#honestly i really probably Should leave the house in the warm hours of the afternoon and like | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

myckicade · 3 years

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Prompt: Ok so we all know Coco is touch starved, and would be clingy af in a relationship. What about Coco x wife!reader, while she’s trying to do basic errands/chores and Coco is her shadow?

A/N: I’ve been waiting for this one. I really have. Hee hee. I just adore Coco. <3 . This piece sort of follows the story of the last two Coco x Reader pieces I have written, but it will stand-alone, just fine. And, I swear, these things just have a mind of their own. I can continue to apologize for length, and content, but, in the end... I let the story tell itself. ;) . <3 .

As a warning, I come from Vermont, where we have a plastic bag ban. Last I knew, California was the first state to have one. I don’t know how that would translate to Santo Padre, but… When I mention fabric bags, I mean reusables, and the ban is why. ^^;;;;.

Title: Worthwhile

Teaser: He’s a little rough, your Coco, foul-mouthed, and quick to anger. Untrusting, and bitchier than a woman, on his best day. But, once you have his love, you have it. All of it.

“Okay…” you murmur, slowly, eyes scanning over the paper in front of you. Fifteen items, nothing crazy. Shouldn’t take you more than an hour, tops, and that includes travel to and from the store. “I think I’ve got everything we need… And, specials included your beer, and those little frozen cream puffs.”

Beside you, Coco groans, deep and guttural. “Fuck, I love those things.”

You giggle, but keep reading. Your man is too damn cute. “Feminine products.”

“Do those count as special?” Coco genuinely sounds thoughtful, as he steps up behind you, where you are leaning over the counter top. He wraps his arms around your waist, chin coming to rest on your shoulder. “Kinda’ a necessity, ain’t they?”

Tipping your head, you glance to your husband. Seriously. This man is a treasure. “Why don’t you run for political office?” you tease, pleased when Coco chuckles.

“Yeah, my record’ll look great, on the campaign trail.”

You shrug. “You can tackle pink tax, and tax evasion, at the same time.”

Coco grins, and steals a peck off your lips. “What else you got on there, muñeca?”

“Hmmm, let’s see…” You turn back to your list, tapping the pen against your lips, thoughtfully. Spying the next item on it, you try not to let out another giggle. He’s not going to like this one. “Letty asked if we could have that cauliflower pizza thing for dinner, tonight.”

As expected, this groan is decidedly not from food lust. “Fuckin’ vegetarians. When the hell is she gonna’ get over this shit?”

“It’s just a phase, Coco,” you remind him, for the… Well, honestly, you’ve lost track. It started shortly after the wedding, Letty’s change in diet, and you’re still not convinced the two aren’t related. You’re just not entirely sure how. But, two months in, and she’s still looking healthy, so you won’t send up any alarms. “It’s very popular at her high school, right now.”

Coco scoffs, disgusted. “When the hell’d she start copyin’ other people, anyway? My girl ain’t no follower.”

The words send a shot straight to your heart. He’s a little rough, your Coco, foul-mouthed, and quick to anger. Untrusting, and bitchier than a woman, on his best day. But, once you have his love, you have it. All of it. The love he has for Leticia is the greatest proof. They may carry on like cats and dogs, but when push comes to shove, there is nothing they won’t do for one another. My girl. It brings a warmth to your soul, and a smile to your lips.

You shake it off, enough to formulate a response. “She’s figuring out how to be her own woman. Trying new things.” You shrug, not wanting to make a big deal of it. You were Letty’s age, once, of course. And, a girl, to boot. Some things, Coco just won’t be able to understand. “It’s a process.” He hums, still disgruntled, but doesn’t push out another word. “You want anything else?” you ask, holding up your list. “I’ve gotta’ get going, before I run into the football widows.”

Before you can even take a step away, Coco tightens his arms around you. “You sure you gotta’ go, though?” he asks, leaning in to brush his lips against your neck. “With the house all to ourselves, like this?”

“If I don’t go,” you start, as Coco’s touches gain intent, becoming teasing kisses. Damn him. It feels nice, you won’t lie, but there are other things on your mind, right now. Priorities.

You’re just… having trouble remembering what they are.

Oh. Yeah. Shopping.

“If I don’t go, we won’t have anything for dinner.”

Another kiss, accompanied by a barely-there swipe of tongue. You shiver, and Coco moves his lips to your ear. “We can order in,” he whispers, breath so invitingly warm against your skin.

Oh, this asshole.

“And, what are we supposed to have for breakfast, tomorrow?” you try, again. “Half an Eggo, and a pack of Skittles?”

Coco cuddles you closer, again. “Ain’t you never heard about livin’ on love, baby?” Some of his smoothest work, that is. And, it’s almost convincing. Almost. You can imagine the afternoon ahead, if you give in. Your clothes will come off, and won’t be back on until the last second, before Letty walks back through the front door. By that time, you’ll be too tired to roll your ass off the bed, let alone go grocery shopping. And, you promised Letty you’d talk Coco into that cauliflower pizza.

“Great as that sounds,” you agree, preparing to capitalize on the truth. You ease yourself away from Coco’s stubborn hold, and give him one more smooch, just to soften the blow to come. “I don’t think Letty will appreciate the sentiment.”

A third groan. You must be going for a record. “C’mon, (y/n).” Oh, he’s whining. It’s so cute, it’s unreal. “We’ll find some place that delivers that rabbit food shit.”

Unfortunately for Coco, you’re already grabbing your bag. Lucky for you. You’re still two seconds from giving him what he wants. (He just doesn’t need to know so). “I’ll be back in a while.” God willing. “If you think of anything else, call my cell.” You rush out the front door, and don’t look back. If you see the look on your husband’s face, you know you’re as good as done.

Well, what the shit? Coco stares at the front door as it closes, you on the wrong fucking side of it. His arms are at his sides, palms turned toward the ceiling. That went so well. He kind of can’t believe you just walked away, like that. Left him alone, and wanting. In your big, empty house.

He probably should have volunteered to tag along, instead of just chasing you off.

Fuck.

Glancing around, Coco tries to find something to do. Something to clean, at the very least. But, that’s the trouble with having moved in with you, after the wedding, he supposes. Ain’t nothing to tidy up. Not that the three of you don’t have possessions. They’re all just in their proper places. Probably Leticia’s doing, in the end. He’d had a long talk with her, before the move, that she absolutely has to keep her shit where it belongs. Your house isn’t like their house. There aren’t burn marks in the carpet, or gouges in the coffee table. Dishes go in the damned dishwasher, not left to pile up on the counter, or in the sink. Beds get made. Laundry gets folded, and put away. No more wrinkled heaps in the clothes basket. So far, the kid’s been doing good. Real good.

Coco, though? He’s never felt so unnerved in his life.

It was different when he just visited. Spent a night or two, here or there. He’d almost felt at home, then, stupid as it sounds. At home, with the knowledge he wasn’t staying. But, now? Now, the reality has settled in, and he feels so-so… out of place. There’s so much he’s struggling to adjust to.

You have a purified water system installed under the sink, where Coco is used to buying bottled water.

You have a dining room, where Coco and Letty are used to eating on the couch.

You have an extended cable package, whatever the fuck that is.

You kind of have it all, here, certainly by comparison to what Coco is used to. The best of everything. Which really makes him wonder – not for the first time – what the hell you’re doing with a dirt-poor biker for a husband? You’ve had this conversation, on multiple occasions, and you’ve explained yourself, every time. But, this time… This time, you’re not around to give that speech. You’re not around to hold him, and kiss his face, and reassure him in a way that only you can. No, you’re at the grocery store, shopping for Coco, and his kid, which was apparently a better offer than staying home with him.

Oh, nope. Nope, he’s doing it, again. He can feel it. You love him, he reminds himself. You’ve got his ring on your finger, his last name, and – God-willing – his baby in your belly. By choice. All by choice.

Coco takes a deep breath, in. Lets it back out, slowly. Tries not to get sick, for all the nerves coming up to greet him. He wraps one arm around his own torso, free hand moving up to cover his mouth.

Fuck, he hopes you get back, soon.

You let out a deep sigh, as you park your car in the garage. Oh, it is so good to be home, at long-last. Talk about Old Home Week. You’d run into everyone, and his brother, at the grocery store. Shopping had taken nearly twice as long as you’d meant for it to, and you just know Coco must be losing his mind, by now. You hate to think about it, in such terms, but, sometimes… Well, sometimes, Coco reminds you of a new puppy. You can’t really leave him alone, without some kind of separation anxiety creeping up on him.

Ah, well. At least he isn’t ripping down the drapes, and shredding the couch cushions.

You blink. Well. That you know of.

Shaking your head, you climb out of the car, mentally preparing to unload armloads of bags. Maybe, if you really, really try, today will be the day you can finally get all twenty bags in, in one trip.

Right. And, shortly thereafter, you can have both forearms set, and casted. Be a real turn-on, in the bedroom.

You’ve managed to grab half a dozen bags, when the door to the mud room opens. “Hey, don’t grab too many!” Letty warns, as she comes hopping down the steps. “Let us help!”

Glancing up, you smile. For having had such a rough start, Letty can be a sweet girl. You know she gets that from her father. “Well, thank you,” you reply, resting a few, fabric handles onto her outstretched hands.

Letty grins, lowering her hands to her sides, before leaning in. “Did you talk him into it?” she whispers, conspiratorially.

You snicker, and whisper back, “He isn’t getting a choice. He’s outnumbered.”

“Yes!” Her hiss of victory is hardly subtle, catching Coco’s attention as he pokes his head out the door.

“You two plottin’ against me, again?”

“Yes,” you and Letty reply, in unison, leading you to erupt into a fit of giggles.

Coco is all grins. “’Course, you are.” He strides closer, he and Letty dancing around one another as she moves into the house. You lean into the car, and retrieve a few more bags. If Coco’s out here, he might as well assist. He’s peering into the car, once you stand back up, and lets out a low whistle. “Damn, (y/n)! You buy out the whole store, or what?”

“Hardly,” you reply, dryly. You hold up your hands, offering Coco the bags. “Here you go.”

“Oh, don’t mind if I do.” Thankfully, your hold on the bags is solid. Instead of grabbing the groceries, Coco’s hands are suddenly groping all over you. One hand is settled firmly at your ass, the other sliding into your hair, at the back of your head. He wastes no time diving in for a slow, deep kiss, and, damn, does his timing suck. He could have at least let you put the bags down, first. The contact makes you tingle, and has you regretting your decision not to stay home. Coco pulls back, after a few seconds, and hums. “Mm. Best delivery ever.”

You can’t help the small snort of amused laughter that leaves your throat. “Good try, Coco,” you praise, easing back far enough to offer him the bags, again. The look of disappointment on his face is just pitiful. “I’m not banging you in the garage.”

He has the grace to mock gasp. “I’d never!” It’s a crock, and you both know it. He looks too amused to be repentant, and you look too aware to be angry. You just raise your hands, slightly, in a third offer. Coco sighs. “All right. All right.” He takes the bags from your hands.

“Thank you.” You grab another load for yourself, rounding the open car door to follow Coco’s lead, into the house. One more trip for each of you, and you should have it covered. So much for only buying fifteen items.

Coco might be right about buying out the store.

Watching from the dining room, Coco has a good view of you and Letty unpacking the last of the groceries. Damn kid, she’d thrown him out, about ten minutes prior.

“Less groping, more helping, Coco,” Letty had warned him, after he’d tried to pin you against the sink.

It had been his last warning. Now, he’s been banished. Not the worst thing in the world, not really. Over the last few weeks, he’s really learned that there are some tasks he’s not so fond of. Pruning roses… Yeah, he’s pretty sure you’ll never let him do that, again. And, hey, nobody told him what to fill the bird feeder with. Unpacking groceries goes on that list, somewhere between line-drying laundry, and a streak-free mirror. He’s not sure why. Goodness knows, it makes him feel like a kid at Christmas, most times. Since being with you, though…

Since being with you, he feels like he’s taking advantage of something.

Yes, groceries are a strange place to let that feeling land, but he can’t help it. Coco’s been responsible for feeding himself since before he cares to remember. The only time anyone provided his meals was during deployment, and half that shit barely passed for edible. You, though… You keep the house stocked with more food than he’s seen anywhere, outside of a corner market. Letty always has options to take to school, and there’s a nutritious dinner on the table, almost every night. (Some nights, he actually does win the battle for delivery). If Coco goes on a run, you send him along with snacks for the road. And, yeah, he kinda’ likes that. He also likes the energy bars you picked out for him, last week. Something with cherries, and dark chocolate. He wonders, for a second, if you picked up any more. Come in handy during his mid-week trip outta’ town.

Coco blinks. Then, he does it again, just for good measure. That’s it. That’s what’s so fucking weird about this whole thing.

It’s you.

Okay, no, it’s not you, you. But, it’s you. It’s you, taking care of him. It’s you, seeing to his needs. Letty’s needs. It’s you, being his wife, his partner. It’s you, slotting into the place of role-model for his teenaged daughter. Welcoming them into your home. Not treating it like it’s your home. It’s you, being so fucking perfect for him, it’s taken his mind all this time to catch up with reality.

Coco doesn’t get perfect. Perfect doesn’t want him.

Except, now, it does.

Before he knows what he’s doing, Coco strides into the kitchen. He doesn’t wait for you to put the box of pasta in the cupboard. He just takes it from your hand, ignoring your confused look, as he tosses it onto the counter.

“Coco!” Letty admonishes, but it’s no use. He’s already lifting you off the floor, arms around your perfect backside. The kid gives a long-suffering sigh, he hears it, but pays it no mind.

Nothing – nothing – is going to keep him from holding you in his arms.

Your own arms go around Coco’s neck, and you smile down at him, surprise still lingering in your eyes. “Uhm… Hi, there.”

Coco grins. “Hey, muñeca.” Leaning up, he pecks you on the lips.

“Can I help you with something?” you ask, to which Coco shakes his head. Closes his eyes, as your fingers play in his hair.

“Nah. Got all I need.”

Pulling a package of mixed vegetables from the half-unpacked shopping bag, Letty rolls her eyes. You two… God, you’re gross. Coco always has his hands on you, no matter what you’re trying to do. It’s a wonder you don’t carry a damned fly swatter around. Actually, it’s a wonder you ever accomplish anything. He’s always smooching, and smiling, and snuggling at you. It’s disgusting. It’s pathetic.

It’s so damned cute, it’s sickening.

Really, Letty’s enjoying seeing Coco so happy. Like, genuinely happy. Not the false pride he carries around with his kutte. He’s more relaxed, nowadays. He drinks less, and he spends more time at home, both of which mean he’s not hanging around with those skanks at the clubhouse. He eats more, he’s healthier… Nothing to complain about, there.

And, hey, she has no complaints about you, either. You’re pretty cool, all-around. A woman who takes care of herself, and her family, and doesn’t bitch about either one. You’re not using Coco for money, or status, none of the shit she’s always been worried her father would fall into. There aren’t arguments, every night, not even between herself and Coco, as of late. No hostilities, nothing to avoid the house over. Just good dinners, and movies, and a new fish tank in her room. (Okay, so, you’d earned some major points with that birthday gift. She hadn’t actually expected to get one, when she’d mentioned it). For the first time, she understands what a peaceful, happy family feels like. It feels nice. It feels like home.

Glancing back to where Coco now has you perched on the counter top, stealing the most syrupy-sweet smooches… Letty can’t help but smile. Home is A-okay by her.

The sound of the air conditioner humming in the bedroom usually lulls you right to sleep. Tonight, it’s just providing you with white noise, a low background track to your thoughts. You don’t mind, not really. It gives you a few minutes to reflect on the day that’s just ended. To plan your day, tomorrow. To weave your fingers through Coco’s hair, and listen to him breathe. That, alone, makes it worthwhile.

Coco has been asleep against your shoulder for nearly an hour, now. Your arms are wrapped around him, comfortably, his own around your waist. You’d urged him up to bed, after he’d fallen asleep on the couch, his head in your lap. He’d snoozed from the middle of the movie, to the end of the nightly news report. Letty had tsked, and complained that no one had any business, whatsoever, in falling asleep during Zombieland. (How he’d stayed asleep was still a wonder to you, both, for how hard you’d been laughing at Tallahassee). With your fingers in his hair, Coco had been blissfully unaware for a couple of hours.

Glancing down, you take in the sight of your husband’s sleeping face. He looks so damn peaceful, the kind you’d outright murder to preserve for him. Coco’s still struggling with sleep, and relaxation, even though you’d hoped it would ease up, once your nuptials had passed. Most of it, you know will never go away. Anxiety doesn’t have a magic wand, or some perfect little on/off switch. And, all things considered, today wasn’t a terrible day. You’d been able to leave the house, with minimal panic on Coco’s part. Granted, it had taken extra time to get the groceries put away, and dinner made, but… You understand, as much as you are able to, that Coco needs the reassurances. It doesn’t cost you anything to carve a few moments from the day, every here and there, to give him what he needs.

Okay, so it did cost you that first batch of pancakes, this morning. They’d burned on the stove, and set off the smoke alarms, when he’d insisted on a dance through the living room. But, Coco loved the song you’d been playing on your Spotify, so there was really no denying him.

Oh, and… Yeah, you’d missed that phone call from the bank, the week before. Your husband had slipped up next to you, on the porch swing, and snuggled you to within an inch of your life. An easy fix, and you still got the business loan, but…

And, sure, you’ve been late to work, on numerous occasions. Coco has a habit of sneaking into your morning shower. And, after that… Well, hell, you own the company. It’s not like you have to explain to the boss that you’re late to your shift, on account of baby-dancing. (Fucking forums).

Point is, you’re more than happy to take care of Coco’s emotional needs. It may take you an extra hour to pay your bills. Daily tidying may have become every-other-day-if-you’re-lucky tidying. And, your ass may have gone numb, tonight, while he slept on your thigh. During which time, you could have loaded the dishwasher. Taken out the trash. Any number of tasks that have been neglected, in the name of Coco. They can wait.

Leaning in, you press a tender kiss to your husband’s forehead, before settling back in, and closing your eyes. Yes, chores can wait. Work can wait. The whole world can hold it, with both hands. So long as you’re around, Coco’s well-being will never have to take the back seat.

P.S. If Coco denies it, he’s full of it. He fucking loved that cauliflower pizza. Fucking vegetarians, indeed.

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makoodlesarchive · 4 years

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darling it’s better (down where it’s wetter)

i finally finished it omg lol, genuinely thought this would never be done

thank you so much to everyone for being patient with me and sending me all those cute little asks talking about the fic, that actually really helped with writing it!

For the love of all that is holy, please check out this absolutely incredible art of merbakugou by @crowolina!

pairing: bakugou katsuki x reader

word count: 14k

warnings: mentions of drowning, explicit sex, interspecies (?) sex, that merman dick yo

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The humidity outside is so high that the air is sitting thick and stagnant -- it feels like it could be cut with a knife. It’s uncomfortably hot, and the air feels almost damp and sticks wetly in your throat as you breathe. Sweat pools in all the most uncomfortable crevices, until the desire to get into the water is less of a passing fancy, and more of an all-consuming need. You slip carefully down the hill, over the dry grass, until you hop down into the fine sand that makes up the little beach in the sheltered cove at the bottom of the hill.

The cove is protected by natural cliffs on either side, with the only access point being the hill that your uncle’s house sits on. It’s small, but the stretch of sand is soft and golden and clean, absent of any tourists and the debris that they tend to leave behind. It is, by all accounts, perfect, and a far better option than the significantly more crowded beach fifteen minutes away. Thanks to the hill and the natural caves, the air is cooler and easier to breathe in the cove. You set out your towel and water bottle near the base of the hill and strip down to your bathing suit, hefting your inflatable floaty up and preparing yourself to march into the ocean. After all the time spent inside your uncle’s grody house, the fresh air and fine golden sand feels like heaven.

When you finally work up the nerve to dip your toes into the water, you have to fight not to recoil from the cold. The temperature of the water is cool and chill, a direct contrast to the heavy, hot thickness of the air, and it takes a few minutes of psyching yourself up before you’re able to submerge yourself fully. Despite the chill, the sensation of being surrounded by water is a relief after the oppressive afternoon heat. You wade out further, keeping a mindful eye out for the reefs your uncle had mentioned, until the water comes up to your hips, then your chest, then your collarbones. You let the tension seep out of your shoulders as you float, buoyed gently by the waves. It’s the most peaceful you’ve been since your stay with your uncle began after he broke his leg; you don’t mind taking care of him while he heals, but you didn’t quite realise how much you needed a break until now.

The saltwater is like a balm; it takes some manoeuvring to actually get yourself up on the floaty, but once you’re settled and relaxed you think you could happily float on your back like this for hours, lost to the warmth of the sun on your skin and the waves rocking you back and forth. The fresh smell of the saltwater and the soft swaying of the floaty in the ocean waves lull you into a peaceful doze.

Naturally, that’s when things start to go wrong.

As you fall into a light sleep you fail to notice the thick grey clouds rolling in and the tide pulling out. The waves creep higher and crash faster, and your floaty bobs rapidly along as you sleep, unaware of just about all of it.

That changes when the floaty catches on a sharp rock jutting out of the water; awareness comes crashing back to you as the floaty tears right as a wave breaks over you, the acute chill of the water and the weight of the ocean pushing down over your head. The shock of the cold water leaves you momentarily stunned and in the brief moment before you start thrashing against the icy waves, a riptide catches your legs and tears you through the water.

Panic rears up in your chest, sharp and choking. Your chest is already aching from the lack of air since you hadn’t had the chance to get a proper breath before you had gone under, and you’re not able to thrash against the current with as much force as you need to be able to reach the surface again. You kick frantically against the water, muscles burning, but you’re so disoriented that you’re honestly not even sure if you’re swimming in the right direction; the salt burns your eyes when you try to open them, and everything is so dark that you can’t tell which way is up.

Your head crests the surface of the water, and you just manage to suck in a painful breath when another wave crashes down over the top of your head. As you struggle to right yourself and reach the surface again, you find your movements becoming sluggish. You’re panicking and running out of air, but even though you know that you still can’t manage to fight your way to the surface.

For a moment something pale cuts through the water in front of your eyes and you think that you’re about to emerge into the air again but you feel so impossibly tired. Your vision begins to go dark, and your limbs are so heavy that continuing to struggle against the tide is impossible.

You know that you’re sinking, but there’s not a thing you can do to stop it.

Consciousness returns to you slowly and painfully.

The first thing to register is the soreness in your chest and ribs -- every inhale is an effort, and it feels as though your lungs are actually bruised. You inhale sharply, which causes a chain reaction of hacking and sputtering and retching. The coughing, in turn, highlights how just about every part of your body feels as though it’s been battered continuously against a rock. When you finally crack open your eyes, you wonder for a moment if you might have gone blind, because your vision stays exactly as dark as when your eyes were closed. When you push yourself up into a seated position, however, you find that you’re sprawled on the wet, rocky floor of a cave.

You move your head very slowly to take in your surroundings, feeling woozy and nauseous. You wonder if you hit your head, or if the nausea is a side effect of nearly drowning. Panic begins building again in your chest, and you have to make a concentrated effort to push all of your uncle’s warnings about delayed drowning out of your mind so you can focus on taking deep, even breaths.

The rocky floor that you’ve woken up on is a ledge of solid stone that makes up half of the cave; the other half is submerged in a pool of clear seawater, beyond which a large crack in the stone walls leads directly back to the ocean. The entire cavern is dimly illuminated by what seems to be phosphorescent algae growing in the water and along the dampest patches of the walls, glowing a muted, luminous blue. It's pretty, but you can’t concentrate on it because in the dim light provided by both the entrance to the cave and the algae, you can see the bottom of the water is littered with what looks like bones.

You look away quickly, because that is not conducive to staying calm. The bones are probably from some stupid large fish that got stuck in the cave and couldn’t figure out how to escape, and you are absolutely not going to look any closer to confirm that. A flash of colour catches your eye, though, and when you turn to look you find the deflated, torn plastic remains of your floaty hanging from an outcrop of rock.

Amidst the enormous relief at being alive, there’s a growing sense of unease in the back of your mind -- how had you washed up inside the cave in the first place? The entrance to the cavern is nothing but a slash in the rocks, angled in such a way that it would be nearly hidden if not for the thin slant of light shining through. How had you not been dashed to bits by those viciously sharp rocks like your floaty? Even if you had miraculously been washed through the small gap and into the mouth of the cave, by all rights you should have ended up floating in the saltwater pool. How had you ended up on the ledge?

You cast another slow look around the cavern; if you weren’t so sore and scared, you think you’d be able to appreciate your surroundings a lot more. The cave is actually quite beautiful -- the algae in the water gives the pool an almost other-wordly, luminescent blue hue, and the stone ledge is devoid of slimy seaweed or sharp barnacles which makes for a somewhat comfortable place to sit, despite its dampness. The deep booming of thunder from outside the cave is what forces you to realise that you’re not going to be able to get out of here until the storm dies down, but at the very least you could have been stuck somewhere far worse. Other than the bones sitting at the bottom of the pool, the cavern is oddly clean.

It’s only when you realise that your whole body is trembling that you take the time to check yourself out. The cold has caused your circulation to slow, and your hands and feet are painfully stiff and bloodless. While the cave isn’t as chilly as you might expect, it’s still not exactly warm and you have no idea how you’re supposed to stop your shivering. You know that you’ve read survival advice regarding hypothermia before, but now that it’s actually necessary it seems as though all relevant knowledge has leaked out of your brain.

Your eyes rove the cavern absentmindedly as you think, wracked with the occasional violent shiver. “Fuck,” you whisper to yourself, exhausted. Your gaze passes smoothly over the outcrop of rocks near the cave’s entrance, the red eyes staring up at you from under the water, the froth churned up by the waves spilling through the entrance and into the cave. Another clap of thunder booms from outside.

It takes a ridiculous amount of time for your brain to catch up to what your eyes had just seen, but when you finally jerk your attention back to the water, whatever you had seen is gone. Your breathing is laboured now and stings in your chest slightly, but you pay it no mind as you shuffle closer to the edge of the pool, staring intently at the now empty spot in the water. Maybe your near-drowning experience had resulted in more oxygen deprivation than you had realised, because you could swear you had just seen a man in the water.

“Hello?” you call. Your teeth are chattering, the tone of your voice both nervous and hopeful in equal measures. The cave echoes your voice back to you in a way that makes you feel distinctly idiotic. “Is s-someone there? Please!”

The surface of the water ripples, but you’re pretty sure that the movement is due to the waves rather than some mysterious man hiding in the pool. Feeling disappointed and a little dumb, you sit back and gaze morosely into the water. Were you really so addled that you were beginning to hallucinate?

Before you can begin to worry too much about your possibly declining mental state, the water ripples again. This time, you snap your head up in time to see something dart behind a large rock sticking up from the water.

“Hey!” you blurt, sitting up and scooting closer to the edge. “Who are you? I c-can see you, asshole!”

It occurs to you that it’s highly likely that you’re sitting here shouting at a scared seal or something else much less menacing, or human-like, for that matter. You only have a short moment to feel extremely stupid before whatever is out there moves again, and when a head pops out from behind the rock you fall totally silent.

It is a man! His shock of blond hair is wet and plastered to his head and most of his body remains hidden behind the rock, but there’s no denying that it’s an actual person and you can’t help the immediate relief that washes over you.

“Hey, d-did you get washed up in here too?” As soon as you ask the question, you realise that something isn’t quite… right. How had you missed him on your first glance around? It wasn’t as though there were all that many places within the cavern to hide, and there shouldn’t be any reason to hide in the first place; you had been unconscious, after all. Why was he still in the water?

