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madaqueue · 25 days

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What the Books Don't Teach You

pairing: ryomen sukuna x reader

themes/content: dark content. dubcon. language, smut. name calling (slut, whore), hair pulling, choking, orgasm denial, fingering, sex. 18+, MDNI

word count: 2.5k

a/n: i'm so sorry if this is the first thing of mine you're reading or if you followed me for cute content AH it's dark and intense but i am such a sukuna apologist :'/ forgive me (also i know this isn't perfectly canon with the name stuff but shh)

The library is dim, illuminated only by the flickering candles that surround your workspace. Books upon books, pages of notebooks sprawled around you, trying to uncover anything you can about the curse that has plagued your best friend Yuji.

It’s been months since Sukuna first appeared. At first he was easy to contain, surely owed to Yuji’s strong willpower, his need for nonmaleficence. But as he consumed more he grew increasingly powerful, a dark presence that constantly hid around the corners of his mind. Yuji could sense it, too - there would be moments, barely just flashes at first, where it’s like he wasn’t there. You’d be talking to him and his eyes would glaze over, the ever-present grin on his face dropping slightly. “Sorry,” he’d mutter sheepishly as returned to himself, “what were you saying?”

Inside his mind, you knew what was happening: Yuji was talking to him. The “King of Curses,” a title he demanded to be called, one that you refused to use whenever you were forced to acknowledge his presence. You’ve seen him kill over the name when it was not honored, yet you would rather die at his hand than utter an ounce of respect to him.

As time went on, Sukuna appeared more and more often, a fact that every Jujutsu sorcerer desperately tried to ignore. When he did appear, the man was cruel, selfish, and sadistic. He taunted those he knew to be weaker than himself and purposely placed himself in harm’s way to prove his own strength. He left a path of destruction and desecration in his wake, forcing Yuji to clean up the pieces.

Sukuna had ruined Yuji’s life, and you couldn’t stand by and let your friend suffer under the weight of the curse for any longer. You began sneaking out of your room every night to the library, trying to collect any information on how to rid him from existence. It didn’t matter if he had to be exorcised or killed, so long as he relinquished control of Yuji.

Unfortunately, information was sparse. In the weeks you’ve been searching you haven't even been able to find the source of Sukuna’s cursed energy, let alone how to eliminate it. As your eyes skim the pages of text in front of you, something catches your eye:

‘Ryomen Sukuna holds a true form unlike any other. He is a demon, with four arms, two faces, and an additional mouth on his torso. This grants him inhuman strength and senses.’

Okay, you think, now we’re getting somewhere. Learning his appearance can give you insight into his strengths and, hopefully, his weaknesses.

As you begin copying the notes onto the paper next to you, the candlelight flickers.

A low laugh echoes through the room. “What are you doing in here all by yourself, little sorcerer?” The deep voice makes your blood run cold. As you start to turn towards the source of the sound in the doorway, a tattooed hand grabs your cheeks and holds your head in place. Another hand appears on your waist, digging into your skin with sharp black nails.

Shit.

Sukuna’s presence suddenly becomes overwhelming, his body pressing against your back, heat radiating off of his bare chest. You still can’t see him, but his cursed energy is unmistakable.

Your mind races as you feel panic setting in. How did he find you in here? How did you miss him entering the room? How did he take over Yuji’s body this time?

Another laugh erupts from his lips. “Aw, are you reading about me, little one? How adorable,” his voice dripping with fake sweetness.

“Su-” you start before he tightens his grip on your face.

“I didn’t say you could speak, now did I?” he rumbles. “You really should learn some manners. Besides, I know you’re aware that I don’t much care for that name.” A chill shoots up your body as you try to steady your breathing. His hold on you never wavers as he shifts so his mouth is next to your ear. “But lucky for you, I’m feeling quite forgiving tonight,” he whispers, breath hot on your skin.

Your face flushes at his words as your heart races in your chest. At first you think it’s just fear coursing through your body, until you notice a dull ache between your legs.

No. No. No. This is not happening.

His deep voice pulls you out of your spiraling thoughts as he places his head on your shoulder, looking down at the open books in front of you. “Ah, I see you were just starting to learn about my true form. I was glorious, you know. This fucking brat is nothing compared to what I once was,” he spits, mentally gesturing at Yuji’s body. “Fortunately, I was able to take one piece of my old body with me.” Before you can ask, you feel a tongue suddenly slide against your lips.

