one of the worst hangovers she’s ever experienced (which, by the way, she was sure was only being worsened by the the previous facts).

Forcing herself to muster up the courage, Hailey marched herself over to the bedroom door and knocked twice, immediately feeling her heart drop as every inch of her body wanted to bolt. Still, she kept her feet planted on the spot as she and the man behind the door suddenly came face to face. Hailey felt the wind being knocked out of her, their eyes meeting at the same time that she attempted to force out a million words.

“I am so, so sorry,” she said quickly, not giving the man a chance to respond as he instead stared at her with a lopsided smirk. Hailey was so in her own head that she hadn’t even gotten the chance to appreciate how remarkably attractive the man was, instead jumping to her own explanation. “I was drunk and I thought this was my best friends apartment. I didn’t have anywhere else to go because my asshole ex-boyfriend has decided to claim the apartment that I pay rent on and I just collapsed on the couch and I am —“

“Okay, breathe,” Jay smirked lightly, finding amusement in the woman’s rambling. “You don’t need to apologise — it’s cool. How about we start with a name, huh? I’m Jay, but. . . you already know that.”

“Hailey,” the woman answered. “My name is Hailey. Although you can refer to me as idiot, felon, dumbass, or all of the above if you so wish.”

Jay chuckled lightly — she was funny. He hadn’t expected that, though he wasn’t sure why. “Thanks for the offer, but I’ll stick with Hailey.”

Hailey gave a halfhearted smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Anyway — I just wanted to say thank you. I’ll get out of your apartment now, and I swear you’ll never see me again or —“

“Wait, you don’t have to rush out if you don’t want to,” Jay’s words came off cooler than what they felt like for him. Internally he was screaming for her to stay, partly because she was even more beautiful now that she was awake and he just wanted to stare at her forever even though he knew absolutely nothing about her. She was intriguing — that lured the man in as if he was a sailor being called to an echoing siren, soft and smooth yet piercing too, all at the same time. “Do you want something to eat? What about some Advil, or I could drive you to your friend’s place — better yet I’ll go and kick your asshole ex out of the apartment.”

The blonde-haired woman chuckled lightly. “No, no, it’s okay. Would I. . . uh. . . would I be able to wash my face in your bathroom really quick, please? I won’t be long, I just — I normally take a shower in the mornings and —"

“Oh, you can totally take a shower!” Jay said incredulously, opening up his door wide enough for the girl to come into his bedroom as he pointed towards the ensuite bathroom a few steps away.

“I don’t have any clothes.”

“I can pull something out of the closet!”

Hailey smiled gratefully up at the man as she thanked him, heading to the bathroom as Jay laid out an oversized hoodie and a pair of track pants on the bed. Heading out to the kitchen, Jay figured starting on something resembling breakfast was a good idea, even if the very pretty girl in his apartment wasn’t going to have anything. The sound of the shower running in the background mixed in with the sizzling of eggs on the frypan that Jay had probably only used enough times for him to count on one hand as he stirred them around, grabbing out two plates before splitting what he had made in half.

With her perfect timing, just as Jay placed down the plate on a small table by one of the only windows in his apartment, Hailey reemerged from the bedroom. The hoodie he had left for her hung down to her knees and the sweatpants she had on were at least two sizes too big, but even with her dripping wet locks and bare face, she was just as beautiful as ever.

“I — uh — I made eggs.” Jay stumbled across his words as he gestured towards the plate. “I hope I’m not overstepping or anything. I just thought that since I was making some already for myself. . .”

“You’re not overstepping,” Hailey smiled gently, his hesitation bringing a chuckle to escape her lips. “I was just naked in your apartment — I feel like this is probably acceptable, regardless of how I got here. I learned how to pick locks when I was like, fourteen and let’s just say I’ve used it way more times than I care to admit.”

Jay let out a laugh as Hailey sat down, the two deciding to become acquainted with one another. She learned that he was a doctor for Veteran’s Affairs while she was a social worker working out of children’s services — she hadn’t exactly pegged him for the doctor type, what with his unbelievably good looks (that she was now able to appreciate) and all. Hailey listened intently as he told stories of his time overseas from when he himself had served, and although she could see the slight pain on his features as he recalled some of those memories, there was something about Hailey that allowed him to speak his mind to her without any inhibitions. He had never experienced anything like it.

Before they knew it, hours had passed. Hours of them spilling their guts about the most insignificant things that made up who each of them who they were. Hours spilling their guts about the tiniest details that neither of them would ever forget.

“Thank you again, Jay.” Hailey stood at the door, her clothes from the night before sitting in a plastic bag that Jay had offered the woman as they said their goodbyes. “You’re a really good guy. I’m glad I broke into your apartment.”

Jay couldn’t help but laugh, wiping his sweaty palms on his pants as his eyes cast downwards, nervous in anticipation. “I was thinking. . . “

“Mmm?”

“Uhm — Listen, Hailey . . .  I really had a good time talking to you over breakfast. Would you maybe — uh — you don’t have to say yes but — maybe you’d want to do it again? I know this pizza shop — Bartoli’s — they have the best deep dish in town.”

Hailey’s lips curled upwards — she thought he’d never ask.

“You know what, Jay? I think I’d like that. I think I’d like that a lot."

@lissethsrojas​ | @justanotheronechicagofan​ | @juu-series​ | @agnesgranberg97​ | @anna-justice​ | @puckluck28​ | @thetwit​ | @detective-buttercup​ 

thank you to @ruzek-halstead​ for editing and proofreading! 🥰

(i just used the tags from one of my other oneshots bc it’s usually the same people who wanna be tagged 🥰)

#chicago pd #one chicago #au #hailey upton #jay halstead #vanessa rojas #upstead

[elizabeethan]

Try Something New, Darling

Part 3/6 of my season 3 canon divergent series It’s About Bloody Time (AO3) 

Read part 2 (AO3)

Read on AO3

Summary: Emma Swan considers herself to be a fairly intelligent person. She was able to survive on the streets for years as a child and teenager. She was able to support herself after being released from jail at age 18. She sustained a prosperous job as a bail bondsperson. She had a nice apartment in Boston. She broke a damn curse and found her family. So yes, she considers herself to be a fairly intelligent person.

So why has she been acting so stupid?

Emma Swan considers herself to be a fairly intelligent person. She was able to survive on the streets for years as a child and teenager. She was able to support herself after being released from jail at age 18. She sustained a prosperous job as a bail bondsperson. She had a nice apartment in Boston. She broke a damn curse and found her family. So yes, she considers herself to be a fairly intelligent person.

So why has she been acting so stupid?

Early Friday morning after her birthday dinner, when she woke up feeling nauseous again and consequently ended up with her head in the toilet, she did consider going to the doctor. No bout of food poisoning should have lasted this long, and she never had a fever, so it probably wasn’t the flu. But when she opened up the cabinet under the sink to get the mouth wash and saw a box of tampons, it all came crashing down on her at once. The realization that she should have needed to use those very tampons over a week ago. The realization that she still doesn’t need to use them now.

Because guess what? When one takes a week-long trip to a magical realm and forgets to bring one’s birth control with them, one should then avoid having unprotected sex.

Absolutely stupid.

And so here she stands on this bright and sunny Monday morning, in the family planning aisle of the local drug store (please, as if this was planned), hoping to whatever god might be listening that Grumpy doesn’t see her and make one of his famous announcements to the whole town.

(She can picture it now. Terrible news! Terrible news! The Savior got knocked up by Captain Hook!)

Should she have done this sooner? Probably. But she chose instead to spend a week and a half after putting the pieces together hoping that she would miraculously get her period, and all this worrying would have been for naught. Now that her period is very late, she figures it’s probably time to take a test.

She finally opts for a two-pack so that she can remain in denial for a bit longer by taking the test again, then grabs a third just to be safe. False positives are a thing, right? Once she’s been rung out, as awkwardly as possible, she exits the store and shoves the box into the large bag she brought with her before she makes her way to Granny’s. If she’s going to pee on a stick three times in a row, she’ll need some fluids. And if she’s about to find out that she’s been knocked up, she’s going to need some comfort in the form of hot chocolate.

“Hey Emma!” Ruby calls from the kitchen when she arrives, hurrying out to meet her.

“Hi Rubes,” she responds, trying her hardest to plaster on a smile. She’s been chewing on her bottom lip so much lately that she thinks it cracks.

“Hot chocolate?”

“Please.”

“Want me to bring it over to Lover-Boy’s table?” she asks with a smirk, and Emma freezes before turning around in the direction Ruby was facing and sees Hook, dressed still in his modern wardrobe and sitting alone at a table nursing a coffee.

Shit. Not ready. Back up. Abort mission.

Of course, Ruby must have spoken too loudly, because Hook glances up and catches her gaze before shooting her an earth shattering, ovary exploding grin.

The very grin that she’s been evading for over a week now.

Rather than answering Ruby, Emma takes a deep breath and swallows the lump in her throat, then heads over to his table and takes a seat across from him.

“Hi,” she greets shakily.

“Morning love,” he responds, his smile faltering the slightest bit at the tone of her voice, but still successfully killing her from the inside out. “Finally feeling better today?”

Fuck, she thinks. Leave it to him to inadvertently guilt her for avoiding him. Not by accusing her of doing so, but by evidently understanding why she’s been so absent. Now is certainly an opening for her to tell him what’s going on, or what she suspects is going on. (Who is she kidding, though? There’s almost no doubt in her mind that she is currently carrying his child.) “Not that much,” she finally says.

His face falls, brows drawing close together and mouth sporting a perfectly kissable pout. “No? Have you been to the doctor?”

“Not yet.”

“Emma,” he starts seriously as he glances back down at his mug, but whatever he says doesn’t reach her ears. When she looks up, she sees Neal making his way into the diner from the inn and she freezes.

She’s still reeling from last week, and she’s been avoiding him too. The more she looks back on it, the worse she feels. How could she let him do that? She knows that she should’ve been strong enough to shove him away before it became what it did.

It shouldn’t have gotten so out of hand. Does she tell Killian that Neal technically kissed her? It’s not as if it could hardly even be considered a kiss, and it’s not like she kissed him back, but still. Doesn’t he have the right to know?

“Like now, for example,” she finally hears him say.

“Huh?”

“Precisely my point, love, I was just saying that you seem distracted. Emma, something is clearly bothering you. And whatever it is—”

“I’m fine.”

“—whatever it is,” he says more pointedly, “please just know that I’m… I’m here.”

She draws her brows together and finally meets his eyes with hers when Ruby sets her mug of hot chocolate down in front of her with a wink.

“Whatever it is, I’ll support you in any way that I can, however you’ll let me. You can tell me anything.”

Shit.

One glance into his deep blue eyes and she knows that he’s telling the truth.

“Killian…” she starts, sighing, reaching down for her mug and pulling it up to her nose.

While she may have had every intention of talking things through with him, or maybe asking if they can talk in private later, she takes one whiff of her favorite drink and knows that that isn’t going to happen.

Her eyes widen and her face must pale immediately. She feels her whole body start to shake and sweat as bile rises to her throat. She puts the mug down too urgently, sending the hot beverage sloshing over the sides, and stands with such force that the table is shoved towards him before she’s up and running to the lady’s room.

She bursts through the door and doesn’t even have the sense to lock it— in fact she’s lucky that it was unoccupied— before she’s over the toilet and heaving into it, despite her stomach being empty. She knows she should be trying to eat something in the morning, but she can’t stomach anything, and it doesn’t seem to make any sense anyway when she’s heaving up anything and everything less than an hour later.

Once she finally finishes evicting everything she’s ever eaten, she sits back against the wall and closes her eyes, taking in a few breaths before she opens them and reaches for some toilet paper to wipe her mouth and nose. It’s only once she starts blowing her nose that she notices Killian standing to her left behind the closed door.

“Fuck!” she jumps, accidentally blowing her nose with so much force that she can feel it in her eyes.

“Emma, what the bloody hell is going on?”

She slowly and unsteadily stands up and tosses the soiled tissue into the toilet before she quickly moves to flush it in hopes that he didn’t see its contents, then says, “I told you I’m fine.”

“But you’re clearly not fine, love. You’ve been avoiding me. And you couldn’t even smell your hot chocolate without being violently sick.”

“Please don’t say the word chocolate right now.”

“And it looks like the hot chocolate might’ve burned your hand.”

“Killian.”

“Emma.”

“I’ll go to the doctor,” she concedes as her stomach jumps. “I will. I just… I have to do something first.”

She’s never seen him look so worried and defeated. “What can I do?”

“Nothing, you’ve done enough,” she says snidely and then regrets it, knowing that it’s unfair of her to blame him. Afterall, she did tell him that she was taking a magical pill that would make it near impossible for him to impregnate her.

Turns out it only works like magic if she uses it. Curse her evidently insanely fertile self.

He sighs, “let me at least get you some water, love?”

She sighs, too, and a sea of familiar guilt washes over her. Finally, she quietly responds, “that would be nice, thank you.”

She knows that she needs to go to work soon anyway, so when he comes back, she chugs the water and hopes that it’ll go through her by the time she gets to the station.

~~~~

Emma Swan is pregnant. By accident. Again.

At least she’s on the other side of the cell this time around.

She took all three tests, and all three read positive; two produced that second pink line and one clearly read the word pregnant before the two-minute timers she set on her phone even went off. She doesn’t want to leave them in the trash can at the station for fear that someone may somehow find them, so they're sitting in her desk drawer. With her head laying on her crossed arms, she stares so hard that she practically burns a hole through the top of her desk above the drawer that contains them. So far today, she’s gotten exactly no work done.

“Make any headway on that paperwork?” her father asks ironically as he enters the office. She had asked if he could take on patrol so that she could get caught up.

“Kind of,” she answers quietly, fearful that her voice could give out at any second.

“Hey,” he starts, taking a seat at his desk across the room from her. “I wanted to talk to you about… about last Thursday.”

“What about last Thursday?” she asks, sitting up slightly and finally peeling her eyes away from the drawer of secrets.

“I wanted to… apologize. For the way I acted at your dinner. About… about Hook.”

She raises a brow in surprise, pursing her lips and nodding her head lightly. She supposes that this day actually canengender more surprises. “Wow,” she says simply.

“I know I may not be his biggest fan, but Snow and I talked, and we realized that it must be pretty helpful for you to have someone you consider to be a friend right now.”

She nods softly, considering this. “Yeah, it is.”

“I guess you can’t be sharing everything with Neal, huh?” he asks in jest. She draws her brows in now, confusion likely written all over her face. “Just a joke,” he chuckles. “Sometimes it’s hard to tell our significant others everything.”

Woah. She physically backs herself away from him. “Neal? Neal isn’t my boyfriend,” she’s cut off by the ringing phone, which David almost immediately answers, humming and nodding at the person on the other end.

“Another moose in the road,” he eventually says. “You wanna take this one?”

She huffs violently at her inability to fully correct her father but nods, needing to get out of the office and into the fresh air. She can also take the opportunity to go home and get some crackers. She gets up quickly and grabs her huge bag, opening the accursed drawer and using her own body to shield the image of her shoving in the positive tests from her father’s view.

~~~~

The moose found his way home without her help, so she heads back to the loft sooner than expected and finds Mary Margaret occupying it.

“Hi honey,” she says with a sweet smile from the kitchen.

Emma drops her uncharacteristically massive bag on a table by the door before calling back, “hi.”

“Want something to eat?” Emma nods and makes to turn around before her foot kicks into the leg of the table and sends her bag, along with its contents, flying to the floor.

All of its contents. Wallet, phone, keys, and three positive pregnancy tests.

“Whoops! Let me help you get—”

“No!”

She hears Mary Margaret gasp loudly before she shuts her eyes and shoves her hands over her face. She’s suddenly feeling nauseous due to anxiety rather than pregnancy, and she almost laughs at the irony.

“Emma, are you—” she doesn’t finish her thought. She doesn’t need to, because when Emma peeks out from behind her fingers, she sees Mary Margaret holding a test in her hand. The one that spells out the word pregnant, clear as day. “Oh, honey.”

Normally, if she wasn’t full of raging hormones, she would have handled the situation with grace and perhaps a bit of sarcasm. But alas, these are not normal times and she is, in fact, full of raging hormones. So, what does she do? Why, the only thing she seems capable of lately, aside from vomiting a peeing frequently. She starts to cry.

Of course.

She doesn’t move her hands away from her face because she immediately begins to feel the clenching around her heart, her throat practically closing and her eyes burning. Tears begin to fall immediately and she chokes out a sob.

Her mother’s disappointment was clear in her voice, and Emma can’t even think about what she’s doing before she sinks down to the floor, pathetically holding her middle.

“Emma!” she exclaims with a soft chuckle, suddenly in front of her and holding onto her elbows. “Emma, up off the floor! It’s alright, you don’t have to cry!” Emma can’t bear to hear what she has to say, because she knows that she’s being judged for getting pregnant by a man her parents hate.

“I—” she starts, but can’t finish, another sob wracking her body.

“Emma, it’s okay, this is a blessing! You two are going to make fabulous parents together. And Henry will be a big brother!”

“You think—” she chokes, “you think so?” She can’t imagine this to be true. Since when did Mary Margaret start to approve of Killian? Emma supposes she hasn’t been as discreet as she had hoped with all of her sneaking out, because apparently Mary Margaret knew all along.

“Oh sweetheart, I know so!” Emma nods, sniffling and wiping tears off of her cheeks. “Was it… planned?”

“Hell no,” Emma scoffs with a roll to her eyes. “None of this was. It all just sort of… happened.”

“When did it… start happening?”

“On the way back from Neverland,” Emma says softly, pathetically. Mary Margaret nods, a sneaky smile crossing her face.