And why wasn’t he answering you? His head is tilted slightly and his gaze is boring into you, but he makes no move to speak or to come out from behind the rock. It hits you then that you’re all alone in an isolated cave with a total stranger who’s positively glaring at you, and you’re wearing nothing but your bathing suit.

Cold unease settles deep in your belly, and you push yourself carefully away from the edge. His eyes follow the movement; you can’t be sure from this far away, but his irises look an almost unnatural shade of red. The hair on the back of your neck and all up your arms stands on end, and you can’t shake off the feeling that you’re in danger.

“I was just leaving,” you tell him, forcing a nervous smile to your face. “I’m just trying to figure out how to get out of here.”

The man doesn’t reply; in fact, he barely even reacts. He doesn’t even blink.

The smile slides slowly off your face, and your throat makes a dry clicking noise as you try to swallow. “Okay!” you say too loudly; your voice echoes throughout the cave, which only frays your nerves further. “I’m going!” Even as you say it, you realise that there’s no possible way out of the cavern without having to get in the water and swim past the man to get to the crack in the cave wall. Water spills through the crevice as waves crash into the side of the cliff, and another clap of muffled thunder reminds you that there is a storm raging outside. Even if you manage to get around this weirdo and escape the cave, you don’t know how far you’ve drifted from the cove. With the ocean so unsettled, it would be plain stupid to dive back out there without knowing where you are or how deep the water is outside of the cave.

The sound of water rippling catches your attention, and you look back at the man to see that he’s beginning to emerge from behind the rock. Your spine stiffens, alarmed at the sudden movement after so much uninterrupted stillness. He keeps low to the water, his face half-submerged, and as he slides out from the rock and begins to smoothly cut through the water. A flash of colour catches your eye and draws your gaze towards the side of his head. Right over the space where his ears should be is delicate soft orange and black webbing that almost looks like… fins? They twitch a little in your direction, but otherwise hang limply so that they’re almost hidden by his mass of spiky hair.

The fins are distracting enough that it takes you a truly embarrassing length of time to notice that the man has an even stranger feature that his odd ears. As he gets closer, you finally catch sight of the long, lithe tail.

Your instinct is to draw back in both shock and disbelief, but as soon as you move the man (was this even a man?) lifts his head fully out of the water and bares his teeth at you as he spits out a low, sharp hissing sound. You freeze, overwhelmed; your eyes are darting from his teeth to his fins to the tail, but you’re having some serious trouble actually taking it all in. The oxygen deprivation from nearly drowning must have done more damage than you had first thought if you’re beginning to hallucinate shit like this. The tail is long and serpentine, ending in twin webbed fins and covered in dark scales. Combined with his disturbingly human torso, he must be nearly eight feet long. When he reaches the edge of the rocky platform, one of his hands comes up to grip onto the surface and you’re greeted with the sight of long and dark clawed fingertips. They flash in the low light like a threat, ensuring you keep as still and quiet as possible. From this close, you wonder how you possibly missed the fact that he is most definitely not human.

Your breathing picks up as you struggle not to panic, and the fins on the sides of his head rotate towards you as the air sticks harshly in your throat. It’s undoubtedly a threat display; the way the fins splay out flat makes him look aggressive and frightening, and you want to cringe away but you’re also afraid to move. You just tense up on the spot and try to make yourself smaller, hoping desperately that he’ll lose interest once he realises that you don’t pose any danger to him.

“I’m just trying to get home.” Your voice comes out croaky and shaking with fear. You seriously doubt that he can understand what you’re saying, but the sound of your voice has his head tilting suspiciously at you. Even if he doesn’t understand your words, maybe your low and pleading tone will assure him that you mean no harm. “I don’t know where I am, I’m cold, and I’m sore, and I just want to go home.”

A translucent second pair of eyelids slide sideways in a blink, and you have to fight to suppress your shiver. From this close, he’s so obviously inhuman that it’s downright unnerving. His skin is smooth and blemishless, almost too perfect. His features, while human, are virtually flawless in a way that’s actually quite overwhelming -- he’s beautiful, once you ignore his fish half. And the blood-red, glaring eyes.

Predictably, he remains silent, though the fins on the side of his head drop low. You really hope that’s a good sign, and decide to keep talking. Hopefully, by familiarising him with your voice you lower the chance of him attacking you. “My uncle is probably so worried about me. He broke his leg a month ago in a boating accident, and I’ve been looking after him since. This is the first time I’ve taken any time to myself -- I don’t even know how long I’ve been gone for. He must know something’s wrong, or else I would have come home as soon as the storm hit.”

The creature just blinks that sideways blink, floating still in the water as he stares at you.

You sigh, and ease back slowly into a more comfortable sitting position. Those orange fins rotate towards you at the movement, but otherwise he doesn’t react. You take the lack of hissing as a sign of progress.

“This is your cave, huh?” You keep your tone stupidly conversational, as if you’re having a friendly chat with a neighbour or something. “It’s nice. Pretty cosy, as far as caves go. Clean. Except for, you know. The bones.” Now that you’ve mentioned it, you can’t help your gaze from drifting to said bones. To your relief, you see that most of them seem to be the remains of various ocean creatures, though there are a few suspiciously large bones that are almost certainly human. Fear rises up through your chest and lodges in your throat, which makes it difficult to force your words out. “Wow. Yeah. The, uh. The bones are kind of gross.”

The creature follows your gaze, craning his head over his shoulder to see what you’re looking at. He pushes himself away from the ledge and dives in one quick, fluid movement, startling you so badly that you nearly overbalance despite sitting down. His tail is pure muscle, and it ripples as he cuts through the water. It’s only now as you watch him submerged beneath the surface that you realise this is a real mermaid creature that you have somehow found yourself trapped in a cave with. The realisation sends you reeling, but before you can spiral into a flat out panic attack, the creature bursts out of the water again. He pulls himself up onto the ledge and leans on it with his forearms, before slapping down an object right in front of you.

It is, quite unmistakably, a human thigh bone. You recoil in badly disguised horror, “Oh! What the fuck!”

The creature watches you, unblinking. He seems… expectant?

You look down to the thigh bone, then back to the creature. Is he threatening you? Is this his way of letting you know that he’s killed humans before, and is willing to do so again? You cringe away from the yellowing bone.

“Oh shit. Fuck. Oh my god. Okay. Okay, um… I’m not a threat! I promise! I don’t even want to be here. Please don’t hurt me. Shit, you don’t even know what I’m saying, do you?” Your voice has grown thick with panic, and you try to choke it down. Your hands are trembling, and you run them nervously over your face in an attempt to do something with them. “Look. You, uh. You seem like a very nice… mermaid? Mer… creature. I can tell that you’re, um, very strong. And your claws are very intimidating.” You trail off, because you’ve ended up freaking yourself out and losing your train of thought.

The creature has lifted itself a little further out of the water, and appears to be puffing up slightly. You wonder if it’s another threat display, but he doesn’t seem to be overly aggressive. That is, until a clawed hand reaches out and snatches at your ankle so fast that you can barely follow the movement with your eyes. You yelp with fright a solid moment too late, but the pain that you had been expecting doesn’t come. Instead, those sharp, mottled black claws grip firmly at your ankle without actually piercing the skin; the creature appears to be peering closely at your feet.

“Those are my toes.” You tell him stupidly, as though he has any idea what you’re talking about. “They don’t taste good.” You wiggle your toes, and the creature jerks back and hisses at them. “Whoa! Sorry! They’re harmless, I swear! Please don’t kill me!”

When it becomes clear that your toes don’t present any immediate threat, he pinches your big toe between two fingers and squeezes it experimentally. The fear that had been so paralysing is beginning to steadily fade the longer this little exchange goes on without the creature hurting you. You could almost fool yourself into thinking that maybe he was harmless, but the bone sitting on the ground next to your hips suggests otherwise. Still, aside from his initial display of aggression, he doesn’t appear to be particularly hostile. Just a little… over-curious.

His grip on your legs is strong but gentle enough to not actually be causing you any pain, though that might also be thanks to the fact that your extremities have gone numb from the cold. Your shivering has eased up a bit, but you still feel exposed in your damp bathing suit. You’re a little self-conscious, but you’re pretty sure that the mermaid man is too preoccupied with your feet to even notice the fact that you’re in a state of undress; in fact, you’re not even sure if he has a concept of nudity, considering he’s half fish.

You’re so preoccupied with watching the creature rub at your shins that it takes a while for you to notice how quiet it’s gotten inside the cave. “Sounds like the storm has blown over.” You tell the creature, who just stares at you with his brow furrowed. You’re not entirely sure where to go from here; you have no choice but to start searching for a way out of the cave, but you’re not sure how to go about extracting yourself from the creature’s grasp. You don’t know if he’ll stay as docile with you once you’re actually standing and moving around. “How am I gonna get out of here, huh?”

The grip on your leg disappears as the creature backs up before plunging back into the water with a quick snap of its tail. You can’t help but marvel at the sheer power hidden in that muscular lower half as he powers through water almost faster than your eye can follow. He disappears from view, and it takes you a few seconds before you realise that he’s darted down a passage that you hadn’t been able to see due to the angle.

As soon as you realise he’s gone, your stomach clenches. “Hey!” You call, suddenly nervous. It might be stupid, but at least when he was here you weren’t entirely alone. “Hey, wait! Please don’t leave me here!”

There’s no sound but the gentle tinkling of water against rock. You sit back with a gusty sigh and shut your eyes. While he wasn’t the most chatty of companions, there was something slightly reassuring about the fact that you weren’t entirely alone in this cavern. Maybe him leaving was for the best though; if he was the one responsible for the mass amounts of bone littering the bottom of the pool floor, then it would be safer for you now that he’s gone. It looks like you’re going to have to get back into the water and swim to the entrance, and while you fill with dread at the thought of having to return to the cold water, it’s probably significantly safer to do so now that the creature is nowhere to be seen.

You slip off the edge of the ledge and into the saltwater pool, hissing as the cold water hits your skin. It’s deeper than you had initially thought; your feet aren’t even close to touching the bottom. You clutch at the ledge and breathe, even though the deep breaths feel like they’re slicing into your lungs. Your feet feel oddly heavy, as though they’ve been carved from blocks of ice, and you feel doubt stab at you; are you going to be able to swim like this?

The water ripples, signalling movement behind you, and you realise that the creature has returned. You have a split second to panic -- if he decides to attack, you’ve just put yourself right in his path -- but then you catch sight of what he’s pulling behind him. It looks like a surfboard that’s been broken in half.

“Oh, wow!” You gasp, reaching out for it. It’s faded and corroded by time, disuse, and saltwater, and there are several deep gouge marks on it that look like suspiciously like claw and teeth marks, but it’s buoyant and definitely more than enough for you to paddle out on. “Amazing! Oh, you’re such a good boy! Thank you!”

Talking to him like he’s a dog probably isn’t the best idea, but his fins rotate towards you and even though he bares his teeth, he doesn’t look entirely displeased by your tone. He also doesn’t move to try and eat you, though his exceptionally sharp teeth are still pointed in your direction. You hope very much that it’s just posturing and that you’re not misinterpreting his body language; the last thing you need is to get torn apart right when you’re trying to make a break for the exit. He lets you take the surfboard and watches as you attempt to drag yourself up on it. It’s easier said than done, considering it’s been broken jaggedly in half and you can’t touch the ground. You might even be embarrassed by how much you’re struggling if there was anyone else around to see it; as it is, you feel like even the creature is judging your flailing legs as he bobs in one place effortlessly.

Apparently, he gets sick of watching your ineptitude very quickly. “Woah!” You yelp as a sharp, scaly hand lands on the curve of your ass. “What the fuck!” The hand pushes at you, shoving you up on the surfboard from behind. You don’t even have the presence of mind to be surprised at his strength, because you’re too focused on the hand on your ass. “Woah, woah, okay, buddy, no groping please!”

The creature’s tail lashes in the water as he stares blankly at you. His hand doesn’t move.

You try to squirm away, but there’s nowhere to go and he is technically helping. “Fucking hell.” You groan. It’s not as if he understands that he’s groping you; he’s a fish. “Okay. Okay, fine. I will overlook this so long as you help me get out of here.”

The creature shows no sign that he understands your attempts at bargaining. In fact, as soon as you speak he releases his tight grip on your ass and begins to loop slow, lazy circles around you. You sit up, straddling the broken surfboard as you watch him circle you. Now that you’re next to him, you realise that he really is huge -- his tail is long and practically ripples with powerful muscle, and his human half sports well-defined abdominals and bulging biceps, too. His lazy movements and the way that his gaze never once strays from you, not even to blink, sets your hair standing on end. This creature is a predator, and you’d be naive to let your guard down for even a second.

You swallow, and pray that he can’t smell your fear. When you begin to paddle your way towards the cave entrance, the creature perks up and begins to follow. He keeps up with the circles even as you paddle, and you can’t help but scowl at him. “That’s kind of obnoxious, you know.” you tell him, and receive another toothy grimace. If it weren’t for the way his lips peeled back off his sharp teeth, it might have looked almost like a grin.

Watching him in the water is surreal. He moves through it so fluidly that it’s almost mesmerising, and you have to redirect your attention back to paddling several times after getting distracted. Apparently your progress is too slow for him, because the next time he circles around, he reaches out and curls his claws into the board. Wood splinters under his grip, but he doesn’t seem to notice as he yanksat the board insistently. You sit back as the board is pulled through the water, happy to let him do all the work.

Maneuvering the makeshift raftthrough the narrow entrance takes some effort, but you mostly allow the creature to work you and the board through the gap. And with that, you’re out of the cavern and into the open ocean. The sky is a dull, purple-tinged grey, the sun having already sunk low beyond the horizon; it’s evening time, which means you must have been in the cave for hours. You twist on the damaged surfboard and crane your head around to look back at the cavern; the entrance is barely noticeable, merely a crack in the face of a towering cliff.

Your heart jumps as you realise that you recognise this cliff. Your eyes follow the length of it, and sure enough you can see the cove in the distance and the shape of your uncle’s house sitting on the hill. “Ah!” you exclaim in delight, a relieved smile breaking over your face. Home! You’re so close! When you glance down at the creature, you see that he’s followed your gaze. He looks back to you, and his tail lashes the water. You point towards the cove. “There. That’s where I need to go. My home is over there.” You only feel a little stupid for talking to him like he can understand; he might not comprehend your language, but he’s obviously intelligent and he’s brought you this far. It’s not too far-fetched to hope that he might bring you just a little bit further.

Your optimism pays off -- the creature dutifully begins pulling the board in the direction you had pointed. In the twilight, you can see that the scales on his tail are an iridescent black colour, flashing deep orange as light reflects off him as he twists and turns in the water. It’s pretty, and you watch in silent admiration. When he begins pulling you faster and splashing through the waves with unnecessarily large flourishes of his tail, you realise that he’s showing off.

You laugh, delighted with the display and giddy now that most of the danger seems to be behind you. “Yes, yes, very impressive. Your tail is beautiful.”

Obviously pleased with your admiring tone of voice, the creature preens and flexes as he cuts through the waves. With his speed, what should have been a fifteen minute swim is cut down to barely five, and he releases his grip on the board as you begin to approach the shore. As soon as the water is shallow enough for you to stand, you slip off the board and curl your toes into the sand. You turn to grin at the creature, elated, and see that he’s retreated into the waves so that all you can see of him is his eyes and the top of his head.

“Thank you!” You call, grinning as you stagger out of the sea and back onto dry land. “You’re amazing!”

In a flash of scales, he disappears into the waves. You stand on the beach for several long moments, watching the place he had been and wondering if you had just experienced some kind of extremely advanced auditory and visual hallucination. You stay until you start to shiver again in the cold evening air, then stumble your way back up the hill to your uncle’s house.

Predictably, your uncle is a healthy mixture of angry and terrified. It seems you really worried him, and he had no way to contact anyone since he doesn’t own a cellphone. Despite your exhaustion, it takes the rest of the evening to calm him down and assure him that you’re fine. Eventually, you get to slip away for a warm bath and then to bed.

Lying in bed staring at the ceiling of your uncle’s guest bedroom, you’re sure that it will take you ages to get to sleep. Your brain replays the events of the day over and over again, until the details become murky and your thoughts slow. The last thing you think before you slip off into sleep is how lucky you are to be alive, whether you were hallucinating or not.

You’re an idiot. A total, complete imbecile.

That’s the only explanation for how you’ve managed to find yourself back at the jagged mouth of the cave yet again. It’s been almost a full two weeks since you washed up here during the storm, and in those two weeks you could swear that you had seen a blond head bobbing in the waves in front of your uncle’s house multiple times. It was pretty hard to convince yourself that the whole mermaid-slash-sea creature thing was a product of your imagination after a scary and traumatic event when the hallucination kept appearing right outside where you live.

So, you had borrowed an old surfboard from your uncle (a full, undamaged one this time), and paddled your way back out to the cliff face. You notice almost immediately that the tide is strong here, and it’s difficult to keep yourself from being dashed right against the jagged surface of the cliff. It does confirm your suspicions, though - there’s no way that you could have washed up inside that cave by chance. It takes a significant amount of effort to pull yourself inside the mouth of the rocky structurecave without being crushed into the sharp stone slabs decorating the outside like some sort of deadly decorrocks, but you manage to do so without hurting yourself.

Inside, the cave looks exactly the same as last time, though this time it’s empty. You paddle forward, the movement significantly easier now that you have a full-sized surfboard. Peering around, you see no sign at all that anything living might have occupied the cavern. That’s when the doubt starts to come creeping in. You’d had the odd invasive thought over the past two weeks that maybe you had imagined the whole mermaid creature (because it was, admittedly, insane), but then you had seen that blond head floating in the ocean breeze on several occasions. You could have sworn he was watching the house! Now that you’re here and facing the complete absence of evidence, you start to feel a little silly.

You paddle further into the cave, straddling the board so that your legs can kick out through the water. You admire the phosphorescent algae growing up the walls, amazed at the natural glowing light. When you turn your attention back to the bottom of the pool, though, you go still.

It’s empty. The floor of the pool, previously littered with bones, is totally pristine.

You sit still on the surfboard in the middle of the pool, gazing down into the water. Despite how crazy the whole situation was, you had been sure that you weren’t imagining it. But now, faced with the complete absence of evidence, you’re forced to consider the fact that maybe the whole thing really had been in your head. You have such a vivid memory of the silt-covered bones blanketing the floor of the cave that now seeing them missing has completely thrown you off.

A bark sounds behind you, rough and deep like a seal, and you jerk hard in surprise.

Whirling around, clutching at the board beneath you to keep your balance, you catch sight of the creature floating by the entrance to the cave. He’s watching you intently, having obviously been monitoring you since you first managed to float inside.

The relief that slams into you feels like a physical punch -- the spikey hair, red eyes, and tail are exactly the same as you remember. It’s real. You laugh, and it feels like the sound has been ripped right out of your chest; the situation is almost overwhelmingly surreal, but the endorphin rush of knowing that you’re not delusional has you grinning at the creature, wide and bright.

“Hi!” You say, trying to keep your voice as level as possible despite your elation. You may have been delighted to see him, but you have no idea if he even remembers you from two weeks ago; you can only hope that he doesn’t decide that he’s hungry today. “Wow, look at you! You have no idea how good it is to see your face! And your tail! God, I am so glad to see your tail! It’s real, holy shit.”

One of the creature’s webbed fins twitch on the side of his head, rotating towards you as you ramble. In a single, smooth movement he pushes away from the entrance of the cave until he’s right in front of your surfboard, his face half-submerged in the water. He seems pretty docile today, his movements strong, but relaxed. The aggression he had displayed that had scared you so badly the first time is completely absent, and he begins to loop circles around you in a manner that is almost playful. You don’t bother to hide the awe in your expression as you watch his serpentine lower half undulate through the clear water.

“Wow.” You breathe, your cheeks stretched wide by your goofy grin. “It’s amazing.”

He must feel your gaze on him, because his lazy looping begins to become more elaborate. The extra flourishes he makes with his tail as he circles you splashes water all over your thighs and stomach. You squeak in surprise, but as you relax again you start to laugh.

“Are you showing off?” You ask with a grin, watching his body roll through the saltwater pool, never straying too far from your surfboard. “You’re just a giant puppy, aren’t you?”

His circling gets faster and faster, until watching him nearly makes you dizzy. It’s a little reminiscent of being stalked by a shark, but you don’t sense any aggression or animosity from him at all. The little hairs standing on end on the back of your neck serve as a reminder that he is, undoubtedly, a predator, but you don’t feel as though he poses any particular threat to you right now. It’s a dangerous game you’re playing, treating him like a harmless puppy dog, but you have a feeling that his bark is probably worse than his bite. At least, you hope so.

“Help me get to the ledge?” You ask, beginning to paddle over. He catches on to where you’re trying to get to almost instantly, and pushes the surfboard effortlessly over to the rocky platform.

Once you climb out of the water and turn to him, he pushes his upper half up onto the ledge and leans on his folded arms. The intensity of his gaze has lessened, or maybe you’ve just gotten used to it, because it doesn’t feel as though he’s trying to eat you alive with his eyes anymore. His tail swishes through the water, creating gentle waves rippling over the surface as he watches you with a sort of attentive stillness reminiscent of a cat.

“You saved me last time, didn’t you? When I was drowning?” You ask absent-mindedly. Your voice subconsciously takes on the same artificially high-pitched tone you use when you’re talking to animals and babies, but judging by the way his fins rotate downward and flatten to the side of his head he doesn’t like that. “Thank you.”

You’re taking a massive chance even making an attempt to touch him, but you take a deep breath and then hold your breath as you reach out to him. He flinches from your outstretched hand and bares his sharp teeth at you, but there’s no animosity behind it and he makes no move to stop you from placing your hand on the top of his head. His hair is coarse with sea salt, which probably explains its spiky texture, and is still dripping wet. As you ruffle his hair, your fingers curl into the chaotic blond spikes -- though you had originally intended to simply give him a pat on the head, you end up playing with his hair and scratching at his scalp.

You weren’t sure how the creature was going to react to your bold decision to give him head scratches, but he seems to like it -- his eyes go half-lidded and droopy, and he presses his head lightly into your touch. You grin, encouraged by his reaction, and let your hand trail cautiously down to one of his fins. It’s soft to the touch and delicate, with an almost silky smooth slippery texture. It twitches beneath your fingers, and you notice for the first time that the soft orange colour is interspersed with milky streaks of black.

“Pretty.” you murmur to him, stroking a finger down the length of the fin before returning your hand to his messy mop of hair.

A harsh, rumbling growling sound erupts out of the creature’s chest, and you whip your hand back in shock. The creature’s head jerks up to look at you, equally startled by your sudden movement. It takes you a moment to realise that he wasn’t snarling at you, he was purring.

“Oh!” you breathe, surprised. “You like me playing with your hair?”

The creature obviously doesn’t answer; instead, he reaches out and grabs your wrist, his sharp claws cautiously guiding your hand up to plant right back into his hair. You laugh, startled by his sudden boldness, but obediently start scratching at his scalp again. That snarling, chain-saw like purr starts up again, and you can’t help the breathless giggle that bubbles out of you at the sound of it.

The minutes tick by as you play with his hair, his grumbling purr echoing throughout the cave. His body has gone mostly lax, with his upper half laid out on the ledge in front of you and his lower half floating in the water. It’s kind of exciting being so close to a creature that could probably kill you with a single swipe of his claws but has instead chosen to let you pet him. Like this, lying relaxed by your legs, you could mistake him for a regular man. So long as you didn’t allow your gaze to drift lower, at least.

Your stomach decides to end the moment by letting out a rumbling growl of its own, which surprises even you since you had eaten before you left your uncle’s house. The creature draws back, squinting suspiciously at your torso.

“Sorry,” you say sheepishly, embarrassed despite yourself, “I’m not actually hungry, my stomach doesn’t know what it’s talking about.”

The creature blinks one of its creepy sideways blinks at you, and then in one quick movement disappears under the water with a flourish of his tail. You catch a streak of colour darting out of the cave and sigh as the water settles, disappointed that the moment has been brought to such an abrupt end by something as stupid as your tummy rumbling when you weren’t even particularly hungry. You settle back and wonder if you should take that as a sign that it’s time to get out of there.

The cave is beautifully peaceful, silent but for the sound of the waves lapping against rock. You could probably stay there for hours, but it doesn’t feel right to be there without the creature; it feels as though you’re infringing on his private territory, somehow, and it makes you feel a little uneasy. In the end, you don’t get much time to overthink -- the creature re-enters the cave nearly soundlessly, and you barely notice his presence until he emerges out of the water and hauls himself up on the rocky platform next to you.

“Oh!” You blurt, startled by the sudden movement. “You’re back!”

The creature doesn’t react to your words at all, instead dropping something in front of your folded legs. You blink at it, bewildered, as it wriggles on the stone platform.

“It’s… a fish.” You point out redundantly, at a loss for anything else to say. When you look back up you find that the creature is watching you carefully, a hint of impatience on his face. He nudges the fish towards you, and you cringe back as the fish flip-flops helplessly. “Gah!”

The creature’s brow drops into a frown, clearly unhappy with your reaction. He pushes the fish towards you more aggressively this time, but when the fish leaps into the air it’s only instinct for you to smack it away in a panic. The fish bounces once and then makes a bid for freedom, jumping straight into the water. The creature snarls and leaps after it.

The poor fish doesn’t stand a chance; the creature snatches it back up within seconds, and then it’s dumped in front of you again. “Uh. I don’t really… want this?” You stare at it, and then lift your head to look at the creature. He’s still frowning, and when you make no move to take the fish he reaches out to pick it up himself with a grunt of obvious irritation. You relax a little once he takes the fish, wondering what the hell that had been about.

Smack.

You screech as the fish slaps into your face, recoiling so violently that you overbalance and fall flat on your back. “What the FUCK!”

The creature rears back, obviously surprised by your reaction and all the yelling. He spits out a hissing sound as the fish makes another escape attempt, and dives after it. You’re too busy scrubbing at your face in disgust to keep track of what the hell he’s doing now, but when something wet and slimy smacks into your arms you realise that he’s just pelted you with the fish again!

“Why would you do that!” You yell, distressed. You would never be able to forget what a fish to the face feels like, now. “Fucking- That’s fucking gross!”

A low grumbling starts in the creature’s chest, but his brow is furrowed and his head is tilted so he doesn’t seem angry. If anything, he just seems confused. The fish is still wriggling where it’s stuck in his clenched, clawed fist, but its movements are getting progressively weaker.

“Don’t you dare throw that at me again,” you threaten, glaring his way and injecting as much authority into your voice as you can manage, “Or we will have a serious problem.”

Your tone must have been pretty clear, because the creature doesn’t try to launch the fish at your face again. Instead, he lifts the fish up to his own mouth and takes an enormous bite, ripping the head right off and chewing it between his razor-sharp fangs.

You gag at the sight of guts and viscera falling to the cavern floor, and then turn to retch as wet chewing sounds reach you. “Oh fuck, that is nasty. Why? Ah, Jesus-” The creature proffers the chewed up fish carcass, scowling when you turn your face away to gag again. “Stop shoving that at me! I will get sick on you!”

The creature grunts, confused and annoyed by your behaviour. When it becomes clear that you will not be taking the remains of the fish to eat yourself, he tosses the carcass to the side. It lands with a sad little ‘thwunk’ and then lays forgotten as the creature turns back to look at you. Your stomach rolls as he starts to pick raw meat out of his teeth with a clawed fingertip.