The feeling makes you jump in your seat, Sukuna’s hold tightening on you. Another laugh booms through the room as your eyes glance down to see a mouth formed on the palm that grips your face. “Don’t pretend you don’t like it, woman. I’ve seen the way you stare at the brat, just think of me like him, but better,” he smirks.

He was right - you had caught Sukuna’s eyes staring at you whenever you stole glances at Yuji out of the corner of your eye, but it was nothing serious. The poor boy already had enough going on with this curse, you couldn’t bring yourself to add to his stress by confessing how you feel.

This fucking curse.

“For what it’s worth,” he continues, “I have taken quite an interest in you myself. Don’t think I don’t notice when you purposely drop something just to bend over, or when you wear those tight shreds of cloth you could barely call a uniform. You fucking tease,” he growls.

The space between your legs throbs at the low vibration of his voice against you. What is happening? Is he doing this to you?

As if he hears your thoughts, he speaks again. “I know you’ve thought about it too, there’s no need to be so proud. Before I was stuck in this brat’s body I had whores like you lining up for me every day, not because I made them, but because they wanted me.” He pauses, using the silence to lick up your neck and bite at your ear. “And I have a feeling you want me, too.”

Fuck. His words have your knees weak and pussy throbbing. You’re grateful to be sitting down, otherwise you know you’d be visibly shaking, no longer from fear.

Suddenly the hand on your waist loosens, but instead of releasing you, he drags it down between your legs. His nails scratch softly against the skin of your thigh, bare beneath your skirt. His fingers reach your clothed cunt, and from his soft chuckle you can tell you have soaked through your panties.

“I knew it,” he mutters, tracing up your covered folds. The feeling forces a soft moan out of your mouth and you feel Sukuna’s lips curl into a grin against your neck. “Say it, little sorcerer. Say you want me.”

You gather every ounce of restraint left in your body to answer. “N-no,” your voice waivers.

Your response seems to amuse him as he practically giggles into your ear. The hand that previously held your face drops down to your neck as he squeezes your airway closed. “And here I thought Jujutsu sorcerers were supposed to be some noble, honest breed. But I guess some of them can be lying whores, huh?”

With that, he grabs you and throws you against the desk, your chest hitting the dark wood with a hollow thud. Your hands land under you as you try to brace yourself against the sudden impact and Sukuna takes the opportunity to yank your skirt down your legs, throwing it across the room. You yelp as a hand crashes against your thigh, pulling you back towards him. He presses his hips against you, feeling the bulge growing through the black sweatpants Yuji must have been wearing to bed. “See, my cock knows it wants you. Even I can be honest, so what’s stopping you?” he growls. He grinds himself slowly against you, the pressure against your needy cunt driving you insane. “I know this pussy wants me, just admit it,” he sneers.

“I-” you try to start again before Sukuna shoves the side of your head down against the desk, your cheek hot against the cold wood.

“The next words out of your mouth better be the truth, or I won’t hesitate to kill you,” he rasps into your ear.

Think, think, think. How can you get out of this? What can you say to appease the man - no, the curse - that’s currently pinning you down?

As you’re trying to think of a way out of your current situation, he thrusts his hips up against you. The action, still done through two layers of cloth, forces another moan out of you.

Fuck, that feels good.

“I…I want you,” you whisper, the words leaving your lips before you can realize what you’ve said.

“Louder,” he commands.

“I want you,” you whine. “Please, Sukuna, please.”

Boisterous laughter fills the empty room again. Leaning back over you, he whispers into your ear. “Was that so hard?”

He steps back behind you, suddenly ripping your now-drenched panties into shreds, making you gasp as the cold air hits your heat. Finally free from the hold he had on your head, you turn your body slightly to look at him for the first time. In the candlelight, he looks haunting - tattoos outline the contours of his body, covering his face, arms, and chest, the flickering light casting shadows across the hollows of his scarlet eyes that are currently focused between your legs.

Sensing your gaze on him, he smirks. “Admire it while you can,” he says while lowering the waistband of his sweatpants to release his fully erect cock, a drip of precum leaking from the tip reflecting in the dim light. “Liars don’t get to watch while I fuck you.”

His arm shoots up to the back of your neck, pushing your face back down against the desk. The other goes to your pussy as he shoves two fingers roughly inside of you. Before you can even process the new sensation, you feel a tongue form on his hand and begin lapping up your folds. “F-fuck!” you scream, pressure suddenly forming in your stomach.