“Well I just know that you two—” before she has a chance to finish, there’s a crash and a scream outside and she’s cut off.

“Ugh,” Emma exclaims, blowing her nose with a tissue that Mary Margaret had reached for. “I should check on that.”

“Just,” Mary Margaret starts, a worried look playing at her features. “I know you're the sheriff but please be careful. I’m assuming you haven’t been to the doctor yet?”

“No,” she shakes her head, “you're right. I’ll be careful.”

“And take some crackers, they’ll help settle your stomach.”

~~~~

She freezes when she steps outside. And then she laughs at her own little joke, because she’s standing on a narrow sheet of ice that leads in a trail down the street— in the first week of November. And while Maine is pretty cold, she doesn’t think it’s that cold.

She follows the trail down Main Street, sleeve of Saltines in hand, and thinks that it’s leading to the edge of town when she feels the earth tremble. When she looks out by the harbor, she notices a thick white wall rising erratically from the sea. So much for no emergencies in Storybrooke.

“Swan!” she hears, and she turns to see Hook running out of Granny’s towards. “Swan, you alright?”

“Yeah,” she says, turning to the harbor again. “Not sure what’s going on, but I’m assuming something’s happening around the town line.”

“Are you heading out there now?”

“Yeah.”

“Let me go with you?” he asks desperately.

“Killian…”

“Please Swan,” he starts, his eyes doing that thing again where he looks sadder than anyone she’s ever seen. “I just saw your father heading towards the Queen’s office. You need backup, let me help you.”

She rolls her eyes, but she’s also fighting off a smile. “You aren’t even on the force.”

“Make me an honorary deputy, then,” he says with a flirty smile.

“Stop watching westerns. How do you even have access to TV?” He shrugs and she rolls her eyes. “Fine, let’s go,” she responds in haste, turning back towards her Bug.

They spent the ride relatively quiet, and she’s glad that he doesn’t ask her again how she’s been feeling, but she knows she probably should’ve taken the opportunity to tell him what’s been going on. Then again, maybe driving into an unknown and potentially dangerous situation isn’t the best time to tell someone that they're about to be a father.

By the time they reach the town line, she can see the white wall standing tall and preventing anyone from leaving.

“What the hell?” she wonders out loud as she steps out of the car.

“My thoughts exactly, love.”

They walk around for a few minutes, taking in the scene and pretending they know what they're doing. The wall is at least 30 feet high and, while she has no idea how thick it could be, she knows it would likely be foolish to try and get through it.

Kicking a fallen piece of ice, she sighs. “I don’t know.” She tucks her hands into the pockets of her brown leather jacket and pulls it closed over her belly. It’s freezing over here by the wall of ice.

“Aye, love. Very mysterious.” Before she knows it, he’s next to her and looking up, squinting so she can just see a sliver of blue. “Guess I should’ve brought some champagne.”

She chokes on her own breath before looking up at him. “What?”

He smirks. “We have the world’s largest ice bucket here. And I was planning on asking you something.”

She freezes, turning to him and facing him head on. “What?”

“I wanted to ask you,” he starts, stepping closer to her and reaching his hand up to her face and brushing a piece of hair away. “If you would do me the honor of joining me for dinner.”

Wouldn’t it be ironic if she began vomiting right now?

She doesn’t. Although she does feel her heartbeat quicken and her body suddenly feels hot, especially in her stomach.

“Killian,” she says hesitantly.

“I know, I know.” He reaches down towards her collarbone and gently touches the chain around her neck, pulling the dangling diamonds out from beneath her shirt and smiling. “But I don’t think much needs to change between us, darling.” Boy, does he have another thing coming, she thinks. “And I know things are complicated with your family, but you did say that you would consider it, so maybe I just hoped to remind you to. I know what I want, love; I want you. I just hope I’ve made that clear and that you might feel the same way for me.”

And really, it’s not like she could’ve had any other response. He’s made a perfectly worded, perfectly timed speech, so of course her pregnant self starts crying.

“Oh, no love, please don’t cry. It’s alright,” he starts, wiping a tear away as his face falls. “If you—if you don’t want that with me, it's alright.” She thinks she hears his voice catching in the back of his throat and starts crying a bit harder, a sob escaping her lips. “If that’s why you’ve been distant…”

“No, Killian, it’s not that, I just… I do. I want that.”

“Aye?”

“Yeah,” she responds, and she sees his eyes lighting up. “It’s just that… well, there are things that… something happened, Killian, and I don’t know if you’ll feel the same way when you find out that—”

“Emma!”

No.

“Emma? Emma! What the hell?” Neal is shouting as he parks Mary Margaret’s station wagon and gets out. Wait, Mary Margaret’s station wagon?

“Neal?”

“Everyone, remain still!”

Everyone turns to the source of the new voice and jumps. Out of nowhere, a beautiful tall woman with a long blonde braid and an icy blue dress emerges from the ice wall.

Her presence certainly wasn’t very commanding, but she appears to be the one who put up the massive wall of ice around the entire town, based on the trail following her, so Emma figures it’s probably a good idea to listen to her.

“Hello,” Emma says cautiously with a sniffle, backing away slightly and closer to Killian.

“Emma, we need to talk.”

“Neal, does this look like a good time to you?” she snaps.

“Your mom told me.”

She falters, freezing in place again, and it really can’t be good for her body (or for the baby?) for her heart to be stopping and starting like this.

“What?”

“Everyone needs to halt immediately!”

“Emma, love,” Killian starts, and she turns to him with desperation in her eyes.

“She told me congratulations on the baby. Emma, what the hell is she talking about? If we did anything on your birthday, I was really drunk. You need to tell me if anything happened—”

“Baby?!”

“Neal!”

“Stop!”

Before she knows it, the ground is shaking again, and while she initially started to take a step towards Neal, possibly to beat him up, she’s now spun around. She’s heading towards the unpredictably enigmatic woman with her hands up as the terrain continues to shake. “It’s alright.”

“Stay back! Everyone be quiet! I need to find my sister!”

“Okay,” Emma says, taking another step. “We’ll help you.”

“Emma, come back, love!”

“It’s okay,” she starts to say again, but the earth is shaking harder and suddenly she’s being knocked to the ground as another wall is upraised around her.

~~~~

Emma doesn’t quite fall unconscious, but she thinks she might have come close. Her ears are ringing and her head is pounding, but she’s finally starting to see things clearly around her. She’s definitely inside some kind of ice cave, and as if that wasn’t apparent enough already, she starts to shiver. A leather jacket with some leggings is certainly not an ideal outfit for this kind of sudden and unexpected weather change.

She pulls the jacket tightly around her belly again, hoping that she can maybe protect the baby from the cold. Looking around, she sees the woman standing a few feet from her, looking somewhere between angry and scared. “Hello,” Emma starts. “What’s your name?”

The woman startles at the sound of her voice and makes eye contact, and Emma is certain that she can see fear in them. “Elsa,” she answers firmly.

“Elsa, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Emma.” The woman nods brusquely before spinning around nervously. “I just found out today that I’m pregnant.” It dawns on her that the first time she utters the words out loud is to a stranger who could very easily kill her.

Elsa turns back towards Emma, the anger and resolve in her face evaporating completely. “You did?”

“Yes. But the father doesn’t know. Or, I guess he kind of just found out. But I’d really like the opportunity to tell him myself.”

She nods again, her hands ringing together. She’s clearly scared and nervous, and whatever she built the ice wall for was just an act to show them that she’s powerful. “The man in the dark clothes?”

Emma smiles at her and nods, though she’s starting to shiver harder. “That’s the one.”

“Well then what was the other man doing? He seemed angry.”

Emma sighs and rolls her eyes but lets out a chuckle. “He is. He and I were together 12 years ago, and he doesn’t seem to understand that it’s over.”

Elsa rolls her eyes as well. “Most men don’t seem to understand much.” Emma lets out a snort and nods in agreement as her teeth begin to chatter. “My sister was supposed to be getting married. Her betrothed and your husband seem very similar in their nobility.”

“Oh,” Emma says in surprise. “Hook isn’t my husband.”

“Oh, sorry. Well, either way, he clearly loves you.”

Rather than answer her, Emma shoves the thought as deep as she can and chuckles nervously, changing the subject completely. “You said you were looking for your sister?”

“Yes.” The tenacity is back.

“Well, I’m the sheriff here. That means I have resources that can help you. I just need to get out of here first. It seems like you may have trapped us in here by accident, but do you think you can let us out?”

She stills and appears to think Emma’s offer over. “You can really help me find Anna?”

“I’ll do whatever I can.” She certainly can’t guarantee anything, but she’s starting to like this Elsa, in a weird, possibly Stockholm Syndrome type of way.

“Alright, stand back.”

When Emma focuses back on the wall, she can hear shouting. She can only imagine what a mess Neal must have made by now.

Elsa seems to focus too, and there’s suddenly a loud buzzing hum and a forceful light coming from her hands as she points them towards the wall. A hole big enough for Emma to crawl through forms quickly, and she can hear the shouting grow louder.

“Emma!” she hears Killian call, and she walks towards the hole and crouches down before starting to crawl to the other side. He’s crouching too, and once she reaches the outside, she takes his hand and falls into his hold. He breathes out a sigh of relief, as does she, and helps her into a standing position and holds her body tightly to his. She feels warmer already.

“Are you alright, love?” he asks into her neck, and she closes her eyes and reaches her hand up to his hair and nods. “I was so worried.”

“I’m alright,” she says back quietly, taking time to steady her breathing and warm up against his body heat.

He notes that she’s still shivering— she’s surprised that her teeth haven’t cracked from the force of their chattering— so he steps away from her slightly and he removes his own jacket and places it around her shoulders, rubbing up and down her left arm. His eyes meet hers intently and she smiles.

“It would seem—”

“Emma, you okay?”

She groans. Looking past Killian, Emma sees Neal looking both furious and worried at the same time. Killian’s hand slides from her arm, but she catches it in hers before he can remove it from her.

“I’m fine. I’m gonna go to the doctor.”

“Let me take you,” Neal says in a commanding tone.

“No, Killian’s taking me.”

“I am?”

“Yes.”

“But Emma, you and I need to talk.”

“You're right, Neal, we do. I’ll start. I really don’t appreciate you coming over here and screaming about things that have nothing to do with you. Nothing happened on my birthday, unless you count the fact that you basically assaulted me. And even if anything did happen, that was a week ago. Do you even know how reproduction works?” His face is priceless, and she feels a sense of relief wash over her as she finally stands up for herself. “I can’t believe that you came out here and announced my pregnancy before I had a chance to,” she mutters. She feels Killian’s hand tighten around hers for a second before he lets it fall, and when she turns to him, his face is blank. “Killian, I’d like it if you and I could talk in private,” she says to him more softly. “Neal, don’t talk to my mom about this.”

~~~~

The car is completely silent for a few minutes once Emma starts driving. She fights the urge to glance over at Killian several times before she finally gives in, and she immediately wishes she hadn’t. In the second she’s able to look at him, she’s met with his anger and frustration that she knows must be rooted in the regret he feels. She knows this must be difficult for him to process, and now she’s dragging him along with her to see a doctor. She doesn’t even know if he’ll want to be in this baby’s life, so she’s realizing that it’s selfish of her to force him along.

The truth is, she never really thought of her other options. She knows that, realistically, she doesn’t have to have this baby. But the thought to abort or abandon it never crossed her mind. She can’t do to this baby what she did to Henry.

Killian doesn’t have to worry about that, thought.

“Killian—” she starts, but it’s as if the sound of her voice elicits something in him.

“What did he do to you?” he asks. His voice is so low and dark that it makes her feel nervous.

“What?” She looks over again and sees that he’s staring straight ahead at the changing leaves.  

“On your birthday. You said he assaulted you.”

“Oh,” she says, nodding, her feelings of compunction growing stronger in the pit of her stomach. “It’s not really a big deal, I was being dramatic. He was drunk. He grabbed me and then he knocked us over onto his bed and tried to kiss me. But it was only a second, Killian. I didn’t do anything with him, I swear.” He’s quiet for a second, and it’s the longest second of her life.

“Fuck, Emma, what the hell?” He’s looking at her now, and in the brief second that she glances at him, she sees fire in his eyes.

“I’m sorry. But nothing happened, I promise. He just tried to kiss me for a second and I pushed him away.” Her palms are sweating on the steering wheel and her heart is hammering in her chest, her stomach twisted and her head pounding.

“I’m not mad at you, love. He attacked you! How are you so equable over this?”

“It’s like I said, nothing happened. I pushed him, probably bruised a kidney, and I got the hell out of there. I didn’t do anything with him.”

“I don’t care about that, Emma. I’m not mad because I think you did something with him. I can’t believe that you were put in a position where you had to defend yourself like that! And against him!”

“What do you mean?” she asks hesitantly as she pulls into the lot of the hospital and parks her car.

“I mean… I mean he’s the father of your child and he’s behaving in such a predatory way towards you that you felt that you needed to bruise his kidney and flee.” She’s silent. She knows now that he’s angrier with Neal than he is with her, but he sounds so livid that it sort of feels like she’s being scolded.

“I’m sorry,” she finally says quietly, because she honestly doesn’t know what else to say to placate him.

“Please don’t say that, love,” he asks, more like begs, as he finally turns away from the scene ahead of him and looks at her. “I’m sorry that I made you feel like you need to apologize. You don’t, darling, truly.” He takes a deep breath before continuing. “But do you know… fuck. Do you know how many thoughts ran through my head in the ten minutes that you were in that cave?” She knows that he’s asking hypothetically, but she shakes her head anyway. “I’ve never been so scared in my entire life.”

“That can’t be true,” she scoffs. He’s been alive for centuries; she knows he must have felt scared before.

“Of course it is, Emma.” He turns away, his face hardened and his brows drawn together. “Within a span of thirty seconds I find out that you're pregnant and that it might be Neal’s, then you disappear into an ice cave and I have no way to get to you.”

“It’s not,” she starts immediately, stunned by his statement. “It’s not Neal’s.”

He turns again, and she realizes now that she hasn’t actually said the words to him. She hasn’t really had much of a chance to say them out loud at all.

“Emma,” he says, his tone begging again, and it causes her heart to clench so hard that her fingers start to tingle.

“I’m pregnant.” His face nearly crumbles, his brows drawing close together while somehow still looking more worried than she’s ever seen him. “You’re the only person I’ve been with—I mean, you're the only person I want to be with. The baby… it’s… you're the father, Killian.”

He doesn’t say anything, and she thinks she may have done the impossible and stunned Killian Jones into silence. He reaches across himself and picks up her left hand in his right and draws it up to his mouth, pressing his lips to it firmly and keeping them there. She can feel his breath coming out quickly and forcefully, as if he has to remind himself to breathe, and it feels like he’s seconds away from breaking down.

“I realize that this is a lot to take in, and we’ve never had a conversation about whether you're even staying in Storybrooke.” She has to push the words out of her mouth, knowing that they need to be said. “But, if you don’t want to be in his life, then I’m giving you an out.”

“What?” he chokes out. She didn’t think she could watch his face fall any further.

“If you want out, just say the words. I know this wasn’t the plan for us.” He scoffs and her heart drops to her stomach, but she holds herself together in preparation for his words.

“If you think I’m going anywhere without you and this baby, then you are absolutely mad.”

“Really?” she asks tentatively, looking up from their hands to meet his eyes.

“Aye,” he breathes out. “I’m sorry, love, if I’ve ever given you the impression that I would abandon you like that. I was planning on staying here as long as you would have me anyway, before all of this.”

“You were?”

He smiles at her, the kind of smile that she sees in her dreams, and nods. “Did you say his?”

She smiles a bit, too, and nods back. “I don’t know the sex yet, it’s too early. But I’ve always seen myself as a boy mom.” He breathes out a laugh now.

“Mom,” he repeats, squeezing her hand and kissing it softly.

“Dad,” she teases back, and she smiles because now she’s affording herself the privilege of imagining him with a little bundle in his arms.

“You were in that frozen cave for a bit. We should get you checked, aye, love?”

“Aye,” she responds, and he chuckles and kisses her hand again.

~~~~

When they're finally called in, after mountains of paperwork and questions and what feels like hours of waiting, Emma lies down on the exam table while Killian sits stiffly on the chair near her head.

“Bet this isn’t where you thought you’d end up when you woke up this morning,” she jokes, and he lets out a huff in response.

“Certainly not, Swan. You are full of surprises, aren’t you?”

“Mhmm,” she hums, patting her belly lightly. He glances down at her hand covering her belly and she wonders if this is all becoming too real for him, because it certainly is for her. She tries to force away the lingering thoughts that he could still leave them, knowing that the thoughts are born from her own experiences and are not based on his actions so far.

The technician comes in a few moments later and gets Emma ready for her ultrasound. She explains that it’s probably a bit early for an abdominal sonogram, and Killian’s eyes bug out of his head when she prepares for the transvaginal scan. Emma lets out a snort and takes his hand in hers without asking. He squeezes back.

After a few moments of searching and measuring, the technician finally settles in one spot and gestures towards the screen at the black and white mess. She presses a few buttons and takes a few more measurements, then says, “there’s your baby!”

Killian turns immediately, staring over to the screen with a pensive look on his face. The technician points out the head, making mention of the crown rump length and how it indicates that she’s measuring at just under 7 weeks.

All Emma can see is a gray blob within another black blob, that lives inside another gray blob. She’s never felt such an emotional connection to a blob, and she notes how differently she feels this time around.

When she hears the heartbeat, a quick and hardy whoosh taking over the quiet room, she nearly loses it.

Her eyes are stinging when she looks at their baby on the screen and hears the powerful heartbeat, but she starts crying when she glances over at Killian and sees that he has tears running down his own cheeks.