“On that note, I think it’s time for me to leave.” You climb to your feet, stubbornly refusing to look at the dead fish. “That’s enough weirdness for me to deal with for one day.” As soon as you make a move for the surfboard, the creature starts making sharp barking noises at you. You turn to scowl at him, irritated, and see that he’s dragged himself after you along the ledge. “What do you want?”

The creature looks almost constipated for a long moment, before he huffs a sharp breath of air out his nose. “Stay.”

It feels like the world stops turning. You think your heart might have actually stopped in your chest. You were surely hallucinating this time. “Did you just speak?”

The creature’s tail lashes impatiently as he scowls up at you from the ground, obviously displeased at your sudden difference in height. “Will you fucking sit down?”

You drop back down to the floor, jaw hanging open. “What the fuck?” You whisper to yourself. It feels as though your brain is functioning several steps behind its usual pace, and all you can do is stare dumbly. “You can fucking talk?”

“Are you an idiot?” The creature snaps at you, scowling. A dusting of light pink blooms high on his cheekbones, “I’m talking right now, aren’t I?”

“I’ve been talking to you this whole time!” You yell, horrified. You cast your mind back desperately, struggling to recall whether you said anything embarrassing at any stage. You definitely have, you just know it. “What the fuck! Why did you never answer?!”

The creature clicks his tongue, and an infuriating little smirk settles over his perfect features. His voice is smug when he speaks next, “I’m a good listener.”

That does it.

“Oh, fuck you.” You jump to your feet again and march to your surfboard, ignoring the scrabbling sounds against the rock as the creature pulls himself after you.

“Hey! Wait! You said you’d stay, asshole!”

“No, you told me to stay! I never agreed to shit!” You snap, embarrassed and annoyed. You fumble with the board, and the creature takes that moment to shove it away from you. You gasp in outrage as you watch it float out into the middle of the pool, then round on him. “What the hell!”

The creature glares at you, his cheeks stained red. It looks as though he’s seriously struggling with something, until he finally says, “Stay… please.” It sounds as though the word has been forced out of him, like it actually grates him to say it.

You should probably leave. But then again, how many chances in a lifetime are you going to get to meet a fantasy creature (and one that can actually speak to you!). Your curiosity gets the better of you (and the embarrassed but hopeful look on the creature’s face doesn’t help), so you reluctantly sit back down once more. You don’t miss the way he seems to relax a little now that you’re not going anywhere. “Only for a while.” you warn him half-heartedly.

The creature scoffs as if he doesn’t care, as if he didn’t literally just plead with you to stay. “Whatever. Why didn’t you like the fish?”

“The-?” You glance over your shoulder. The fish carcass lies abandoned several paces away, stinking and leaking everywhere. “Uh…”

“I thought you were hungry.” he presses, sounding distinctly as though he’s accusing you of lying.

“You were trying to feed me?” You ask, raising your eyebrows so high they nearly vanish into your hairline. That’s what smacking you in the face with the fish was all about?

The creature’s tail twitches again, sending waves rolling across the surface of the pool. He looks embarrassed, though he’s making a pretty valiant effort at pretending to be unaffected. “Yeah, so what? It’s not my fault that your fingers are all blunt and useless. Can you even kill anything with those?”

You squint down at your fingers, then frown at him. “I don’t know, I’ve never tried! Humans don’t eat raw meat, anyway!”

“Yes, they do!” The creature shoots back, “I’ve heard of sushi!”

That effectively renders you silent as you blink at him. Where had he heard of sushi? “Okay, fine!” You concede grumpily, “Some people eat sushi! That is not the same as catching a fish and eating it live!”

The creature makes a face and lies out on his back, stretching leisurely. “Damn, you’re high maintenance.” He complains, though he doesn’t look all that annoyed. If anything, he looks stupidly pleased with himself. “Whatever. Tell me what you like, then.”

“I don’t know,” You shrug, chewing your lip, “Normal food, I guess. Like, from the store.”

The creature frowns at that, obviously displeased but thinking hard. After a moment he grunts, shrugging. “We’ll work something out.” He says vaguely, then moves on before you can respond. “You’re staying with Aizawa now, right?”

You blink in surprise. “You know my Uncle Shouta?”

“Your uncle?” He asks, avoiding your question.

“Well,” you amend with a shrug, “We’re not blood-related. He’s always been a close family friend. How do you know him?”

The creature shrugs, muscled chest rippling in a way that’s frustratingly distracting. “He’s always hanging around in his stupid little boat.” There’s an underlying current to his voice that sounds like begrudging respect. “He’s helped us out a few times, I guess. He’s alright.”

“‘Us’?” You repeat, eyes wide. “Are there more of… you?” You gesture at his tail, unsure of what to actually refer to him as.

The creature must decide that he’s said too much, because he changes the subject. “What am I supposed to call you, anyway? I can’t keep thinking of you as ‘dumbass’.”

You scoff, slightly offended at that, but tell him your name anyway. “What do I call you?”

“My name is Katsuki,” he grins at you, displaying his rows of very white and very sharp teeth. “But you can call me whatever you like.”

The low, easy rumble of his voice sounds almost flirtatious, and for a long moment all you can do is blink at him. There’s no way you’re reading the situation correctly, you’re sure of it. “Um. Katsuki is fine.”

Katsuki snorts, but doesn’t push the matter. Instead, he rolls onto his side so that he can watch you more closely. His gaze is searingly intense, so much so that you genuinely have difficulty meeting his stare. His attention is overwhelming, and so you find yourself looking around the cavern in an effort to distract yourself. Your surroundings are more or less unchanged from the last time you were here, with one exception -- though the cave was clean before, now it seems to be immaculate. The absence of the bones littering the floor of the pool makes the water seem deeper and clearer, light reflecting off the surface and dancing in ripples along the rocky ceiling. Any seaweed or lichen that had been growing around the rocks or up the walls is gone now, leaving the stone surfaces looking as though they’d been scrubbed clean.

For lack of anything better to say to fill the silence, you say, “Your, uh, cave looks great. Very… tidy.”

Katsuki appears to puff up at that, proud that you noticed. “Yeah? You like it?”

“Oh, yeah. Definitely.” You nod absently. “It’s… um, cozy.”

“Cozy?” Katsuki repeats. He’s edging closer, almost imperceptibly, but the dragging sound his scaly lower half makes on the ground gives him away. His gaze has sharpened, and you feel distinctly hunted.

“Uh,” You laugh, nerves pitching your voice several octaves higher than normal. “Yeah, I guess. That’s some very nice, uh, algae. It really… pulls the room together.”

The algae, in all its phosphorescent glory, is nice, but Katsuki doesn’t turn to look where you’re pointing. The tip of his tail drags in the water, where it thumps softly from side to side. “Want to see the rest of the place?”

Something about his tone of voice has you hesitating; it sounds pointed, as though his words are heavy with significance that you don’t understand. Still, you don’t want to be rude, so you smile nervously and say, “There’s more? Sure, I’d like to see.”

Katsuki inhales sharply through his nose as an anticipatory grin spreads slowly across his face. His features, handsome anyway, are intimidatingly good looking as his cheeks dimple with his smile, and you only have a moment to wonder what exactly you’ve just agreed to before he pushes himself back into the water in one smooth movement. “Come on.” He says, reaching a hand back up to you and waiting impatiently for you to take it.

You pause for a moment, before throwing any lingering sense of self-preservation to the wind and taking his outstretched hand. He’s mindful of his claws as he helps you into the water, but it’s impossible to miss the way his palms drag over your arms in a way that can’t be mistaken for casual.

It’s only when you’re floating in the water next to him that you’re able to fully comprehend the sheer size of him. While his torso is mostly human in both shape and proportion, he’s still built like a damn bodybuilder, with solid abs and rolling biceps. Even without the tail he’s pretty big, but with it? You guess it must be about eight feet long, and it curls around you in the water like a thick, dark snake. He smiles at you as he keeps you afloat, and his teeth glint in the low light. It’s border-line terrifying, and for a long moment you wonder if you’ve just made a very serious mistake.

But then his tail undulates and he’s cutting through the water, dragging you with him. You laugh, startled, and cling onto his neck as he swims through the pool and down the mostly concealed passage he had disappeared through the last time.

The passage is completely submerged in water, and narrows before widening into an even larger cavern area. You gasp quietly as you realise that this is definitely his living space.The layout is pretty similar to the previous cavern, with a shelf of rock jutting out of the wall of the cave just above the height of the water, but unlike the previous cavern this rocky shelf is covered in soft dry moss. You wonder if this is where he sleeps.

The luminescent algae is far more plentiful in this part of the cave; it grows all up the walls and along the ceiling, where it glows in the dark like stars. You crane your head all the way back so that you can gaze open-mouthed at it all, awed by the surreal beauty of it. “Wow,” you breathe in delight, “It’s stunning!”

Katsuki grunts out a pleased rumble in response. In the position you’re in, you can feel it vibrate in his chest. When he reaches the platform, he grips you by the hips and boosts you up onto the rock. The sheer strength takes you by surprise, especially considering the way in which his expression hardly changes as he lifts you with ease.

Once you’re comfortably seated on the moss-covered stone, Katsuki heaves himself up to join you. His tail slaps against the water and coils close to your legs, rubbing gently against the skin of your legs. The sensation of wet scales should feel a little gross or uncomfortable against you, but they feel silky soft as they brush your skin. You lay back against the moss, gazing up at the glowing blue algae painted across the ceiling.

“Your home is beautiful.” You murmur, keeping your voice low. It feels as though the moment is fragile, and you don’t want to break the peaceful atmosphere in this little grotto.

Beside you, Katsuki gives a smug little shrug of his shoulders. He’s sitting way too close to you to be entirely casual (his tail is practically draped over you at this stage), but he doesn’t seem to think anything of the closeness so you write it off as a mermaid thing. “Obviously. What, are you fuckin’ surprised?”

You ignore that, sighing happily as you get comfortable. You can feel Katsuki’s gaze settle like a weight over you, but you simply refuse to look over -- lying comfortably on the cushioned cave floor and gazing up at the fantastical luminescence of the walls and ceiling is a kind of peace that you’ve never experienced before. You feel like you could stay like this forever.

However, Katsuki does not like to be ignored. Your attention has only been directed away from him for a few moments before he starts shifting irritably beside you. You can feel the muscles in his tail moving as it rolls, his clawed fingers tapping impatiently against his abdomen. It seems as though he’s waiting for something in particular, but you have absolutely no idea what this could be.

After another few moments of impatient shuffling, you finally turn your head to frown at him. “Is something wrong?”

Katsuki frowns back at you, and you see a brief hint of uncertainty flash in his eyes before it’s snuffed out. “No. I’m being fucking patient.”

“Patient?” You parrot, confused. “What are you waiting for?”

For the first time, you notice the flush crawling up the back of his neck and spreading over his cheeks. Swearing quietly, he looks off to the side and shuffles a little on the spot. Eventually he speaks again, though he still doesn’t meet your eye. “Am I reading this wrong?”

“Uh-?”

He continues before you can properly answer, his jaw clenched tight. “I tried to show you that I’m a good hunter and a strong opponent, but you didn’t like any of the bones. I wasn’t sure if you were interested or whatever, but then you showed me where you lived.” The emphasis he places on his words makes you realise that there is some special sort of significance that has gone right over your head, “Then you came back to my cave again, so I figured we were on the same page. But then you refused the fish-”

“I-” you start, bewildered, but Katsuki just keeps going as he works himself up into a mini rant.

“-Even though I know you’re hungry! And you said you liked the changes I made to the place after I got rid of the bones, and you kept calling my tail amazing and beautiful and shit-” He ignores the way you choke a little at that, though he seems to run out of steam, “I just-- fucking, tell me if I’m reading this wrong. I don’t know shit about humans. I thought you were accepting my advances.”

Advances? You inhale so sharply that you nearly choke all over again. There’s no way he means what you think he means. There is no damn way. “Are you- are you coming onto me?”

Katsuki stares back at you, before his face crumples into a scowl. “Hah? Are you fucking dumb? I brought you to my living space and gave you bones! I tried to feed you fish! Of fucking course I’m coming onto you!” His voice drops then and takes on an uncertain edge to it, “I thought you were accepting my mating advances.”

Your jaw drops, and you honestly can’t find the strength to close your mouth. Mating advances? “I-” you start, then cut yourself off. It feels like the world has tilted just slightly off to the side, throwing you off-kilter. You have absolutely no idea what to say. “Give me a minute.” You blurt, darting to your feet and turning away from him to pace.

You quickly encounter a problem, in that there’s nowhere to pace to; the ledge is only so large, so all you can really do is march from the edge to the wall. Overall, it’s only about ten paces long, and the whole time you’re focusing on not slipping on the moss. It doesn’t exactly give you a lot of space to think, but your mind still goes into working overtime.

You sneak a peek at Katsuki -- he’s lounging exactly where you left him, but his eyes are sharp and alert as they follow your movements. Not for the first time, you take notice of how unnaturally handsome he is; his features are perfectly formed, his skin clear and flawless where it stretches and swells over his finely muscled form. He looks like a handsome prince from a storybook, and you hate that you’re feeling sparks of attraction towards someone who’s half fish.

Katsuki clearly notices you looking at him, because he stretches out to display his body in a way that’s distinctly suggestive. You look away quickly, embarrassed at having been caught staring. How would that even work?

You can’t believe you’re even entertaining the idea.

“I’m not gonna fuck a fish.” You breathe, eyes clamped shut. “I’m better than that.”

“Who the fuck are you callin’ a fish?” Katsuki snaps. His tone is heated, but the way the split fins at the end of his tail slap a steady rhythm against the ground reveals his excitement. He must have caught on to the fact that you’re actually considering it, because the fins on the side of his head have begun to wiggle a little in anticipation. “Will you stop overthinking it and come over here?”

You hold onto your pride and dignity for another few seconds before abandoning them altogether and padding back over to him. You fold yourself down into a sitting position in front of him so that you’re facing each other. Katsuki sits up quickly, his lips beginning to turn up in a grin. You ignore the anticipation flashing over his face, and ask, “So, how does this, um, work?”

Katsuki inhales sharply, obviously excited. His fins flap softly against the side of his head. “Let me show you.”

“Right, okay. Yeah.” You say stupidly, eyes widening as Katsuki leans in. Any further rambling is cut short as he presses his lips into yours.

The kiss is a little clumsy at first -- Katsuki is careful with his sharp teeth, but the feeling of them pressing against your mouth sends a little frisson of excited fear down your spine. It’s only when he’s pressed up against you like this that you realise there’s a stark difference in your body temperatures; Katsuki’s skin is cool and soft, which feels amazing pressed against your rapidly heating body.

He pulls away from the kiss, leaving you blinking stupidly after him, and then pushes at your shoulders to guide you down onto your back. The moss underneath you acts like a cushion, so it’s significantly more comfortable than you had been expecting. This ends up being a good thing as Katsuki lowers himself down on you, his weight pinning you to the floor.

“You’re so warm.” He murmurs, nuzzling into your throat before nipping softly at it and snickering when you jerk at the sting. His hands skim over your sides, his clawed fingers dragging harmlessly over your vulnerable skin.

You hate to admit it, but there’s something about the danger of the whole thing that’s really getting you going. You recall the bones that had previously cluttered the whole cave floor, and know that Katsuki not only could rip someone apart if he felt like it, but had done so before. You squirm beneath him, pressing your thighs together as he kisses at the sensitive junction between your throat and ear.

Apparently unhappy with the position, Katsuki leans back a little so he can pry your legs apart. As soon as you drop your knees open he squirms into the gap and presses himself right along the line of your body, dropping aggressively eager kisses all up your chest and throat. “Take this off.” He rumbles, tugging irritably at the strings to your bikini top.

“Um.” You say, thoughts a little hazy. Every time Katsuki moves the muscles in his tail shift and roll, and his tail is pressed right in between your legs. “Off. Right.”

Katsuki watches as you tug the fabric off, his eyes bright and impatient. No sooner have you tossed your bikini top to the side than he’s on you again, thumbs rolling over your nipples as he pushes his face into your breasts. “What the fuck,” he mutters, squeezing curiously at one breast and licking a stripe over your other one, “You’re so soft.”

Desperate to touch back, you reach up and run your hands through his salt-coarse hair. When you accidentally brush against one of his head fins, his reaction takes you by surprise – his whole body jolts, pressing into you harshly, and he groans a little into your ear. You do it again, grinning as Katsuki’s hands abandon your tits so he can grab you by the hips.

Maybe your own excitement causes you to forget yourself, but you can’t help but grind your hips up into Katsuki where he’s pressed in between your legs. Katsuki laughs a breathless, snarling laugh before grinding back into you, the base of his tail just under where his human half ends pressed flush against your covered pussy. Katsuki, still gripping you by the hips, grinds repeatedly against you – the scales on his tail create an almost ribbed texture, and every time they drag over the front of your bikini bottoms you can’t help but twitch your hips back against them.

It doesn’t escape your notice that you’re virtually dry-humping a merman on the floor of a cave, but you simply push that aside for now; you can feel yourself getting wet, and you know that most of your critical reasoning skill go out the window when you’re horny.

You’re so distracted by the nipping, stinging kisses and the way Katsuki’s tail grinds and wiggles against you that it takes a very long moment to realise that the feeling of his tail pressing against you has… changed, somehow. You pull back, breathing a little heavy, and look down to try and see what’s different, but Katsuki is pressed so closely to you that you can’t see past his chest. You don’t get a chance to look properly, either, because then Katsuki begins to slide down your body until his head is between your legs.

He tugs at your bikini bottoms, but his inexperience with legs becomes clear as he tries and fails to successfully remove them. “Fucking- take these off!”

You snort at his impatience, but obediently wiggle your way out of them. It’s actually a relief to be out of the wet swimwear, but you don’t have much time to appreciate it before Katsuki’s face is in between your legs and pressed right up to your now exposed pussy. He inhales deeply as you squirm, mortified. “Don’t- stop fucking sniffing me there, oh my god!”

“Hah?” he squints up at you, “Why?”

“It’s embarrassing!”

Katsuki frowns, clearly not understanding what the big deal was. “You smell good.”

You’re pretty sure that you don’t, considering virtually nobody’s genitals smell good (especially not after being trapped in a damp swimsuit for hours), but his tone is so matter-of-fact that you can’t bring yourself to argue. He doesn’t wait for a response anyway, burying his face between your thighs again and huffing as he inhales your scent. You cover your face out of sheer embarrassment, but don’t make any effort to pull away.

When his tongue starts to prod at your clit, your whole body jerks in surprise. His tongue is cool, a stark contrast to the heat pooling in your folds, and it feels startlingly good as it squirms against you. Your hips twitch and chase after his touch, but he keeps you firmly in place with his grip on your hipbones.

“Humans are pretty different down here,” Katsuki says conversationally, his words vibrating against your pussy lips. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

“Oh yeah?” you say absently. Your thighs flex around his head from the effort of not clamping down hard around his skull.

He hums, then licks at your slit unashamedly. He grins, apparently pleased with the taste. “I’ll get used to it.”

“Can you- there’s, um, a spot. Higher up. Could you-?”

Katsuki doesn’t take direction particularly well, and it takes a couple of moments for him to actually locate your clit. When he does find it though, he licks and sucks at it so eagerly that your back actually bows right off the ground.

“Shit!” You gasp, wriggling against Katsuki’s face. “Oh!”

Encouraged by your noises, Katsuki just doubles his efforts. The wet, slurping noises are obscene, and your moans echo around the cavern in a way that sounds distinctly eerie; you’re so thankful that there’s no one else around for miles to hear.

“You’re so warm,” Katsuki murmurs, sounding slightly breathless, “Are you this hot on the inside, too?”

“Oh god.” You whimper, head swimming. Without even really knowing what you’re asking for, you whisper, “Please.”

Katsuki perks up at that, then drags himself back up so that his face is level with yours once more. This close, you can see how shiny his face is after being buried against your wet pussy for so long. When he kisses you, you can taste yourself on his tongue. It makes you whimper again, pressing into him eagerly. Katsuki is breathing pretty hard too, and when he presses his torso against you, he groans long and low.

This time, with the base of his tail pressed against the bare flesh of your cunt, you know for sure what you’re feeling; there’s an honest to god bump that definitely wasn’t there before, right where you might expect a dick on a human male. Katsuki notices where your attention is straying to, and brings one of his own hands down to massage the bump. It’s only then, as you peer closer to get a better look at what he’s doing, that you see what looks like a vertical slit positioned a few inches down from where his human half ends and his tail begins. His clawed fingers dance around it, rubbing at the swollen flesh around it without touching the slit itself.

Your curiosity gets the better of you, and you reach out your hand to stroke at the same place Katsuki is. The pads of your fingers run over the textured scales, earning a soft grunt as he presses eagerly into your touch. You repeat the same massaging motions Katsuki was doing, and as you watch, the slit seems to open wider.

It happens slowly, then all at once. As you rub at the sides of the opening, the tip of what appears to be Katsuki’s penis begins to slowly distend. You nearly pull back from surprise, but then Katsuki lets out a quiet, soft little moan, and you can’t bring yourself to pull away from him. You run the tip of your index finger around the inside of the slit, and find that it’s soft and almost rubbery, reminiscent of what you imagine sealskin must feel like. At your touch, his penis extends the rest of the way.

You blink, then sit back. “Oh.” You say stupidly, gazing at his dick.

Katsuki straightens up and sits back smugly, clearly proud of what he was packing. He seems to miss your growing alarm entirely. “Like what you see?”

You purse your lips and take a moment to collect your thoughts. “It… moves.” You say faintly.

Katsuki doesn’t look very impressed with your analysis of his penis. “Yeah. Obviously. C’mere.”

His dick is significantly pinker than his own skin tone, thick at the base and then narrowing along the length. It’s big, uncreased and smooth, and when you wrap your palm around it (ignoring Katsuki’s desperate thrust into your fist) you find that it has the same almost rubbery texture as the skin around the slit. It’s just a few shades warmer than the rest of his body, though still significantly cooler than a human; it’s odd, holding a dick that feels almost cool to the touch.

Katsuki’s tail lashes agitatedly at the ground behind him, though he doesn’t do much more than press a little harder into your hand. “Done looking?” he grinds out, clearly beginning to run out of patience.

“No.” You say absently, giving his dick a few pumps and watching him hunch over with a choked moan. His dick is practically prehensile, and wriggles in your hand like it has a mind of its own.

It’s completely unnerving and alien and really, really weird, and you hate yourself because all you can do is wonder how it would feel inside of you.

“Y/N,” Katsuki grunts, his tail slapping agitatedly against the floor behind him, “Can I? Please, can I?” The please sounds as though it’s been pulled unwillingly from him, though it seems no less genuine because of that, and he leans down to nip impatiently at your shoulder.

“Yeah.” You breathe, relinquishing your hold on his dick and watching it slap against his abdomen. You lie back onto the moss, breath hitching as Katsuki eagerly drags himself up the length of you.

The sensation of his thick heavily muscled tail nestling in between your legs and shifting with every one of Katsuki’s little movements has your head swimming, and your knees fall open even wider. His head drops to your chest and his mouth latches onto one of your nipples, humming as your head falls back with a pleased sigh. You can feel the hardness of his cock on the inside of your thigh, can feel the tip of it moving just slightly, tracing the sensitive flesh close to the crease of your hip.

When Katsuki looks up to meet your eyes, you’re not prepared for the level of franticness in his gaze. He looks needy, his proud features twisted in desperation even as his eyes burn. “I’m going to mate you now.”

“Okay.” You say dumbly, clutching weakly at the moss beneath you.

The tip of Katsuki’s dick is unexpectedly soft as it presses into you, and far slicker than you had expected. You peer down at his hips, and notice for the first time that the slit that his penis is protruding from is leaking some sort of membranous fluid. You wonder if maybe you should feel grossed out by that, considering the foreign fluid is being pressed inside of you, but all your brainpower is being diverted to the slow, wet slide of his dick stretching you open.

Katsuki moans, long and low, as he clutches at your hips. “Fuck!” he hisses, baring his rows of sharp teeth. He’s obviously trying very hard to hold himself back and enter you slowly, but he’s practically trembling from the effort.

“Okay, okay, okay.” You chant, breathing heavily. Katsuki’s dick is big, and the pressure of the stretch is just bordering on painful despite the slick slide. You wonder if you’re going to feel the ache of this for days or weeks.

And then he’s all the way in, the rough, textured scales of his tail pressed flush against the backs of your thighs. Both of you have to take a moment, panting. The pain of the stretch begins to fade, and you begin to feel like you’re just on the right side of full.

You want to feel Katsuki move, and so you wrap your thighs around his hips. The scales scratch a little at the delicate skin on the inside of your thighs, but it’s so worth it for the way Katsuki groans, and the way the fins on the side of his head flap minutely. One of his palm’s plants itself firmly in the moss by your head, the other clasped tightly over your hip.

The muscles in his tail ripple and his dark scales flash in the low light as he pulls his hips back only to slide back in, smooth and fast. It’s hard to catch your breath, because the slickness of his cock sliding in and out of you is at once foreign and desperately arousing. Katsuki seems to feel the same way, because his mouth is dropped open and his brow scrunched, eyes half-lidded as he humps into the slippery heat of your pussy.

“You’re so hot,” he groans out with a huff as his hips stutter, “Feels like you’re burnin’ me.”

Dazedly, you sympathise with him; his body is several degrees lower than your own body temperature, and the coolness of his dick inside of you has every one of your nerves hyper-aware and attuned to it. It feels beautifully refreshing against your own heated flesh, the contrast almost overwhelming.

Katsuki pets absently at your hip and thigh as his thrusts begin to come faster and harder; he builds up a steady rhythm, one that seems to seek as deep inside of you as possible and quickly renders you speechless. The only sound filling the cave is the wet slapping sounds from where Katsuki is pounding into you and the grunts and pants and moans that each of you make without shame.

You feel each thrust and slippery slide inside of you so acutely, as if every one of your nerve-endings is straining towards him. The texture of his cock inside you feels so alien, and you could swear you feel it actually aiming for the spot inside of you that makes your limbs turn to jelly. You wonder if your own body feels as strangely foreign to him; you’re guessing it does, judging by the way he pants and humps into you with that wild look in his eyes. Or maybe that’s just how he usually is during sex. It’s not like you have any sort of frame of reference for sex with mermaids.

You reach down to rub at yourself, jolting a little as your warm fingertips come into contact with your heated clit – you’ve become adjusted to the cooler body temperature of Katsuki, and now your own warmth almost feels like too much. You wonder how the heat of your cunt isn’t completely overwhelming for him, but considering the dark flush overtaking his face and chest and shoulders, and the way that his jaw hangs open and his eyes have gone glassy, you think maybe it is.

He hikes your thighs further up on his waist without pausing his thrusting, the scales scraping oddly along your bare calves. “I’m gonna-” he grunts, pushing his face into your necks as his tail slaps harshly against the ground every time he fucks into you, as if he’s lost control over it.

You rub harder and faster at your clit, gasping as Katsuki bites down on the tender skin of your throat. It’s not hard enough to break the skin, and seems more like he’s trying to keep you in one place, but the threat of his sharp teeth against such a vulnerable part of you sends you hurtling towards the edge.

It only takes a few more strokes, and another twist of his cock against your g-spot, before you come hard and silently, open-mouthed and wide-eyed.

“Fuck, yes.” Katsuki groans throatily into your neck, his movements only becoming increasingly intense. It feels as though he’s trying to plow you right through the rock (which is actually an incredible turn-on, though you don’t want to admit it) and you whimper and gasp as you begin to pass into the realm of oversensitivity.

Katsuki’s upper body goes taut as his powerful tail pushes him forward into you one last time, so deep that you swear you feel the tip of his dick moving against your cervix, and then he comes with an honest to god snarl. You sigh as you feel the slick gush of his cum inside of you, thicker than you’d expected, and flop bonelessly once you know he’s done.