“So close already?” Sukuna chuckles from behind you. “I’ve barely even touched you, you needy little thing. Must’ve been waiting for this for a while, hmm?” he purrs. Your back involuntarily arches as your legs begin to shake. Right as you feel yourself approaching the edge of an orgasm, his hand pulls away from you. “Not so fast. You still have to learn some manners, remember?”

The hand that was previously on your neck moves to grab a fistful of your hair as the other grabs your waist, pulling your ass up into the air. You hear him adjusting himself behind you and your eyes widen as you feel the tip of his cock press against your entrance.

“Now, say my name, whore,” he barks at you.

“Sukuna-” you whimper.

“No.” He yanks your hair, pulling your head off the table.

You hesitate. You know what he’s asking for, but you also know you vowed to never, ever call him that.

“Say it,” he commands, voice stern.

As you contemplate your next words, Sukuna slowly starts sliding his cock inside of you. The sensation of your walls stretching around him, a mix of pain and pleasure, makes you whimper.

Something in you needed more, and you only knew one way to get it. Fuck.

You take in a shaky breath, knowing what your brain has to do to get your body what it wants. “K-king…King of Curses.” Your voice waivers as the title leaves your mouth.

He smiles. “Good little sorcerer,” he hums. Suddenly, the hand on your hip grips you hard enough you can almost feel his nails breaking skin. He thrusts his hips forward, forcing the rest of his length inside you. Sukuna grunts as he enters you, relishing in the tight, warm grip you have around him. He pulls out of you before roughly shoving back in, tears welling in your eyes from sheer pleasure.

Pulling your hair further, he brings your body flush with his. “Now,” he growls into your ear, “let’s see if you can behave well enough to cum on my cock.”

The words alone have you dizzy, pussy clenching around him. You want to open your mouth, you want to scream, beg, do anything for him to let you finish, but something tells you to wait. He continues to pull out and thrust back in, his hips circling in rough, imprecise motions. The wet sounds of him pumping in and out of you fill the air, the noise so lewd you pray no one else happens to be walking past the library. You feel so full, his cock splitting you in half, and you still want more.

“Well?” he questions, breaking your silence. “Aren’t you going to ask?”

“You…you didn’t say I could speak,” you respond meekly, trying to hold yourself together as he continues to thrust into you. Skin on skin, the sounds of his balls slapping against you, pelvis ramming against your ass, echoes through the room.

Once again, he laughs. “What a surprise, you really did learn your manners. What a well-trained slut you are,” he hums. You feel your core tighten again at his words. “For behaving so well, I’ll let you cum.”

Upon hearing his permission, something inside of you snaps. You throw your head back, moaning, as you tilt your hips to take him even farther inside of you. His tip pushes into that sweet spot, bringing you closer and closer to your release.

Finally, it hits. Your eyes roll back into your head, your mouth opens as a sound, somewhere between a scream and a groan, escapes your lips. The pain, the pleasure, the everything of Sukuna’s cock surges inside of you. He never relents, never slows, as your pussy twitches around him. Your legs give out and he releases your hair, letting your body drop to the desk beneath you.

Your head spins, vision clouded as you lay on the table. The first thing you feel is Sukuna pulling out of you and you whine at the empty feeling you’re left with. He walks toward you and leans over, face to face with him for the first time, his red eyes burning into yours.

“And that, little sorcerer, is why you can’t learn everything about me from a book,” his voice low. All you can do is stare at him, eyes glazed over. “Maybe next time you’ll earn my cum, if you can remember how to behave,” he smirks.

Without another word, he tucks his still hard cock under the waistband of his sweatpants and turns to walk away, presumably back to Yuji’s room. You’re left in the dimly lit library, panting, aching.

You may not know much about Sukuna, certainly not from your reading, but you do know one thing: you need more of him.

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so-long-soldier-writes · 2 months

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Anatomy Class

kai parker x reader

summary: kai + magic + boredom = trouble

tags: high school au, siphoning, magical fingering, masturbation (semi-public)

word count: 1.8k

a/n: i tagged this right next to my dad; you're both 18 in this!

“You have to promise to use this wisely and not get caught with it. Not in school, and certainly not at home,” you reiterate to Kai for maybe the third time in twenty minutes.