“Your baby is about the size of a blueberry,” the technician says, holding up two fingers to demonstrate just how tiny the blob is. Emma nods, wiping a tear away, then looks back to Killian and squeezes his hand again.

He lets out a tear-sodden laugh and squeezes back, then reaches their hands up so he can wipe tears away. “I can’t believe how much that little bugger has aged me already.”

Emma laughs now too, using her free hand to wipe her own cheeks, and the technician smiles up at them. She prints a few pictures off and tells them that everything looks good, and that the doctor will be in to talk to them shortly.

When Emma’s new obstetrician, Dr. Morgan, enters the room, she greets them happily and congratulates them on their good news. She explains that the baby appears healthy despite Emma’s earlier misadventures and her taking birth control before she found out, and gives them a due date— June 16th, a summer baby.

They’re walking hand in hand out to the car, and they’re both wearing the biggest, goofiest smiles that they can muster. By the time they get back to the car, though, she starts to feel like she’s returning to real life.

“I know that this is a lot,” she starts as he takes her hand again, “and the baby was certainly a surprise, but he’s not a mistake. I haven’t known for very long and I was feeling really dreadful, but now that I’ve seen him… I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anything more in my life.”

“Aye,” he breathes again. “I understand what you mean. As soon as Baelfire said baby, I felt like my life changed all at once. I didn’t even know if it was mine or his, but I didn’t care. And now that I know, I realize that I’ve never felt… I just… I love him. Or her. It seems completely mad, but I love him.”

She nearly cries again at the sound of his voice choking and at his own words, but she nods instead, understanding completely how instantly he must have fallen in love with the tiny embryo she’s growing because that’s exactly what happened to her. “It isn’t mad.”

He moves her hand up to his forehead and leans against it for a moment, as if taking space to process things for himself, before he lifts his head and meets her eyes with his.

“Killian,” she says once she has her hand back and is able to start the engine.

“Aye, darling?”

“My mom…” Killian stares up at her expectantly, and he clearly has no idea what she’s talking about as she’s changed the subject. “She thinks it’s Neal’s. I think she might know that I’ve been sneaking out at night, but she must think I’ve been going to see him.”

“I see,” he starts, nodding his head pensively and pinching his bottom lip between two fingers in a way that drives her mad. “What shall we do?”

She hums, considering this. “I think I’m gonna go talk to her. And I think you might need to do some planning.”

“Planning for what love? Surely, we have enough time before the blueberry arrives,” he says with a nervous chuckle.

“Not for that,” she responds with a grin. “For dinner. That is, if you still want to go to dinner?”

His face splits into another grin so bright and vivid that she feels her stomach clench, his eyes squinting and his pearly teeth shining in the sunlight. “The day I answer no to that question is the day I’ve lost my mind.”

She hums out a small laugh and says, “good. And don’t change. I forgot to tell you how much I like your new look.”

~~~~

Arriving at home after dropping Killian off at the docks feels strange. She sits in her car for a few minutes in an attempt to ready herself for confrontation until she has to pee so badly that she needs to go upstairs.

“Emma, hi,” Mary Margaret starts once she emerges from the bathroom.

“Hi,” she says back.

“Neal… well he stopped by and told me that you went to the doctor.” Apparently, she doesn’t need to dance around this.

“Did he?” Mary Margaret nods, and Emma can tell by the look on her face that she has more to say but she’s holding back. “Did he say anything else?”

“He told me I should talk to you. He seemed… angry. Emma, if you told him and he reacted badly—”

“Neal isn’t the father.”

It would appear, based on her facial expression, that Mary Margaret was expecting to hear absolutely anything else come out of Emma’s mouth. She actually stands before Emma with her mouth hanging open and her eyes bugging out as if this was the most phenomenal news she’s ever heard in her life.

Which can’t conceivably be true. She’s literally Snow White. She was cursed by the Evil Queen and didn’t age for 28 years. She sent her minutes-old infant through a portal using a magic tree. This cannot possibly be that surprising.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

She’s still standing there like a trout with her mouth hanging open before she must realize what she’s doing and snaps it shut. Emma follows her with her eyes as she moves towards the kitchen and pulls out another sleeve of Saltines, apparently the only thing she can eat this week, before sitting at the counter, waiting for her mother to break herself out of her shock.

“I thought… Emma, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything to Neal. I thought he was…”

“I should’ve been clearer. Although I thought that I have been clear for the last few weeks that I'm not interested in him and that we aren’t together.”

“No, Emma, I overstepped. I shouldn’t have gone to him about it at all. When he came here and I said congratulations to him, I knew right away that it was a mistake because I could tell that you hadn’t told him. Now… well, now I know why.”

“He came here?”

“He came looking for you. I assumed it was about the crash we heard.”

Emma nods in understanding. Mary Margaret has pulled herself together a bit and takes a seat in the stool next to Emma. “So, when he started freaking out, you let him borrow your car to come see me.”

“Right.” She nods again. “I’m so sorry, honey. I never should have said anything. I was just so excited for you, and when I thought that Henry was going to have a little brother or sister—”

“Henry is going to have a little brother or sister. Just because they don’t have the same dad doesn’t make that any less true.”

“You're right,” her mother sighs. “Of course, you're right. I’m sorry, this is all just a lot of information for one day.”

“For me, too,” Emma agrees. Then she reaches into her pocket and smiles when she feels the glossy paper, pulling out the sonogram pictures. “Wanna see him?”

“Him?” she questions, taking the photo and grinning. She reaches one hand up and places a gentle finger over her blueberry sized blob.

“I don’t know yet, that’s just what we’ve been saying,” Emma says with a grin, looking down at the new picture her mother flips to.

“Wait,” Mary Margaret says, resting the photos on the counter and looking up to meet Emma’s eyes with her matching ones. “If Neal isn’t the father, who is?”

It’s Emma’s turn to drop her jaw in shock, surprised that her mother isn’t able to put the pieces together. “Seriously? It’s Killian.”

“Ki—Hook?!”

“Yeah, Hook. And if you say anything negative about the father of my child—”

“No, no, that’s… I mean… it certainly is a shock… but…”

Emma rolls her eyes now, shoving another cracker into her mouth before getting up for some water. “Is it though? I know we haven’t been that secretive. I’ve been out, like, three nights a week.”

“I know,” she says, confirming Emma’s suspicions that she’s known all along. “I just thought you were going to Granny’s. I didn’t realize you were going to the pier instead. But are you… are you sure about him?”

Emma sits again as she considers her answer to this question carefully. A big part of her is telling her that it hasn’t been long enough to know. However, while she wouldn’t admit it out loud, and while she’s anxious to even admit it to herself, a much smaller part of her knows that yes, she is sure about him. Seeing his reaction to seeing their baby for the first time, to hearing the strong heartbeat, solidified that knowledge into her brain. So she looks over to her mother and smiles, nodding confidently.

Their conversation comes to a halt when David arrives at home, towing Elsa behind him. Emma’s somewhat surprised to see her, but assumes that she and David got to talking and he decided to take her in.

He greets his wife and daughter with kisses to their heads, then turns to Emma with a look that she’s grown all too familiar with: concern.

“Neal dropped Elsa off at the station and she told me all about her sister. She also told me that you two went to the doctor because you got trapped in an… ice cave? Are you alright?”

“Oh, no David, Neal wasn’t the one she went to the doctor with. It was her—”

“Dad,” Emma jumps in immediately, fearful that Elsa may say something that Emma would regret. “I’m fine. I went to the doctor and everything is fine.”

“Did you figure out why you’ve been so sick lately? Weird that none of us has caught it yet, isn’t it?”

“Not as weird as you may think,” Mary Margaret says to him with a smirk shot Emma’s way. “Maybe you should sit down.”

Emma takes the sonogram pictures back from her mother and walks over to the couch, sitting down next to David as Elsa introduces herself to Mary Margaret and heads into the kitchen area with her. When Emma produces the photos and hands them to her father, she can see the shock in his eyes as they immediately glass over and a tear runs down his cheek.

“Really?” he asks, his voice thick with emotion. Emma nods at him, a smile gracing her features as a fresh set of tears make their way into her eyes as well. He lets out a deep breath, running a finger along the blob in the photo the same way her mother did.

“I’m seven weeks along.” He lets out another breath, this one coalescing itself with a chuckle.

He finally looks up and meets her eyes before he says, “Congratulations, Emma.”

“Thank you,” she says back, wiping her cheeks.

“You and Hook must be very happy.” Her face drops in shock, her brows coming together and her mouth snapping shut before she cocks her head to one side. “I started to put the pieces together a bit ago, but this morning when I saw your face light up when I mentioned him, and then when you practically jumped down my throat for calling Neal your significant other, I figured it out. Wasn’t expecting that you two would be… well, expecting, though.”

It’s Emma’s turn to let out a hearty chuckle followed immediately by a sniffle. “How come you figured it out and mom couldn’t?”

“I guess sometimes your dad just knows best,” he responds, grinning at her and wrapping an arm around her shoulders, pulling her into a tight hug which she returns fervently.

~~~~

The week that passes sees Emma more nauseous and exhausted than she’s ever been. She remembers being pregnant with Henry quite well, and she never experienced symptoms this strongly, but she supposes that’s because her body was 12 years younger.

Her date with Killian went beautifully. He took her to a nice Italian restaurant, stating that he wasn’t sure what she could stomach, but he knew she could handle the bread. She was just happy that it was something other than Granny’s.

After dinner, Emma asked him to take her back to the Jolly Roger, citing that she can’t get the image of his ass in his tight black jeans out of her head and it’s driving her mad with lust. He chokes on his last sip of water and flags the server down immediately.

On their walk back to the pier, with her bundled in her winter parka and Killian comfortably sporting his modern leather jacket, she could feel the nerves that were radiating off of him and wondered how her pregnancy might change their sex life. They were very active before she found out, after all. She realizes, though, that it’s already made adjustments here and there in that she spent a week avoiding him, during which she was far too nauseous to even consider any vigorous physical activity.

On this night, she felt confident enough in her ability to keep down her bland dinner of penne with butter and dinner rolls, but when they finally arrived on his ship and he nervously helped her down the stairs and onto his bunk, she was asleep before he even had a chance to light a few candles.

She hasn’t heard from Neal, but Henry has been to Granny’s for dinner with him. He’s asked her to come along, and it nearly crushes her to tell her son that she isn’t coming each time, but she can’t stomach the thought of being in the same room as his father. She’s hoping that someday soon she can get past her resentment towards him, but for now, she needs to take space away from him so that she can move on.

She still hasn’t told her parents about what happened all those years ago. She knows that both of them, particularly her mother, are struggling to see the logic behind her choosing Hook over Neal, but she hasn’t found the time or desire to fill them in. And although her mother says she’s fine with the concept of Killian fathering her child, she can tell by the way she looks at and talks to her that she feels uneasy.

So here she finds herself, on a Friday evening laying in her bed at the top of the loft after a long nap— a follow up to a violent vomiting spell— listening in on her parents’ not-so-discreet conversation.

“I’m pleasantly surprised,” she hears her father say from the kitchen. “Although I was expecting the worst. I almost thought she was going to be on her own.”

“He still has plenty of time to leave her on her own, David,” her mother deadpans in response.

“I know, but I don’t honestly see that happening. And if it does, she’ll have us, and I’ll have another excuse to punch him in the face.” Emma finds herself smiling softly at her father’s words, whereas last week they may have drawn her from bed and straight down the stairs to give him a piece of her mind. But she knows now that he’s right.

Killian hasn’t given her any indication that he isn’t all in on this with her, even if things don’t work out between the two of them. He’s taken to reading pregnancy books, and on Tuesday, when she reached 8 weeks of gestation, he happily informed her that their blueberry has grown into a raspberry. She may eventually introduce him to the world of smart phones so that he can download all the tracker apps he wants.

“You're right, you're right. I don’t know why I’m having such a hard time with this.”

“She’s our daughter. No one will ever be good enough for her.”

“I know, but I just felt like Neal was enough. He was her first love… I guess I just thought the two of them would work things out eventually. I know he wasn’t there for her, but he didn’t know about Henry. Maybe if he knew, things would’ve turned out differently.”

Emma rolls her eyes but knows that it isn’t fair of her to be angry with her mother for thinking this way when she knows she has no idea about what actually happened with Neal.

“You have to let that go, Snow. You can’t change what’s already happened. And not everyone can be as lucky as we were.”

“I’m just having trouble trusting Hook. Trusting that he has her best interests in mind.”

“Well, maybe it’s time you choose to trust Emma. She’s a tough kid, has been all her life. She knows how to take care of herself. And she seems to trust him.”

“I know, you're right. I do trust her. And if she trusts him…”

Emma thinks about getting up now, but when she tries to move, she feels exhaustion taking over her again. So instead, she makes a mental note to finally talk to her parents before drifting off into another seemingly endless nap.

@courtorderedcake @kmomof4 @stahlop @klynn-stormz @laschatzi @emelizabeth88 @lfh1226-linda @kday426 @profdanglaisstuff @elisethewritingbeast @timeless-love-story @captain-emmajones

#try something new darling #it's about bloody time #because you want me #once upon a time fanfiction #once upon a time #captain swan #captain swan fanfic #cs ff #canon divergence #fluff #angst #snow white #mary margaret blanchard #david nolan #prince charming #neal cassidy #baelfire

[snowdropsandtigers]

Post-Season One Rewatch Miscellany

Okay I think details are already fading even though I finished in three days, so let’s try to get some thoughts down.

- Vic’s initial coping mechanism is art. After that scares her father, and with her meeting with Manx looming ahead, that’s when she chooses to cope via drinking to forget. Later on, it’s similar; she’s helpless to do anything when she thinks her only way to fight is gone, so she turns to drinking and stops trying to make her family relationships okay. She doesn’t cope well with being helpless, and the drastically worse situation she’s in when Manx becomes aware of her existence pushes her into the things she was trying to avoid. It’s also something she can do with Craig, who she always valued, but earlier thought of as too busy with weed for her. He’s her only real, unconditional support at the time, as she’s become more isolated due to her family crumbling and her boyfriend inadvertently pushing her away.

- On that note; normally I get at least a little unhappy when you have a story in which the main girl doesn’t want someone who’s pining for her and then realizes he’s great, and on my initial watch it did surprise me a little. This time around I still feel a little pang over Drew, mostly over how it foreshadows what she’ll lose later, but I really do like how there’s no judgment in any of it. There’s nothing to say she needed to choose differently at the start, or that she should be judged based on her ability to select a man. She just wanted to be with someone who was there for her at the right time, who she valued, and who wouldn’t abandon her the way everyone else had one way or another. Also, he was a genuinely nice guy who never gave her a hard time over his feelings. I felt for him all right during my first watch, but now I really like him in much the same way as I really like Lou.

- It’s just so awful to watch Vic’s hopes and dreams crumble throughout the season. She tried so hard for everyone that in the end she couldn’t see herself following up on that for her own sake. Of course she didn’t feel like she could go to art school, given the responsibility she felt she had already failed in to protect people, and the baby that was all she had left of her best friend. She didn’t feel like the same person who wanted to go, and she’d feel like the person she was trying to escape becoming—a disappointment to her loved ones (Craig in not saving him), and pregnant before she could find a life of her own. All of that would build up over the years until by next season, unable to find and save kids from Christmasland for years, she feels she’s just as ruined and hopeless as Charlie says she is.

- Relatedly, as on my first watch, I continue to appreciate the irony in how much Charlie ruins and damages what he claims to love and want to protect. He destroyed families and stole children’s futures, and we watch him traumatize Vic long before he decides he’s going to hurt her. We watch him watch her suffering over Maggie and it doesn’t get through to him whatsoever, anymore than Jolene could get through when she actually tried. We watch an episode where Bing, who he hires to hurt people, abducts and sexually assaults her while Charlie discusses her purity with a guy who, even with his own misogyny, seems more clearheaded in his lack of a madonna/whore complex. (Sure, he didn’t ask for that to happen, but that’s the kind of thing he did encourage Bing to do, and he even validates it later. It’s a natural consequence of his words and actions.) Given everything in the season, it looks like Vic would have been well on her way to escaping Haverhill like she wanted, without having ever tasted alcohol or weed first, if not for his effect on her life. It may not be a certainty, and of course none of that made her a bad person like he said, but he did definitely push her in that direction at an important turning point in her life. I haven’t gotten that far into the book, but I keep remembering the line “what Charlie Manx couldn’t do, she did to herself.” (Or something almost exactly that.) This holds true for the show, and it’s also so true of the man himself. We see that with him and Jolene too, with her desperately wanting to believe in him, him being unable to give her a reason to, and the way he doubled down on it by trying to kill her right after. We’ll see more of that in season two. There are immensely sympathetic reasons for him to be messed up and do the wrong thing , just as with Vic,* but we can also see how his opportunities to have the things he wanted become lost, as with her. I love how he and Vic are narrative foils in this story about both how suffering can inform you and limit your choices—taking into account that limits which “only” exist in your head are still very real—and how your choices are your own. It’s very satisfying to me. A good pair of foils is just…neat.

- Speaking of! Vic has so many foils. Her father, her mother, as a parent. Her own son as the victim Charlie does successfully (if temporarily) take away, where he failed with her. Maggie, as the girl who was hunting Charlie before Vic wanted to, and the girl who wants to try for a normal life just when Vic is newly determined and desperate to hunt him with her. Jolene, who got to meet him before he showed himself as who he chose to be and had to do the hunting on her own. Bing, who we meet as someone who shares her desire to escape his current life circumstances. And Millie. The other daddy’s girl. All throughout the season we watch Vic lose faith in her father, and I couldn’t help thinking, when the calls from Christmasland started, of how Millie would go through the same thing next season. They barely interact and they don’t have a relationship, but I am absolutely fascinated by the fact that Millie goes down a similar path, that her own connection to her mother got her calling on Vic for help and gave Vic help in return, and that she must be feeling some things about how her father let her walk into the world alone, but also what she did led to his death. Not wholly unlike how at the same time, Vic is still disillusioned with her own father and watches him be murdered before she can offer him forgiveness or the hope of reconciliation. That is a wonderful mess of feeling and potential narrative fodder.