“Holy shit,” You breathe, staring wide-eyed at the cave ceiling. The glowing algae twinkles back at you as Katsuki breathes slowly and deeply into your neck, his thick arms winding around your waist and shoulders. As the haze of your orgasm begins to fade and reality starts to set in again, you’re struck with the fact that you’ve just fucked a mythical creature, and his very weird fish dick is still inside of you. “Oh my god.”

Katsuki grunts, clearly not pleased that you’re ruining his afterglow with delayed panic. “Shhh, s’fine.” He mumbles, rubbing at the bitemark on your neck in what he apparently thinks is a reassuring manner, “You’re mine – ain’t nobody gonna hurt you.”

The two of you are clearly on different wavelengths, but you don’t bother to think to much about that particular statement. “I just fucked a fish.” You breathe. It sounds just as ridiculous out loud as it did in your head.

“You liked it, too.” Katsuki says smugly, not denying the fish part this time around.

“Dickhead! Get off me!” You say irritably, embarrassment beginning to sink in.

“No.” Katsuki mumbles childishly, snuggling into your neck and holding you tight so you can’t struggle. His dick shifts inside of you, and he grunts as you automatically clench down around it. “Stay.”

The moss is comfortable, the cave is pretty, and Katsuki’s arms around you feel better than you’d like to admit. You relax, the weight of him laying on you more soothing than you had expected, and close your eyes. “My uncle is gonna kill me.” You say, an afterthought flitting through your mind. He was so worried the last time you disappeared into the sea like that, you can only imagine what he’s going to say once you come home late after doing it again.

Katsuki snorts and kisses the base of your throat, and you feel like you could probably lie in this cave forever, listening to the sound of the ocean ebbing and flowing just outside the rocky walls. “If he’s gonna kill you,” he murmurs, lips dragging over your skin, “I’d hate to see what he’d do to me.”

#am literally gonna post this and run bc i'm embarrassed lmaoooo you'd think i'd have gotten used to posting about weird dicks but i have NOT #bakugou katsuki x reader #mha bakugo katsuki #bnha bakugo katsuki #bnha x reader #katsuki bakugou x reader #bakugou x reader #merbakugou

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boredfanwrites · 3 years

Text

Buddie #1

There is not a bone in my body that can accept that in any other universe they wouldn't be perfect together. Post 4x14 so SPOILERS for that. This got so much longer than I thought it would be. Sorry in advance, there's much more under the cut.

· Eddie tells him about the will. Chris goes to Buck if anything happens to Eddie. Which it very nearly did.

· It causes Buck to actually stop and think things through before rushing into danger.

· The rest of the team question it while Eddie's recovering but he just says there's someone relying on him now.

· They take it to mean Taylor - well Chimney and Albert do, Hen and Bobby are more clued in.

· Buck talks about Eddie and Chris like he did when they quarantined together - like they're living together again.

· They are.

· Buck moved in to help Eddie and his recovery, with Ana stepping in when he was on shifts - even if she tended to undo everything Buck had done.

· He tells himself it's because she's not used to the way he and Eddie do things - yes that one singular bowl and plate live in the lower cupboard, it's so Eddie can reach them easily. Chris always picks the movie on movie nights, Eddie and Buck alternate when he's gone to bed.

· Eddie is stubborn as always, but has managed to allow Buck to help him dress and shower - Ana is very much not allowed, despite her protests they're barely in a relationship.

· Eddie explains to Buck that yes, they've been together for six months but they've not really been togetherand he quietly admits that he regrets telling Chris so soon.

· Buck calms him and says that it was right to introduce Chris to the idea of Eddie dating, but yeah, maybe it wasn't smart to spring Ana on him so early - especially because she decided she had to be a bigger part of his life now he was aware.

· Chris manages to get to the station once while Buck is on shift.

· Buck comes back to Albert making him pancakes and Chris scribbling with the things they keep for the school trips.

· 'What are you doing here, bud? Does your dad know?'

· 'Kinda.'

· 'What does kinda mean here?'

· 'He knows I wanted to see you. I don't think he knows that I came here.'

· Albert quickly jumps in saying he's texted Eddie and he and Carla are on their way, it just happens that the rig got back before they got there.

· Buck sits down with Chris, leaning his head on his arms and looks at the picture. It's him, Eddie and Buck with Carla and her husband in the background.

· 'What's wrong, Chris?'

· 'Ana.'

· 'Ok, what did she do?'

· 'Tried to get me to bath before I ate and then said I had to do my homework before TV time.'

· 'Buddy, you always have to do your homework before TV time.'

· 'But she tried to help me.'

· 'Your dad and I try our best to help you. She's a teacher, she's better use than us.'

· 'No that's not it.'

· Chris has tears in his eyes and a death grip on his crayon.

· 'She told the poor boy his handwriting was ineligible and took his pencil, tried to get him to tell her the answers and that she would write them for him.' Carla sighs.

· She stands with her arms open and Chris runs into them. Eddie looms behind them, looking sad.

· Well, neutral really, but Buck knows his micro expressions well enough.

· After that Ana is banned from the house in the afternoons/evenings and Carla steps back in. The new problem is Ana turning up when Buck has days off - their schedule was she was here when Buck wasn't, for multiple reasons.

· Ana's great, there's just something about her that Buck doesn't like and she definitely doesn't like Buck. Maybe it's because they're just opposites.

· Eddie tries to gently tell her that he barely gets to see Buck anymore and he needs it for his mental health. Ana starts pestering about the fact that he should want to see his girlfriend more than his best friend.

· It's one of their biggest fights and turns into a screaming match one night (Chris is at Hen's with Denny but Buck is hiding away in the guest room) where Eddie shouts that she had decided that she was his girlfriend without asking Eddie if that was what he wanted and she was suffocating.

· She leaves pretty quickly after that and Buck is incredibly happy as their paths never cross again.

· There's an emptiness settling in his chest when he finds out that the two are still together and are treating the relationship as though they're just dating again. He hates that he really doesn't like the idea that it's working out now that they're on even footing.

· He decides to push it away and starts getting reckless again. Taylor's hanging around the station more like she wants more from Buck, but he'd given up. She liked being chased and now that he's tired of it, she wants him. He knows she'll get bored if he shows interest again.

· It's interest he doesn't have. Eddie had called him Evan and told him he deserved more. How was he supposed to go back to normal after that?

· Why doesn't Eddie see how life changing that was?

· Eddie does. But in typical Eddie fashion, he pushes it deep down and replaces it with his content being with Ana. She makes his parents happy, which makes him happy. She gets along with Pepa and Isabel and his sisters, but they act a lot more familial with Buck.

· It makes sense, he tells himself - they've had years with Buck.

· Nothing really changes for Buck until TK and Judd find themselves in LA. Buck hastily explains to TK that he wasn't asking him out back in Austin, he just wanted a friend and really he wasn't attracted to guys.

· TK just straight up laughs at Buck.

· 'Buckley, you checked me, Carlos, and the barista out in the span of like five minutes. You're a little attracted to guys.'

· 'Wait, you mean you and Diaz ain't datin'?'

· Judd's question throws Buck through a loop.

· 'What? No...we're just...we're friends. Best friends.'

· TK laughs again, patting Buck on the shoulder.

· Once they're on their last day, TK takes Buck out for a drink like he'd promised. Buck tries to ignore the fact he's brought him to a gay bar.

· He gets hit on at least three times in an hour, not to mention the building collection of beers for both him and TK and he decides he doesn't actually mind it.

· 'Ok, I want you to do something for me. Scan the crowd and pick a guy, any guy, and tell me what you find attractive about him.'

· Buck picks out a shorter man, tanned skin and dark hair.

· 'He's got a cute smile.'

· 'Oh boy, you have a type.'

· 'Huh?'

· 'He looks like Eddie.'

· And he does. Like a Walmart version of Eddie though. He didn't laugh like Eddie, didn't have the same laugh lines. Or frown lines. His eyes weren't as warm when he met Buck's nor did he smile as fondly. And...

· 'Fuck.'

· 'You just now realizing your feelings for him?'

· 'Yeah. How did I not know?'

· 'Honestly, it was probably such a subtle shift. From what you've told me you've basically been a couple for a year and a half, so you didn't realize anything had changed for you.'

· 'I've never denied it.'

· 'I mean you clearly must have.'

· 'No. I meant that there have been so many times people assumed Eddie and I were a couple and I never denied it, I went along with it all.'

· 'Shit man, you had it bad before you even realized.'

· Buck groans as TK throws an arm around him, leaning against his shoulder.

· Things change after that. Buck is hesitant with physical touch with Eddie - it's his main love language and he needs to make sure he's not overdoing it and making Eddie uncomfortable.

· Eddie notices because of course, he does. Buck has pulled away from him for seemingly no reason. The second Eddie can dress, shower, and reach the high cabinets himself Buck is talking about going home.

· He is home.

· Eddie doesn't say it, he just hums, not really agreeing. He's gotten used to Buck being around and so has Chris. They'd easily fallen back into their quarantine routine and now Buck would be leaving again.

· A quick thought of getting shot again fills Eddie's head. Though this time it's nothing to do with his PTSD and more so that he doesn't want Buck to leave. So he exaggerates just a little.

· 'You know, my PTSD is still acting up. Maybe, you could stay until it balances out a little?'

· 'You'd want me to?'

· 'Yeah, you're great at getting me out and calming me and Christopher down.'

· 'You don't think Ana should start taking up some night shifts?'

· 'I don't really want her to deal with that side of me yet.'

· 'Okay.'

· 'Okay?'

· 'Yeah, I'll stay.'

· Eddie keeps an eye on Buck just as much as he keeps an eye on Eddie. He quickly realizes that Buck is holding in his own troubles. He knows from experience that Buck does not think his problems are anywhere near as bad as everyone else's. He has a lot of unlearning to do.

· Subtly, Eddie starts talking to him about his mental state, his worries, trying to let Buck know it's ok to do the same.

· When he and Ana inevitably break up not even a month later, it's Buck that he tells first.

· Buck, who has his back.

· Buck, who loves Christopher as his own.

· Buck, who is insecure about everything he does except saving people.

· Buck, who thinks he is unworthy and undeserving of love.

· Buck, who shows his love through acts of kindness and physical affection.

· Buck, who Eddie is so unapologetically in love with and probably has been for years.

· The revelation doesn't shock him like he thought it would. More so, it was a natural progression of their relationship.

· Friends. Best friends. Co-parents. Co-habiting. Partners. Partners.

· Eddie sees a future with Buck, a future he'd only ever seen with Shannon but it's so much brighter.

· He comes home from his first shift back - Buck wasn't working and offered to look after Christopher so Eddie knew he was safe - to find Buck on the couch, staring into an empty beer bottle.

· 'Hey?' it's broken and Eddie drops his things to rush over to him.

· 'You good?'

· 'No. I'm not.'

· Buck looks up, tears in his eyes, cheeks red and puffy.

· 'What's going on, Evan?'

· That's all it takes. He breaks. He babbles about watching Eddie die over and over in his dreams. How sometimes the shower will splash his face just so and he's thrown back with Eddie's blood on his face. How he was trying to get through it with Dr. Copeland but it wasn't helping.

· Nothing was helping.

· 'It's ok. I'm here, I'm okay.'

· 'You weren't. You died, Eds. You died on me.'

· 'You saved me.'

· 'What if I hadn't? I don't know a life without you anymore. I can't lose another person I love.'

· 'You love me?'

· 'Of course I do. Why wouldn't I?'

· Buck registers his words, quickly backing away from Eddie and tries to make a break for the open door. Eddie isn't letting him run away anymore. His wrist snakes around Buck's.

· 'Evan. I told you there wasn't anyone else I'd want to look after Christ. I told you you weren't expendable. I said that because I love you and you needed to hear it. You had to learn you deserved love. Love that Chris shows you. Love that I can show you. I love you so much, Evan Buckley.'

· Buck crumples in Eddie's arms, Eddie rocks him gently until the sobs subside.

· It's not an immediate or obvious change. There are still things the two need to work through.

· It's different but the same. There's more contact now; hugs, tactile hands on waists, and backs at work. Kisses in the bunk, soft and slow.

· It's new and exciting. Especially when they finally get together, officially and exclusively.

· Chris loves telling everyone about his two dads.

· Eddie and Buck are happier, closer.

· Buck had always been a Diaz. He'd always had a family who loved him. The big change was he got to love them both endlessly in return.

#buddie #911 #911 headcanons #buddie headcanons #evan buck buckely #911 fox #firefam #buckley diaz family #buddie fic #buddie drabble #christopher diaz #edmundo diaz #eddie diaz #eddie x buck #christopher diaz is an absolute angel #slow burn #oblivious idiots #oblivious buddie

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aomine-ryo · 3 years

Note

Hii! May I have Akashi and Kuroko reactions to sex with their s/o being interrupted by a phone call? Love your page! I have a lot of reading! ;3

Aww I’m happy you like my page :)) I hope you enjoy this one too xx

Scenario: Akashi and Kuroko’s reactions to sex with their s/o being interrupted by a phone call (nsfw)

Akashi

It wasn’t very often that you could get intimate with Akashi considering that he was usually busy and constantly around people. Of course, he made it a point to allocate at least a few hours of alone time with you each week, and honestly, it never failed to become the highlight of his week.

You’d often hang out in your house since his one was never truly empty, considering that his maids and butlers were there. You kind of wished they weren’t there though, because his bed was so much bigger than yours that it seemed like it would be much more fun.

So the two of you laid down in your bed, cuddling with each other as you conversed about anything and everything. Well, it was mostly you talking while Akashi listened intently and offered advice and comments whenever he felt like it.

“You know, you could talk too. Your life is much more interesting than mine after all, Mister Emperor,” you said teasingly when you reached the end of your many rants.

“No, it’s all the same old boring stuff,” he shrugged.

“Have you tried to stab anyone recently?” you joked, making him chuckle and shake his head slightly.

“No, not really. People are testing me though,” he played along, fingers twirling the ends of your hair.

Your arms hugged him tighter and you breathed in the comforting scent of his cologne. “Why can’t you stay here forever? You wouldn’t have to think of stabbing anyone then— actually, I might test your patience too, not gonna lie.”

Akashi leaned down and pressed his lips against yours, mainly because he loved you, but also to stop you from spewing any more nonsense. “Staying here with you sounds perfect,” he muttered with a smile.

Akashi tilted his head ever so slightly to deepen the kiss as a warm hand met your cheek. As his tongue made its way into your mouth, he slowly rolled on top of you, trapping you between his arms. He continued to make out with you for some time, his lips slowly making its way down to your neck to leave a few marks.

One by one, clothing was discarded, eventually leaving both of you completely naked as Akashi hovered above you, staring down at you with passion burning in his bright eyes. He had a habit of doing this a lot; he loved to just admire the way you looked underneath him, and as sweet as you thought it was, it was also slightly frustrating as you grew more and more desperate for his touch.

He very well knows this though. He just liked to tease you like this because he wanted to hear you beg for him. And of course, you didn’t fail to do exactly that.

“Sei, can you please do something?” you whined.

“What do you want me to do, my love?” he said sweetly, a devious grin spreading across his face.

“I want you to... f-fuck me,” you said, that last part being in what was barely a whisper as your face flushed red.

“Is that so?” he said, acting all high and mighty. The red haired boy leaned in close and you could feel his breath on your face, sending shivers throughout your entire body. “Well, how could I say no to my princess?” he whispered with a smirk before he pushed his lips against yours once again.

Getting caught up in the kiss, you didn’t notice his other movements until you felt him shove himself inside you with no warning, causing you to gasp and pull away from his lips. Your hands that were previously roaming mindlessly around his back suddenly came to a halt as your nails dug into his skin.

“Everything okay? Do you want me to move?” he asked, consideration in his tone as he watched you squirm underneath him.

You mustered a slight nod as your eyes were pressed shut, trying to concentrate on adjusting to his length. Akashi slowly began to move, and you felt his hand caress your cheek, tucking a piece of your hair behind your ear. The tenderness of his touch brought you comfort as your eyes slowly opened, and you were greeted by the sight of his bright eyes looking down at you with adoration.

Eventually, you got used to it and pleasure began to overtake your system. “Sei, faster p-please,” you whined.

Without hesitation, he did as he was told, the sounds of your moans getting increasingly louder as he picked up the pace. He was completely entranced by the way you made him feel. Even the way you left scratches on his back felt good.

However, the euphoria he felt was suddenly interrupted by the sound of his phone ringing from the bedside table. “Just ignore it,” you said softly after noticing his evident annoyance, not wanting to lose contact with him.

Akashi was never one to not pick up a call. He was a busy person, sure, but just like he expected everyone to respond to his calls, he held the same expectations for himself. So with a sigh and an apologetic look on his face he slowly pulled out, causing you to pout. “It’ll only take a minute or two, I’m sorry,” he said, pecking your lips before reaching for his phone.

It was a call from the Rakuzan team manager. He was supposed to meet up with his team for endurance training in about ten minutes, but he seemed to have lost track of time with you. As his hand mindlessly rubbed your thigh, he quickly apologised and told her that he’d probably be late because he’s “occupied with something important,” before finally ending the call.

“Do you have somewhere to be, Sei?” you questioned as he set the phone down and returned his complete attention back to you.

“Yes but I told them I’d be late.”

“You can leave if you want to, it’s alright—“

“I’m going nowhere until your legs are shaking and you’re screaming my name, princess,” he interrupted, his tone as serious as ever.

Akashi was fully aware that his presence at the training was essential, however that only gave him all the more reason to not take it easy on you. He felt frustrated at the fact that it interrupted his time with you. Of course that frustration would be taken out on you in the form of some very rough sex— but you didn’t mind that at all. And as promised, Akashi didn’t leave until he was sure that he’d absolutely wrecked you.

Kuroko

There was nothing that Kuroko loved more than spending his afternoons cuddling with you. The comfort of knowing that you were right there in his arms brought him happiness that was immeasurable, to the point where a smile would be spread across his usually expressionless face.

There were times where he’d be perfectly content spending the entire day lazing around with you in his arms. Other times though, he’d have energy to spare.

For instance, it was a regular Saturday afternoon that he was spending at your house, and he was extra affectionate with you. Smothering your face in kisses and tangling his legs with yours under the sheets as you laid in bed together, the blue haired boy seemed rather overexcited— not that you minded. With the way he was acting, you knew exactly how it would end as you began to feel clingier and clingier. All you had to do was patiently wait to see what Kuroko would do.

It didn’t take long for Kuroko’s soft lips to end up on yours, his eagerness evident in the way his tongue slipped into your mouth after mere seconds of kissing him. Soon after he made his way down to your neck, your clothes slowly ended up on the floor, piece by piece. Eventually, all that was left was your naked bodies pressed against each other, growing more and more desperate for some action.

Deciding to take control of the situation, you rolled yourself over so that you were on top of him. Looking down into his gorgeous blue eyes, you smiled as your hand began to stroke his member. You watched for some time as he bit his lip to pull himself together before hovering your hips above it. Slowly, you sank down onto his length, letting out a drawn out moan at the way it filled you up.

It took a few moments, but you eventually adjusted to it, and you began to move up and down, gaining deep groans from your pale skinned boyfriend. “Y/N, you feel so good,” he moaned, unable to stop thinking about how gorgeous you looked when you were on top of him. He swore that he would gladly have this be the only sight he sees for the rest of his life.

Suddenly, the sound of a loud ringing caused both of you to snap out of it as your bodies shuddered in surprise. You looked over to your bedside table and noticed that you were getting a call from a friend of yours. You looked over at Kuroko questioningly.

“You should get that,” he nodded, though there was a hint of annoyance in his expression as he didn’t like getting interrupted.

With an apologetic look, you got up and sat at the edge of the bed to answer the phone call. A part of Kuroko wanted to tell you to ignore it, but he didn’t want you to risk missing an important phone call, so he say up on his elbow and waited patiently for you to finish. The call didn’t go on for too long thankfully, however Kuroko did end up absentmindedly kissing your neck and shoulders while he waited, bringing a goofy grin onto your face.

The moment the call was over, Kuroko practically pounced onto you, letting his hands roam around your body as his lips reconnected with yours. Perhaps he was a little impatient for that call to end. Without losing contact with your lips for even a moment, Kuroko ended up laying on top of you.

Before he continued what was previously interrupted, he pulled away, finally giving you some time to breathe as you looked up at him. “Is everything okay with your friend?” he asked— he was still concerned about you after all.

“Yeah, it wasn’t anything important. It’s a shame we lost time over it,” you replied.

As Kuroko began to line himself up against you once more, a small smile appeared onto his face, “It’s alright. We can always make up for it. So why don’t we get to it?” he said simply before pushing himself into you.

A surprised gasp escaped your lips as you tossed your head back in pleasure. All that extra waiting seemingly made him more hungry for you. Yearning for more of that euphoric feeling he felt prior to the interruption, there was no way he way going to go easy on you now.

#kuroko no basket #kurokos basketball #kuroko no basket x reader #knb #kuroko tetsuya #akashi seijuro x reader #kuroko tetsuya x reader #akashi x reader #akashi seijuro

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softspideys · 3 years

Text

Average (Frat!Tom Holland x reader)

summary: tom holland is the handsome, popular, and charismatic king of your campus. so why has he taken an interest in you?

warnings: none

word count: 3,000

pairings: frat!tom holland x reader

a/n: I personally prefer respectful frat boy tom to jerky frat boy tom. inspired by this glorious photo. I hope you you like it:)

When Tom Holland first spoke to you, your immediate instinct was to assume it was a joke.

You’d just arrived at the party his frat was throwing and immediately made a beeline for the kitchen. You were never totally comfortable in situations like these, but after a couple drinks you tended to be more social and easygoing.

“Hey,” a voice said as you finished pouring yourself some of the suspicious-looking Jungle Juice. You turned around and almost did a double-take.

You knew who Tom was; his roommate Harrison was friends with your roommate Jess, but you’d never spoken to him. He was popular, but there were no rumors about him being a player or an asshole or a creep like there were with some of his frat brothers.

Now he was smiling at you, looking casual in jeans and a black t-shirt, a baseball cap pulled over his curly hair. “Hey,” you answered, once you were positive he was talking to you. There was no one else around you, but still.

“Can I get you something to drink?”

“Um, no thanks,” you said, gesturing to the cup in your hand. “I’m good.” You figured he was just being polite, but then he continued to speak to you.

“You’re Jess’s roommate, right?” he asked.

You nodded, a little surprised. You honestly didn’t even think he was aware you existed. But then it hit you—he must be looking for her and probably recognized you from one of her Instagram photos or something. “Yeah. I don’t know where she is, though. I just got here.”

“Cool,” he said. “I’ve only met her a couple times—she’s friends with my roommate Harrison—but she talked about you a lot. I’m Tom.” He held out his hand.

Slowly, you shook it. “Y/N.” This was weird. If he wasn’t being polite and he wasn’t looking for someone else, then why was he talking to you? You had to get out of there. “Um, I have to go now. It was nice meeting you.”

“Oh, okay,” he said. “See you around, maybe.” You smiled a little instead of answering before practically fleeing the kitchen and joining the party. The rest of the night passed uneventfully and you didn’t see Tom again.

You thought about him briefly afterwards, but decided not to dwell on it. Maybe he was just bored. Maybe he saw you by yourself and took pity on you.

A few days later, Jess ambushed you while you were doing homework in the library. “You talked to Tom Holland at the party on Saturday?” she whispered excitedly.

“Yeah, for like a minute. It was before I found you. Why?”

“Harrison told me he was asking about you. Want me to pass along your number?”

“No!” you said quickly, feeling your face get warm. “Wait. What do you mean, he was asking about me? Asking what?”

“You know, just like . . . what your deal is, and whatever.” She shrugged. “He probably wants to hang out with you.”

“Me? Why?” The thought made your heartbeat quicken.

Jess rolled her eyes. “Oh my God. Why wouldn’t he? You’re a total catch. I don’t know why you’re so surprised.”

The conversation was making you more and more uncomfortable. Tom was good-looking and popular and probably had tons of people lining up just to “hang out” with him. What was so special about you?

Despite your doubts, you found yourself giving in. “Okay,” you said finally. “I guess you can give him my number.”

Jess smiled, her eyes sparkling. “Awesome. I’ll tell Harrison.” She leaned closer, suddenly serious. “And look, I wouldn’t push this if I didn’t think it was a good idea, okay? You know I got your back. Tom is really nice.”

She had a point. “I know,” you said grudgingly. “We’ll see if he even texts me.”

~ ~ ~

Tom texted you the day after Jess passed your number on.

hey it’s tom, we met at the party on saturday :) i got your number from jess. i was wondering if you wanna hang out sometime?

You spent almost an hour reading it over and over, trying to figure out if there was any hidden meaning in the short message. Finally you wrote back: sure.

You expected him to invite you to another frat party or something similar, but instead he asked if you wanted to grab coffee and do homework. Midterms were coming up, after all.

So you met him at a cafe on campus on a chilly Thursday afternoon. He was there when you arrived, sitting at a table in the back. He looked cozy, all bundled up in a hoodie and sweats. You bought yourself a hot chocolate and sat across from him. “Um, hi.”

“Hi.” He smiled at you. “How’s it going?”

“Good. How are you?”

“Pretty good.”

You looked around. He’d picked a two-person table, but that didn’t mean someone else couldn’t pull up a chair. “Is it just going to be us?”

His smile faded a little. “Uh, yeah. Is that okay? I thought—I mean, you can see if Jess is around or something, but—”

“No, no,” you interrupted, wanting to kick yourself. “No, this is fine. I was just asking. I don’t mind.”

“Oh, okay.” He relaxed. “I’m glad you came. I didn’t think you would.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “You just didn’t seem very, uh . . . excited.”

You cringed inwardly, clearing your throat. “Oh, sorry. I’m not very good at texting. Ask Jess.” You smiled a little at the thought of your best friend. “She’s always mad at me because I take hours to respond and then it usually just ends up being one word.”

Tom laughed. “Oh man, my brother Sam is the same way. I have to send a message to him in all caps that says SOS EMERGENCY PLEASE ANSWER NOW if I want him to answer within the hour.”

“You have a brother?”

“Yeah, three actually. There’s me, then the twins Sam and Harry, and then my youngest brother Paddy.”

“Wow,” you said, raising your eyebrows. “Your house must’ve been pretty crazy growing up.”

“You could say that.”

Before you got to the cafe, you told yourself that you only had to stay for an hour. One hour, and then you could make up some excuse as to why you had to leave. But as time went on, you realized you were actually enjoying yourself. The conversation flowed naturally, and Tom was a good listener. He didn’t seem to mind when you eventually lapsed into silence to get some studying down, and the two of you worked quietly for a while. He even offered to refill your drink when he went to get another for himself.

“Got any plans for dinner?” he asked finally, breaking the comfortable silence you’d grown used to. You looked out the window and saw it was getting dark out.

At first you thought maybe he was going to ask if you wanted to get something to eat with him. But as quick as the idea occurred, you shot it down. That was silly; he’d already been here with you for a few hours now. Maybe he was meeting other people after this and wanted you to take a hint.

So you lied, “Yeah, I’m meeting Jess at a dining hall. I should probably get going, actually.”

“Oh, right,” he said, glancing down at his homework. “Uh, same here.” You both quickly packed up your stuff and left the cafe, pausing before you officially went your separate ways.

“That was fun,” Tom said. He hesitated, and you braced yourself to hear some excuse as to why he would never talk to you again.