“I know, I know! Trust me, princess, I know the risks.”

“If it runs out, I can give you more, but if my parents suspect something’s up, they’ll find a way to contact yours.”

“But what if I run out before the day’s over and it’s just wasted? If I don’t use it, it drains.”

You sigh. “What are you suggesting?”

“I don’t know… can’t I just play with it a little? I can’t do that much damage during school hours. Worst I could do is make some kid trip over his shoelaces.”

“Kai!”

“I’m kidding! But seriously, Y/N…”

“Okay, I see your point. Do whatever you want with it, just don’t get caught.”

“And if I run out, you’ll give me more?” He hates to sound greedy, but he’s desperate.

“Of course. I can’t imagine what it’s like to not have permanent access, so as little as I use mine, I might as well give it to you.” He nods. “But again, be careful.”

“I will.”

“Okay. We’re coming up on the school now. Take my hand.”

He does, and then you nod to him to siphon. “Tell me when to stop.”

Your hands glow, but it doesn’t hurt. Kai says when he siphons his siblings, it hurts them. But you don’t feel any pain. If anything, your body warms with a tingly, pleasure-like feeling. After about thirty seconds, you start to feel a little dizzy though, and decide that’s a good time to cut him off.

“Stop.”

He drops your hand immediately. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. No pain, just a little dizzy.”

“Okay,” he confirms. He’d hate to hurt the one person who’s ever given him any love and attention.

“How do you feel?”

Kai smiles as the magic runs through his veins. He lets out a small moan that settles in the pit of your stomach. “Good,” he finally answers. He then takes the pencil you’ve stuck behind your ear and makes it float in the air.

“Good,” you say, stopping for a moment to kiss the side of his face. You take your pencil back as the school comes into view. “See you in class?”

“Mhm.”

The two of you walk up to the doors together, then part ways for your first class.

You have third period together, but Kai sits all the way in the back, while you’re in the middle row. The teacher assigned the seats, and rudely placed his kids by favoritism: most engaged in the front; most uninterested in the back. Kai’s incredibly smart, but that comes to his disadvantage in school. Most of the lessons are boring; he passes them with flying colors and faces little challenge completing them. He finishes early, or already understands the material, and ends up tapping his foot or fingers during class. Mr. Peters interprets this as disrespect and boredom.

Today in class, you’re reviewing the different systems in the body. Yet another topic that Kai has practically memorized. The final exam is in three weeks, though with the material being as difficult as it is, Mr. Peters has decided to start studying early. The material isn’t too much of a challenge for you, though Kai still has you beat in that matter.

The man makes a list of topics on the chalkboard, then slowly goes down his list asking and answering questions about each one. He asks something and the class responds, but every so often, someone asks their own question, and he launches into a huge explanation for it. It’s during one of your classmate’s questions that you suddenly start to feel a heaviness in the bottom of your stomach.

Immediately, you put a hand to it. Your mind races to think of what could’ve caused it. You hadn’t eaten anything weird that day, nor have you had any aches or pains all week. In the middle of your train of thought, the feeling shifts lower. There’s a pressure traveling south. In the next moment, it feels like circles being rubbed down along your body. Intentional pressure. Kai.

Your brain provides the reason as soon as you recall your morning: you gave him magic.

“Do whatever you want with it,” you had told him.

Well, he sure is now.

Slowly, you turn to face him. His hands are hidden from sight, inside his desk, but the smile creeping on his face is unmistakable. He’s certainly messing with you.

Stop, you mouth to him.

The bastard only winks.

You turn back around and cross your legs over each other, squeezing them tight. There’s no freaking way he’s doing this in the middle of class.

The pressure suddenly increases. You can almost feel the pads of his fingers touching you - one on your clit, two brushing your folds. You bite your lip so hard it might bleed. Your hands are clenched into fists underneath the table.

“Kai, stop,” you think, hoping there’s even a point one percent chance he can read your mind. He doesn’t, though, and if anything, mimics dipping between your folds, feeling your walls.

“The organs involved in the endocrine system are- Y/N,” your teacher stops mid-sentence to look at you, “are you okay?!”

You release your fists, hoping to look less suspicious. “Yeah. I have a stomach ache. Do you- do you mind if I go to the restroom?”

Mr. Peters hurries to his desk for a hall pass. “Not at all. Go to the nurse if it doesn’t feel better in ten minutes.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you.” You take it and hurry out the door.