- When I heard this wasn’t getting renewed, I tried to look on the bright side. At least it wouldn’t get awful, which it still had the potential to do, and it could remain a story I loved. But damn, I rarely vibe with a show the way I do with this one; not even with shows I love do I tend to feel as on the same wavelength as I felt with NOS4A2. So many other things have gotten renewed that are less good, that don’t try to do as much with their characters, or that I just plain don’t care about as much. Whether or not things would’ve gone badly in the end, this show deserved the chance to keep trying. It’s hard to explain, but as a whole it felt unique, unlike much of the television I’ve seen over the years. The show it reminds me the most of is Buffy; mainly in their protagonists, which is the thing I love best about both shows, but also the blend of the personal and the supernatural, the grounding of the supernatural in real life. (After making this observation on my own when watching the first time, I discovered that Vic’s original creator, Joe Hill, said he thought of her as a Buffy in a different time of her life. I love finding connections between my favorite stories, but finding that it was also a connection the writer was making, and the influence is there, was very pleasing.) But it’s very much its own thing. I would’ve loved to see more of it. In the unlikely event that someone has gotten this far and not seen it because it was cancelled, or left it unfinished for the same reason—I’ve seen a couple say that over the last six months or so—I’d encourage you to not let that be a factor! It’s very complete as it is, and rewarding in how it unites characters with themes. I could’ve done with so much more of it.

*I truly appreciate how sympathetic this show is with everyone. Everyone. Every major character is framed as someone to feel empathy for at one point or another, and this is true for most, if not all, of the minor characters too, if I remember this right. We’re asked to carry that empathy when we look at them, when we look at the story as a whole. This show is so stressful and yet so kind, so empathetic. In my opinion, it is so stressful in part because it’s kind and empathetic, because you feel so much for the people who are suffering. I could feel that, and that’s part of my love for it.

#nos4a2 #text post #text #I just love it so much #😭 #meta #my meta #I guess #this isn’t supposed to be some formal thing. It’s just my personal blog about my feelings and thoughts that you can read because I want to #BTVS #buffy summers #buffy the vampire slayer #buffy #not very present but she does show up and that connection does matter to me #I really hope this shows up well because as if this week I have no laptop and had to post it on my phone

[anime-imagine-headcanons]

5000 Word Commission Omegaverse!Greedling

Hi y’all! Soooo, this is why I haven’t really been active on Tumblr! And I wanted y’all to see the kinda stuff I can write when I’m getting paid for it! So! Here it is! Commissioned by someone who wishes to remain anonymous! Here it is! The porn that made me tired to write lmao I’ve changed somethings so it will be better for y’all to read, Greedling/GN Reader!

Ling’s thoughts are italicized! 

Greed’s thoughts are italicized and bold!

You wer always trying to keep your head in the game, focused on your ambitions and struggling to keep your emotions under control. But it was kind of difficult, considering one of your closest friends was an incredible alpha with an intoxicating scent to boot. It was getting especially annoying since they couldn’t even find a comfortable area to set up camp. And with the Promised Day arriving? Fucking forget about finding anywhere even remotely safe.

With a tilt of his head, Greed glanced over at you, a brow raised in slight question. You were getting snappy, angry, curt with him. Even though that’s kind of how you acted anyways. He rolls his eyes and continues his walk with Heinkel, Darius, and the shrimpy alchemist. When they finally decide to stop for the night, setting up a nice fire so they wouldn’t freeze to death in the night. When you sit down and relaxes closer to Edward he gets a little annoyed at the two of you being so close together. When he hears Ling in his head he raises a brow and huffs. It’s because you’re in my body. And we’re alphas, so we get protective over people we like! That and I think their heat is getting ready to start. Greed shakes his head slightly, closing his eyes and leaning back against a log. Huh? I don’t get it. Okay, so just for the future, a heat is like the omega’s body’s way of saying we need to have babies and a lot of them. So they get irritable and ridiculously sexually frustrated.

Sexually frustrated? What the fuck are you talking about Ling? Like your sister I guess, like Lust! If that makes sense? Why didn’t you just say that, dumbass Xingese prince?! Because I thought you would understand! Excuse me if I thought you were smarter than that! HUH?! SAY THAT TO MY FACE! I just did! Why you little-

When Greed roars and opens his eyes, he notices the group staring at him and he raises a brow slightly at your amused smirk. Which is quickly wiped off by his annoyed snarl. He looks away and crosses his arms behind his head. You huff to yourself and cross your arms over your chest, rolling your eyes slightly and looking over at Edward who’s snickering to himself. “Shut the fuck up, Elric.” You growls and watches as he clams up. Greed watches you and he tilts his head, noticing the distinct scent you had grow stronger, sweat starting to bead on your brow and hands clenching up slightly in surprise. He furrows his brows as the hair on his neck starts to raise and his body tenses up completely. What the fuck is happening Ling? Their heat started, they’re going to be a bit grabby, I think. I am not sure. I have not seen them in a heat before.

You on the other hand are completely panicking on the inside, your hands shaking and your heart pounding out of your chest. What the hell were you supposed to do?! There were three alphas all staring at you, and Edward wasn’t helping at all. Even though he certainly was trying, standing up and getting between you and the others. You could take care of yourself, though, so his “protection” was not doing anything other than annoying you. You grumble and push him out of the way, getting to your feet and growling at him to let you be. “I can take care of myself, Edward.” You mutter and then turn to look at Greedling.

“Come here.” You mutter and grabs his arm, dragging him to his feet and walking quickly away from the others. Greed raises a brow at you and then yanks his arm free, shoving his hands into his pockets as he struggled not to stuff his face into your neck. He wanted to get closer to you, he wanted to just fucking grab you and take you down. But Ling’s words from earlier echo in his head and he stops once y’all are far away from the others.

“What?” He asks, eyes narrowed slightly at you.

“I..need to talk to Ling.” You mumble and looks up at him, arms crossed and body shaking as you struggled to remember how to talk without babbling like an idiot. Greed narrows his eyes, “He can hear you. Just say what you want.” He stated, raising a brow and crossing his arms over his chest. Yourr scent was starting to muddle both of their thoughts, he shakes his head, trying to remember himself as he grunted slightly.

“Fine. I need you both to keep me sane this week.” You growl, eyes narrowed as you crossed your arms over your chest. Your cheeks are a deep red, completely throwing Greed off as he watched you with wide eyes. You were starting to look a hell of a lot more appealing, your flushed face, the sweat running down your face, the absolute state of your body as you shook and trembled. Your scent was beginning to overwhelm him.

He clears his throat and shakes his head as he tried to remember what the hell was going on. “What do you mean keep you sane?” Greed questioned and watched you slightly in confusion. “I mean that Ling’s scent is relaxing and helps keep me normal.” You hissed with red cheeks and trembling hands. You could feel the slick starting to build between your legs, your body was aching to be filled and it was starting to get a bit uncomfortable. “It means I need to talk to Ling!” You shout and narrows your eyes at him. Greed grunts in surprise at the forcefulness of your tone, before he huffs, “Fine, fine.” He mutters and closes his eyes.

Ling opens his eyes, looking around slightly before he notices you staring at him and he blinks slightly in surprise. He smiles and then shudders in delight, biting his lip slightly as he takes a deep breath of your intoxicating scent. “Uh…so, what did you need?” He asks, biting his lip as he watched you and panted softly. Your eyes widen as his scent seeps into your very brain, your legs shaking as you stumbled forwards.

“Ling, I know I’m asking a lot, but would you-“

You’re cut off when Ling throws himself forward and kisses your lips, wrapping his arms around your waist, pulling you tight against his chest as he closed his eyes slightly. “Absolutely!” He pants and grins eagerly at you, his hands holding your hips tight as he leans down and sucks at your neck lightly. Making sure to leave soft hickies across your skin. Though he’s careful not to mark you, as much as he wanted to.

He was actually starting to get desperate as well, his hands clutching and pulling you close as he panted and picked you up, gently setting you on her back of the forest floor. His hands are careful, dragging across your skin and his lips moving down your neck. Ling sits up carefully, “Are you sure you still want me?” He asks, brows furrowed slightly when you look up at him. Your cheeks are red, and your chest is heaving, your eyes meeting his soft ones and he flushes slightly at the intense eye contact.

“Ling. I have literally never wanted anyone else more in my entire life.” You hiss and tangles a hand in his hair. Ling groans softly and buries his face into your neck, his tongue dragging up along your ear as he groans in pleasure. Your scent was driving him absolutely crazy; his brain was getting foggy. He nods his head and quickly pulls off his clothes, before he tucks his coat beneath her to protect her from the forest floor. Your eyes widen slightly as you flush beneath him.

“Ling-.” He cuts you off and presses soft kisses along your cheeks and neck as he sat up slightly, running a hand through your hair as he cupped your face. “I know. I will take care of you, promise.” He whispers and smiles slightly at you when you flushes and covers your face. Still having a sliver of common sense in your brain. You sit up and tangle a hand in his hair, pulling him closer and whimpering desperately. “Please touch me...” You whisper lightly, before you mewl as he nods and drags his hands down your chest through your shirt, his hands burning a bath down your body as he quickly grabs your hips and strips you slowly.

His eyes widen as they wander your body and he bites his lip gently. “Oh wow.” He whispers before he leans in and kisses down your chest. Lavishing attention across your chest as he groans in delight. Tilting his head and dragging his lips across your right nipple, his other hand tugging and pinching at your left as he sighed in delight. Ling sucks and kisses lightly, leaving gentle hickies across your chest as his fingers dig into your thighs. He groans and sits up slowly, tilting his head and biting his lip lightly as he whined at you. You were starting to get hot and bothered, your thighs trembling and your hips bucking slightly.

He grins down at you and drags his hands along your hips, sucking and kissing at your nipples and grinding against you slowly as he tilted his head slightly. “You look so good beneath me, did you know that? You are the prettiest prerson I have ever seen in my life.” With a soft whimper, your cheeks turn dark red and you shift, pushing your hair from your forehead. “You’re just saying that-“ You whisper and cover your face slightly.

               “I’m not just saying that. I really think you’re the prettiest person ever.” He mumbles and cups your face gently. With a clenching feeling in your chest, you bury your face into his neck, inadvertently smothering yourself in his scent. “Please Ling, please!” You whisper and grab his shoulders, pulling him closer as you squirmed.

With a nod, Ling strips himself easily, gripping at your hips and ass flush against his thighs, rubbing the tip of his cock against her sex, rubbing slowly and letting out a low groan of delight. “You’re really slick. You smell so good…” He whispers and quickly caresses your sex, kissing along your neck and ears as he pulled you closer and panted.  

With a low groan he finally presses into you, inch by slow inch as he trembled above you. You gasp as your thighs clench around his hips and your hole clenches tightly around him. “Ling-“ You whisper desperately, whimpering and clutching at his shoulders as you pull him flush against your chest. He groans as he presses soft kisses to your neck and cheeks. “You’re so beautiful..” He groans and thrusts just the tiniest bit faster, his lips pressing against yours in an intimate embrace. Ling intertwines your fingers and pants as he sits up just a bit, trembling above you and biting his lip gently. When he looks down he sees the most gorgeous face he’s ever seen in his life.

Your eyes are lidded, your cheeks are a deep red, your soft lips are parted and you’re staring at him with the most affection he’s ever seen directed at him. Ling falters and feels all the air leave his lungs as he watched you. He whispers your name and leans down, kissing your lips gently. Thrusting slowly as he groans and rubs her sex carefully. Your back arches and you cry out in surprise at the sudden touch, lurching against him as you grasp his upper arms. Your first orgasm of the night isn’t strong, but it’s pleasurable, spreading a warmth through your body and making your toes curl just so.

Ling grunts and pants, slowing his hips as he watches you and tilts his head slightly. “Are you okay to continue?” He asks, eyes soft as he bit his lip and trembled slightly above you. Though he knew his words fell on deaf ears once he feels you buck your hips upwards. He pants and nods at you, before he rubs your sex and thrusts harder, biting and kissing at your shoulder as he groans in delight. He wanted to mark you so bad, but he couldn’t, it wouldn’t be fair to you, especially in this state of mind. He pants and shakes the though from his head, thrusting faster and harder as he lifts one of your legs over his shoulder.

You squeal at the new angle, thighs trembling and back arching in surprise. With the new angle, he manages to find your soft spot. A cry of surprise leaves you as he manages to hit the spot on every other thrust. Holy fucking shit, they’re gorgeous.. Ling grunts in surprise at Greed’s voice in his head and he pants softly, brushing his lips against your ears as he strokes your sex slowly. Just shut up and watch.

With a whine of delight, you arch your back and wraps your legs tight around his waist. “Ling please-“ You whisper desperately, yourr pupils blown wide and your thighs trembling as you whimpered. He intertwines your fingers and pants as he kisses your neck gently and gasps softly at your clenching walls. “You’re so perfect…” He whispers softly, sucking and kissing at your jaw lightly as he thrusted a bit faster.

He runs his free hand up and down your sides, cupping your  chest  lightly as he trembled slightly. “You look so beautiful, so gentle beneath me.” He whispers and cups your face, panting softly. He wanted to kiss you, to bond you. He really did and it was becoming a little harder to drive off the latter instinct. He pants and leans down, pressing a kiss to your lips as he thrusted faster. The small part of your brain that hadn’t been muddled by her heat was screaming now, shouting that he was kissing you, making love to you, and actually keeping you from losing her mind. Your cheeks are dark red and your brain is pretty much mush, but he’s just trying to make you feel good. With shaking thighs and arched hips, you trembled desperately and grasped at his hair, clutching him tight to keep him tight against your chest.

Ling pants, wrapping his arms around your waist as he dragged his lips across your neck and thrusted just the tiniest bit faster. He couldn’t believe how gorgeous you looked beneath him, your hair, a mess, beneath your head, your body jolting lightly with his thrusts. “Ah!-“ He whispers and rubs your sex in fast strokes as he trembled slightly.

You bite your lip and your chest heaves as you squirmed slightly, beneath him. “I’m-“ You whisper and wraps your legs tight around his waist. “I’m so close…!” You whisper and bites your lip gently. Ling feels his eyes snap open as he sits up and pants desperately against your shoulder.

“Cum for me.”

And with a startled cry, your thighs arch and you release. Your chest pressed to his, grasping at his shoulders as your walls clench tight around him. He gasps, his eyes widening as your tight hole milks his cock for all it’s worth, his hips buck desperately against yours as he continues fucking you through your orgasm. “Oh shit.” He whispers and shakes his head slightly, He wheezes your name and arches his back as he pulled out before his knot could get stuck in you, he pants and watches you, bucking his hips against your thighs as he released on your belly. Ling pants, chest heaving as he collapses against your chest, resting his head lightly on your shoulder.

                You squeak at the feel of him crushing you under his weight and you pant, eyes soft. The orgasm seemed to have really taken you out of it, but you sigh in delight at the feel of him pressing against your chest. His weight is calming and reassuring against you and you laugh softly at the sound of Ling snoring, though you whimpers at the awkward, slimy feel of his cum spreading on your bellies. You squirm slightly under him and tries to rouse him from his sleep. “Ling?” You whisper and bites your lip when his eyes open and your eyes widen in surprise at the deep smell of Greed.

               “The prince has decided to take a nap.” He grunts, sniffing at your neck and licking his lips hungrily. “Fuck.” He mutters and wraps his arms around your waist. “You are so fucking hot.” He whispers softly. And with the growl that leaves his suddenly kissable lips, your heat ignites in your belly once more. Your thighs spreading wide to accommodate him. “Greed, please-“ You whisper and grabs at his shoulders desperately as you bucked your hips upwards.

               Greed grins broadly and yanks his hair down from the ponytail Ling kept it in, before he licks his lips. “I hope you don’t mind that I have a taste~” He growled and holds your thighs open, before he slides down between your legs and sucks and kisses at your hole. His eyes close as he groans and sucks at her sex slowly, his fingers spreading you open so he can get at you more easily. His eyes close as he drags his tongue along your wet hole, drinking your slick from the source. He groans loudly and closes his eyes, slurping and sucking at your juices desperately. He groans and grips your thighs with bruising force, holding them tight so you can’t close them.

                You whimper at the tension coiling deep in your belly, pulling tighter and filling your veins with lead as you trembled desperately. “Greed!” You cry out, your back arching in surprise at the sheer intensity with which he ate you out. You weren’t going to survive the night with how intense the pleasure was starting to get. Greed glances up at you and then pushes two fingers into you, curling them into your soft spot to fuck you through your orgasm. His teeth and lips close around your sex and he sucks and flicks at the appendage easily, as your back arched in an uncomfortable arc and you orgasmed violently. You screamed to the heavens, thighs snapping shut and closing around his face as you tangled a hand in his hair and held on for dear life.

               He groans loudly at the feel of you yanking on his hair and he grasps at your hips gently, trembling desperately as he pushed you into oversensitivity. He groans, licking his lips and wrapping his arms around your waist, sitting up as he licks his lips clean and watches you. You pant, chest heaving as you whimpered and look up at him, your eyes are blown wide, irises just a tiny ring around black pupils and he groans softly at the sight. You’re sweating, your skin flushed with your orgasm and your hair an absolute mess of leaves and twigs. And at that moment he realizes that there’s nowhere else he’d rather be then right there at that moment.