You certainly weren’t expecting him to ask shyly, “Would you want to hang out again?” You blinked, certain you hadn’t heard him right. But he just looked at you, waiting for your response, and after a pause you nodded.

“Yeah. I would like that.”

Tom’s answering smile was practically blinding. You couldn’t help but return it. “Awesome,” he said. “Um, I’ll text you?”

“Okay,” you said. “See you later.” He smiled at you for a second longer before he turned and walked away, a happy sort of bounce in his step.

You couldn’t help it; you walked home with a dumb grin on your face.

~ ~ ~

True to his word, Tom texted you a few days later to ask if you wanted to hang out again. This time you accepted readily.

At first, the two of you just got together to have coffee and do homework. Then he somehow managed to figure out part of your schedule and would meet you on your way to class. Even if he had a lecture on the other side of campus, he insisted on walking you all the way to yours.

He started texting you more, sometimes sending you funny videos or memes, but also sharing random thoughts and asking questions. Now you checked your phone frequently, trying to get in the habit of responding quickly or initiating conversation with him first. You followed each other on social media and you noticed he’d liked all of your Instagram photos. Just to be funny, you liked a couple of his too, but then wondered if he would find it weird.

“We’re friends,” you told Jess when she noticed you smiling at your phone. “That’s it.”

“Yeah, and I’m the Queen of England. Are you kidding me?”

“I’m serious,” you said, because you knew what she was insinuating and there was just no way Tom Holland would be into you like that. Sometimes you saw him around campus, always surrounded by a laughing group of friends and admirers. He was like the sun, and you knew you were lucky to even be in his orbit.

“We’re having a party on Friday night,” Tom said to you one afternoon. The weather was nice, so you’d claimed a sunny spot out on the quad to do some homework.

“Cool.” You were more focused on the essay you were writing than the conversation.

“Are you gonna go?” he pressed.

“I don’t know. Maybe if Jess goes I’ll come too.”

“Well . . .” He trailed off, and you looked up to see he was fidgeting with the cuffs of his sleeves. “What if we went together?”

You stared at him. Of all the things you were expecting him to say, it certainly was not that. “Like . . . me and you? Like . . . as your date?”

Tom was blushing now, steadily avoiding your eyes. “Um. Yes?”

Alarm bells were going off in your brain. If Jess were here she’d be throwing a parade, but you knew there had to be a catch. Out of all the people on campus, why was he asking you?

You opened your mouth to say no, but then he finally glanced up at you. His expression was so earnest and hopeful that you found yourself saying, “Sure.”

“Really? You want to?” he said, like he couldn’t believe it.

You nodded. “Yeah, it sounds fun.”

There was that goofy grin again, lighting up his entire face. “Okay,” he said. “Cool.”

You knew you should be excited, but there was a nervous pit in your stomach that just wouldn’t go away. It was still there when you arrived at Tom’s frat house that Friday. You didn’t recognize the brother at the door on security duty, but he took one look and waved you inside, no questions asked.

You were a little confused; you came by yourself last time too and had to say you knew Harrison. But the brother merely said, “Tom put you on the list.”

The boy in question was in the kitchen, talking to a few of his brothers. He noticed you walk in immediately and his eyes lit up. “Hey! You’re here!” To your surprise he gave you a hug, and you tried not to focus on how good his cologne smelled.

“You look nice,” he said when he pulled away. In an attempt to feel more confident, you’d worn your favorite pair of jeans and a cute top, even allowing Jess to do some hair and makeup magic on you.

“Thank you,” you said. “Um, so do you.” He was just in jeans and a purple flannel, a black baseball cap twisted backwards on his head, but he still managed to make it look effortlessly cool.

“Thanks.” He paused. “I’m, uh, really glad you came.”

“Me too,” you said quietly. He smiled at you and the knot in your stomach tightened.

Tom barely left your side the entire night. He introduced you to some of his fraternity brothers, whose names you forgot as soon as they said them. A few of them had brought dates too, and while they were all friendly and welcoming, you couldn’t help but feel frumpy and plain standing next to them.

It didn’t help that there were some not-so-friendly girls coming over too. They gave Tom hugs and kisses on the cheek before eyeing you critically. You could practically see the invisible thought bubble forming over their heads each time they looked at you: why is he here with you? You wanted to tell them that you were wondering the same thing.

The longer you thought about it, the worse you felt. It just didn’t make sense. Tom had practically half the campus falling at his feet; why wasn’t he with someone more talented, better looking, charismatic? Why had he picked you? You were so . . . average.

Maybe it was some kind of prank, some kind of fucked-up tradition in his fraternity: find a shy girl, get her to fall in love with you, and then break her heart. That had to be it. There was no other explanation.

“Are you alright?” Tom asked, tearing you from your thoughts. You realized you hadn’t spoken in several minutes, just staring off into space.

You swallowed. “Could we, um, go somewhere quiet? Please?”

He studied your face for a second before he nodded. “Of course.” He put one hand on your back, gently guiding you out of the crowded room and up the stairs. You followed him down the hallway until he stopped at a door with a sign that said TOM & HARRISON.

Oh. This was his room.

He ushered you in and you noticed he left the door slightly ajar, so you could easily leave if you wanted to. Still, you immediately took a seat at his desk, not wanting to even go near the bed. Tom didn’t seem to mind, falling onto it with a loud thud and a content sigh. Neither of you spoke for a minute. Finally you glanced over at him and saw he was already watching you, a tiny smile on his face.

You couldn’t take it any longer. “Is this, like, a prank or something?”

“What?”

“This. Like,” you gestured vaguely between the two of you, “all of this. Is it a joke?”

Tom’s smile vanished. He scrambled to sit up, scooting towards the edge of the bed. “What are you talking about? Why would you even think that?”

You shrugged, avoiding his eyes. “I don’t know. I’ve just been trying to figure out why someone like you would be doing all of this with someone like me.”

He looked lost. “Doing what?”

“You know . . . hanging out with me, texting me, inviting me here . . .”

He stared at you for a second before he let out a short, disbelieving laugh. “I mean . . . I like you. I thought that was obvious.”

“But why?” You were frustrated to find you were near tears. “You could have your pick of anyone on this campus. There are so many girls in this house alone right now who are prettier and funnier and more interesting than me. So why . . . why me?”

Tom slowly stood up and came over to where you were sitting, kneeling in front of you. “Because I think you’re pretty and funny and interesting,” he said, looking at you unflinchingly. “None of those other people matter to me. I don’t know why you keep trying to convince yourself that you’re, like . . . not good enough or whatever, but it’s not true.”

You bit your lip as he took your hand. “I’m just . . . not used to this. Usually people tend not to notice me.”

“I did,” he said simply. “And I really, really like you.”

“I really like you too,” you said quietly. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry,” Tom said gently. “Just trust me, okay? I would never hurt you like that.”

He was being honest. He always had been, but you believed him now. You took a deep breath. “Can I kiss you?”

Tom blinked in surprise before he nodded. You leaned in and kissed him softly; his lips were a little chapped and tasted sweet and sort of fruity, like the juice from his drink. His hands came up to carefully cup your jaw, holding you in place. It made your head dizzy and your knees weak; it was perfect.

It was like a dam broke. Suddenly you couldn’t get enough of him, couldn’t figure out what to do with the happy, fizzy feeling in your stomach. You pulled back a little, pressing kisses to his cheeks and his nose. Tom giggled like the touch made him ticklish and you thought to yourself, You were so silly to deny yourself for so long, to think you didn’t deserve this.

You knew better now. You knew you did.

#tom holland #tom holland x reader #tom holland x y/n #tom holland x you #tom holland fanfiction #tom holland fandom #tom holland fic #tom holland one shot #tom holland oneshot #writing

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regrettablewritings · 3 years

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Soulmate AU: The First Drawing You See From Your Soulmate is Tattooed on Your Skin

A detective having a tell would probably be considered inappropriate to most people. Detectives were supposed to read tells, not have them. But then again, Benoit had never been much for keeping up appearances. Besides, what was the harm in rubbing his thumb along his right wrist? It helped him focus; it helped him think.

Or at least, that was what he’d told himself. He wasn’t entirely lying, either, rather the larger whole of it all was more so that when he rubbed that spot on his skin, he felt calm. Composed. He liked to think that that was the feeling his soulmate had intended when they painted that image, whenever they made or would make it. Whatever it was. After all, it had plenty of blue in it.

He was pretty sure it was meant to be a pond or some kind of body of water; that might explain the blues and greens and maybe the bits of white that he could make out. And if he squinted his eyes a little, he could swear there were little flecks of gold. Goldfish, maybe? Honestly, he had no clue. Benoit wasn’t much for complaining or expressing a lack of gratefulness, but he couldn’t help but sometimes feel envious of those whose tattoos covered a larger part of their body. Not a massive amount, but at least just enough to be able to tell precisely what the heck their soulmate’s image was trying to portray. Clearly, the image was larger than what that patch of his skin could afford, and honest to God, he’d spent a good part of his life trying to make out what it was!

(The embarrassment of it all, he would sometimes muse deprecatingly: That the acclaimed “Last of the Gentlemen Sleuths” could solve the most absurd cases in the country, yet had spent most of his natural-born life completely stumped by what might as well have counted as a body part!)

And yet, Benoit could never stay frustrated about it; not when his thumb gently grazed against the image, imagining the smoothness of his skin ebbing into the aquatic swirls of the proposed water. But just for extra precaution, he saw no harm in distracting himself.

That afternoon’s distraction? A quick skim of the local paper, accompanied by a mug of hot tea. He tried not to think of how such a method revealed his age, instead snapping the paper open to a page discussing the local goings-on. It was the usual sort of content: The community theater’s spring production was seeking house crew members, a mom and pop-style restaurant was having an anniversary special . . . It was the same sort of thing Benoit had grown used to expecting.

But what his pale blue eyes landed on next didn’t make the rest pale by comparison -- it downright washed all else from existence: An art show.

Benoit considered himself a well-rounded person, but it was more so in an almost tongue in cheek sort of manner: As a detective, it was his job to be appropriately versed in an assortment of fields. However, a jack of all trades was never truly a master of none. Benoit’s experiences with art theft and forgeries had lent him a hand in only about as much observation as was necessary for the respective occurrences.

But . . . he knew those swirls. He knew that blue, those greens, that white -- he recognized how the gold was patterned! Sure, the cheap ink job of a colored newspaper picture might have dulled the quality ever so slightly but there was no mistake to be made: That painting was his. No . . . It was theirs!

You tried to make calming breaths without making your anxiety obvious. A nervous but otherwise acceptable smile twitched into place, fooling the guests as they wandered about the gallery. Or, at least, you certainly hoped it was fooling them; but it was probably all to be outdone by the fact that you’d been nursing the same champagne flute for the last half-hour.

Is this what “making it” feels like? you wondered. Because if it was . . . you weren’t too fond of it. You felt bad for not relishing this opportunity; the art world was highly competitive, and you were more than blessed to have had the chance to not only display your work in a showroom, but to have said room be dedicated entirely to your pieces. But in that blessing was also a curse: The curse of criticism, of weary eyes, of people both waiting to pounce on you with ribbings of how you lack the magnanimity of the classics or the free thinking of the contemporaries --

Shitshitshitsmile! You did as you were told -- both by your brain, and by your manager earlier when they walked you through how you were to compose yourself through this entire ordeal. Just smile, enunciate when spoken to, and let the potential schmoozing flow and oh god, that Karen-looking lady who definitely owns a house in Martha’s Vineyard for when she wants to get away from her husband for a day totally hated that piece you’d spent months working on, didn’t she?!

The thought made your stomach twist, your already awkward smile along with it. You inhaled sharply. You had to find something to distract yourself with.

You turned and faced the painting nearest to you. Some might call it vanity, but you were actually quite pleased with this particular piece. That, and its blueness gave you a sense of . . . serenity. You imagined the ripples washing over you and into you, the scent and sound of the painted environment gently caressing your nose and drowning out both the stench of perfume and pretentious chattering . . . And also, apparently, the sound of approaching footsteps.

You hadn’t realized anyone had joined your side until the rumble of a southern baritone carded through the water.

“It’s gorgeous. Isn’t it?”

You hadn’t meant to jump and appear so clumsy.

“Oh, sh -- ” You cut yourself short as you eyed the droplets of spilled, room temperature champagne. If your manager found out that you had cussed around a potential buyer, they would’ve mounted your head on the wall. Thankfully, however, the stranger didn’t appear at all fazed. If anything, the chuckle he responded with sounded genuinely amused.

“Oh, my dear girl, I’m terribly sorry!” he insisted, holding up his left hand. “I didn’t mean to scare you; I can imagine most anyone would be mighty transfixed over a piece like this.”

You gulped as you looked up at your unintentional scarer. His eyes were the same blue as the one that brought you calm just moments earlier, yet they had the almost opposite effect to you now. As you looked into them, you didn’t feel calm; not necessarily: Instead, you felt your heart beginning to ripple the pattern of the painting, your cheeks burning as bright as the gold swirling amongst the little waves. And yet you found yourself transfixed by them, only offered freedom when the older gentleman offered you a hint of a smile. A warm one.

Crap! Uh -- Answer his question! Think of something to say! your mind scrambled.

“Uh . . .” you stammered. The only way to save what atoms of confidence you still had left was to turn your eyes back to the painting. “I -- I should hope so.” Smooth. You tried to remember your calming breaths. You heard the man hum, shifting his position ever so slightly in your peripheral.

“What can you tell me about it?” he asked, revealing just how close to you he truly was. You could feel the warmth of his person and the richness of his voice vibrating into you. Or perhaps it was butterflies? Maybe both? Well, whatever it was, it almost made you stumble over your words. You’d spent the entire evening up to that point rehearsing stories of your inspirations, recounting whatever education you had to people who probably didn’t give a crap.

But this instance was different: Maybe it was foolishness sourced from a sudden and sophomoric attraction, but you almost wanted to believe that perhaps this man genuinely cared. That he was genuinely interested in what you as the actual artist had to say and not you as some painting mannequin made to recite lines over and over.

The excitement of such a possibility broke through your nerves . . . and, unfortunately, right out of your mouth.

“I just really wanted to paint a mermaid in a mall coin fountain,” you admitted. You wanted to kick yourself. Up until that point, you’d been rather proud of your nifty little idea. But when you said it out loud, you sounded ridiculous! You could barely hide the reactionary wince, much less how your breathing hitched and hiccuped with nervousness. Just as soon as it had come, the hope that perhaps this man was different disappeared, leaving you awaiting his ridicule.

A ridicule that never came. Instead, there was quiet between the both of you. Perhaps he was at a loss for words?

“Mm,” he hummed, making you tense with expectation. You glanced at him just enough to see him nod, his blue eyes still focused on the canvas before him. “Go on . . .”

You blinked. Was he . . . for real?

“I . . . What more is there to say?” you wondered. The entire night, nobody had really asked for more on your part. They usually just took whatever purple prose you gave them and left it at that. Your initial assumption was right after all: This gentleman was cut from a different cloth from the lot.

He pursed his lips and shrugged. “What inspired this?”

“Oh, uh . . . Well . . .” Was it worth telling him? Aw, hell: you’d already made a bit of a fool of yourself being honest, so what harm was there in doing it some more? “I did it because I never saw anything about a mermaid that lived in a mall fountain, collecting the coins people toss in there.”

You didn’t even have a chance to worry about his criticism before the man’s features broke into a smile. It wasn’t like the others’ more courteous grins; this one reached his eyes, making their icy coolness warm and welcoming. You hated the cheesiness of it all, but for a very split second you wished that you could be a mermaid in them.

He chuckled once again. “Can’t say that I’ve ever seen anything concerning a coin-hoarding mermaid myself, let alone a professional art piece.” It was small, but the assurance made you offer your own smile.

“Well . . . But then maybe I have . . .” At that, your heart dropped. There it was: The anticipated criticism. He thought you were a hack after all: Uninspired, boorish, unskilled, whatever word there was to describe a person who didn’t know how to use a fan brush properly if any.

The wound stung as one so sudden should: Heavily and down to your core. You wanted the floor to open up and eat you whole. Or better yet: You wanted to climb into your apparently uninspired painting and drown in the mall fountain. But none of those could be an option, and neither was the possibility of hiding in the bathroom or an empty corridor. Instead, you had to put on a brave face and do your best to get through the moment.

“Oh?” you uttered. Your throat pained from the threat of anxiety. “Where do you suppose? I’ll admit, I’m not much into contemporary art so I don’t know the what’s what of what if you catch my drift.” You tried to weakly smile at your sad attempt for a joke. God, this so wasn’t what “making it” felt like.

But the man didn’t offer a courteous hint of laughter. Nor did he offer you a verbal response. Instead, he turned to face you. You did the same, even though you really didn’t want to. But it was the polite and expected thing to do when being confronted. Damn politeness and courteousness.

You weren’t sure how to respond when the man began to make work of his right sleeve, unbuttoning the cuff and beginning to roll the rest of it up. Your paranoia was unfortunately the first to respond due to your preexisting discomfort of the entire ordeal of an evening. You were just about prepared to scream, yelp, make any kind of distressed call -- only for it to trickle out into a gasp. An amazed exhale. The image the man presented to you on his wrist was small. Clearly, for it to be recognized for what it was, it needed a larger stretch of skin to belong to. But you knew what it was: You knew those swirls, the placements of those flecks of gold, those blues and greens surrounded by white.

For the umpteenth time that evening, your breathing changed. Only, you were pretty positive that none of your deep breathing would be necessary this time around; you would be more than happy to look at your painting on your soulmate’s skin for the rest of the night.

Epilogue:

“Mr. Blanc, please,” you insisted. “You’ve grown up with that thing on your arm, surely you’re bored with it by now. You can have your pick of the gallery. Hell, I’ll even make you something on request!”

Pickings hadn’t become slim, but the night had ended surprisingly successful. Well, surprising to you: You hadn’t expected anyone to buy anything of yours that evening, let alone six. You supposed that perhaps they just wanted to participate in the elitism brought on by owning newcomer art. Benoit, however, insisted that the buyers simply had functioning eyes. What a sweet-talker your soulmate was.

You watched as he shook his head stubbornly, eyes still fixated on the painting that adorned his wrist. He’d seen all the other remaining paintings, and even the ones that wound up selling by evening’s end. They were all gorgeous, he insisted, but . . .

“Benoit, if you will, Ms. (Y/N),” he corrected, apparently missing the irony. He gestured insistently at the composition. “And no. I . . . I truly would be quite satisfied with this one.” He heard you raspberry in defeat as you made your way back to his side, folding your arms in exasperation.

“Seriously, though,” you sighed. “Is a painting of a mermaid dwelling in, like, a fountain you can find nearby an Auntie Anne’s really . . .” You waved a hand as if searching for the right word. “. . . Befitting? Of a detective’s abode? I was thinking more of a bucolic piece or like a portrait of some kind or . . .” You trailed off, only to be met with an amused huff.

“Some detective I am,” Benoit muttered. He broke his gaze back to you and placed his hands on his hips. “Took me well over a damn decade or two to learn what it even was. And only because you told me!”

#benoit blanc x reader #benoit blanc #knives out imagine #knives out imagines #knives out x reader #regrettablewritings #for anyone wondering: I think Reader's tattoo would be of a flower. Or a random doodle.#something Benoit made while not thinking and they just so happened to glance at it

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fruityutas · 3 years

Text

𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗼𝗼𝗳 ⊱ 𝘄.𝘆𝗸

stoner!yukhei x reader

not proofread

genre ~ fluff, smut, highschool!au, richboy!yukhei

wc ~ 4k

synopsis ~ yukhei is your school’s weed dealer. he and his 6 friends all smoked in the back lot of the school every day after third period. you avoid his group because you don’t want to be seen as a trouble maker, but when you’re paired up with yukhei for a science project, you can’t exactly stay away for long.

warnings ~ cursing, drug use, sex with a condom

science was probably your least favorite subject. that and you were forced to take it at 9 am every day. what’s even worse is that you had to be in the same period as yukhei, or xuxi, as he liked to be called. the boy was as loud as he was tall. and oh my god, he was tall. luckily, he sat on the opposite side of the room from you. the teacher had to place him there because he was always playing around in the back.

you’re tugged out of your thoughts when the teacher finally stands up from her desk and starts talking about a partner project. she begins assigning partners, and everyone starts complaining. she hushes them and keeps setting random people together. “y/n and yukhei.” the laugh that comes from one of his friends, xiaojun, makes you roll your eyes. you turn to see them both looking at you, and yukhei gives a friendly wave, to which you return an awkward one. the teacher tells everyone to pair up with their partners and brainstorm ideas for the project. you make no moves to yukhei, so he just comes to you. you get out a pencil for him because you knew he didn’t bring one. he accepts it with a knowing blush on his face. “thank you.” you nod and begin writing ideas in silence, but yukhei keeps up talking. “so what are you thinking? i guess you’re not the speaking type huh?” you shoot him an incredulous look.

“no, i just don’t talk to you because all you do is skip class to go smoke.” it was a harsh response but it was the truth. his smile faltered and an awkward laugh slipped from his lips. “i- that was rude of me, i’m sorry yukhei. i just don’t want to be the only one to actually do the work on this project.” he nods slowly while keeping the eye contact. the more you look at him, you realize that he is quite attractive. his face is so symmetrical and his lips, god his lips. they look so kissable, soft and plump. you get so lost in thought you don’t realize he was trying to continue the work for this project.

“y/n, are you ok?” he waves his hand in your face, snapping you out of your dreaming. “you zoned out there for a second, did you get enough sleep last night?” “yes yes my bad, i just… was thinking.” the blush on your face made him laugh a little. “ok, so back to this project, we can work on it at my house since my parents are almost never home, if that's fine with you?” “that’s fine but why are they never home?”

“oh well they go on business trips a lot, ‘cause they’re high ups in the companies they work for.” you felt like his tone was hiding sadness, the fact that his parents were never there to see him or spend time with him must’ve hurt. “well now you have me to keep you company! other than your friends, of course.” the smile that graced his face made you feel warm inside. you exchanged numbers just as the bell for lunch rang, and you sat back to watch him leave with xiaojun.

that afternoon he texted you his address and asked if you could work on the project today, to which you agreed. when you got there, you were not expecting the mini mansion that it is. sure, you knew yukhei wasn’t poor, but his house is huge. you text him to let him know you’re here while you walk up to his front door. he opens it before you can even stop walking. “thanks for coming today, i kinda wanted to get to know you better while we work.” your eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “really? i wasn’t expecting that, honestly. i just thought you wanted to get it done quickly so you wouldn’t have to talk to me.” he shakes his head quickly and pulls you in the house.

“please don’t think that i don’t like you, i’m sure you’re a really sweet girl. i think we got the wrong first impression of each other.” you giggle in agreement, which sends yukhei’s heart into overdrive. he has always found you cute, but he never had the courage to act on it like he had with others. the boys always teased him for it, saying that a drug dealer shouldn’t have trouble asking a girl out, but he always threatened them with revoking their “friend discount” of 90% which usually shut them up. the two of you continued the work that you’d started in class and got fairly far, when the front door swung open. you snapped your head up to see his six friends filing in. you knew all their names from talk around school, and it’s no surprise they know yours. ten and yangyang both stare at you with slight disdain while the others go in different directions of the house.

“have you finally managed to get her pants down?” tens question makes you choke on air and yangyang just cackles. they both take seats on the large couch as if they live here, which they most likely almost do. yukhei starts speaking angrily in mandarin while you awkwardly get up and go into the kitchen for a drink. you find hendery in there playing with yukhei’s dog bella. he straightens up when he sees you and doesn’t make eye contact. you nod at the fridge so he’d move, and he asks you, “so are you like, smart? because i need help in algebra. i just don’t understand the whole domain and range thing.” you stare at him for a second before bursting into laughter. “hendery, why in the world is that the first question you ask me? i can help but i’m not gonna do the work for you.” his vigorous nods make you think his brain is knocking around his skull. you pat his shoulder lightly before walking back into the living room where kun and sicheng have also joined the other three. “so i should probably get going, since your friends are here, but uh, text me when you wanna work again?” he begins to protest your leaving. “no no, please stay. you can meet my friends.” you shoot a look of hesitance to yukhei, to which he returns with pleading eyes. how can you say no to him when he’s being cute? you sigh and mumble out a “fine” which makes him cheer and the others either shake their heads or laugh. you sit back down on the couch close to yukhei, making ten wiggle his eyebrows at you. xiaojun and hendery enter the room, making the couch fill up. kun clears his throat before turning to speak to you.

“y/n, what grade are you in?” the question catches you off guard and you stutter out your answer. “i’m a junior.” he hums and nods before muttering something to yukhei in mandarin. yukhei nods in fearful agreement and it leaves you wondering what the hell kun said to him. “well at least you’re not gonna fail like xuxi over here. he could use the help of someone as dedicated as you.” you blush at his comment.

“yukhei, where is the-” “just call me xuxi, please.” “oh, ok then. uhhh where is the restroom?” he turns to point to a door in the hall behind the living room. “that first door there.” you nod and get off the couch as quickly as possible. as you’re walking away, they start talking amongst themselves, but loud enough for you to hear. “she’s cute, for sure. if you don’t snatch her up i might just have to.” kun was undeniably attractive, but he honestly terrified you. his serious demeanor and tendency to get into fights - and win - was not good for your nerves. you could hear yukhei whine at the older boy to stay away from you, and that he’d get around to it but he wants to make you at least comfortable around all of them.

the bathroom lights seem too bright and make your head hurt. you check to see the time and it’s only 5:20 pm, you had told your mother that you wouldn’t be home until 7. “it’s just an hour and forty minutes, y/n, you can do this. just stay cool and it will be ok. they’re not going to be rude to you.” walking out of the bathroom, they get quiet when you get close. yukhei makes room for you next to him on the couch again, and you sit awkwardly. it’s quiet, and they’re all looking at you. the hot feeling of anxiousness creeps up your spine, and you look anywhere but their eyes.

“you can speak, y/n.” yukhei’s deep voice cuts the air and sends a chill down your spine, but it also brings you comfort, as if he was protecting you. ten breaks out into a cackle, muttering something along the lines of “she’s so red, are we really that scary?” yukhei scolds ten in mandarin, but it proves no use as the older boy continues laughing. “i’m not really sure what to say. you guys probably share zero interests with me.” a lighthearted laugh comes from you when finishing the sentence. yukhei’s hand makes its way to your thigh, causing you to jump a little. his large hand was warm, and it brought heat to your cheeks. “now y/n, i’m sure we share at least one interest.” you look skeptically at him, his big eyes shining.

“i don’t really know… i’m not a good conversation maker.” yukhei’s hand stays put on your thigh, a steady reassurance for your nerves. “well i’m assuming you don’t smoke, but i really need to right now so.” you shake your head in disagreement, the thought of smoking repulsive to you. yukhei stays put at your side while ten digs in his bag. kun is the next one to speak to you. “who’s your favorite musician? maybe we share music taste.” you fumble around, not expecting the question. you never really shared your music taste with anyone because it wasn’t what you thought people would expect from you. “um, i really like chase atlantic…” kun gives a surprised look. “that’s something we have in common, i love them. what’s your favorite song?”

“oh really? my favorite is probably right here orrrr out the roof. but if i’m honest all their songs are good.” kun nods enthusiastically. a small huff comes from your side, and you look over to see yukhei pouting. kun just laughs and gets up to sit near ten, who had started smoking during the conversation. yangyang, xiaojun, and hendery had run off to play with bella. sicheng was napping on the loveseat across from you. yukhei rests his head on your shoulder and snuggles into you. “you know, you’re really cute.” his hands wrap around your waist in display of either jealousy or possessiveness. your face burns with embarrassment. you squeak out a response to his complement. “thank you, yuk- xuxi.” he giggles and squishes your cheek in his large hand. you decide to bite the bullet and cuddle up to him, not seeing any use in resisting since you didn’t mind it. the room smelled of weed and you were close enough to smell yukhei’s cologne. the scents were strong, yet the fact that you were close to yukhei made them feel as if they were normal.