You spare a glance at Kai on your way out. He smirks at you when you look at him, but then looks back at his hands, clearly focused. The feeling sharpens, and you dash out the door.

As soon as you reach the bathroom, you fling yourself against the wall in the nearest stall. You’re still biting your lip not to moan, but don’t fight the need that brings you to unbuckle your belt to relieve some of the built-up tension. Criminally, it seems Kai can still control you despite the distance. You can still feel his finger-pads petting your walls. The pressure is still on your clit, and it only grows by the minute.

“Fuck,” you mutter, feeling yourself getting close.

You drop two fingers to your clit, rubbing it yourself. Your knees almost buckle, and you have to push your toes against the edge of the toilet to not slip.

“Goddammit, Kai.” It’s a whisper, but you really hope no one else is in the bathroom right then.

You focus on the way he feels on you, as well as the added pressure you’re giving yourself. Within two minutes’ time, you come. It hits you hard. Your knees almost give out, despite the way you tried to hold yourself upright. Your chest heaves; the sensation sends pleasure throughout your whole body. Your vision gets spotty, and soon, your lip starts to bleed. It’s overwhelming in all the best ways.

After another few seconds, Kai seemingly retracts his fingers. You curse him the minute he does, remembering you’re in school, and you’re supposed to be studying in class right now.

The moment you get your bearings, you stumble to your feet and towards the sink. You wash your hands and grab onto the solid material to ground yourself; your brain is still swimming in post-high fuzzies.

“Fuck you, Kai,” you think, again telepathically, hoping he can hear you. If he can, you’d bet your life on the fact that he’s wearing his signature smirk.

When you finally recover, you make your way back to class. You offer Mr. Peters a half smile and report that most of it is gone. “Must’ve been something I ate this morning,” you lie.

He replies with his own smile and a nod, and goes back to teaching.

The moment you sit, you turn to see Kai, who is, in fact, smirking at you. You give him a playful roll of your eyes before turning back to the lesson.

Luckily, that’s his only shenanigan for the day. During lunch and your other classes together, he dares to act innocent. You would scold him for it during lunchtime, but Jo is sitting with you today, preventing that entirely.

The walk back to school provides the perfect timing.

“Malachai Parker,” you say in your best authoritative voice.

“What? Did I do something wrong?”

“Did I do something wrong?! Did I do- you know what you did.”

“I don’t recall.”

“Third period. You and your magic fingers. You-”

“Oh,” he has the nerve to laugh, “that. Did you like that?”

“Did I like that?! Kai, during class?!”

“You said I could do whatever I wanted as long as I didn’t get caught. I didn’t get caught.”

You scoff. “I did not mean for you to do that!”

“But you liked it. What’d you do in the bathroom?”

“What?!”

“Why’d you go to the bathroom?”

“To hide the fact you were fingering me in class! What do you think I went for?!”

“Did you come?”

“Excuse me?”

“Simple question, princess.”

“I did not-”

“Don’t lie to me now.”

“Fine,” you bite your lip, “I did.”

He smiles. “Got you. Knew you liked it.”

“That was so inappropriate! I’d never think you’d be so bold. And when did you know when to stop? You did, like, ten seconds after I finished.”

He chuckles like it’s a game. “The last five times I’ve fingered you, it’s taken you five minutes on average to come. I watched on my watch; three minutes happened in class, two in the bathroom. I gave ten seconds to spare to either get you there if you needed extra time, or to ride you through it. Turns out, I’m pretty spot on.”

“Putting your brain to great use,” you mumble, “and my magic.”

Suddenly, he looks nervous. “You’re still gonna give it to me, right? I didn’t lose my chances to have it, did I? Because I can behave. Y/N, I promise. It won’t happen again.”

You change your attitude to match his. “Oh, baby, no. No, I’m not like that. Don’t you worry about stuff like that. I’m still gonna give you magic, even if you use it in questionable ways.”

“Okay. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. But one condition.”

“Yes ma’am?”

“Wait until actual study time, like in the library, to do it. Not in class. Unless we’re watching a movie.”

“Deal.”

“Good.”

“I love you, you little weasel.”

He scrunches his nose at the nickname. “I love you, too.” Then he chuckles. “I fingered you in class.”

“Kai!”