               Greed pants and licks his lips hungrily, sitting up once your thighs ease their clenching and your hand falls back to your side. “God, I cannot fucking wait to make you a writhing mess.” He mutters and hooks your legs around his muscular waist, his hands trapping your waist as he growled loudly. His teeth drag along your neck and he pants against your shoulder, he sits back just slightly and grabs his cock, pumping it to hardness again, the tip an angry red and his thighs trembling slightly in restraint. He wanted nothing more than to fucking claim you, to bond you and to make you his mate; his tiny omega, filled with his pups. He grunts and licks his lips hungrily, before he pins you down and growls loudly to himself.

               You buck your hips desperately, wrapping your arms around his neck as you drag him down to kiss you. “Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease-“ You whisper desperately, your back arching as you dug your nails into his shoulders. Greed blinks slightly to clear the fog from his brain and he groans loudly at the absolute desperate look on your face, before he angles the head of his cock at your hole, coating himself in your slick as he sucked and kissed at your ears lightly. “Please what~?” He growled and lightly smacked your thigh.

                You cry out, legs wrapping tight around his waist. “Fuck me! Please Greed! Please fuck me!” You sob, tears running down your cheeks and chest heaving desperately as you threw your head back. He groans as your scent absolutely muddles his brain again and he spreads her legs, pushing deep into her in one thrust. With a soft cry you trembled and your toes curled. Another orgasm taking you and wiping your mind of any coherent thought. That was their fourth orgasm of the night? And they’re still raring to go? Greed grins darkly and rams his hips against yours, pushing into her soft spot as he fucked you through your orgasm. Teetering on that edge of insanity as you sobbed his name.

               You were going to be a mess of limbs and hickies by the end of the night, you could tell. But you didn’t mind it too much, especially now that you were able to survive your heat. With a pant and a desperate cry you grasps his arms and drag him close, pressing your lips furiously to his as you whined. “Fuck!” You whisper and angles your hips upwards to get that perfect angle, and when he hits it, the breath leaves your lungs in a loud wheeze. Your fingers tangle in his hair as you grasp and pulls him closer, thighs aching with how hard you’ve been holding to him.

                Your hands are absolutely shaking now, your eyes lidded and your breath leaving her in harsh pants. Greed on the other hand has never been more awake, his hips ramming hard against yours as he grasped at you desperately. It’s like he’s possessed with how fast he rocks his hips against yours, his thumb is burning a path across your nipples, down to your sex as he takes one of your nipples into his mouth. His free hand tugging and rolling the other lightly as he fucked you. Greed drags his teeth along your neck, groaning as he panted against your neck and thrusted deeper and harder then before. “Fuck! Fuckfuckfuck-“ He snarls against your shoulder and licks his lips slightly, rubbing your sex harder. His hair hanging in his eyes as he thrusted deeper into you. He wanted nothing more than to make you cum so hard you’d forget your name.  And it looked like he was going to get his greatest desire, because with a scream of his name, you cum for the last time. Your back arching and your nails dragging hard down his back and your tears drying on your cheeks.

               His teeth drag along your neck, trying hard not to break skin as you draw blood with the force of your grasp. He groans in delight and throws his head back, ramming into you through your orgasm before he hisses in delight as his own begins to catch up to him. His back arches and he snarls, the tension in his belly snapping as he wraps his arms around your waist and cums, thighs shaking and lips pulled back in a snarl, loud, guttural sounds of pleasure leaving his mouth as he panted. His knot inflating as he slowly attempts to pull out. His eyes widening at the snag as he groans slightly. “Shit.”

               Though you don’t seem to bothered by it, your breathing evening out as you bit her lip slightly and lied back against the ground. Greed furrows his brows, watching you and then realizing, no, you’re actually out cold. He blinks, his eyes widening as he looks around and starts panicking. “Shit! Ling!” He holds you and pulls you to a sitting position, before he wraps his arms around your waist, rubbing your back and trying to wake you up again. “Oi! Wake your ass up!” He shouts and shakes your shoulders slightly.

                You whine and smack his chest, “I’m not dead, shut the fuck up, Greed.” You whisper and rest your head against his shoulders. “I just can’t feel my legs. Help me get dressed.” You murmur and then wince at the stretch of your thighs, before you whimper slightly and looks down, noticing he was knotted in you. “Are you fucking serious?” You ask, looking up at him and narrowing your eyes slightly.

               “How the fuck was I supposed to know what was going to happen?” Greed laments and then holds you against his chest, before he tilts his head and places a finger to your lips. “Sh.” Greed. Yeah? Did you actually just knot, them? Uh is that why I can’t get out of them? YES, YOU IDIOT! Then yeah, I did. WHY?! I don’t fucking know, it just happened. Fuck, I better come out. Fine.

               Ling opens his eyes, looking down at you, his cheeks flushing as he cupped your face lightly and shook his head. “I’m sorry.” He whispers and rests his head against your shoulder. “I..I’d really like it though, if we could be mates.” Ling blurted out and watched you, “But- Only.. if you want to. I don’t want to feel like I am pressuring you. If you do end up having kids, I promise to take care of you and them.” He whispers, biting his lip and resting his head against your shoulder. You squeak at the softness of his tone, the sincerity in his voice and the gentleness of his eyes as he held you. You could not believe this was happening. The prince of the Xing empire was asking you to be his, to stay by his side. But what would everyone back at the empire think? He would be bringing back someone like her, a commoner, for crying out loud. But he seemed serious and genuine. “You’re certain that you want me, Ling?” You whisper and cups his face gently. Ling nods his head and wraps his arms around your waist, “I am absolutely one hundred percent sure that I only want you.” He whispers and cups your face, biting his lip. “Then..yes. I will be yours, Ling. And yours as well, Greed.” You whisper, resting your head against his shoulder as you bit your lip slightly.

               Holy shit, they want me too? Looks like it. Ling blushes and holds you tight, smiling brightly before he pulls your head back gently. “Is it okay if I mark you now?” He asks, running his thumb lightly across your pulse point, his eyes meeting yours with a soft kind of intimacy neither of you were used to. You feel your cheeks heat up as you nod up at him and tilt your head back for him. He drags his lips lightly across your skin and closes his eyes as he slowly and carefully sinks in his teeth to leave a nice bonding mark. His hands rub soothing circles up and down your hips as he smiles slightly at you.

               “If we make it out of this, I promise to take you to Xing and marry you. I will give you everything you could ever want, make sure that you’re well cared for and that you know that I love you.” Ling breathes, dragging his lips across your cheeks and all over your face as he laughed out loud. “Oh I’m the luckiest man in the world.” He cheers and smiles down at you, before he blinks. “Ah, Greed wants to talk to you.” He stated and then shifts his head when Greed opens his eyes. “I want to mark you too.” He grumbles slightly, dragging his fingers across the unmarred skin on the left side of your neck. “I want the world to know you belong to us. To me.” He stated, eyes narrowed before he watched as you smiled slightly at him.

               “Of course, you do.” You whisper and nod your head, tilting your head slightly for him to make room. “Go ahead, Greed.” You whisper, dragging your hands along his shoulders and up his back lightly. “Sorry about doing this to your back, by the way...” You mumble and bite your lip slightly. Greed blinks slightly in surprise and looks down at you, before he drags his hands along your sides. “Don’t apologize, we both did a number on each other.” He murmurs and closes his eyes slightly, before he leans in and sinks his teeth into your shoulder. Eyes closing as he feels relief flood his system and he sighs to himself.

               He pulls back and cups your face, before he leans in and kisses you, and then everything feels right with the world. Although the promised day is still coming, he knows that as long as both Ling and you are with him, he’ll be okay. And maybe, everything will turn out okay. He smiles as he pulls away and watches you, running his hands up and down your sides as he bit his lip slightly. “Did they hurt?” He asks, watching you slightly as he sighed to himself and when you shake your head. “That’s good.” He mumbles and cups your face, a lascivious grin on his lips.

               “Now. How about we start a new round~?” He growls, and grins when you smacks at his shoulders. A loud laugh leaving his lips as he leaned in and kissed your lips, eyes closing as he dragged your hips against his.

               Oh yeah, this was going to be fun.

#greedling #greed the avaricious #ling yao #omegaverse #abo dynamics #admin natsu

[xxlovendreamsxx]

yours, forevermore [4]

Forgot to post this here before I went to bed. Ooops. 

For: @kuriquinn, like always. Love you to bits, girlie. <3

chapter one | chapter two | chapter three

Sasuke doesn’t sleep, that night, too restless by the impending disastrous impact his loss of control will undoubtedly have on their relationship. Damn it all, he’s ruined everything again, hasn’t he? Ruled by the wrong thoughts as he has been too many times before. Sasuke doesn’t understand how he can be so stupid—apparently since his time as a nukenin, he hasn’t learned a goddamn thing about the ways not to fuck up his life.

If only Sakura had the strength to push him away, he wishes not for the first time. If only she could have said no. Maybe if she had, he would still have a chance of making things right between them. Of putting things back how they used to be—or at least, to some extent, anyway. But how can he, now, after so recklessly taking her virginity on the fucking wall of his office? There had been a bed in the adjoining room, yet he hadn’t even bothered to take her there. Hadn’t bothered to take his time, to learn what she liked.

(he’d been so selfish, as he always is—as he always has been since he was an orphaned boy.)

It doesn’t help that Sakura fails to show up as she usually does, the next morning. Sasuke grits his teeth, feels the guilt that has been eating at him worsen. His mood only gets fouler as the hours pass, as his teammate finds herself still missing and every knock that comes to his office turns out to decidedly not be from her.

He’s really fucked it up this time, he thinks by the time the evening comes. Goddamn lust… he repressed it for too long—they both did.

Brows furrowed heavily, Sasuke tries to turn back to his work and read the contract before him for the umpteenth time. He tries, and tries, and tries, but he fails, unable to even concentrate anymore. His mind keeps him too distracted, too agitated; winding relentlessly as it worries and rages and regrets everything he’s ever—

The quill snaps in half in his hand, and Sasuke curses, tensing in his seat. There are splotches of ink all over the document now, and it makes him want to snarl. Just what he needed, he seethes silently, exhaling a sharp breath as he begins to clean up his mess. Absolutely fucking great.

His anger rules him so much that he barely registers his office door clicking open and shut, or the pair of feet quietly padding his way.

He only realizes someone else is in the room when a small hand touches his shoulder, eliciting half a jump from him. Sasuke looks up, gaze wide, and takes in the sight of Sakura, cheeks wet with tears and green eyes puffy and pink. His mouth parts—

(a myriad of questions run through his mind: what happened? who hurt you? am i the one who did this to you? did someone say something to you? is there anything i can—)

—but he doesn’t have the time to move or even ask what’s wrong before he suddenly finds her mounting his lap, hands he can only describe as desperate sliding into his hair. She grips him tight, burying her face into his neck; he can feel her trembling all over, little breaths and noises puffing against his skin as she evidently tries her hardest not to fall apart.

(but by the dampness growing against his collar, he knows: she has already lost the battle.)

“Sakura, what’s wrong? What happ—”

Her hand claps over his mouth, and she begins to shake much harder. He can both hear and feel her little sobs as she tightens her hold on his hair, seeking to shield herself even more from whatever pain is gnawing at her. It tears his heart to pieces.

“Don’t—Don’t talk,” she whispers, hiccupping small, anguished gasps. “I can’t—It’s just—I don’t want to talk right now… I can’t handle any talking right now…”

His chest squeezes, and his throat grows tight. But as Sakura drops her hand in the next moment and pulls her face away to kiss him hard, Sasuke soon finds out he wouldn’t have been able to say anything anyway.

A noise falls from his throat, mismatched eyes blinking quickly. He feels her fingers tug at his locks, raking lightly at his scalp. All too quickly, they fall into his lap. Sasuke stills at this, breath hitching as she frantically works to free him. His jaw clenches when she pulls him out, blood rushing to his head. But as he goes to tell her that this isn’t right, that they shouldn’t be doing this right now or at least until they’ve talked about it, Sakura sobs against his mouth and holds him like she’s never needed anything more in her life, and it pushes all rational thoughts from his mind.

He can help her feel better, for a change. He can make her stop hurting.

(so he does.)

Moving his mouth along with hers, Sasuke joins his hand with her own as she reaches to tug her clothes out of the way. His belly burns as his fingers finally meet soft, wet skin, touching exactly where she guides him as she widens her thighs. Kissing her deeper, Sasuke touches her, pleasures her—hopes that he can make her slick enough by the time her grief demands for more. And when it does, he takes hold of her hips and helps her slowly sink down on his cock, trying his best not to let his head knock back against his chair as she starts to ride him for all he’s worth.

All he can do is hold on; even as Sakura keeps crying, keeps clinging to him. Kissing him like she’ll never get another chance. Heart twisting, Sasuke forces himself to focus on the way she sounds instead, moans and blissful gasps puncturing each hiccup and tearful breath as she rocks herself exactly the way she needs it. When she breaks away for air, he turns his lips to her neck, her shoulders, the top of her breasts. Mouthing hot kisses everywhere, running his hands over her sides soothingly.

She takes him by surprise when she comes: letting out a low, sweet cry, digging her nails into his skin. Sasuke stiffens, choking on a moan as she whimpers his name breathlessly, rides out her high. His mouth parts, feeling her quivering endlessly around his cock, grinding against his lap. He tumbles over the edge with her, spilling his hot sticky wetness into her warmth as he bites her shoulder to muffle his groan. His hold is almost bruising.

For a moment, he forgets that he is anything but hers. Forgets that they are anything but each other’s, caught up in a web of messes and heartbreaks.

He forgets, until Sakura’s arms slip around him once more, her soft, heartbreaking sobs puffing against him in a way that makes him swallow. The glow of his release fades, anguish settling in as it was. Closing his eyes, Sasuke holds her, rubs the back of her neck. His throat grows tight again; he wants to say something, but he doesn’t know what.

(doesn’t even know if she wants him to, either.)

So he decides to wait, give her a little more time.

Regret finds him instantly when a knock sounds at the door half a minute later, shattering the moment. Sasuke curses under his breath, red rising in his chest.

“Whoever it is,” he growls, trying—but failing—to keep his frustration from coloring his tone, “I’m busy—”

But he finds his words cut off as Sakura shakes her head and moves to climb off of him, wiping her tears and quickly fixing herself. Too stunned to even move, Sasuke is forced to simply stare as she gives him a half-whispered thanks and heads out of his office, never looking back.

A short silence takes place… and then the knocking is back, louder and faster and just a little more forceful, snapping him out of his stupor. Heart quickening, Sasuke mulls his lips and tucks himself away, running a hand through his hair as he tells his visitor to come in. His jaw cinches when he sees Naruto and Kakashi enter, features holding a mix of anger and concern.

Damnit.

Sasuke isn’t stupid—he knows this looks bad. He is dishevelled, his office smells of sex and sweat, and Sakura has just walked out of here looking unkempt, but most of all upset.

Naruto fumes. “You—What the fuck, Sasuke!”

“Naruto, calm down—”

“Calm down? Kakashi, are you serious? Did you even see her? She’s torn apart and he—fucking hell, how long have you two—”

“We didn’t mean for this happen,” Sasuke snaps, eyes narrowed and sharp, glowering down at his friend. He won’t stand for any wild speculation to take place—Naruto should know better than to think they’d been screwing each other for years behind their backs. “I don’t know why Sakura is upset, but it isn’t because we…” He trails out, and snaps his mouth shut. Takes a moment to consider his words. “I’m not trying to use her. I didn’t want for things to turn out the way that they did. And not that it’s any of your fucking business but it’s only like this because we haven’t had the chance to talk about it.”

In return, Naruto and Kakashi are quiet. They exchange something of a sympathetic look, of which Sasuke entirely ignores.

He doesn’t need their help, or their advice. But if this keeps happening, and he and Sakura can’t manage to sit down and figure this thing out, there will be nothing anyone can do to fix their broken relationship.

.

.

For the next two hours, Sasuke inadvertently neglects his duties, unable to stop his mind from stewing on the particularities of his and Sakura’s earlier encounter. He finds himself conflicted; he wants to give Sakura the space and time she deserves, as he knows he would have liked for himself—but there is a need to care for her, to make up for the ignorance she’d faced from him for far too long, and it nags him like a burning itch.

He needs to know what happened, to know what has hurt her so much. To see if there is anything he can do, or if there is anyone to be held accountable. To… hold her if she cries.

(please don’t, please don’t—it hurts so much to see it.)

The last thing he wants to do is simply stand back and do nothing. It would kill him—especially when it’s been years since he’s seen Sakura this upset.

(and maybe, he hopes, he can also address the impulsive lovemaking that has taken place in these past two days—because silence and time have proven incapable of fixing anything between them through these past five years, and sasuke would sooner gauge his own eyes out than let that go on.)

So with a mull of his lips, Sasuke stands, and takes his leave, draping his Hokage robes by the door on his way out.

.

.

She isn’t alone when he arrives, much to Sasuke’s dismay; though a little muffled by the door and the sound of Sakura’s sobs, Ino’s voice is unfortunately distinguishable as ever. His brows furrow.

“—not your fault, Sakura,” he overhears as his hand rises to touch the knob. He pauses, uncertain he should intrude. “You can’t blame yourself for her death. What more could you have possibly done? We might be able to stitch people’s wounds back together and pull poison out of organs but—gods, as much as we’d all like for it to exist, there’s no cure for cancer. There’s not a single other doctor or medic in the world who could have—”

“You just don’t understand, Ino!” Sakura wailed. “I’ve been—I was treating her since she was two. It’s been six years! Six years I gave her hope, I helped her add months to her life that no one ever thought she’d have! Six years. I operated on her for every single surgery she had, cancer removal and transplants—I was with her through everything. And then one day her body just… just gave out?”