“xuxi?” he looks up at you from his position, face painted with a smile. you couldn’t deny that it tugged on your heart strings to be so close to him. “hmm? is everything ok?” you nod at him, smiling back. “i just need a water, i’m thirsty.” he lets go of you, but gets up before you can. “let me get it for you, i’ll be right back.” you sit patiently and wait, observing your surroundings. sicheng was still napping, yangyang had since joined kun and ten while hendery and xiaojun were playing a video game on the tv. yukhei returns with a water bottle in hand before sitting back beside you. you take the first step initiating cuddling this time, catching him by surprise. he leans back into the spacious couch, pulling you onto him. you get comfortable in his arms fairly quickly, the large boy being unusually warm. you fall asleep in his arms, only waking up to your phone ringing. “shit, i have to go.” your mom was calling, and the time was 8:30. you were so in trouble when you got home. yukhei groans and wakes up from your moving. “is everything ok?” his tired voice was rough and it made you blush. “y-yeah everything is fine i just have to leave, it’s late.” he rubbed his eyes and stood up. the other boys were either asleep or playing on their phones. “i’ll walk you home, it’s the least i can do.” you agree and get your things together. it was dark and cold outside, and you’re glad yukhei is walking you. he links your hands together and pulls you closer.

“hmm where is your jacket?” you laugh nervously and look up at him. “i’m just forgetful, i guess.” he laughs and wraps his arm around you to preserve heat. your house isn’t too far from his, so it’s only 9 o’clock when you get there. you don’t even knock on the front door because your mother opens it with an angry look on her face.

“do you have any idea what time it is?” you go to say something but yukhei gets to faster. “I’m sorry, mrs. it’s my fault, we were working and i lost track of time.” your mother’s face softens and she sighs. “well then, i understand. come on, y/n, i’ll warm your dinner up. and thank you for walking her home young man.” yukhei bids you and her goodbye before turning to leave. you give him a kiss on the cheek before walking into your house, not turning back because of the raging blush on your face.

the next few times you work on the project with yukhei, the boys aren’t there. you have a suspicion he told them not to come, but you don’t mention it to him. today had been just as peaceful up until you notice yukhei zoning out. “yukhei please try and focus, we need to get at least this part done today.” he was constantly fidgeting and couldn’t concentrate on the task at hand. he grumbles something you can’t quite hear. “what was that? are you ok?”

“i need to smoke. it’s hard to focus without it.” oh. you were confused, wasn’t weed non-addictive? “isn’t weed like-” “i have physical dependence on it, i can’t just not smoke when i want anymore. it’s... shitty but i can’t help it at this point. i’ll be quick, I promise.” you nod slowly, hesitant that he’d be able to do any work at all while high. not that you’d ever experienced him high before, but people and the internet let you know the effects somewhat. yukhei doesn’t even leave the room to do it, and the smell is overwhelming. you flinch every now and then, the headache from the stench of the plant pulsating in your brain. yukhei seems to notice and puts the bong down before pulling you close to him. you begin to protest, but being so close to him and the cologne he wears drowns out the smell of the drug heavy in his hands. you relax into his form, snuggling into the crook of his neck. you think to yourself how you don’t really want this moment to end, and how yukhei was comforting to be around. he always made exceptions or catered to you when he didn’t have to. he could very well be mean to you and not care, but he takes effort to show that you’re included in everything, and it meant a lot to you. his long fingers run up and down your back in soothing motions, bringing you impossibly close to him. he struggles to put his supplies up with you cradled in his lap so you begin to get up, but he verbalizes his distaste with it. “no no, you’re fine. just sit still baby.” the pet name he gave you made heat rush to your cheeks. you obey his order and stay put in his lap, though your constant moving was causing a bit of a... problem in his jeans. you could feel his semi-hard cock against your core, and out of some sort of animal instinct you grind down on it. yukhei lets out a breathy grunt while putting away the last of his setup.

“jesus fuck y/n. you’re gonna make me fully hard if you keep on like that.” he grabs your hips to make you still against him. your face could not be any more red than it is, embarrassment at a high. yukhei just laughs and brings your head out of his shoulders to look at him. “you don’t have to do anything with me, you know that, right?” you nod sheepishly and avoid eye contact with the boy. he leans in close to your ear, nipping the lobe just a bit before whispering to you, “but i feel like you want to, hm?”

you let out a shaky breath and pull yourself into him again. “i think i’d really like that, yes.” sex was not really new to you, you had a previous partner but it was only once. it felt exciting to you, having someone want you so bad. taking your hips in his hands again, he moves your body along his lap, the friction of both your bottoms adding to the pleasure. “fuck baby, you feel so nice just grinding on my cock, i wonder how you’ll feel bouncing on it.” his dirty words cause a whimper to erupt from your throat, sending heat straight to your lower regions. “xuxi please…” he chuckles at your weak state.

“please what? you gotta tell me what you want.” you’re already a mewling mess in his lap, the words coming out incoherently. “please, just use me. i want you so bad, xuxi please.” he hums in your ear and maneuvers the two of you up off the floor, then walks to his room, holding you. as if you were weightless, he tosses you onto the bed, and you almost moan at how strong he is. “are you gonna lay there or are you gonna get undressed for me?” you scramble to take off your clothes, the commanding tone in his voice sending shivers down your spine. “that’s a good girl. you’re such a good girl for me huh?” his long fingers pitter down your thighs, stroking the insides of them every now and then. “xuxi, mmph! i want your mouth, please.” he smirks and dives in like a man starved, tongue spreading your wetness around. it was messy, but it felt so good. using a mix of tongue and fingers, yukhei brought you so close to orgasm, only to back away at the last second. you whine out at him and buck your hips up to his mouth. “ah ah, kitten. be patient or you get nothing.” he reaches up to play with your breasts, pinching at your nipples. his other hand strokes the inside of your thigh painstakingly slow. “you’re so cute, baby. all those times you’d sit close to me or fall asleep on me, i just wanted to ruin you. do you want me to?” you nod like your life depended on it, you wanted him to make you fall apart.

he shimmies out of his jeans and boxers, cock springing up and slapping his abdomen. opening his bedside drawer, he pulls out a condom. taking the packet in between his teeth, he opens it and puts the rubber on. you can only stare in awe, his length was impressive. it was around nine inches and had a girth sure to split you in half. yukhei notices your gaze and laughs. “you like what you see? well it’s all yours, baby.” he crawls over you, pulling your thighs up to your chest. “you’re sure you want this?” you nod at the tall boy, pulling him in for a kiss as he pushes into you. bottoming out, groans spill from the both of your mouths. he pulls out slowly, letting you have time to adjust before thrusting in and setting a steady pace. skin slapping skin resonates through the room and bounces off the walls. his thrusts were hard enough to jolt your body, tits bouncing with each one. without stopping, he lifts your body up and holds you to his chest while he sits on his heels. the new position let him hit places deep inside you, amplifying the pleasure. you could feel the head of his cock hitting your cervix with each thrust into you. sweet whimpers and moans fell from your lips, yukhei was basking in the sounds of your enjoyment. grunts into your ear came from him every minute or so. “p... please go harder.” tears built up in the corners of your eyes from the overwhelming pleasure, drool coating your lips from incoherent babbling. yukhei’s speed increased, his breaths coming out shaky and thrusts unsteady. “i’m so close, xuxi” the hot coil in your lower parts was winding tighter by the second, your release creeping just around the corner. “i know princess, me too.” yukhei started toying with your clit, rubbing quick circles on it. “you can cum, just let go.” as if he had full control of your body, the coil snaps and you cum with his name pouring from your lips like a mantra. his hips stutter as he gets close to his climax, thrusts slow and deep. he comes after a few more strokes, letting his cock pulse inside your tight walls. you sit there to catch your breath while yukhei throws the condom away and brings back a damp rag to clean the both of you up. after he finishes, he gets into bed behind you and draws the covers up over you.

“do you need me to walk you home?” you slowly open your eyes and look up at him. “or do you want to stay?” you snuggle closer to him and mumble “i’ll just call and tell my mom i’m staying at a friend’s since it’s friday.” you can’t see it, but yukhei smiles sweetly. “y/n, i know people usually don’t have sex before dating, but if i could, i wanna be your boyfriend.” you squeeze his torso and let out a meek “yes, i’d love that” before falling asleep together.

yukhei as a boyfriend was something to behold. he was constantly goofy and treated you as if you were the only girl in the world. the guys accepted you quickly and you were deemed the mom of the group. hendery got himself a girlfriend and you became best friends with her, always gossiping about the others. you all were basically a family, sharing good times and bad, but you always pulled through.

“y/n! c’mere, look at this.” yukhei’s loud voice was the first thing you hear in the school halls. “please xuxi, you’re so loud. don’t want everyone looking at us.” you giggle to let him know you were joking, not actually caring if people heard you. “look, there’s this old church about ten minutes away from the school and we think it’d be a really cool place to hang out.” you hum in acknowledgement, looking at the pictures sicheng had sent to yukhei. the building wasn’t damaged heavily, and it would be a really good spot for the rest of the group to smoke. “let’s do it! and while you guys smoke i can look around and take pictures.” yukhei can’t help but look at you with stars in his eyes. you were his world, and he never failed to show that. even the group could tell he was whipped for you, they always teased him but he never cared.

“well let’s go! c’mon, no one will notice if we leave now.” anyway you look at it, there’s no place you’d rather be than with yukhei.

#neowritingsnet #neosmutcollective #neoturtles #nct #nct scenarios #nct imagines #wayv #wayv scenarios #wayv imagines #wayv smut #yukhei x reader #wong yukhei #yukhei scenarios #yukhei fluff #yukhei smut

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oh-my-may · 4 years

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Sakusa, Tsukishima and Kenma when their s/o gets a wound

requested: sakusa, tsukki, and kenma with a s/o who gets a wound? maybe they went to do an activity and get their knees scraped bad and the boys find out? how would they take care of their s/o?

Sakusa was such a good pick for this oh my that’s probably why his is a bit longer please forgive me I am weak for him ok

Sakusa Kiyoomi:

There were not a lot of things you could do as dates, since Sakusa declined most of your suggestions saying that it would be too unhygienic or too much work making sure everything would be clean.

But when you came up with the idea of going wandering on a mountain trail, where only mostly elderly people where, he was all for it. Of course he also didn’t liek staying insiode all the time, and a place where anybody went while being in nature sounded like music to his ears.

However you regretted your decision soon after you guys started your trip. You were breathing heavily and your legs already felt like spaghetti and you werent even halfway up the hill. Sakusa however, with his amazing sports stamina was walking ahead and barely notived that you fell way behind, until he wanted to talk to you and you didn’t respond to his words. He turned around wondering where you were. Did you maybe get lost? But then he saw you hanging over, your hands placed on your knees and you looked up to him smiling, but you couldn’t hide the exhaustion.

Your boyfriend couldn’t help but chuckle seeing you like that. He walks to you and stops in front of you, tilting his head while he observes your heaving figure. “You know, we can just return if you want to. But the air up here is really good and I guess it’s even better at the top.” You just shake your head, insisting on continuing this trip because it hasn’t been often that you saw Kiyoomi this careless. You were determined to make this an enjoyable trip for the both of you, but especially him. He deserved a pause from his hectic life.

So he grabs your hand and walks slowly beside you for a while, both of you enjoying the nature around you and the fresh air sweeping through your lungs. When you’re finally at the top you have a nice picnic while enjoing the view over the land, watching leaves dance in the wind and tumbling around you, taking in all the scents of exotic flowers and birds chirping somewhere in the tree tops.

You feel a lot better when you get back down. Walking down on a mountain is a lot less exhausting than walking up, after all. Your steps fly more easily. Too easily. You’re more careless with your steps and before you can stop it you stumble over a big rock in your way, landing on your knees before Sakusa can grab your wrist. However he’s quick to help you up again and you flinch and hiss when you shift your weight on your left leg again. Your knee is totally scraped, a small rill of blood running down your leg. Some small stones still stick to your skin and Sakusa is quick to pull out a small package from his backpack, because this man never goes anywhere unprepared.

He helps you sit down on a tree trunk next to the path you were walking and he looks at you with slight amusement but also worry in his eyes. He sighs before leaning down and placing a kiss on the top of your head and then kneels down in front of you, taking care of the wound. “What am I gonna do with you? You’re so clumsy...” he mumbles and you have to smile, though your knee still burns badly. Sakusa takes care of it perfectly, even kissing the bandage on top of your knee after he’s done. However, he doesn’t let you walk down again, he carries you down all the way on his back and you’re not complaining.

You just cling onto him and cuddle into his back, burying your face in his neck and stroking his hair occassionally, thanking him for taking care of you so well. He smiles to himself when he feels you pressing to him, feeling your breath so close on his skin.

After the trip he still checks up on your knee everyday, even when it’s not a wound that serious. He still claims that it shouldn’t get infected and that he’s the only one besides a doctor that can take proper care of it. Always kisses your knee after every check up! A true cariing cutie, I am way too soft for this man

Tsukishima Kei:

It was hard to get Tsukishima thrilled of the idea of going somewhere special to hang out. He was more of the stay inside kinda person, preferring just cuddling up to you in private.

You accepted his choices (even though you still got him to go to certain places sometimes) and that’s how you transformed everyday situations into little dates. Like lunch in school or staying in your garden instead of in the house, sometimes you’d even join his practice and watch him there. Even though he would never admit it, he enjoyed it when you do that. It always makes his insides all giddy and warm because you care for him so much!

You also always walk home together, talking about anything on your way or just quietly listening to music while enjoying each other’s company, silently holding or hands or sometimes he’ll just sling an arm around your shoulders and pull you close to him, walking like that for a while.

Today however you were “balancing” on a wall next to the sidewalk while talking to Kei and rambling about your day. It was fun to you focusing on taking the right steps, even though the platform you were walking on was not that small. You still had to be careful about where you placed your feet, because there were roots and other plants growing over and through the stone. “Ugh anyway, and then our teacher just made us write a test, and it was fine I guess but still sucked.” you ended your little rant.

“Y/N, are you really sure you should walk up there? Don’t you think it would be safer down here? You’re gonna get hurt if you don’t look out.” Tsukki just says while looking up to you with a vague face. You almost laughed seeing him like that. Was he actually worrying about you? Contrary to you always worrying about him at games, this was a nice change.

“Don’t be silly Kei, I’ve been balancing on things since I was a child, literally nothing will happen-” And that’s when you literally cursed yourself, because just moment later you stumble over a root and fall down, though you manage to cushion your fall with your hands which got the most damage.

Your boyfriend is right next to you in no time, helping you up and scanning your body for any injuries, but luckily only your hands got injured and your elbow felt weird, making your whole arm feel like some sort of pudding. Tsukki is just shaking his head while taking in the scrapes and cuts on your hands. You flinch when he softly touches your strained skin and he looks at you with disapproval. His eyes literally tell you “I told you so.” but fortunately he has enough tactfulness to not say it out loud. He accompanies you to your house, constantly shaking his head when you whimper and pout because your hands hurt.

He reluctantly helps you clean your hands, because he claims he’s not good with that kind of stuff and he only helps you bandage the wound because you don’t want to move your hands too much. Quiet sounds of disapproval still leave his lips as he does, though. Something like that could never happen to him, he says. Still, the look in his eyes is loving. He appreciates your playful side a lot. Without it, his life would be pretty plain. Without YOU it would be.

He loves you, but please prepare for a bunch of teasing after the incident. He will never let you climb on something or balance somewhere every again for a long time because honestly? He cares about you a little too much and he can’t bear to see you hurt in any way.

Kenma Kozume:

Kenma always seemed to be busy with some things. In the morning it was school, in the afternoon volleyball practice and in the evening and at night he was usually gaming.

You tried you best to insert yourself into his routine. Walk to school with him, spend the breaks at school with him, game with him, watch him at practice. You were fine with it, really, because you noticed how over the time he got more cooperative and sometimes skipped volleyball practice to hang out with you, or he was starting to game a bit less in order to go to the cinema with you etc.

But you still treasured the time the most when you could hang with him normally, like at practice. You could actually spend hours watching him do something else other than hanging over his console.

And the other members loved you, too. They appreciated you being at practice, it was like having another manager. You also took care of them and told them everything you observed, you brought snacks and cheered for them in any game. Sometimes you’d even join in during training camps and get along with other teams, as well.

You normally used your time during practice to do homework or work on other things, but today you helped out as the “ballboy/girl” basically and ran around the gym catching the flying volleyballs and collecting them for the boys. You’d throw them back to them or helped them to serve the ball, but you were always just moving around the whole time. You didn’t mind, though. It was actually very fun, the boys were constantly joking around. But Kenma didn’t look all that amused whenever a ball just closely missed you or when you almost fell in an attempt to catch a ball.

You watched as him and Yaku were talking to Lev and teaching him how to do a proper serve. The first year was listening eagerly, moving his hands and arms around enthusiastically and you found yourself grinning when Kenma moved his hands over his face in frustration.

Then it finally came to Lev putting all the tips into something and he was standing at the end of the field, ready to serve. You watched him fail a few times until he hit the ball with a loud bang and slammed it over the net, right to where you were standing. No one had enough time to react properly and before you could even think about diodging the ball landed straight on your chest and you fell backwards, hitting your head on the floor hard. For a moment you couldn’t see or hear anything, just darkness and dancing light in front of your eyes and a defeaning beeping in your ears.

Someone helped you to sit up and you slowly began to see contours of people around you, and their voices were still incomprehendable to you. You felt hands on your back and then on your face and you looked into your boyfriends face who had widened eyes and looked very pale.

Then he turned around and basically chased Lev through hell for doing this, giving him the lecture of his life even though you weren’t hurt that badly. there was a small wound at the back of your head and just a little bit of blood came out.

Kenma was by your side the whole time, flinching a lot more than you when you got a bandage around your head. You got some medication from the doctor and while you were tripping a little bit he still stayed at your side, giving you his console so you can play and distract yourself from ther pain

Literally really won’t leave your side, will stay at your house until you can go to school again and he just spends the days next to you in your bed, pouting when he sees the wound and carefully stroking your hair. He’s a big cuddler during this time and literally won’t led you near the gym anytime soon. He always gives Lev death stares when he gets near you, like a hissing cat.

A protective boy, 11/10 would love and cherish

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dongofthewolf · 3 years

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Everything in Between- Chapter 1

Abby Anderson x Fem!Reader

The reader stumbles across Abby one sleepless night and can’t help but become an absolute stuttering mess.

Warnings: swearing, mild violence, fluff, bad grammar lol

I’m extremely new to this so please be gentle T-T

Read chapter 2 here !

The first thing that you always noticed about a person was their eyes (it’s cliché you knew that, but you really couldn’t help it), and anyways… that was the first thing you noticed about her. The first time you saw her it was pouring outside; the kind of pouring where it got dark at 5pm and the reflections in the puddles on the pavement—partly distorted by the heavy raindrops—looked like fun house mirrors. It was brief and she only passed you for a second, but the clouds that were concealing the sun left a shadow of darkness in the air and in her eyes. Making her regularly blue eyes a much darker shade from the lack of sunlight, a blue that looked like the part of the ocean you can see from the shore but avoid from fear you may drown in it.

You had forgotten your umbrella that day leaving your hair drenched, you were shivering from the cold and desperately made your way to your room as quickly as you could. But as you hastily walked with your head down in an effort to conceal your eyes from the raindrops, you bumped into her. She was a lot taller than you and was incredibly built, she had her long blonde hair in a neat braid and was wearing some simple cargo pants with a grey sweater. She was also carrying some bags but you were walking too fast to really get a good look at them. Although this was the first time you had seen her and it was only for a moment you’ll never forget those eyes, those dark blue eyes that made it seem as if she was hiding from something. That was the first time you saw her but it certainly wouldn’t be the last.

It was stormy again but at least today you were inside, the howling of the wind against the windows woke you up and when you glanced at the digital clock it read 2:30. You always had trouble falling asleep again once you were woken from your slumber, and found that you required at least an hour before you could actually sleep again. Since it was so late though you figured that the cafeteria would be empty and you could grab a cup of tea before going back to bed, you also often sat in the commons room to read because it’s pretty isolated from the rest of the place and very seldom did anyone else sit there too.

You pulled a black crewneck over your messy hair and put on some slides before making your way down to the cafeteria, the hallways leading up to it were lit with fluorescent lights that burned your eyes when you stepped out of the darkness of your room. It was surprisingly silent (with the exception of your footsteps of course) and after living in a place constantly occupied by so many people for so many years, it was a rare occasion to find some peace and quiet; an anomaly that still surprised you to this day.

The cafeteria was nothing special, there were 30-40 folding tables lined up near the big tear stained windows and next to the kitchen there was a communal fridge with a basket of fruits no one dared to touch. Cabinets lined the whole half of the room and you reached into the second last one to grab some chamomile tea before setting the kettle on the stove.

You sat by the windows while you waited for the water to boil when you saw a strike of lightning, it was purple and quickly followed by a large cracking noise which weirdly enough didn’t quite startle you. You supposed that after all these years of living in a place that is universally known to rain more than anything, you become accustomed to the crashing sound of thunder and the sudden flashes of lightning. Plus, it’s a lot better than the sound of guns going off or those dreaded clickers that haunted your nightmares. So consumed by your thoughts you hadn’t even noticed the whistling noise coming from the tea kettle. It wasn’t until you heard an unfamiliar voice that nearly made you leap out of your skin, you turned around and standing there was the very girl you had briefly seen that rainy afternoon just three days ago.

“You gonna get that or should I?” She was wearing some grey sweats and a khaki tank top that showcased her huge biceps, you admired her toned forearms, unable to form any combination of words that wouldn’t make you sound like a complete and utter idiot. She must have noticed you staring though because she repeated the question with a raised eyebrow and a small smirk. “Hello?” She asked.

“Right… sorry” you immediately responded. You laughed nervously and hurriedly ran to the tea kettle, a small blush forming on your cheeks as you removed it from the stovetop. While pouring the hot water into a small cup you quickly threw the tea bag in so she wouldn’t notice your shaking hands, as you threw the bag in you quietly ignored the quickening beat of your heart. At this point you couldn’t tell if the shaking was because you were startled by her sudden presence or if you were nervous because of the literal goddess staring down at you.

“Sorry again about that I was just distracted.” You looked up and she was studying you with those same blue eyes, the intensity from her gaze made you ramble on.

“Did you want some tea? I accidentally boiled too much water, I guess eyeballing measurements just isn’t my forte.” You chuckled again, clearly flustered by this gorgeous woman looking at you in your damn pajamas. Somehow even at two in the morning she managed to look effortlessly beautiful and you couldn’t help but be fiercely jealous of her overwhelming confidence. Up until now, no one had ever had this effect on you, then all of a sudden this stranger looks at you once and BOOM you’re a stuttering mess.

“Sure, does this place have any chamomile tea?” She said nonchalantly while grabbing a chair from the stack in the corner. She sat in it backwards with her arms resting on top of the chair and you flashed a glance at her toned forearms “holy shit is she strong” you thought.

“Yeah, I’m having some too actually.” You poured out the tea and sat down across from her, this was the first time you had actually been able to really see her and you were in awe of how gorgeous she was; Her hair was in a simple braid which had a few strands astray (most likely from sleeping in it) and she had these adorable freckles that spread from her face all the way down to her arms. She was staring at her cup with those same intense blue eyes—this time the fluorescents adding a tint of green to them—she looked like a statue that was literally sculpted by the Gods and you couldn’t take your eyes off of her. As you looked down at her calloused hands that were cupping the warm ceramic cup, you noticed that they were a lot larger than your own, but they also had a delicacy to them; the kind of delicacy that deserved to be in a museum. Every aspect of her was absolutely perfect and never in your life had you seen someone like her, you were struck with this sudden need to know everything about her (even though she didn’t really seem like the chatty kind). Consumed by the essence of her beauty and strength you almost hadn’t realized that she was talking to you, and “oh God” You thought “I was staring again”.

“So uh… what’s your name?” It was obvious she was trying to fill the silence but there was a softness and kindness to her words, almost as if she was trying to appear harmless.

“Y/n and yours?” You replied in the calmest way that you could even though your hands were shaking like crazy, you gripped on to your cup for dear life hoping she wouldn’t notice. You were always so terrible around new people and now with the combination of not just a complete stranger, but an incredibly charming and attractive stranger? You were surely doomed.

“It’s Abigail but you can call me Abby, most everybody does.” She was clearly not oblivious to your nervous manner (and your staring) but she pretended not to notice, probably to spare you the embarrassment. Having people stare at her was nothing new to Abby and honestly, she liked it. She felt powerful and strong when men were intimidated by her, but the way y/n was staring at her was different. It certainly wasn’t fear because despite the shaking of y/n’s hands that she tried so desperately to conceal, she didn’t look at Abby with fear “Perhaps it was admiration?” Abby thought. But she soon nudged any ideas of romanticism from her mind figuring that y/n was probably into those douchebags who act cocky and disrespectful but are too chicken to ask a girl out; Abby despised disrespectful people. However, if there was anything that Abby hated more than disrespectful assholes, it was embarrassment. Abby’s confidence was one of her greatest strengths, it was like a shield she put forward that helped her endure the incredibly misogynistic environment she lived in. She figured that the staring was just intimidation. Abby was quite confident in her ability to judge a person’s character and brushed any thoughts of attraction to the back of her mind, not wanting to risk the possibility of rejection or being wrong.

“So what brings you to the cafeteria at this fine hour? Besides the tea of course.” She smirked, her smile was so infectious that you couldn’t help but smile as well.

“I woke up and couldn’t go back to sleep, figured I’d drink some tea and read for a bit in the commons room. Better than laying in my bed and staring at the ceiling for an hour I guess.” You stopped yourself before you could say something stupid or embarrassing. “What about you?”

“I just got here a couple days ago and I’m a pretty light sleeper which normally would be fine, but that damn thunder won’t shut the hell up!” She pointed her fist to the sky dramatically and you couldn’t help but giggle, she looked at you with a smile. “They stationed me here to do some work and I haven’t had much time to myself, they gave me some time off tomorrow and now thanks to this storm I’m gonna spend it passed out in my bed.” She paused, contemplating her words before continuing. “I’m glad I met you though, late nights are much better with company.” You could feel a heat trickle to your cheeks. “So what are you reading?”

“Pride and Prejudice” You answered excitedly. “It’s my favourite book, I’ve read it like a hundred times. I guess I’m just a sucker for cheesy love stories” She grinned.

“It was good but Elizabeth? She was way out of Darcy’s league, I mean yeah she had pride but Darcy was prideful and snobby.” You giggled at her response and the thought of this tough and brawny girl reading Jane Austen. “I mean, if you’re gonna have a terrible character trait just choose one. Not both!”

“Okay… But you gotta admit they were perfect for each other” You added. “Their weaknesses complimented each other and then their strengths the same. It’s like they were meant to find each other, and I mean just the thought of something like that gives me hope you know?” She looked at you with a raised eyebrow, urging you to elaborate. “Soulmates, I mean… just the thought of there being one single person on this entire Earth who was put here alongside you, the perfect match who’s strengths compliment your weaknesses and vice versa makes me feel some sort of hope.” You felt yourself getting carried away and decided to let her speak. “What can I say, I guess I’m nothing if not an optimist.”

“I get what you mean but I feel like that’ll just set you up for disappointment. There's so much more to life than just love and finding your ‘soulmate’. There’s thunderstorms, books, good food, there’s family and friends, and strangers that make you tea.” she glanced at you and your heart skipped a beat “this is insane!” You thought “Not only is she totally gorgeous, but she’s smart and funny? God she’s so perfect I think I might melt where I stand”

“Fine, fine, you got me there.” You smiled and was struck with this sudden feeling of security that you’d never felt before Abby, and though you’d never really admit it, you realized that all this time living in a facility had made you really lonely. Speaking to Abby was seriously the first time in this place that you weren’t thinking about the end of the world or crying over lost family and friends. At this small fold-out table in this dull and dreary cafeteria, you felt the first modicum of safety that you hadn’t felt for a really long time, and it was all because of her. You noticed that your mind had wandered off again of course but Abby’s mind seemed to be elsewhere as well, she had an almost nervous or unsure look on her face.

“Hey, so I know you said you were gonna go read in the commons room but do you think you could ditch Elizabeth and Darcy for a bit? I haven’t really gotten a chance to see this place and I was hoping you could maybe give me a tour.” Abby asked in a casual tone, hoping y/n wouldn’t notice the slight nervousness in her voice.

“Of course! I’d love to show you around, though there isn’t much to see other than empty halls and abandoned rooms” You replied enthusiastically. You were ecstatic, she was the first person you had really connected with in a while and you jumped at the opportunity to spend more time with her.

“I don’t mind, as long as I have you to keep me company.” She winked at you and smiled warmly. You felt your heart skip a beat again “Is Abby flirting with me?” You thought. “Nah, probably not” She was the coolest and most beautiful girl you’d ever seen. What would she see in you? Plus Abby probably isn’t even into girls, she’s just being friendly.

You walked her through each of the empty halls and corridors while you guys chatted about books, friends, family, life before the outbreak, and everything in between. You even traded embarrassing dating stories in which you both had to stifle loud outbursts of laughter so you wouldn’t wake up the rest of the facility. While you were speaking about your various dating escapades you decided to sprinkle in a story about a girl to see Abby’s reaction.

“Okay okay I got a good one, so once I was dating this girl and we actually moved in with each other like a month into the relationship but that’s not important. Anyways, so I had this cat right and when we broke up a few months later and she moved out, she took the cat!” You both bursted out laughing. “She literally stole my cat and I was so pissed that I keyed ‘thief’ into her car.”

“Remind me not to piss you off y/n, you’re a vengeful one.” Abby chuckled and responded casually. You were slightly unsatisfied, she hadn’t reacted to that statement (or any of the subtly gay references you made) at all and you couldn’t tell if it was because she liked girls or because she didn’t care. It didn’t really bother you that much though because this was the most fun you had had in a long time. When you were laughing and talking with Abby all the thoughts about your family and impending doom—thoughts that were once constant—had begun to fade away. All that mattered now was Abby, she was the best thing that had happened to you in a really long time and you were so grateful to have met her.

By the time you guys had decided to depart it was six in the morning, Abby walked you back to your room and you couldn’t help but feel like every atom in your entire body was vibrating.

You had spent an entire night with this amazing girl who was now the first friend that you’ve had in a while, your cheeks were bright red and your heart felt like it was shaking. When you laid your head on your pillow to sleep you couldn’t shake the thought of those brilliant blue eyes, and that clever, knowing grin that made you melt. God, and you couldn’t forget those gigantic biceps, you just wanted her to crush your skull with those beautiful, freckled arms. You adored her, and as you drifted off into a deep and peaceful slumber you dreamt of the most incredibly gorgeous, funny, charming, and intelligent girl you had ever met: Abigail Anderson.

#abby anderson x reader #abby anderson imagine #abby anderson #abby tlou #fluff #fxf #tlou #tlou2 #the last of us #the last of us part 2 #the last of us imagine

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otp-holic · 3 years

Text

The one place (where something happened) (A03)

“In your life there are a few places, or maybe only the one place, where something happened, and then there are all the other places.” Alice Munro. (or the one where they receive a letter from a familiar name and we go into 4Ks of fluff around a lost afternoon in France)

4K. Lamely explicit at one point. Fanfic + Pictures Inside. Trigger for FLUFF as the main plot. Part of the Never let us lose what we have gained series (AO3)

This was supposed to be a manip with 200 words of bantering and it's now 4Ks of fluff with a few pictures. I've decided to leave them inside the cut because I feel they work better with its context there. I'm sorry for the hassle, but I really hope you give this a chance... unless you have cavities, only like fics with amazing plots or are allergic to shameless fluff.

Please do not repost the pictures, I know this is futile, but… I try :)

DAGUERROTYPE, France 1944 Private Collection.

Steve is cooling down from his very early run, enjoying the feeling of the pink sunrise looming over the awakening Brooklyn streets as he walks the last couple of blocks on the way home, when his phone beeps.

“Check your actual mailbox, we dropped something for you there. I think you should appreciate us making it old-fashioned just for you, grandpas!”

Steve smiles at Sam’s text and as soon as he arrives at their building he snaps a picture of the very common and flat envelope with “Barnes&Rogers” scribbled on top of a Stark Logo, to send along his response.

“Nice try, but this is inaccurate. A letter would have never made its way to us without an address or stamp. We’ll send you a proper thank you card to show you how it’s done.”

He can’t help but chuckle at his own joke rereading the text while he opens the door, and when he looks up from his phone and into the kitchen, he is received by a sleepy Bucky looking at the coffee machine like he looks at Steve during their most soft and embarrassingly cheesy moments.

“You love that thing more than you love me, confess it.”

“In the mornings? Yes. I don’t even like you in the mornings most of the time,” he answers matter of factly. “Want some?”

Steve playfully wiggles an eyebrow.

“No way. Your sweaty self is tempting, but coffee smells better. I might join you in the shower later.” Bucky offers him one of the two cups he has poured and he notices the envelope Steve is holding. “What is that?”

“We’ve got mail!” He hands it to Bucky. “I have no idea what's on it, but Sam texted me to say they had something delivered to our mailbox and there it was. Open it.”

Bucky leaves the cup on the counter, face sparked with a curiosity that makes him look twenty-one (and Steve weak on the knees), and goes for it.

The content is a bit underwhelming at first glance: Another envelope, white, no Stark logo, but topped with a bright green post-it with a note on Pepper’s script.

“This got to me via PR. We analyzed it and checked with the source (no peeking, I swear) and it seems legit. With that return address, it’s likely to arouse your interest. Love, P.”

Bucky tears off the post-it and the letter is revealed to be addressed to Steve Rogers at the Stark Tower, but it is when they turn it around when everything goes still for a second.

The return address is some street in Marseille, but what has Steve’s mouth dry and Bucky’s hand trembling just a bit is the combination of the place and the name written on top: Emmanuelle Jaques Dernier.

“Boom?”, Bucky says, trying to cut through their heavy hearts and taking Steve’s hand. It’s a terrible terrible joke, but Dernier would have loved it and he grins.

“That’s a terrible terrible joke,” Steve verbalizes, “but I think at least we’ve reached the same conclusion.”

“Elementary, my dear Steve,” Bucky answers as he opens the second envelope, only to reveal a folded letter and yet another envelope. “It’s a fucking vault of paper!”

Steve takes the letter from him, unfolds it, and quickly scans it (normal office paper, printed, hand-signed) before he starts reading it out loud to Bucky’s undivided attention.

“Dear Mr. Rogers,

My name is Emmanuelle Dernier and I am the great-grandson of Jaques Dernier of the Howling Commandos.

First, let me tell you that we all in our family grew up with amazing stories and praise for you, Sergeant Barnes, and the rest of the team. I never got to meet my great-grandfather or any of them (you), but I’ve always felt like I did.

In fact, that’s the ultimate reason behind this letter: I ached to honor him and I’ve been putting in order all his remaining letters, pictures, and memories so they don’t get lost forever, and there are many things I’m discovering through this journey. So many pictures and tiny details… and amongst them, you and the rest of the Commandos appear at the most random and memorable moments. Nothing that’s going to make it into history books, more like the stories my grandpa used to share with us over and over again, those important tidbits that make him more human.

Anyway, I was going through the pictures he kept when I came across some war photos that didn’t seem to match the 40s timeframe. Typical daguerreotypes from the 20s in a very bad state, probably taken with a camera from the era in 1944 and developed on a later date by somebody who clearly didn’t master the technique.

They were in a very bad state and hidden inside an envelope that said “Terribly drunk soldiers in France making idiots of ourselves in unique and creative ways. Fun evening, horrible hangover. About 20 miles west of the Maginot Line. Autumn ‘44”. I’m attaching a photocopy of that, I hope you can understand my decision to keep the original.

After restoring the daguerreotypes with some experts, all I got were five very bad pictures with silhouettes of people apparently having fun…. but there was one that got a lot better in the cleaning process that feels important somehow. I’m sending the original, as well as the restored version I got.

I, of course, don’t have the whole context, but I hope it brings back a good memory. My great-grandpa might be in the picture, but I don’t think this one belongs to my family or to a museum.

Thank you for your service, I really hope this letter finds its way to you.

E.Dernier.”

“I can’t believe… Steve, most days I’m convinced that day and that place are a figment of my imagination,” Bucky smiles, remembering. “When I think of a moment of pure joy during the war, I think about that afternoon in France, and it always feels unreal. A bubble of air and laughter while we were so surrounded by death.”

Steve nods, reminiscing about that warm and humid September morning when they arrived at yet another abandoned and destroyed little village, this one about twenty miles west of the Maginot Line. They had orders to lie low and wait for twenty-four hours before they started the maneuver to wipe another Hydra base off the map, and that little town was perfect for that.

Among bomb debris and fallen walls, they found one small building miraculously standing next to the remains of the church, so they decided to set camp under a roof for a change since the weather was being a little flickery with the rain, and they had the rare luxury of time.

The inside of the tiny house was as unusual as the outside: nothing was destroyed beyond being dusty and worn by time, and everything they found (furniture, kitchenware, and even fabrics) belonged more to Steve and Bucky’s early childhoods than to 1944, a living museum frozen in time.

Only it was not a museum, but the parish house left untouched and non-raided: old-fashioned clothes, outdated church books, yellowing clergy collars, and, of course, the wine cellar. Oh, that wine cellar… the havoc it unleashed.

“I remember the absolute excitement when Falsworth found all those bottles of old unscathed mass wine from the parish,” Steve brings his memory to words, looking at Bucky, “I’m still a little convinced that we are going to hell for drinking them.”

“Not for that, probably, but it was a wonder nobody died on the spot of wine poisoning, it tasted like sweet vinegar, ugh.”

“But it did his part, right? Took our minds off things; got us drunk, bold and silly.” Steve answers.

“Apparently not all of us,” Bucky says very seriously, looking at Steve.

“Technicalities… I got drunk by proxy. Seeing you all so happy made me giddy and tipsy, too.”

“I came and went… I remember being a little surprised at the clarity of my thoughts at some moments there when some of the guys were basically drooling on the floor. Now I understand, of course.”

Steve squeezes his hand, not much to be said there.

They were already way too drunk by the early afternoon, drinking to the sound of a sudden rainstorm pouring outside. All of them scattered across the small dusty living room and its adjoining kitchen while they went through all the bottles of wine they had been able to find. Cheering for the foregone priest every time somebody raised a glass, and laughing as if there were no ruins or war on the other side; just silly men (boys, really) laughing their hearts out.

“Earth to Steve… I don’t know about you, but I’m dying to see what the hell that envelope is hiding. Especially now that we know about its time stamp.”

“I’m sorry, me too! Gabe drunkenly handling that old camera and those glass plaques the way he did? I’m honestly impressed that he was able to take any pictures at all,” he muses. “Shit, is it weird that I’m nervous?”

“I’m gonna save us the bantering because I’m nervous, too,” Bucky answers in all sincerity. “Truth is, Steve, I remember everything about that day.”

It’s a new admission, a newly opened door for them because for some reason, they have never talked about that peaceful surreal afternoon, and Steve nods in recognition as he silently goes for the envelope one-handed, not wanting to let go of Bucky’s hand because his surface is way cooler than his wrenching insides. Maybe the picture is an overexposed french wall but maybe…

The photo he extracts from the envelope is clearly the original and damaged one Emmanuelle specified in his letter. Anybody else looking at it would see nothing beyond Dernier’s blurry profile, but since Steve and Bucky were there when this was taken, they know exactly what moment Steve is holding in his hand.

“Buck,…” is all Steve can say, struck by the blurry keepsake.

Later in the afternoon when they had already consumed most of the wine and there was not a single coherent thought left in the room, one of the guys took the parish books and besottedly announced that there was a wedding set for today… thirty years ago. Alcohol fueled a goofy idea that escalated at the speed of light, with Morita saying they were going to a wedding because they deserved a celebration, Dernier confessing that he had once considered becoming a priest, and Dum-dum bringing out all the old fashioned clothes from the wardrobe and deciding they were getting nice and clean for the festivities.

“That’s clearly Dernier in the picture killing it in his priest role, right?” Bucky says, half smiling and interrupting Steve’s thoughts. “You know, I went all-in with that fake wedding party. I was laughing to tears when I saw you put on that ridiculously long and ill-fitting jacket from the 10s, feeling weightless and silly for the first time since sailing off, and God knows we all deserved that. And it was all safe and light-hearted until fucking Morita decided you had to be the groom, and...”

“Were you jealous because I won the dashing groom competition?”

Steve’s attempt at a joke is weak, but there’s truth behind it: Morita chose Steve as the groom (“Cap, you are the most dashing and the least drunk”) to a chorus of excited voices cheering for him. Somebody else, most likely Dum-Dum, chose the rest of the roles (Sarge, best man duty; Jones, camera; Morita, keep the wine flowing; the rest of you, misbehave!) and in the blink of an eye, they were all going outside laughing under a light rain, and about to celebrate Steve’s fictional wedding to nobody.

“How could I be jealous?” Bucky cuts in. “Do you remember all you said to me that afternoon? During World War II and in front of a battalion of men?”

“I was drunk.”

“Fuck you!” Bucky disentangles his hand from Steve’s to use both of them to hold Steve’s face and kiss him with violence. “Tell me. Do you remember what you said?”

As if he could ever forget. He can recall every step he took from the house to the makeshift wedding spot amidst the trees where his best man (looking dapper even in that ludicrous jacket) was laughing along Dernier. He can still smell the petrichor, can still sense the blush coloring his cheeks while hoping nobody noticed and can still hear the beating of his heart when Bucky handed him a battered umbrella (“You don’t deserve to get rained on your wedding day, punk”) and a fucking ring made out his shoelaces (“You’ll have to buy something a little more permanent.”). And then…

“Dernier started the ceremony and he wanted to know if I had somebody in mind and I said ‘of course’.” He replays, his voice barely a whisper. “I said I’d had my eyes on a brown-haired Brooklynite since before I could remember. I said that I was pretty sure those blue eyes were set on mine too and that hopefully those eyes would be set enough to want to marry me even if I had never dared to ask.”

He’s been holding Bucky’s gaze the whole time, and he’s far from over yet, but he needs to fucking breathe before he goes on. Neither of them has moved a muscle for the past minute.

“Then he asked me to repeat the wedding vows after him and…”

“And you said Buck, right?”, Bucky interrupts, voice winded. “You fucking whispered I take you, Buck, as my lawful wedded husband till the end of the line. I heard, Steve. Even if the rest of the world didn’t, I did. But you never said anything, so I always deemed it impossible, a product of the corniest nook of my mind trying to outweigh all those bad things, because not even you could be as bold, reckless, and mushy as to do that,…it’s my fucking fault, I should have known better!”

“Not completely reckless, pal. I was scared shitless as I said those words, but what else could I do? You were right by my side about to put a ring on my finger as my “best man”, everyone, including you, supposedly drunk past recollection, and everybody else too far away to hear my whispers. It was such an easy choice in the end because truth should always win over fear. And those vows were. The truth.”

“You have always been too honest for your own good, Rogers,” Bucky is breathless and exasperated and goes for his mouth again, bringing in all he (they) couldn’t in 1944. “You destroyed me, Steve. My knees were as weak as a teenager’s in front of his first crush. I wanted to kiss you so badly when I heard you say all that there in the open… and I couldn’t even acknowledge it.”

“I know. And for what it's worth, I really thought you didn’t remember.”

It is too much. Is it normal to feel this much? Steve would blame it on the serum enhancements, but he was already overwhelmed at 16, so that’s clearly not the answer.

He craves, no, he needs touching, grounding, closer. Bucky. There’s too much space between them even if they are back to kissing like they would have that day in 44, and at any other time if their own lives wouldn’t have stolen those moments from them.

“It happened.” Bucky whimpers, biting on Steve’s lip who abandons his own stool to straddle him, both of them gasping in sync at the feeling of their cocks, hard against each other’s through their soft pants.

Bucky soon ups the stakes by carding his metal hand through Steve’s hair pulling his head backwards to help himself into that spot on his neck.

“Same two moles as when you were tiny, as when we were at that war... Your cute vampire bite. Favorite spot.” He licks on them with the tip of his tongue. Steve growls on cue and Bucky giggles. “Favorite chain reaction.”

“Buck, you cheater, you know what that does to me!” Steve cries out followed by Bucky’s evil chuckle.”Bed, couch, countertop,…I don’t care, but naked. Now. Stained pants due to heavy petting are too much of a trip down memory lane for me. Let me keep a bit of my dignity.”

Steve stands up liberating Bucky from his grip but aching at the loss of contact.

They are naked and making out in the middle of the kitchen in no time; Bucky steadily pushing him against the refrigerator while fiercely grinding against his crotch.

“Hey, ‘teve,” Bucky pants. “The way this is going, it’s my dignity now that's at risk. I don’t think I can make it further than the floor before I come.”

Steve groans into his mouth just at the thought and they start sliding to the floor the best they can until he’s a human blanket moving over Bucky. With no lube at hand, and no time, that’s their best option.

They kiss and kiss and kiss, his hands not leaving Bucky’s sweaty hair. Bucky’s hands on his ass, forcing their groins closer with one while he (almost absently) plays around his hole with the other, driving Steve crazy in the process. Dicks left to do their own thing through pressure and friction. Everything is working. And fast.

“Oh, fuck!” Bucky exclaims “Can you promise me all this stuff with the letter was real and not a long-con plan to assure your fragile masculinity that I love you more than I love that espresso machine?”

That. That silly unfunny excuse of a joke that screams Bucky all over is what pushes Steve all the way over the edge. He fucking laughs as he comes making absolutely embarrassing sounds, pressing their foreheads and noses together until it hurts, and shaking from head to toe without stoping his pressure on the stupid and smug man under him. His lover. His partner. His unofficial husband. His best friend.

His Buck.

“There’s still too much blood in your brain if you can play that dirty,” Steve states, placing one hand between them grabbing Bucky’s hard cock. “Let’s see if I can do anything about it.”

“Your hand, usually so helpful, but I was already following you after that sound you make when you come and laugh at the same time, shit, it always goes straight to my dick, I’m,…” he keeps talking with difficulty between breaths and moans until he leaves his speech unfinished coming all over Steve’s fist.

They kiss on the lips breathing into each other before Steve rolls over. They are sticky and panting in silence, spread on their kitchen’s floor, Steve’s shoulders crushed between Bucky’s and the dishwasher. Domestic bliss at its most literal.

One lavish fuck and two showers later they reemerge into the kitchen in search of something to eat: Bucky is in charge of the food today, while Steve cleans the mess they left a couple of hours ago.

He’s decluttering the counter when their damaged picture laying there puts a smile on his face but also reminds him of the restored version presumably still waiting inside the disregarded letter, so he grabs the envelope to retrieve its contents: one photocopy (from Dernier’s original writing), and the promised photo.

And it is restored. Everything is clear where it was blurry before: Dernier (so deep into his priest impersonation that he’s not even looking at them), the trees, the battered umbrella, the ridiculous jackets… and them.

“You had the nerve to call me reckless and mushy, Buck?” Steve laughs as he stares at the picture where a very young Bucky is about to put a ring on his finger with the least subtle lovestruck expression he’s ever seen (“and it’s for you”, his brain proudly reminds him) “Wow, you might as well be kissing me there, anything would be more subtle than this!”

“Don’t shame me, you punk, especially not when you were the one responsible for breaking my brain back then!” Bucky answers coming from behind and stealing the picture from his hands to scrutinize it. Goofy grin and raging blush quickly taking over his face. “But you’re one to talk, Cap. You are gazing at that shoelace’s ring as if I were handing you a diamond tiara!”

Steve laughs softly at that and moves his right hand to his pocket, feeling the weight of the little compass he had retrieved earlier from one of his drawers. He used to carry it with him everywhere for comfort, but he has a better option now.

“Didn't you know that shoelaces are forever?” He asks, taking the compass out of his pocket and holding it in both hands as he opens it, nudging Bucky with his elbow to get his attention.

Bucky is confused for an instant while he looks at his young face staring at them from inside the little box. Of course he knew that (he made fun of Steve for days and days) but Steve detects the change in his expression when he notices the other thing.

“Wow, you gigantic sap,” Bucky says, taking the compass out of his hands to double-check he is seeing what he thinks he’s seeing. “You saved my shoelace.”

He had. While they were all celebrating his wedding under the rain dancing to no music, he quietly slipped the little string off his finger and tied it to the most secure place he had back then.

“It’s not a shoelace, you jerk, it’s a symbol. A declaration.” He laughs, stealing the compass back to safely pocket it again.

“You are delusional,” Bucky snorts, kissing the top of his head. But he’s widely smiling and lost in thought as he goes back to their sandwiches.

Steve stays on the spot enjoying the peace in their silent companionship, his focus on the latest news showing up on his phone, the text he’s writing to Sam and the comforting sounds of Bucky moving around the kitchen.

“You might have married me, but I never actually married you.” Bucky blurts out of the blue a bit later, sitting by his side as he hands him a plate with a sandwich and some grilled greens on it. “Do you want mayo with that?”

“Uh?” Steve forgets all about the news and the text and looks at Bucky in confusion.

“Mayo, do you want some?” Bucky repeats nonchalantly.

“No mayo, thank you; but I was actually more interested in the other part, you know, that thing about marriage?”

Bucky looks him in the eye: earnest, blushing and with the same look of smug adoration he had on the picture.

“Oh, that part.” He jokes. “You apparently married me in 1944, but I never married you back. And I would like to.”

“Marry me?” Steve asks and Bucky visibly nods.

“I’m sorry for throwing the idea at you like this, books tell me I'm supposed to have candles, music, and a ring, but you showed me that restored picture and I couldn't stop thinking about it, about proof,” Bucky speaks uncharacteristically slow and very softly, voice trembling here and there while he claps his hand with Steve’s finger by finger for reassurance and as a distraction. “A single photo had the power to transform a moment that existed just as a made-up happy place inside my mind into something tangible and real. Something that would be tangible and real for anybody getting a hold on it and looking at our stupid faces.”

“So stealthy,” Steve says, and they both laugh together.

“Proof, Steve. I was slicing tomatoes and thinking how there’s so much evidence, thousands of files! out there proving that all the stuff that fuels my nightmares were real, but nothing solid about this. Us.” Bucky stops for a moment collecting his thoughts, still smiling even with the heavy subject he just dropped into the mix. “Sorry, I believe I put more time into these sandwiches than into thinking this all the way through so I’m…”

“Take your time, we’ve gone from mayo to marriage to nightmares in five minutes so don’t worry, you have me hooked here.”

Steve makes Bucky laugh again as he intended, and he feels their calloused laced fingers immediately squeezing closer.

“It’s stupid because it doesn’t change anything for us but,.. I don’t fucking know, Steve, I think that picture has messed up with my mind! I instantly found comfort in the idea of people finding facts beyond the nightmares now or in the future. An easy to understand, universal and oversimplified proof of how much I loved you and how much I was loved in return.” Bucky takes a breath and stares at him sporting a million-watt smile. “Marrying you,… I would really love that. And for real this time.”

“Ok, Buck.” Steve instantly replies, eagerness winning over thoughtful and heartfelt declarations. He tightens the grip on their joined hands to drive them to his lips and seals the easiest answer he’s ever had to give.

And it's done!Sorry for the cavities, for going on with the fic when it should have ended and for ending it where it might have had to keep going. It was painful and fun. I'm free!

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cloudy-leonhart · 3 years

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Marleyan Warriors with a Filipino S/O!!

[Author Note: this is literally a re-do of my headcanons bc tumblr’s being mean and deleting my drafts, anyways trying to rush another finished bc outta here 😭 also! Reminder that my requests are OPEN, don’t be afraid to send in any requests!!]

Summary: Marleyan Warriors with a Pinoy S/O!

Recommended Song: Titibo-Tibo by Moira Dela Torre

TW: Swearing.

Theme: Fluff, Modern AU.

Characters: Reiner, Bertholdt, Annie, Zeke, Pieck, Porco.

Annie Leonhart

Annie knew, she actually met you at an event for those with cultures, and saw you dancing with your friends to traditional filipino folk music.

She was kinda hesitant to go when you asked her to accompany you to the Philippines, she didn’t like traveling.

She was kinda shocked on how welcoming your family was, your mom and dad hugged her out of nowhere and she just let out a squeak.

Your little sister forced her to go to SM mall with her omg- She literally came home with bags of candy.

Yes, Annie has a soft spot for your family, she probably almost spent all her money on them.

Buchi rivals her love for donuts. She looked like she discovered a new universe after eating one of them thangs.

God, help her when she’s watching filipino movies, your family encouraged her to watch movies with them, and by the end of it she was a mess, pretty sure she cried into your shoulder after watching Seven Sundays.

BUT LIKE SHE ENDS UP BEING ABLE TO COMMUNICATE WITH YOUR PARENTS.

You see, Annie is a really fast learner, she was bound to learn to be able to speak some point in her stay.

You were shocked when she spoke back to you in tagalog, like ‘dropped my stuff out of shock’ kinda way.

IT WAS A PAIN GETTING HER INTO A BARO’T SAYA. But bribing her with Buchis got her to keep it on for like 2 hours so like..good enough.

Her favourite filipino song is Porque.

Everybody acts like it’s a concert for every karaoke night because she’s there, like she’s just THAT good.

Reiner Braun

This man was so awkward. He went on a trip with Bertholdt to the Philippines, and met you.

He didn’t think you would understand him, so he just stared at you while you talked with your friends, until you were creeped out enough and asked him if he had a problem.

When you and him started dating, you convinced him to travel all around the country.

Firstly, you guys visited your family, your dad absolutely loved him, your mom was a little bit hesitant in letting him in the family, he was blonde, big and buff. Filipinos are bound to worry. Until Reiner cooked with her, then she started to warm up to him.

Okay but why did your family’s chickens like him so much??

He likes the feeling of being around your family, him not having a dad left an impact on him and he felt complete being with you and your family, he swore to himself that he’d marry you.

He almost fainted when he found you battling with one of the kids with your pet spider, mf was deathly afraid of your spider, it was like the size of your hand pls-

I think he’d be fairly good at speaking tagalog, he’s got an accent but people can understand him.

He eats like a tito omg- You lost him at a party once and when you found him, he’s already eaten half of the barbecue.

Everyone thought he was really old, because of his beard so everyone called him tito Reiner.

He’s somewhat good with the village kids, you could see Reiner playing soccer with the kids or goofing off.

He says he doesn’t like watching Manny Pacquiao but it’s his guilty pressure.

He doesn’t really listen or watch anything filipino, but he will listen to old filipino bands if you play them in his car.