She makes a sound here, and it squeezes at his chest; something like a sob amidst a whimper, as though getting choked up by a thought. His hand tightens around the nob.

“I pushed her too hard,” he hears Sakura go on, hiccupping and sniveling as she seemingly tries to keep from crying. She can’t. “I thought she could handle another surgery, Ino, but I—It’s all my fault. It’s all my fault that she—”

Sakura breaks down here, crying out like she has never been angrier at herself. It hurts to listen, and it makes his teeth grit, but thankfully, her sobs quickly become muffled. Sasuke guesses—hopes—that it’s because Ino has wrapped her arms around her, as he knows he would have had it been him in the room.

This isn’t the time, he thinks, as he turns around to leave. Sakura’s clearly got too much on her plate right now, and she doesn’t need to deal with her teammate-who-once-could-have-been-more trying to do better by her. Or them. Whatever the fuck they are.  

Not today, anyway.

.

.

When he sleeps, he dreams of how things could have gone. Dreams of coming to her office and finding her alone, catching her off guard with her cheeks wet with sorrow. She’s pretty, as she always is—even when she looks like this. Even when her eyes are so swollen and red, as she hiccups and grimaces with every whimper she tries to keep in. She’s beautiful.

He dreams of thumbing away her tears, drawing her against his form. Dreams that she stiffens, gasps… and then breaks, so grievously. Sakura sobs, wrapping her arms around his neck. Tells him everything that has gone wrong lately, everything that has been weighing down on her. She buries her face in his throat, feeling safe and soothed in the warmth that his arms offer… and then tells him that she loves him, that she’s missed him.

In his dream, Sasuke kisses her, pulls her down on the tiny couch she keeps in her office. He makes love to her sweetly, murmuring back those same three words in her ear, intertwining their fingers. Sakura clings to him, calls his name, moaning with all her adoration—

And then he wakes; suddenly, brutally. Hard as rock and drenched with sweat. Closing his eyes, Sasuke falls back into his pillows with a groan.

Somehow, he doesn’t think things would have gone that easy.

.

.

To his great surprise, Sasuke sees her next on the following morning. Though her eyes still hold some remnants of a tearful night, and though she appears unable to meet his gaze right now, Sakura already looks to be doing much better than last evening, and it brings him a small sense of relief. He swallows against his suddenly dry throat.

“Sakura,” he says, nodding in acknowledgement to her presence. Yet when he does, Sasuke abruptly realizes that he doesn’t know what else to say.

What could he say? That he didn’t expect to see her? That he thought she would be at home? No, that sounded cold—like he believed her too weak and hysterical, neither of which she was. Then again, he didn’t think he should be asking her how she felt, either, lest she not want to talk about it… but it wasn’t really any better to act like these past few days had never happened, was it?

Lips thinning, he curls his fingers against the edge of his desk. His mouth parts, intending to say something but having absolutely no idea what, and in that moment, Sakura speaks.

“Sasuke-kun,” she starts, eyes still downcast, “about yesterday… I’m—I’m sorry about what happened. I wasn’t—”

Their gazes lock then, and she loses her words. She freezes up, breath hitching, and grips her files tighter to herself, flushing red—as though caught in a memory. Sasuke’s need flares with life at the sight; he knows without a doubt that she’s just thought about how she’d ridden him in that very chair barely half a day ago.

He’s up to his feet before he even realizes, eyes narrowed with a brimming heat as he draws her in by a hold of her hip and kisses her, free hand moving to cup her jaw. When Sakura doesn’t hesitate to respond, his heart stutters, jumps, makes him push her back. She hits the wall, gasping, and wraps her arms around his neck. Sasuke slides a hand beneath her shirt, groaning at the softness he finds. The sound she makes in response makes his head reel, and he kisses her harder, both hands dropping to hike her legs around his hips.

Blood burning desire guiding his body, he carries them both to his desk. Sasuke drops her against it, mouth leaving a path of hot, wet kisses down her jaw and the sensitive skin of her neck. He bares his teeth as she calls his name and opens her legs wider, biting fervently at her collar. The papers are shoved off in the next instant, body fitting to her warmth; he does his best not to rip her pants and underwear off, jaw tightening as he finds her already slick center.

“Shit,” he mutters, slipping a finger into her. She bucks into his touch, so he adds in another, catching her moan against his mouth. Fuck, she’s beautiful.

“Sasuke-kun,” she whines, so he starts to move, fucking her the way he hopes she wants and seemed to like that first time he touched her. She calls his name again, but this time it’s higher, more breathless. Fuck. Fuck. Sasuke grunts, moves to suck at her pulse. Refrains from the urge to dive a hand into his pants and relieve some tension, like his mind so desperately screams at him to.

Sakura takes care of that problem by reaching to undo his slacks herself, uncharacteristically uncoordinated hands struggling to free him before she oh so blissfully wraps her hand around his cock, squeezing with just enough strength to make his breath catch. His chest rumbles, half with a groan and half with a growl. He pulls his hand away from her warmth to fold around her own, guiding her for a few delicious strokes. Gods, he thinks for the barest moment, how is it possible that he can feel both so drunk-in-love and drunk-in-lust?

“Please,” Sakura begs him, snapping him from his haze of bliss. “I need you—I need you right now, Sasuke-kun…”

Sasuke makes a sound, something of an agreement mixed with a broken patience; he roughly pushes down his pants, brings her closer to the end of his cluttered desk, and holds her gaze as he cradles her cheek, slowly fitting himself inside of her. His stomach flutters as they both release the breath they’d been holding when their hips meet, mouth capturing her own in a slow, hot kiss. She gasps and digs her nails into his shoulders as he readjusts the angle of her hips, drawing a strained groan from him.

He can’t explain the level of intimacy that settles over them when he starts to thrust inside. Faster than his heart wants to, but slow enough that he doesn’t feel like he’s just fucking her. Sakura clings to him, kisses him; whispers his name and brings him to life with her quiet moans. Sasuke feels his heart expand, small noises tumbling from his throat. He buries his face in her neck, running his hands over her sides. He doesn’t ever want this to end, wants to stay here forever—feeling so impossibly full and heavy with the sweetest adoration, in the arms of he only one he’s ever loved.

(and he wonders, for a brief moment, if sakura feels the same. if the emotions and the passion are just as overwhelming on her side… or if his desperation is the cause.)

And then Sakura’s hand dips down between them, and Sasuke’s pace stutters, breaks. Loses its rhythm to something wild. He pants, drops his hands to her ass, and seeks her lips with his own, mind wanting nothing but the sweet, sweet promise of relief. He finds it at Sakura’s keening cry, hips grinding tensely as he spills himself within her, snatching out to grasp and hold at a quivering thigh. Fuck. So good.

Still teetering from his high, Sasuke thinks he hears her whisper a confession, but he’s not entirely sure when his brain is still struggling to catch base with reality.

“I—I need to go,” she says a moment later, pushing forcefully at his chest to get him to back off.

Stumbling back, Sasuke stares dumbly for a few beats, watching as she hurriedly pulls on her bottoms with shaking hands. His mind only catches up to him as she steps over the fallen files and papers, moving quickly out of his office.

“Sakura, wait—”

But she is already out the door.

Jaw clenching tight, Sasuke furrows his brows furiously. He slams his fist against his desk, rattling it.

Fucking damnit.

.

.

A few hours later, when he tries to send out a summon for Sakura, Sasuke learns through Shikamaru that she has just left on a mission not ten minutes ago. He nearly hurls his cup of coffee at the ground.

“A mission?” he snarls, free hand curling into a fist as he looks up to his assistant. His glare is savage; he’s had enough of these godforsaken, untimely hindrances. “When the hell did she get one? And why wasn’t I informed?”

Shikamaru’s brows knit deeply. He gives Sasuke an odd look. “You were informed,” he states, slowly. “Weeks ago. Don’t you remember? You looked over the scroll yourself, said Sakura was the best for the job, and requested she be the first to know about it.”

Fuck. That’s right, Sasuke thinks. The Shimogakure mission—the one about the flu outbreak. How could he have forgotten?

“Are you okay?” his assistant asks, then, bracing a hand on his hip.

Sasuke’s jaw clenches. Forcing his gaze back to the papers on his desk, he returns to his work. “What makes you think I’m not?”

“Don’t play dumb, Sasuke—you’ve been cranky, lately.”

“So what? Am I supposed to let the sun shine right out of my ass like Naruto? I’m tired, I haven’t been sleeping worth shit since my inauguration, and everyone’s always chasing after me for some reason or another that usually isn’t important—so fucking sue me if I’m not in a good mood every day.”

“Or ever,” Shikamaru mutters, earning himself a most ferocious glare from the Hokage. He sighs, and waves him off. “Nevermind—didn’t mean to intrude. Sorry I asked,” he says, as he begins to walk out of the room. “I’ll be back later for the reports.”

Don’t bother, Sasuke scorns in his thoughts, even as he reminds himself that it is part of Shikamaru’s job to collect and deliver information. Whether he likes it or not, he will have to see him again today. Sasuke mulls his lips.

Why can’t the world just let him and Sakura be? Why can’t they just have one fucking moment to talk to each other? Maybe if they did, he wouldn’t be such a goddamn asshole right now.

He just wants some time to breathe.

.

.

Sasuke doesn’t see her for five weeks.

His mood becomes so rotten that before long, the whole village is talking about him, whispering even as he passes by. Rumors fly, but Sasuke pays them no mind, because what the fuck do they know? They can speculate for all he cares—all he wants is for Sakura to come home.

So he sits, and he waits, counting the days until she’s due to return.

.

.

It’s on a late Tuesday night that Sakura comes back. Sasuke is asleep at his desk, head lolled back into his chair, worn from a long day. He wakes to the feel of kisses on his jaw and throat—hot yet strangely gentle—and a warm weight against his lap. His body stiffens instantly.

“What the fu—” he starts to growl, but his words fail him as he spots too-familiar pink. Sasuke’s eyes widen. His breath catches, hands that had previously been ready to drive off his assailant now steadying against her hips. “Sakura—?”

A thin finger presses to his lips, and he stops. His heart pounds as her free hand slips to the side of his neck, her soft mouth moving to capture his own.

“Shh,” she whispers, cupping both sides of his neck to kiss him better. Sasuke stares, mind fogging up a daze as she deepens her affections, rubbing a thumb to his throat. His blood begins to ignite. “Don’t talk. We don’t need to talk. Let’s just enjoy this, all right?”

She didn’t need to tell him twice. Chest rumbling, Sasuke fists her shirt into his hands and starts to move his mouth in time with hers, relishing in the sound she makes. He pulls and tugs at the material of her clothes, tries to draw her closer, dizziness rushing over him. But something nags at him, holds him back—why shouldn’t they be doing this? He can’t remember anymore. Not when she’s flushed against him like this, so good and willing and needy, full of passion and full of lo—

Oh, that’s right, he thinks, muddle-minded; pulling away sharply, his wide gaze sets on her own, staring at those green, green eyes that he loves so much. Fucking hell, how could he forget again? She doesn’t know what these encounters mean to him. Because he keeps getting lost to his stupid lust, Sakura doesn’t think that this is more to him than just sex.

(but it is. and it always has been, and it always will be—she has never been just a place to put his dick in, just a tool for him to use to unwind from all this stress. she has always been so much more than that.)

Yet as he goes to say something, Sasuke finds himself once more making the same senseless mistake (so foolish, so selfish, when is he ever going to learn?) as he feels her hand drop down to his straining trousers, squeezing lightly. The touch effectively kills any words ready to spill from his lips. His mouth dries, fingers digging firmly into her skin as Sakura dips her lips to his neck, leaving a hot, wet path towards his chest. Fuck. He swallows when she slips to the ground. She settles comfortably between his legs, fumbling with the opening of his pants. He grits his teeth. Damnit.

Sasuke doesn’t know how he manages to hold any type of restraint as she smiles at him then, taking his half-stiff cock in her hands. He holds his breath as she moves, gentle fingers curling along the length of him to press and pump, causing him wonder how in the hell she can sit there doing that and still manage to only make his heart flutter like it does now.

(how is it that he wants to both fuck her brains out and gently push her down to make love to her? how is it that she can fill him with this unbridled need just as much as she can fill him with the sweetest adoration at the same damn time? is this what love is like for everyone else? for her? or is this the result of pushing back his feelings for years, repressing all the desire and affection he ever had for her to make their complicated relationship into something less awkward?)

Soft lips wrap around him, and Sasuke tenses, losing track of reality for a single moment. He can’t help the curse that falls out.

“Shit,” he groans, eyes sliding shut as his head tips back. Fucking hell, he wasn’t expecting her mouth to feel this good; so soft and slickened, almost just as warm as he remembers that spot between her legs.

This can’t be real, can it? Sasuke muses, everything around him blurring as Sakura works to lift and lower her head over him. He threads his fingers through her hair carefully, lips parting as she uses her hand to stroke whatever left of him she can’t reach. No, he had to be dreaming—Sakura would never surprise him like this after coming back from her mission. Not when they were so… messily involved.

(…or would she?)

Teeth scraping against the sensitive head of his dick snaps him out of his daze, and he hisses, harshly tightening his hold on her locks without meaning to. Sakura pulls away quickly, whispering a meek, earnest apology. But Sasuke doesn’t miss her wince, and he gentles his touch, meaning to say he’s sorry, too—only she doesn’t give him the chance, enclosing the tip of his cock in her mouth once more. He makes a sound that is half-strangled as she sucks, licks, rubbing a hand over his thigh as though she means to soothe him. The dizziness comes rushing back. Struggling to keep himself anchored, Sasuke whispers her name.

(holy fuck. holy fuck, holy fuck, holy fuck—)

His pre-cum dribbles, and Sakura gives a slight jump, pulling away with a curious look. Feeling his neck flush, he feels the urge to avert his gaze as understanding dawns to her face. But he doesn’t, and only pants softly, watching as she shifts her eyes to his and gives him a smile he’s never seen before. Sasuke learns exactly why that is when she smooths her lips over his tip and laps at the fluid, moaning softly.

(no, this is real. this is very, very real, and she’s here, between his legs and doing this—)

His control snaps.

Hauling her up to her feet, Sasuke growls something like a savage and roughly manipulates her body into bending over his desk, eyes wild as he just about—but not quite—rips off the clothes on her bottom half. He groans when he slips inside of her, tongue brushing the skin of neck at the cry she lets out. Biting down, he forces himself to stay still, taking a moment to absorb the way that she feels and the way that she looks, wrapped around him like this. Gods, she’s so wet. He has to thank whatever deity is out there; the last thing he wanted to do was hurt her because he wasn’t able to keep his patience.

(but gods, does it kill him—she must have really enjoyed sucking him off so much.)

“Sasuke-kun,” Sakura gasps then, grabbing hold of one of his hips with iron strength as she whines and attempts to pull him closer. It doesn’t work. “Oh gods, I—please, I need—”

Slamming her wrist back against his desk, Sasuke loses all traces of the discipline he just had and begins to snap his hips up into her, frenzied with the desire to give her exactly what she wants. His vision blurs white at the sound she makes in return, tearing a groan from his throat. He seizes the plump flesh of her ass, cock throbbing as he builds an even more unforgiving rhythm. He nearly lets himself come at the way she moans, pushing back into him while she quivers and pulses around him with the most exquisite pressure. Fucking hell, he hopes he can last.

One of his arms snakes around her waist, pulling her flush against him. Sasuke mouths at the back of her neck, puffing choppy breaths against her skin. Fuck, he’s so close. His eyes slip shut, teeth gritting impossibly as he nuzzles her soft, rosy hair.

“Sakura,” he pants, tightening his hold on her.

No doubt sensing his fast-approaching limit, Sakura whimpers and shifts against him, reaching back to grab a hold of his hip once more; she flinches as she widens her thighs and rolls back against him, keening a pitched noise that makes him feel primitive. It doesn’t take long at this angle before she comes, squeezing his own orgasm out of him. He grinds out his high with another bite to her neck, sighing as he spills the last of himself into her.

The last thing Sasuke expects to feel is her hand sliding down between them to touch where they are joined. His mouth runs dry, softening dick twitching as she brushes against the base of him and whines.

“More…” she moans, biting her lip. “I need—I need you to do that again, Sasuke-kun…”

I need you to fuck me more, he could hear her say.

It’s all it takes to have him pulling out and flipping her around, hands finally shoving off the clothes still hanging on to her legs before hooking her thighs around his hips. Slowly, deeply, he kisses her, feeling her arms wrap around his neck. Drawing him closer, Sakura kisses him back, moving with twice the fervor, making him dizzy with passion. Sasuke takes this as an opportunity to lift her up and carry her to the adjoined bedroom, eager to pursue things there—but he loses patience barely half a dozen steps away, pushing her back instead against the cool, large glass window overlooking the village.

Luckily, Sakura doesn’t seem to mind; she is busied instead with pressing hot little kisses to the line of his jaw, greedy fingers tugging impatiently at the hem of his shirt. Sasuke obliges all too willingly, making quick work of his Hokage robe and dark grey top, a groan straining to slip out as her warm hands hungrily run over his heated flesh. Fuck, he really wishes he didn’t need a while before he could get hard again.

“Sasuke-kun,” she moans, and the sound is so needy that he finds himself moving to his knees.

Letting his instincts leads him, Sasuke widens her thighs, brushes his lips against the smooth skin on the inside. Sakura’s breath hitches, and he almost smiles. Clearly, he’s doing something right.

(though what that is, he’s not quite sure—was this even a thing people really did?)

Pushing the thought away, Sasuke kisses her there again, breathes in her musky scent, feeling his head spin and spin in a most sinful way. Gods, he wants to taste her. He doesn’t even care if she’s probably dripping with his own cum—he just wants his mouth and tongue on her.

Giving a low, throaty growl, Sasuke sinks his teeth zealously into her thigh and hikes the other one over his shoulder, kissing the hot, wet flesh now exposed. A shiver runs up his spine at the breathless, “Oh,” that slips from her, fingers digging deeper into her plush skin as both her hands find his hair, gently latching onto him. It makes him even more eager to explore, to map out every inch of that spot between her legs.

So he does just that.

He’s likely not the best at this, he suspects (if there is a best), but he is doing well enough if her shaking and whimpering are anything to go by, and that pleases him. Lips twitching against her, Sasuke lets his lover guide his mouth where she needs it most, welcoming any tip to her pleasure. Feeling himself grow hard again, he works and caresses her with even more vigor, lets himself savor the taste of her a little longer, moans and gasps working their way under his skin until he’s burning and burning—

“Oh, oh,” Sakura cries, then, fingers twisting sharply in his hair. “Sasuke-kun, I’m gonna—”

Faster than even he can understand, Sasuke grips her thighs with both hands, and swiftly maneuvers her to the ground. He flips her on her hands and knees before she even has the time to gasp his name, roughly pushing down his pants. His eyes flash with something feral as Sakura spreads her legs without his asking, rubbing a place that makes her gasp.

(needy, desperate. eager to be filled by his hard, hot co—)

“Oh please, Sasuke-kun, please—”

He slips inside her with one rough thrust, gritting his teeth at the moan she lets out, reveling in the pure nirvana of her slick, tight warmth. Holy shit, she feels so good. How could she keep surprising him like this? They’d been fucking not twenty minutes ago, and it’s like his body had already forgotten how she felt like.

Giving a few slow thrusts, Sasuke runs a hand up her back, feeling the ridges of her spine. His chest rumbles as she whines, clawing at the floor as she moves to meet him halfway. Her other hand reaches back, clinging desperately to his hip. Fuck, she’s beautiful. So damn beautiful. His heart swells so much it aches.

Lowering himself flush to her back, Sasuke buries his face in the crook of her neck and presses hot kisses to her skin, taking hold of a breast. He begins to move, at first slowly before promptly building up to sure, quick thrusts. A groan slips from his mouth—he’s already close. The hand kneading at her chest slips down, down, down—and into a thatch damp curls. Sakura collapses on her elbows when he starts to stroke, in frantic circles just like he’d seen her do; perhaps not exactly where she needs it, but with enough intensity that he knows he can get her there.

“Sasuke-kun,” she pleads, half-choking on his name. He nearly comes as she peers back at him over her shoulder, her big green eyes teary and filled with the deepest bliss. “Oh god, harder, I’m gonna come—”

“Shit!” Sasuke swears, pulling himself away to brace against her hips and thrust even harder. Roughly, he growls, “Open your legs wider, Sakura. Now.”

She does, and she comes, quivering endlessly around his cock as she cries out his name and trembles like a leaf. Sasuke follows soon after, grinding tensely inside her with a groan, leaning down to support himself against the floor; riding out his high, he presses his forehead to her shoulder, rolling his hips slowly against her ass.

They’re nothing but a mess of hot, panting breaths after, utterly sapped of strength and shuddering from the aftermath of their peak. Worried he might be crushing her, Sasuke rolls himself at her side and onto his back, fighting to catch his wits. Sakura is quick to topple on her front afterwards, spent. He can’t help but to draw her in against him at the sight, reeling in his postcoital haze. Sakura lets him.

“If I wanted to make you my assistant,” he murmurs after a while, “would you accept?”

He feels her stop breathing entirely. “…What?”

Letting out a content sigh, Sasuke tucks her sweaty hair back. He feels so full. “We could see each other more. With everything I have on my schedule, I don’t know if—”

Tearing herself away from him, Sakura gives him an indignant glare. Blinking quickly, Sasuke watches as she pushes herself to her feet, picks up her clothes, and angrily puts them on. His mouth parts to say something, but she beats him to it with snappish words.

“I have a job already, Sasuke-kun!” she says. “I’m not just going to drop the career I’ve built for myself and that I’m happy with just so you can have me at your beck and call whenever you feel like fucking me!”

Sasuke flinches, only now realizing how his words had sounded. Shit, he didn’t mean to say that—

“Sakura, no, wait, I wasn’t thinking—”

She slams the door shut, and he is left in silence. Sasuke stares, taking a moment to process that once again, she has left his office without giving him a single chance to explain himself.

“Fuck!” he roars, throwing the nearing thing within grabbing distance. The book tumbles a few feet away, the back cover snapped off.

Putting his arm over his face, Sasuke grits his teeth. If only he’d fucking thought about how his words would come across before offering something like that.

chapter five

A/N: Behold, Sasuke the orgasm stupid Hokage. Lmfao. Also didn’t I tell you guys that a lot of smut was going to come (no pun intended)? Heh.

One more chapter to go! 

#sasusaku #ssfanfiction #mel writes things #sasusaku smut #otp: a once in a lifetime love #hokage!sasuke au

[sheithfictioncatalogue]

Hey! I already went through your fakedating tag. Are there any other fake relationship fics that you could recommend?

Love this trope! And apparently so do a lot of people, because there’s a lot of recent fics. So let’s do a masterlist!

hearts will skip a beat - perfectlyrose @perfectlyrose

11k. (Teen).

“Black Paladin, are you and your mate not staying for negotiations?”Shiro turns to stare at him, bewildered. “What?”“You and the Red Paladin are a mated pair, are you not?”He sees Keith go stiff next to him. Lance lets out a squawk.“They are,” Allura cuts in before he finds his tongue.“We are,” Shiro echoes. He fumbles until his hand lands on Keith’s shoulder and hopes his smile doesn’t look as suspect as it feels.

Shiro and Keith need to pretend to be in a relationship to participate in negotiations. There’s nothing fake about the feelings Keith inspires in Shiro, though. Shiro just needs to realize it.

Nothing Is Beyond Repair - MoreThanSlightly (cadignan) @morethanslightly

41k. (Explicit). Contains: NSFW content, Allura/Lance.

Seven years after the Paladins sacrifice Voltron and Atlas to save the universe, Krolia’s still doing the messy work of decolonizing the Galra Empire. When she’s assigned an especially dangerous planet, she calls Keith.

Krolia can’t allow the Voltron Coalition diplomat she’s working with to come to harm, and no one knows more about protecting Shiro than Keith.

Playing Play Pretend - Shklance_Beef_Sandwich @shklancebeefsandwich

12k. (Explicit). Contains: NSFW content.

“Who are you gonna ask to be your boyfriend for this shindig?” He asks, easy smile gradually fading the longer Keith stares at him without a word. “Keith…?”

There’s another long beat, before Keith leans forward, forearms braced on the table, hands splayed. “Hear me out,”

“Keith,” Shiro tries, but Keith holds up a hand.

“Hear me out,” He says again, and Shiro exhales heavily, waving in a vague gesture for Keith to continue.

i’m praying for your touch (your kiss, your hands) - monsternights

4k. (Teen).

This is where Shiro should have said No, no. We’re just friends. But of course, that’s not what came out of his mouth.

“Yeah,” he cleared his throat nervously. “We’re dating now.”

“Oh,” his grandmother said again delightedly. “That’s wonderful, sweetheart! I know you’ve been sweet on him for a while now. I’m so happy for you.”

(Oh fuck)

or the one where Shiro needs a wedding date but gets a boyfriend instead  

the gift of imperfection - ailurea

25k. (Explicit). Contains: NSFW content.

Shiro and Keith end up on a mission to attend an annual celebration on an alien planet in order to build cultural ties.

The only problem is, no one mentioned that they’re not meant to just be attending—they’re meant to be participating.

And the celebration? Is a giant wedding.

Kick start my heart - TheRedPalaaladin (Thighz) @gabrielsthighz

6k. (Mature).

But - in tiny letters at the very bottom - right below that promise of free booze -  are the dreaded square boxes asking the most anxiety inducing question Shiro will ever have to answer:

SinglePlus One

go slowly with me now - NoirSongbird @noirsongbird

2k. (General).

Keith needs a date to his mom’s wedding. Unfortunately for Shiro, he’s Keith’s first choice–unfortunately because Shiro would really, really like to be dating Keith for real, and faking it might just be the death of him.

The Long Con - orchis

8k. (Mature). Contains: Allura/Lance, Acxa/Veronica.

When a reluctant Shiro keeps being set-up on blind dates by his kind and meddlesome friends, Keith offers a solution - Surely, they would stop trying to pair him up with strangers if Shiro already had a boyfriend, right? And Keith, being Shiro’s best friend, is the perfect candidate to be this fake boyfriend. No big deal, just to get everyone off Shiro’s back, give him a respite. No big deal at all.

A classic fake dating fic for shiethlentines! (Post-season 8, but Allura’s alive, and no Curtis. Background Allura/Lance and Acxa/Veronica.)

lie to tell the truth - perfectlyrose @perfectlyrose

16k. (Teen).

“What do I need to do to keep Varlan from spending this whole summit hitting on me?” Shiro asks. “Because honestly, twenty minutes of that was more than enough for a lifetime.”“The easiest solution is for the two of you to keep acting like you’re together. It should keep him mostly at bay,“ Allura says.Shiro takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “You want us to pretend we’re dating for the entirety of the summit?”He sees Keith’s shoulders stiffen out of the corner of his eye.“Won’t hurt anything,” Lance chimes in. “You’re both chronically single so you won’t be stomping on anyone’s feelings except this Varlan guy, and it sounds like he deserves it, if you ask me.”Sure, pretending to date the love of his life won’t hurt anyone, Shiro thinks wildly. Absolutely nothing could go wrong here.

or; Shiro claims to be in a relationship with Keith to avoid a pushy alien diplomat, fully aware that he is hopelessly in love with Keith and missed his chance to do anything about it years ago. Surely having a small taste of his dreams, in the form of a fake relationship, won’t do any harm.

empty coffee cups - kittymills @flashedarrow

14k. (Mature).

All Keith has left of his parents is the run down worker’s cottage overlooking the city skyline that was his childhood home… and a pile of debt.

Offers come thick and fast to buy the property but Keith refuses to sell, until property developer Takashi Shirogane steps forward with a business offer he can’t refuse.

But what follows is anything but business.

Always Home - Galrafloofandlove @galrafloofandlove

3k. (Teen).

“You excited to see your boyfriend?” Matt teased as they opened the door into the physics building at their college.Shiro still blushed whenever Keith was referred to as his boyfriend. He wasn’t really, it was just a simple situation of Keith needing to prove to his family that he could actually get a date. Classic cliche, nothing to worry about, unless the second part of the cliche actually came to fruition.That, of course, was falling in love with your fake boyfriend.Now, Shiro had a different spin on the cliche- he’d been in love with Keith since they were little.

FAKE DATE FOR AWKWARD FAMILY GATHERINGS - Xyriath @disastergayshirogane

ongoing, 2/3 chapters, 4k. (General).

It starts with a Craigslist ad.

It probably should have ended there, too.  But Shiro has never been one to do things halfway.

And no one inadvertently self-sabotages their love life like Takashi Shirogane.

symphony for improvisers - narada-talis (sarensen) @narada-talis

ongoing, 5/6 chapters, 18k. (General).

A photo taken at just the wrong moment sparks rumors of a human-Galra alliance, rumors which the Paladins will have to authenticate if the Coalition wants to keep its alien allies. Only problem is, there is no human-Galra alliance. Shiro and Keith decide to fake being a relationship until the press forgets about them and moves on to the next sensation. Little do they know things are about to get a lot more complicated when a camera crew shows up to film a documentary of their day-to-day lives…

Make Believe - LittleWhiteTie @littlewhitetie

ongoing, 5/7 chapters, 18k. (Teen).

In which, in order to form an alliance, Keith and Shiro need to fake a relationship and endure a series of related trials.

This was a terrible idea. An excruciating, tantalizing car crash of an idea. Keith should never have agreed to this. It was everything he’d ever wanted and more. He was never going to be able to come back from this.

Careful metal fingertips traced his jaw, tipping his face up to meet gentle, storm grey eyes. He was close, so close. “Everything okay?” Shiro asked, quietly.

“Of course,” Keith said. “Everything is fine.”

It was a bald-faced lie; everything was not fine. It was wonderful and devastating and nowhere in between.

- Kel

#anonymous #sheith #voltron #sheithfanfic #fakerelationship #masterlist #friendstolovers #recs #fakedating

[not-close-to-straight]

Ice Skates and Bright Lights (WinterIron)

Welcome to the first of the Christmas Commissions! 

This is for @multishippinglife who wanted romantic ice skating!Winteriron! 

CHRISTMAS COMMISSION MASTERLIST

Enjoy :)

*********************

“Tony?” Bucky opened the door to the penthouse slowly, still a little weirded out by Tony's invitation to ‘walk right into the penthouse anytime, you’ve slept here enough you might as well have a key’ that had been announced rather loudly a few weeks before.

They’d only been dating a few months after all, and walking into Tony's personal suite seemed… forward. All the great sex other things aside, walking in whenever he wanted still seemed forward.

“Tony?” He asked again, and pushed the door open further. “Sugar are you here? JARVIS said you were home so I came to see you.”

There was no answer, the room was empty and Bucky tried to swallow back a rush of disappointment.

Tony had bolted out of bed two mornings previous, interrupting what had a been a fairly spectacular kiss that was definitely leading to better things to shout something about being late for a meeting in British Columbia. He had blown Bucky a half hearted kiss and had quite literally ran out the door clad only in boxers, yelling for JARVIS to make sure the helicopter was ready to go.

Bucky hadn’t heard from him since then, and when his watch had chimed with an alert from JARVIS that Tony was back at the Tower, Bucky had abandoned the run with Sam and Steve and took off back home.

But Tony was nowhere to be found, and Bucky's heart slid to somewhere right around his toes.

There was only one downside to dating Tony Stark, and that was the fact that he was simply never home. Whether it was missions or dealing with SHIELD or accompanying Pepper on business meetings— He felt lucky if he got to see Tony two nights in a row, and there had been very few mornings where he had woken up and Tony was still in bed.

Oh well. Bucky turned to leave, trying to school his features into something less dejected before he had to—

“If I may, Sergeant Barnes.” JARVIS, from the ceiling, and Bucky looked up. “There is a present on the bed for you, Sir left it just before he had to leave again.”

“Thank you, JARVIS.” He said politely, if not awkwardly, having never really adjusted to having an all seeing AI peeking in on his day to say life.

But he smiled when he saw the plainly wrapped package sitting on what had been designated his pillow, a note from Tony pinned on top.

Bucky baby,

So sorry I had to run out on you the other morning, also sorry about forgetting to call. Trust me, I would have much rather lain in bed with you and kissed it up some more.

Anyway, to make up for it, I have a surprise planned for tonight. Please wear what’s in the box and some boots, we’re going for a little bit of a walk. It’s supposed to be a full moon tonight so we should be able to see the all the Christmas lights perfectly!

“A little bit of a walk.” Bucky said out loud, and opened the box curiously, pulling out a long scarf in beautiful shade of crystal blue. “Tony wants to go on a walk?”

Tony usually wasn’t too keen on outdoor activities, but it was Christmas time, and Bucky was learning that his favorite genius turned into a holiday fiend on December 1st which meant all bets for normal behavior were off.

Classic rock was turned off in favor of Christmas music. Tasteful potted plants swapped out for miles and miles and miles of garlands and accompanying strands of multi colored lights. Healthy green shakes given up for double chocolate peppermint everything and severely spiked eggnog. Fitted suits exchanged for terrible Christmas sweaters.

It was a festive time of year and Tony was a festive type of person.

So sure, if he wanted a moonlit walk through the newly fallen snow to stare up at the Christmas lights, that's exactly what he was going to get.

Bucky smiled to himself and wound the scarf around his neck, tucked the note in a back pocket and headed back down to his own room to track down a pair of hiking boots.

He didn’t know what Tony had planned, but he was ready to enjoy it.

*******************

“Sweetheart, you said a walk.” Bucky stared out the window at the rapidly shrinking ground below them. “Why are we way too many hundreds of feet in the air? What part of taking a walk needs to involve a helicopter?”  

“Well, you know.” Tony waited until the craft had turned to head North before he unclipped his lap belt and moved onto Bucky’s lap. “We walked to the helicopter, didn’t we? We walked across the helipad. Walked up the stairs to get to the helipad. That counts, right?”

“Yeah, alright.” Bucky tipped Tony’s chin up and kissed him lightly, beyond pleased when the brunette pursed his lips for another one. “We walked to the helicopter. You’re absolutely right, what was I thinking?”

“Who the hell knows.” Tony smirked and tugged at Bucky’s scarf. “Thank you for wearing this for me. It looks great on you.”

“I’d wear just about whatever you want, Tony.” Bucky tried to get comfortable on the narrow seat, pulling Tony tighter against him. “But while we’re on the subject of presents, have you figured out what you want for Christmas?”

“Haven’t put any thought into it at all.” Tony shrugged off the question and wound his arms around Bucky’s waist, pressing close against the chill in the helicopter. “Doesn’t matter anyway, I know you’ll get me something good.”

Bucky smiled and dropped a kiss onto all that thick hair, but was cursing a blue streak inside, frustrated that he had no idea how to handle this Christmas.