Bertholdt Hoover

HAHA PLs- you got mad at him for eating your cake and started cursing in filipino. He was confused because he thought you were just blurting out nonsense.

One second you’re explaining what you were saying and the next second y’all are on the way to the Philippines.

He sweats like a waterfall, LITERALLY. Everyone would like move away because he sweated that much.

You had a private island..because y’all were RICH rich. he was kinda awestruck, you literally just said out of nowhere.

“oh yeah, we have a private island.” ‘YOU HAVE A FUCKING WHAT??”

Poor baby was kinda intimidated by your basket-ball player of a brother, he was taller than Bertholdt omg-

You’re always worrying him somehow, he’s be on the toilet and he’d just hear you scream and he comes running down with his boxers, just to see you watching a telenovela and you had to tell him that you were just gushing over the drama.

He has never felt so embarrassed.

Am I the only one who thinks he looks amazing in a Barong?? Like he’d rock that shit-

He loves eating filipino food, he likes when you guys stay in the country and you go out to buy bread at the nearest bakery.

Like every filipino, he too, dips his bread in coffee.

He ended up learning guitar while he’s in the Philippines, the country’s filled with people who can sing amazingly, he’s bound to learn guitar.

His favourite filipino song to play is Tadhana, it’s also the only song that he knows to sing to, like he absolutely butchers pronunciation for words but this man covers it up with this song.

Zeke Jaeger

He bumped into you and you cursed at him in tagalog, he basically just fell for you at that point.

I just know your family secretly hates this man, he slapped your ass once around your mom and your dad, it’s always tense when he’s around now.

You don’t have the heart to tell him your parents saw because one afternoon, he was gushing and praising your family, you didn’t want to ruin his happiness, his dad’s barely around and his mom passed away. he’d obviously be attached.

Yes you had to talk to your parents about it, a lot of filipinos are very kinds and forgiving, so your parents were very understanding, and made sure he felt loved around the family.

He actually almost cried when your dad told him to marry you already.

He calls your parents nanay and tatay.

You got him to buy a pet spider please- You would catch him fighting a kid’s spider to the death in a match, he’d feel bad though so he buys them new ones after.

Hey this man looks so hot in a Barong, please. You guys had to book a hotel for a night for some alone time yk.

Lord help this man, he tried to do the tinikling dance and he tripped, in front of everyone.

Every night, he comes to bed all shirtless, you could just hear the air conditioner buzzing as he tells you how fun it was playing with the village kids, or talking about he and your titos had a drink while watching a boxing match.

He more so listens to various artists, he doesn’t have a favourite.

but he will replay Joseph Vincent’s filipino covers.

Pieck Finger

She was on a business trip in the Philippines, and you were coincidentally at the same bar they were celebrating at. You were by the karaoke section and she kinda just, fell in love with you. right there and then.

Honestly some people thought you guys were siblings, Pieck can be mistaken as a filipino easily so, you guys expect it from time to time.

She likes to ask from time to time to teach her guitar, your mom probably has a lot of pictures of you and Pieck.

She loves eating the food in the Philippines, she thinks the adobo is great and if you lose her in public she’s probably by a street vendor eating food.

You guys dance to old filipino songs, a replaying song for you guys is Mabagal by Daniel Padillia and Moira Dela Torre.

She learnt Moira’s Part while you had Daniel’s part.

GUys she looks so beautiful in a Baro’t Saya. And she knows it, she flaunts it so well.

You guys probably have a vacation house in the Philippines after leaving with her to go back to her country.

She helps you with packing balikbayan boxes for your family, she makes handwritten letters, she’s both good at writing and saying anything in tagalog.

Her favourite artist is definitely Moira Dela Torre, she just loves her airy voice.

Favourite Filipino Movie? Yes.

You cannot tell me she doesn’t have a shelf full of filipino movies you guys watch.

Her favourite street food is probably qwek-qwek. She likes the sauce she dips, and she probably bought almost twenty bucks worth of the fishballs.

Porco Galliard

UGh honestly he’s a little cringey when it comes to the culture, for some reason I can see him accidentally disrespecting it somehow, I can’t help it.

Your family owned a sari-sari store, and he could not help for the love of him, he ended up being the one stocking it up while you chatted with the customers.

Like Pieck, he and you dance when you’re alone, he probably learnt from Pieck too.

He listens to modern filipino artists, like Ex Battalion, Skusta Clee.

He tries hard to really be respectful, he butchers the way he says nanay and tatay but your parents appreciate the effort.

I can see him being able to secretly make amazing filipino desserts, his ube cake is bomb.

He watches Basketball with your dad, and they both drink during the match.

I can also see him being the type to scream out curses when he hurts himself, a ‘PUNYETA’ comes out of his mouth.

he doesn’t enjoy the hot weather in the Philippines, and due to that, he wears sandos all the time at home, and when he goes out, every girl always looks at him because he’s ripped, yes you’re jealous, but as you should, he’s your mans-

He also knows how use a barbecue grill? You can find him helping your family members while they’re selling barbecue.

he hates going to SM?? He just really hates going, because you genuinely just go for the food court. They sell hella good food.

One time he got chased by the village dogs, so he doesn’t go out without you or a family member.

He secretly loves watching telenovelas with you.

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justlistenuniverse · 4 years

Text

Chad x Ryan Headcanon

So, I rewatched the High School Musical movies, and my brain won't shut up about Ryan and all the possibilities. I mean, the movies don't really show a lot of the characters outside of Troy and maybe Gabriella, but I have a lot of ideas. Since I can't be bothered writing a fanfiction right now, these little plot points should do it. (There's a little Chad/Ryan in there and a lot of me ignoring canon)

Sharpay and Ryan are really close, even though she keeps using him, and he knows it, but he hasn't had friends outside of his sister for a long time, and he kind of profits from her reign of terror, so he lets her do it.

When she ditches him in the summer, Ryan starts realizing how lonely he really is. He loves his school, and his classmates are fine, but thanks to Sharpay's attitude and him tagging along, all he gets from them is a sneer and people calling him Sharpay's lapdog (which is really not fair, she has Boi)

He spends a lot of the time he now has alone, walking around the Lava Springs grounds, maybe booking one of the rooms for a small dance rehearsal.

Then Gabriella invites her along to the game, and Ryan is suspicious, but he also doesn't have anything better to do, so he tags along and lets Taylor and Gabriella tell him all about the game. It's the first one this summer, but there's another one planned, and they are hoping Troy might make it to that one, even though Chad is their best player.

He loves playing Baseball. He forgot how fun it was, ho he used to get so excited for practice, and his games before he decided that Theater would be a more realistic career choice for someone like him and dropped out of the team. Sharpay dragging him along and commanding all his time might have weighted into that decision, too. He tries hard not to think about him leaving Baseball behind, which also meant him leaving his friends behind (but he can't help some memories playing in his head as he watches the boys warming up on the pitch)

Gabriella offering him up as a choreographer, shouldn't feel this good, but he's always loved dancing and coming up with choreographies for his favorite musical numbers. There could be worse things than training the Wildcats for the Star Dazzle Award.

He hadn't been planning on playing, not really, but he does, and the game is the most fun he had in weeks. His muscles apparently remember his Baseball games just fine, and he feels a little bit of hope growing inside of him. Maybe he won't have to be alone all summer long.

When his team loses the game, all that hope is gone. The past hours will probably be the only fun ones he'll have this summer. He won't be training the Wildcats, and he definitely won't make some friends now. But then Chad tells him he will at least try to dance, and everyone gets really excited about the prospect of taking part in the talent show, so Ryan allows the hope back in.

They invite him for post-game fries, and hanging out with all of them makes him realize how starved he really is for social interactions after years of just Sharpay. Gabriella drags him along to her house, where they all watch a movie, but it all feels so unreal that Ryan is sure he'll wake up all alone tomorrow.

Even when Chad and Gabriella and some of the others program their numbers into his phone, that feeling won't leave him.

He does not wake up without friends, though

There are a couple of texts from Gabriella, and a picture of an article about Ryan and his Little League Team Chad dug up on the internet and might be freaking out about (Ryan did remember that article. It had praised him as a rising talent of the Baseball league. His mom still has it framed in her office).

Ryan skips breakfast and instead goes and books his favorite rehearsal room after he steals/consults his new possible friend's working hours to find a convenient time for rehearsal.

He tries out a couple of ideas by himself and then finds Kelsi to ask about the Song she wrote. They make a surprisingly good team once she stops being afraid of him.

Gabriella finds him on her lunch break, and the two of them talk over Sandwiches. Taylor eventually joins them. They find out all of them have the same favorite TV Show and make plans for a joined binging of season one at Gabriella's place since she owns the box set.

Talking with them is so easy, some of the anxiety in Ryan calms down. He even waves at Chad and Zeke when they come in for their afternoon shift, and they smile and wave back.

The anxiety gets even better when all of the Wildcats turn up for their first rehearsal, eager to learn the dance moves Ryan came up with

There's a lot of laughter, something that rarely happened once Sharpay and him started rehearsing for school plays. Ryan loves it.

Chad is a surprisingly good dancer when he puts his mind into it. Jason is a hopeless case, but he's weirdly enthusiastic, and Ryan offers him extra training after work.

He gets a text from Zeke the next morning, inviting him for breakfast in the kitchen. He gets cookies, and Martha shows him that she already memorized most of the chores, which is truly amazing. He relaxes enough around them to make sarcastic comments and tease Chad.

Rehearsing is a lot of fun with them. It's also chaotic and loud, but Ryan really doesn't mind. Even Jason gets into it after a while.

They keep inviting Ryan to hang out with them after work or when they are on break. Eventually, it becomes a common occurrence for him to come walk into the kitchen. Common enough that Mr. Fulton doesn't blink anymore whenever he tries to be awful to them but can't because Ryan will quietly glare at him (He wouldn't need too. Mr. Fulton likes him, but he's slightly scared of Sharpay and follows her every word)

Taylor and Martha join him for his yoga classes.

Gabriella, Taylor, and he have that binging night. The next day, Taylor needs a triple shot espresso to function, and Gabriella nearly falls asleep on the job. Ryan walks into a wall; he's so tired, but it was definitely worth it.

His mom notices the difference in him. Sharpay doesn't. It stings.

Chad asks him once why he doesn't play Baseball at school. "We could use someone like you on the team," Ryan tells him that he wants to concentrate on acting and dancing as much as possible. He doesn't tell him that he never really noticed how much he missed the sport.

Chad nudges him and laughs. They keep throwing a Baseball back and forth.

Ryan does get dragged into the second employee Baseball game as well as a couple of smaller ones. He's always playing against Chad because both are super competitive, and it makes for a good match.

Chad and Zeke try t teach him Basketball, but he doesn't really get it. Jason offers him one on one lessons for his extra dance training.

It takes a while for Ryan to notice how happy he is now that he has so many people to talk too.

He also noticed how hurt everyone is because of Troy's behavior, Chad and Gabi most of all. He tries to apologize to them for his sister, but they wave him off. "You are not your sister, Ryan. You shouldn't be taking the blame on you." (He nearly tears up)

Then, Sharpay manages to exclude them from the talent show, and Ryan feels like his world is crumbling around him. Gabi texts him that she broke up with Troy. Chad calls him later that night, and they talk about how weird this summer is. "But honestly, I am glad we are friends now, Ry. You are kind of awesome."

Hatching a plan to get back at Sharpay is easy once Kelsi comes rushing into the kitchen, telling them how Troy turned Sharpay down. Taylor immediately calls Gabriella, and the four of them come up with a plan. Ryan is an expert on everything Lava Springs and Sharpay, Chad and Gabriella know Troy better than anyone else, and Taylor is a fucking genius. The others love the plan.

He finds himself driving Kelsi over to Gabriella's house for a song rehearsal, and he stays to watch her sing, She looks less perky than usual, more exhausted. But she still has that spirit that keeps pulling everyone in, and when she smiles at him, he knows she'll be okay again. He is happy about that.

Ryan feels guilty about playing Sharpay like this, but he still has her voice in his head, degrading him in every way possible without telling him he sucks. Kelsi tells him it's gonna be okay.

When the big evening ends with Troy and Gabi back together, and the award in Ryan's hand like the exaggerated apology it is, Ryan thinks he's dreaming.

For a short moment, Ryan thinks the team will ditch him now that they got Troy back, but they don't. They introduce him to Troy like he's the second-best thing that ever happened to them, and Troy makes an effort to get to know him. There are no rehearsals anymore, but basketball games, lazy baseball practice, impromptu dance battles with Martha, and more text conversations than Ryan's phone has ever handled.

Sharpay starts making amends, She comes knocking on his door, and they talk. She writes apologies to Troy and Gabriella and Kelsi and delivers them personally. She grumbles all the way through writing them, but she smiles when they accept.

They invite her to hang out with them, too, and she fits the group well. There's a blush on her face when Zeke presents her with cinnamon buns, and she starts holding his hand. Ryan just smiles, glad his sister might admit her crush on the boy now.

Work at Lava Springs becomes more relaxed for the Wildcats after Fulton calms down. They get treated like everyone else, and while he's still strict on their break times, he lets them have more fun now.

The end-of-summer-party Sharpay organizes is a hit. She plans to make it a standing event for employees from now on, no matter who they are.

Then their Senior Year starts. Everything is the same, but also kind of different. Ryan grew a lot over the summer, and his friends helped him be more self-confident in a less arrogant way.

Sharpay mellowed out a bit, too. It's partly because of the Wildcats accepting her into their group, partly due to her affection for Ryan and also because of Zeke spending a lot of time with her. Ryan might have caught them in the Evan's private kitchen once, both of them giggling as Zeke showed her how to make the cookies she loved so much. He didn't tell anyone.

But then, Sharpay starts to fall back into her old ways some weeks into the school year. She snaps at Ryan, ignores Zeke, flirts with Troy, and tries to make Theater all about her again.

Ryan doesn't know what's happening, and neither does anyone else. Zeke is a sad puppy all the time, and Jason spends a lot of time trying to cheer him up.

However, Ryan is still quite settled. He visits all of Chad's games, Basketball and Baseball, and cheers his friends on. He tells Martha to audition for the cheerleaders and is her biggest fan once she gets in. Martha, Taylor, and he still do Yoga together twice a week with an instructor Ryan pays. When his dance class takes part in a competition, he gets cheered on by his friends. He and Gabriella have a standing movie night once a month, with brownies and whatever TV Shows they love. He and Kelsi still work great together, writing and choreographing the graduation musical, and they love to hang out outside of the show, too. There's not one day he doesn't get hundreds of text messages.

His favorite text convos are the late-night ones with Chad and Gabi. They eventually morph into late-night-dinner-visits. Sometimes, Troy or someone else will join them. The Diner staff has a booth for them, and they have usual orders.

Sharpay gets a PA. Ryan doesn't like Tiara. She makes him feel like he's worthless all over again, and there's a cold aura around her despite her playing nice. Gabriella tells him to keep an eye on her if she keeps making him feel that way. Taylor says he's far from worthless.

Chad tells him about how scared he is once it becomes clear that Troy might not be as set on the U of A as everyone thought. They met when they were five, and they did everything together since. The only difference would be Baseball and Golf, and that's why the summer was so hard for Chad. He can't imagine himself without Troy by his side. He doesn't know who he is when he's not Troy Bolton's best friend. Ryan isn't sure what to say, but he holds Chad when he starts to cry, and he promises him to help him figure out who he is.

Ryan is the third person Gabriella tells about the program at Stanford. Her mom and Taylor both think she's acting childish, and she needs someone else to help her make a decision. Ryan holds her hand and carefully tells her that h thinks she needs to talk to Troy. He also tells her not to worry about the show, because that's not a problem she should concern herself with right now. Her future is calling, with an incredible opportunity, and he doesn't want her to regret missing out on it.

Sharpay finds out about the program and tells Troy about it before Gabriella can. Ryan gets so angry, he yells at her. He doesn't understand why she's trying to ruin everyone's Senior Year. She hisses at him to grow up and leaves the house.

Gabriella invites all of her friends to her house and tells them she'll graduate early and leave. She clutches Troy's hand so tightly her knuckles turn white, but he lets her. And then she's the center of a huge group hug. Jason grabs Chad, and they drive off to get them drinks and snacks, turning the whole meeting into a little goodbye party.

At one point, Ryan finds himself standing next to Zeke on the balcony. Zeke confesses that he had been planning on asking Sharpay to be his prom date, but she broke up with him before the first posters popped up. Ryan has seen a lot of heartbreak lately, and Zeke might just be the worst. He can't do anything but listen, though, and Zeke gives him a sad little smile when Ryan drops him off at his house.

Sharpay tries to win him for whatever plan she has, but he refuses. He's busy with school and the show and sad about Gabriella leaving, and he won't betray his friends.

Kelsi tells him she's gay one morning when they sit at the piano in one of the music rooms and figure out the words for a song. She only told her parents and Jason so far. Ryan offers to take her to prom as friends because he hadn't planned on going with a romantic date anyway.

He wonders when he became the person people trusted in, but it feels good to have them trust him, and he knows he can tell them everything, too.

Rehearsals are less fun now. They still want to do the show, and they work their asses off, but Gabriella was more critical for the group dynamic than anyone had realized. They miss her like crazy, and seeing Troy act like a heartbroken puppy gets frustrating. They also have to deal with a sad Zeke, who has to watch Sharpay throw herself at Troy at any possible time. It's not easy.

Late-night-diner-visits are just Ryan and Chad now. They are both comfortable in the presence of each other, but Gabriella is missing even here. When she tells them she won't be coming for prom and the show, they all get even more depressed, even when Gabi says she will be back for the graduation celebration.

Troy leaves to get Gabriella back. He doesn't tell anyone until he's left the state, only sending a group message when there's no way of getting him back. His dad calls Chad and then Troy, ranting about how he should have said something so he could've gotten his parent's car, which would've been much safer for a trip like that. Nobody is surprised at Troy's actions, though.

Prom without Troy and Gabriella is a little weird, but still lots of fun. Ryan dances with Kelsi and Martha and Taylor, and even Chad. Sharpay doesn't show, which makes Ryan worry. When he comes home late at night, he finds her curled up in his bed, fast asleep. He slips under the blanket and pulls her close, falling asleep with his sister in his arms.

Sharpay is already awake when he opens his eyes the next morning, sitting on the bed in an old pair of pink sweatpants and one of Zeke's shirts. She's always well dressed, and the fact that she isn't right now tells Ryan that this is serious. He waits for her to speak first.

She tells him about the Julliard chatroom she's been frequenting nearly every day since the summer. How she chatted with lots of people on there, all of them having the same dream. How she started to panic once she read some of their resumes and realized that her own resume had a lot of leading roles but also that understudy part of the spring musical from a year ago. She doesn't have a plan B, Julliard was always her first choice, and she can't let that go. So she started to push them all away and focused on getting herself a more significant role in the show. Flirting with Troy had already been a habit, Zeke would have held her back. Ryan is her twin, but it's only one scholarship, and while neither of them needs it, this scholarship is tied to the last free spot at Julliard. She tells him how she had never felt so alone, and that she's missing hanging out with them. She even misses Gabriella, and she doesn't like Tiara. "Nobody is that nice all the time, Ryan! Even Gabriella had her bad moments when she was around me."

Ryan hugs her tight and makes her Pancakes and smoothies. Then he texts Zeke.

Zeke turns up on their doorstep twenty minutes later, still in his PJs. Sharpay all but jumps into his arms, crying into his shoulder as he holds her. Ryan leaves them be and retires to his room to text Chad and Gabriella, only coming out when it becomes clear that they have to leave for the show.

He gets to drive Sharpay's car for the first time ever because his sister refuses to let Zeke's hand go. He accepted her apology, and while he told her he would need some time to fully forgive her, he did kiss her softly. The two of them look a bit ridiculous with Zeke in his PJs and Sharpay having changed into a hot pink tracksuit, but Ryan's happy for them.

Gabriella texts him that her mom is driving her and Troy back to East High, and to please get her a ticket. He promises her he'll put her mom on the guestlist.

East High is pretty empty. It's a Saturday, and the show won't be starting until much later. The time before is for making sure everything is okay, going through the whole thing once, warming up their voices and muscles, and trying to get rid of any complications they might get. Sharpay apologizes to all of them and explains her behavior, which leads to Ms. Darbus telling her how she should have just said something, and Kelsi would have written her a different storyline, something more substantial. Chad tells her he'll make her life a living hell if she treats Ryan like that ever again, but then he hugs Sharpay, and she smiles and lets him.

Ryan quietly admits that he send applications for Sharpay to some other schools where she can study acting. Sharpay kisses him on the cheek and says he should've told her.

Troy texts Chad that he isn't sure if he'll make it in time, so Kelsi pulls Rocket aside to help him go over the Song again.

Sharpay finds Tiara in her wardrobe, showing her real face. The conversation unsettles her much after the whole emotional morning, and it takes Ryan a little while to calm her down again.

The show is chaotic but good. Ryan enjoys every single minute of it. To everyone's relief, Troy and Gabriella make it in time for their first Song, which allows Sharpay to kick Tiara of the show, and the rest of them to breathe easy.

He never doubted Kelsi would receive the scholarship, but hearing that they decided to take him on, too, is surreal and incredible, and he doesn't think Sharpay hugged him so hard in years.

They throw an After Party right there in the Auditorium. There are music and drinks, and their parents stay to mingle. His mom tells Ryan that she already got a two-room-flat in New York, and he asks Kelsi to be his roommate so she won't have to worry about housing.

Chad is still a bit upset about Troy's choice, but he tells him he'll be okay as long as Troy keeps in contact with him, and Troy swears Chad'll be annoyed with him by the end of the first term.

Gabriella has to go back to Standford the next day, but this time around, it's okay. Troy still mops about, but now that he choose a University that won't be all that far away from her he's better.

The rest of the school year goes by in a rush of exams and presentations. Ryan spends a lot of time on the living room floor, surrounded by notes and Sharpay, maybe even Zeke.

Graduation day is fantastic and awful at once. Ryan cries. Everyone cries. They take more pictures together than is probably healthy, and Ryan is already picking out frames for his favorite ones mentally.

Most of them still have a few weeks before they'll have to leave, but Taylor has to leave early, and so do Ryan and Kelsi. Gabriella will be staying a bit longer since her Semester won't be starting until Troy's does.

Ryan's last night is spent at the diner with Chad, Gabi, and Sharpay. Sharpay offers Chad to room with her since her parents had gotten her a flat near Campus, and she knows that Chad would just have stayed at the dorms for the first year. It's a surprise, but Chad accepts happily, and Ryan feels they will work well.

All of their friends gather to see Kelsi and Ryan off. Ryan gets hugged so much he starts to believe he won't be able to stand up without a pair of arms around his body. Gabriella makes him promise to text her as often as possible, Sharpay cries and says she'll be visiting him a lot, and Chad hugs him tightly enough to bruise a rip.

Ryan loves Julliard. It's competitive and loud, but it's also passionated and flashy. He's surrounded by people who are just as taken with the showbusiness as he is, and while it's a bit hard to make genuine friends, he manages.

Kelsi gets a girlfriend, and the three of them have movie nights at their apartment.

Sharpay does visit them quite a lot. She brings Chad with her once, and Ryan spends the whole weekend showing his friend the city. Chad absolutely loves New York, and Ryan invites him for an extended stay during their next break.

It's in his second year at Julliard that Ryan finally accepts the fact that he is gay. He thought he might be bisexual, but after a couple of make-out sessions with cute guys and no attraction whatsoever for any girl in his classes, he nods and sighs. There are no tears or break-downs. Instead, Kelsi gets him his favorite Milkshake, and they celebrate.

Telling his family is easy. His parents have never been judgemental about sexuality, and Sharpay just shrugs and tells him not to steal her boyfriend. Ryan laughs and tells her Zeke would never leave her on his own free will. When he calls Gabriella, she says she'll love him anyway, and Troy teases him about crushing on cute actors. (Turns out Troy himself has a crush on Jensen Ackles, which they bond over).

He tells Chad in person when he visits him at Chad's Uni. Chad is silent for a while, and then he nods and admits that he thinks he is bisexual himself. They get drunk and have a long discussion about sexuality.

Ryan visits all the games of Troy and Chad in New York. They always get him tickets, and he will cheer them on loudly.

His third year is so stressful, he nearly misses one of Chad's games. He's landed a leading role in a Julliard production while choreographing a smaller show on the side and is swapped with course work. He barely has time to sleep and eat. Kelsi's the same, their apartment filling with dirty dishes and clothes. But he finds Taylor standing at their door an hour before the game starts, and she presents both of them with tickets.

Despite constantly texting, they have a lot to talk about. Taylor and Chad broke up shortly into their first year of University, but they are still close to each other, and Ryan kind of admires them for it. She tells him all about her new boyfriend and gushes with Kelsi about a movie they had watched recently.

The four decide to go out for Pizza after Chad finds them, freshly showered and grinning brightly from winning the game. He looks incredibly handsome and relaxed, and Ryan finds himself staring at him more than once.

It takes one more visit for Chad and Ryan to finally kiss. It's January, and they are sitting on the roof of Ryan's apartment building. Wrapped in blankets, and with warm cocoa, watching the sky. Later, neither can tell if one of them started it or both leaned in at the same time, but it doesn't really matter. All that matters are their lips meeting softly, Ryan's hands in Chad's hair, and Chad's fingers searching for warm skin. It's slow and sweet, and it goes on forever.

Long-distance is easier for them than they expected. They've been friends for nearly five years at this point, and they spent three of those apart. Now, they call and text more, and visits get a bit more frequent, but both are willing to work hard. Kelsi says it shows.

Telling their friends and families isn't a big deal. Gabriella squeals so loudly, Ryan is sure he'll get tinnitus. Troy calls him to say he'll hurt him if he hurts Chad, but also to call him if Chad's an asshole. Sharpay hugs them both, and threatens Chad with detailed revenge plans should he hurt her brother. Their parents invite the pair for dinner.

Graduating from Julliard feels as unreal as leaving High School, but Ryan has already secured his first job as a choreographer for a dance show, and he's happy.

Sharpay moves to New York and brings Zeke with her, who landed a fancy bakery job and still dreams about opening his own one in the future. He starts a YouTube channel, and Sharpay gets cast for a Broadway production.

The invitations for Troy's and Gabriella's wedding don't surprise anyone. Chad is Troy's best man, and Gabi asks Ryan to be the ring bearer. It's a beautiful wedding. Ryan cries.

Chad moves to New York two years after graduating college, signing with the Knicks and asking Ryan to move in with him. They made it work so far, and while both their schedules are packed, they also make it work when living together.

The ten-years-reunion of their class takes place in Lava Springs. They kept in contact with most of their friends from High School, so nothing is really a surprise. Some of the other people are surprised at seeing Chad and Ryan kiss, but Nobody says anything.

Bonus:

Kelsi wins a Tony for her very first musical. She works with Ryan on another stage production, and both of them get an award.

Chad stays with the knicks, and Ryan keeps cheering him one while wearing his High School Trikot. Tumblr loves them, and they get listed as one of the Top 15 Power-Couples, even though none of them are sure why.

Zeke and Sharpay break up two more times before she proposes to him. He never opens a bakery, because his YouTube channel picks up so much he doesn't need too. They move into a place with a bigger kitchen.

I have no idea what Troy does, but whatever it is, he's happy.

Lava Springs somehow gets to be where their whole group meets up once a year for a weekend. Mr. and Mrs. Evans are glad to welcome them, and Mr. Fulton likes to tease them about the Star Dazzle Award.

Chad proposes to Ryan a year after gay marriage becomes legal in all fifty states.

Ryan loves it when Chad kisses his temple, while Chad practically melts whenever Ryan plays with his hair

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