Almost four months they’d been dating now, and even though they had kissed for the first time and slept together for the first time the very same night, every other interaction between them careful and slow, taking their time with every “official” sort of step along the way.

It almost seemed backwards to do it this way— first the mind blowing sex, then the ‘we should spend time together’ talk. Bucky had a toothbrush in Tony's bathroom before they’d even gone on an actual date. There had been a hilarious if not slightly awkward moment where someone had asked Tony out and he had answered with an annoyed, “You know damn well I have a boyfriend!” when in fact, no one knew he had a boyfriend because Bucky didn’t even know if they were calling each other boyfriends yet.

At Thanksgiving, Bucky had finally sat Tony down and asked very seriously if they were going into this holiday season as an official couple, because it was a big step for them and he wanted to know ahead of time so he wouldn’t inadvertently hurt Tony’s feelings by not doing certain things, or over step his boundaries by doing other sort of things.

Tony had smooshed a kiss onto his mouth, declared, “As if I would miss a chance to have a boyfriend during Christmas! This is the most romantic time of the year!”, then spun himself around and turned on his holiday play list, apparently satisfied with his decision and entirely sure the conversation was now over.

Bucky had laughed, had promised to be a very attentive Christmas boyfriend, and set out to try and find Tony the perfect present for their very first Christmas together.

The problem being of course, that there was nothing in the world that made a great present for a billionaire genius who could quite literally invent himself whatever he wanted before he even had his morning coffee. To say Bucky was stumped was putting it lightly, and Tony had been less than helpful when it came to dropping hints.

“You didn’t wear mittens.” Tony said suddenly and Bucky pulled himself from his thoughts to look down at their linked hands with a smile.

“I’m a grown man, Tony, why would I wear mittens?”  

“Grown men wear mittens!” Tony defended loudly and Bucky started laughing. “Don’t laugh! People wear mittens all the time! It’s a real thing!”

“Do you wear mittens, Tony?” Bucky asked mock seriously, squeezing at Tony’s fingers lightly. “Hm?”

“I’ll have you know I own eighteen pairs of mittens, each one more fuzzy than the last.” Tony stuck his nose in the air, and Bucky kissed it promptly, murmuring. “Oh my god, you are adorable.”

“I’m not going to argue with you about that, but for right now--” Tony tapped the window excitedly. “We’re here! Come on! Come on let’s go!”

The moment the helicopter set down and the blades stopped spinning, Tony was out the door like a shot, trying his hardest to run through the snow, Bucky trying his hardest not to laugh as Tony hopped through the drifts, arms flailing as he tried not to face plant.

“Sweet thing.” Bucky tromped through the snow easily and slid his arm around Tony’s waist. “Do you want me to carry you?”

“If you carry me, I will break up with you.” Tony threatened. “Just because you’re super serum jacked and I’m normal sized--” Bucky snorted and Tony scowled. “--doesn’t mean I can’t walk through the snow.”

“Aw don’t break up with me sugar.” Bucky swooped down to plant a kiss on his cheek. “I won’t carry you, I’ll just keep my arm right here in case you need it.”

“I don’t need it.” Tony fussed, but Bucky kept it there anyway, helping Tony up and over a few different logs, ducking under branches as they headed through the woods with no discernible goal in mind.  

Tony chatted aimlessly as they walked, talking about the meeting in British Columbia, how pretty the city was, the little shop that he'd found Bucky's scarf and of course, about how upset Pepper had been that he’d been late.

“Although.” He said thoughtfully. “She was probably more upset over the fact that I was wearing suit pants and a suit jacket and no shirt because I’d completely forgotten to grab one on my way out.”

“You didn’t buy a shirt when you got to B.C.?”

“Nah, I told them it was a European look.”

“Oh my god, Tony.”

Almost fifteen minutes later, and abruptly enough that Bucky stumbled over him, Tony turned and headed up a small hill, struggling through the snow until Bucky finally rolled his eyes and picked him up, ignoring Tony’s squawk of outrage in favor of just marching them up to the top and over the hill.

“See how easy that was?” Bucky laughed at Tony’s petulant expression. “What’s the point of dating a super soldier if you can’t be carried around every once in a-- once in a---” Bucky’s voice trailed off when he finally looked around and saw where they were. “Tony, what is this? Where are we?”

Tony wrestled his phone out of his pocket and hit a few buttons and what had previously a non-descript clearing was transformed.

Lights were draped over all the branches, covering the frozen pond with a soft glow. Christmas music played from speakers tucked in weather proof boxes and set at the base of several tree trunks. A plush, padded bench had been set up on one side of the pond, Tony’s favorite hot-cocoa thermos propped on top of it.

And there, right next to the ice, two pair of skates.

“Tony?” Bucky asked again. “What is this?”

“Don’t be mad.” Tony whispered, pulling his hat down further over his ears in an attempt to hide his blush. “But um-- you remember our talk at Thanksgiving? And you asked if we were officially a couple for Christmas?”

“...yes?”

“And I said that I definitely wanted a boyfriend for Christmas because it’s a romantic time of year?”

“Yes.”

“And we decided to get each other presents?”

“Tony, yes, but what--”

“I didn’t know what to get you for Christmas!” Tony blurted. “I have no idea! Zero ideas! Pepper thinks I’m the worst gift giver in the world, but I’ve come along way since the Stuffed Rabbit Incident and I was excited to buy you something but then I realized that there was nothing to buy you!”

He threw up his hands in frustration. “Bucky, you are so romantic. Like ridiculously romantic and I just know you have the best present ever picked out for me and everything I bought for you seems cheap or less-than-heartfelt so I have a pile of crap sitting in the closet at the lab because I kept buying you things and NONE OF THEM WORKED! I hate all of them!”

“You didn’t have to stress about it, Tony, presents don’t matter to me.” Bucky shushed him quickly, pulling his glove off to brush his knuckles over Tony’s cheek. “Honestly. I don’t care about that.”

“Well that works out.” Tony huffed. “Because you’re not getting shit. This is your Christmas present right here.” he made a general motion towards the pond. “Pepper gave me some speech about how quality time is important and I’m always busy so--”

“So you found a little frozen pond in the middle of the woods and decorated it so we could ice skating together?” Bucky finished. “Right?”

“Is it stupid?” Tony’s face fell. “It’s stupid, right? Do you hate it?”

“Actually,” Bucky looked around the beautiful pond, up at the lights and further up to see the stars, then back down at Tony, who was biting his lip anxiously. “Tony, I love this. This is a perfect gift.”

“You’re lying….?” Tony asked hesitantly, and Bucky shook his head adamantly. “You really like it?”

“Are you kidding me?” Bucky grabbed Tony’s hand and started pulling him towards the bench at the bottom of the hill. “I get you to myself for a whole evening? No phone calls, no team, no JARVIS?”

“Well… yeah?”

“Then it’s perfect.” Bucky started unlacing his boots. “I love to skate, Tony, used to do it all the time, reminds me of winters back home before the war. This will be so fun.”

“You’re sure?” Tony asked again. “Because I know one of the perks of dating a billionaire is supposed to be expensive gifts and--”

Bucky shut him up with a long kiss, cupping his face and holding him close. “No, sweet thing, the perk of dating a billionaire is getting to be the one kissing the billionaire. Has nothing to do with the money. Never has, never will.”

“So you can skate, then?” Tony turned bright pink at Bucky’s sweet words, and changed the subject to cover his blush. “Because I haven’t been skating since I hit puberty, and that was a long time ago.”

“Don’t worry, baby.” Bucky winked and grabbed the skates. “I won’t let you fall.”

****************

Jingle Bells was playing from the speakers over the makeshift rink when they took the first steps onto the ice, and even though Bucky remembered how to skate almost immediately, Tony was far less sure of himself.

“Tony!” Bucky went speeding by, whipping around Tony in quick circles and making the genius flail wildly so he wouldn’t fall. “This was a wonderful idea!”

“I feel like you either lied to me about not having skated since before the war, or that the serum gives you perfect balance.” Tony complained, and Bucky slowed down to skate figure eights around him with a pleased grin. “What was I thinking doing something outside, we should have just gone and watched the skaters at Rockefeller Center!”

“Aw baby, no.” Bucky grabbed him and whirled them around. “This is much more fun then watching!”

“Don’t let me go!” Tony shrieked, arms windmilling as he nearly fell and Bucky snatched his hands quickly, holding him steady as he switched to skating backwards, pulling Tony around the pond.

“This is the worst!” Tony lamented. “I’m gliding on water with knives on my feet! Why do people do this? How is this romantic?”

“It’s very romantic and I’m enjoying it very much.” Bucky turned them in a slow circle as Tony held on for dear life. “But tell me baby, why didn’t you practice skating? Were you just planning on just drinking cocoa and ogling me while I skated by myself, because that isn't romantic at all.”

“That was my plan if you wore sparkly skating tights.” Tony grumbled. “But you didn’t wear those did you? You wore sensible pants so now I have to skate with you to keep this a real date, I guess.”

“Well I wore the scarf, didn’t I?” Bucky started to skate a little faster and Tony’s eyes flew open wide in renewed panic. “You could have included sparkly tights and I would’a worn those too.”

“Really?” Tony glanced up from watching his feet long enough to send Bucky a quick smile. “Let’s revisit that idea sometime when I’m not scared of impaling myself on a toe pick.”

“I’ll hold you to it.” Bucky winked, and when Tony stumbled, he caught him with a grin. “Aw does me winking make your knees weak, sugar?”

“I plead the fifth.” Tony finally relaxed enough to loosen his death grip on Bucky’s hands. “But yeah, yeah it does. You’d think after all the sex that whole weak kneed thing would go away, but it sure hasn’t gone anywhere yet.”

“I’m real glad to hear that.” Bucky drew Tony close for a sweet kiss, and took him around the pond again. “I hope I always make your knees weak, Tony.”

********************

“This is a change from your usual dates.” He commented later, when they’d stopped for hot chocolate, sharing the thermos between them and trading kisses as they sat on the plush bench.

“Is change bad?” Tony was starting to shiver just a little bit, so Bucky tucked him into his side and held him closer. “I mean, it’s not exactly pizza in Rome but I thought it was alright.”

“Yeah, pizza in Rome, what was that our third date?” Bucky blew out an exasperated breath. “You do know when I said Roman pizza was the best, I meant the little shop down on the corner of sixth, not like… Rome, Italy.”

“In retrospect, I realize that.” Tony admitted. “But your face when you got on the jet was pretty funny. And it was even funnier when I got you over the ocean and you started panicking. And it was really really good pizza.”

“It was really really good pizza.” He budged a kiss to Tony’s cold ear. “But this is a nice change. Just us hanging out. No one’s busy, no one is around to interrupt us, no one had to spend a bunch of money. This is just as fun as the fancier stuff we do.”

“Hmm.” Tony tugged his gloves off so they could hold hands, and Bucky did the same, neither of them able to help their smile when their palms fit together perfectly. “You want to do more of this sort of thing more often?”

“I don’t care what we do as long as I’m with you, Tony.” He said honestly. “But things like this are fun.”

“Cause you’re an old fashioned boy from the forties who doesn’t need all the fancy tech of this new and scary century?” Tony made his eyes comically wide and Bucky’s laugh was soft when he leaned in and whispered--

“It’s more about having you all to myself, Tony. Don’t want to share you with anyone or anything. Dates like this mean you’re thinking about me and no one else, yeah?”

“I’m pretty sure I only ever think about you.” Tony admitted, soft and a little unsure and Bucky caught him in a long kiss, dragging at his bottom lip and gathering that ridiculously perfect butt into his hands to pull Tony into his lap.

“I’m pretty sure I only ever think about you, too.” Bucky murmured when Tony broke the kiss and Tony nodded, pushing their foreheads together while he tried to catch his breath.

“I used to watch the pairs ice dancing on TV, you know for the Olympics or whatever?” He started after a minute, and Bucky hummed something in acknowledgment but didn’t answer, still floating in a haze from their kiss. 

“They were always so beautiful skating together? But then they would do those lifts and I would hate it because it looked so dangerous! The guy would just chuck the girl in the air and someone could die! They could lose a head or their fingers. For fucks sake, one of the moves is called a death spiral. A death spiral. Who puts on skates and says ‘hey let’s try a death spiral’?”

“Tony.” Bucky’s laugh vibrated through him and into Tony’s body. “I’m sure they practice on land first. Besides, no one attempts that sorta thing without knowing their partner can handle it.”

“All I’m saying is, they would only call it a death spiral if it’s caused deaths before.” Tony maintained. “No thank you.”

“You fly around in a metal suit all day.” Bucky pointed out. “But being lifted above someone’s head bothers you?”

“I built my suit.” Tony countered. “I know that barring any sort of horrible accident or unforeseen circumstance, I’m fine in it. But a lift? What if my partner sneezes and I chop their head off with my skate?”

You tellin’ me you never did any lifts growing up, Tony?” Bucky asked curiously. “I see your point and all, but what’s that movie that Clint makes us watch, Dirty Dancing? You never did that sorta thing? I thought everyone did that sorta thing.”  

“Did you and Steve do that?”

“I was th’ one to teach Stevie how to dance.” Bucky said easily. “Course we practiced lifts, you know how we danced back then.”

“I need video proof.” Tony blurted. “Video proof of you teaching Steve to do a lift because that’s the best thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”

“Why don’t I give you a hands on lesson instead.” Mind made up, Bucky shifted Tony off his lap and then pulled him from the bench and back out onto the ice. “C’mere and I’ll lift you.”

“The hell you will.” Tony folded his arms stubbornly. “We are not doing that.”

“Come on.” He cajoled, tilting his head and smiling coaxingly. “Don’t you trust me? I won’t drop you, come on.”

“Bucky--”

“Come find out what all the fuss is about.” Bucky backed up a little and held out his arms. “Skate as fast as you can here, and I’ll show you why it’s so fun.”

“Bucky--”

“Hey, this is my Christmas present, isn’t it?” Blue eyes sparked in a challenge. “You really gonna tell me no?”

“That’s not fair!” Tony wailed. “That’s absolutely playing dirty.”

“Nah it ain’t. I’ll show you how we play dirty later.” Bucky winked and Tony muttered a curse and looked away as red painted his cheeks. “Just try, Tony. I won’t let you fall.”

“Little late for that.” Tony rubbed at the back of his neck self consciously. “Already went and fell, Buck.”

The words were said lightly, but there was nothing light about them, and even though they were too casual to mean anything, they meant just about everything and Bucky swallowed hard as his heart started pounding, his mouth suddenly dry over all the things that hadn’t been said yet between them.

“Come here.” he finally managed. “Trust me, yeah?”

Tony still looked a little skeptical, but he skated a few circles cautiously, steadying himself on the ice before dashing as fast as he could-- which wasn’t very fast at all-- towards Bucky with his hands outstretched, a half panicked-- “You better catch me, soldier!”-- when he got closer.

Bucky caught him alright, caught him and lifted him right up above his head and Tony flung his arms out wide and nearly screamed in surprise and excitement as Bucky spun them around and around.

It had started snowing at some point while they were skating, and even though Bucky hadn’t noticed it then, he certainly noticed it now as fluffy flakes started landing in Tony’s hair and clinging to his eyelashes, his cheeks bright red with cold and scrunched up with his smile.

{{ ART!}}   {{ART!}}

He hadn’t stopped laughing yet, too thrilled with being this high in the air, and in the background music was jingling while the rest of the forest was still and quiet and it was just them alone beneath the stars and the lights and it was--

It was perfect.

“Christ, I love you.” Bucky breathed and time seemed to go very still as Tony’s grin slipped and his eyes widened.

“Wh-What did you say?”

Bucky brought him back down to the ice carefully, keeping his left arm tight around Tony’s waist to hold him steady, his other hand reaching up to brush snowflakes away, to trace the sparkle of ice crystals along Tonys jaw, pale eyes nearly glowing as he leaned in to touch first their noses, and then their mouths together in a sweet kiss.

“Tony, I love you.”

“Since when?” Tony squeaked. “Since--since now?”

“I don’t really know.” Bucky shook his head but his smile was a little incredulous. “I don’t know when I fell in love with you Tony but-- but--” he shook his head again, because the words just weren’t working right. “It just seemed like the right time to tell you, when you’re all pretty and soft like this, smilin’ and happy…”

“Oh.” Tony chewed at his lip, trying not to smile so big, and utterly failing. “Well that’s good, because I love you too.”

“Yeah?” Bucky kissed him again and Tony threw his arms around Bucky’s neck to keep him close, drawing it out until they were both panting, their breath puffing in the air between them.

“Nope, come back.” Tony said when Bucky went to pull away and Bucky huffed a laugh and came back for another kiss, skating backwards in a slow line and bringing Tony with him so they could kiss and skate and sing along to the music, whispering shared, “I love you’s” until Tony’s teeth were starting to chatter and even Bucky’s arm was starting to ache from the cold.

“You gonna let me carry you back to the helicopter?” Bucky asked as they ditched their skates and finished off the cocoa.

“I honestly might freeze if you don’t.” Tony admitted. “And you’re my boyfriend so it’s definitely your job to keep me warm.”

“Oh sure thing, sweet thing.” Bucky leaned in for one more kiss, sipping the chocolate from Tony’s lips and sighing when cold fingers slipped under his coat collar to press against his neck. “I got all sorts of ways planned to keep you warm.”

“Oh by the way?” Tony snuggled close when Bucky picked him up. “If you bought me anything, take it back. This is the perfect Christmas present.”

“Being carried?”

“No.” Tony shook his head. “Saying I love you.”

Bucky just smiled, and hurried them home.

******************************

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#ncts fics #christmas #winteriron #christmas commissions #tony stark #bucky barnes #holidays #ice skating #romantic #fluff