#this has been in my drafts for months #i'm on a new medication that's tanking my sex drive and i'm struggling to write smut lately #probably tmi but i have no filter with y'all #anyway #kai parker x reader #malachai parker x reader #tvd fanfiction #kai parker oneshot #kai parker smut #high school au #characters are over 18!

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patheticallyinfatuatedwithu · 1 year

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spider, pham hanni

you visit hanni after a terrifying encounter with a spider.

having lived and born in australia, you'd think pham hanni would be used to it. well, you're dead wrong.

it was the end of last period and you've bid goodbye to your friends and headed to hanni's classroom, where you found her to be the last one left inside and gingerly packing her things up. you let yourself in and strutted to where she stood, stopping right behind her. "why are you always the last one out?"

zipping her bag closed, she turned around and huffed, slinging her bag on her back and walking past you. "geez, i just asked. don't get all grumpy on me now."

she stayed silent and continued to walk in front of you, her eyebrows furrowed and arms crossed. you know that you should be concerned for your life, but you just couldn't bring yourself not to laugh at her adorable state right now.

she scoffed when the sound left your thoat, slightly glancing at you before looking back forward. it irked her that you could laugh at a situation like this right now when you should be fearing for your life. she parted her lips to say something, but it was cut short when a spider hung right in front of her face.

hanni let out a scream from horror movies.

if you weren't there and hadn't witnessed what happened beforehand, you would definitely thought that she was being chased by a murderer. the vietnamese jumped towards your arms, catching her with ease as she hid in the crook of your neck.

you stifled a laugh, "are you alright?" the question was choked and forced out and you had to bite your lip harshly to avoid laughter from erupting. you felt her grip on you tighten and just as how fast the spider appeared, your smile dropped.

"hanni..." you whispered and the girl just quivered in response.

it must've shaken her to the core seeing that spider.

"alright, don't worry about walking home, i'll carry you there." you felt her nod against your neck, feeling her warm breath against your skin, you blushed, mentally face palming that you had the audacity to blush while your friend was scared to death.

you started to move and her grip on you tightened again, and you couldn't help to think that she was cute.

it was the next day and hanni hasn't returned to school, which caused worriedness to wash over you and visit her after school. you knocked on her door and waited for a few moments before the door opened. you watched as her eyes went wide as an owl's before shutting the door on you.

...what?

"h-hanni," you stammered, greatly astounded as you reached to knock on the door again. before you could anyway, the door opened and she pulled you in. now, you were more confused than before. "are you okay-"

she pulled you in for a tight hug, stopping in the middle of the room and basking in your warmth, the back of your shirt crumpled under her hand. you hugged back, deciding to carry her towards her bed and place her down, but she resisted and took comfort in your lap instead, her hands now found way to your hair, tangling her fingers in it becoming one.

"are you alright?" your voice was quite muffled from her locks, but it wasn't as muffled as hers. "'m fine." you glanced at her, adjusting her in your lap as your arm held her waist to hold her in place. "you sure?" she nodded.

"how come your room's dim?" you questioned, gazing at the single lamp whose light is mostly restricted and towards the ajar positioning of her blinds. "i find it more comforting." she mumbles, further more hiding in your neck.

it was only then she shuffled that you realized what position the two of you were in, and you couldn't help but flush. you were sitting on the edge of the bed, back facing the wall as hanni straddled you, warm breath fanning your neck as you lightly shivered.

"y/n..."

you hummed, free hand sliding up and down her back to ease her fear. "i can still see the spider when i close my eyes." you frowned, and you felt her move away from you and stared at you, eyes travelling over your face, lingering the most on your lips.

"but with you here... i feel more safe." a warm smile replaced the frown, the hand that held waist unconsciously tightened and it was your turn to hide your face in her neck. she chuckled, fingers playing with your hair.

she can feel the warmth your face emitted against her skin, "you're embarrassed?" you nod against her, already knowing what she'll ask next. "you think too highly of me." she shook her head, "i should be the one embarrassed. i screamed so loud yesterday, and right in front of you too."

"what's wrong with screaming in front of me?" hanni stayed silent, and you were almost sure that you had made her uncomfortable, silently beating yourself up for it. as you were about to apologize, hanni had taken your jaw and threw it on the floor.

"i like you, that's why." the movements of her hands ceased, and the whole room was enveloped by silence. both your hearts beated erratically and was almost sure that the other could hear, hanni holding in her breath as she braced herself for rejection.

you pulled away, a smile on your face that brought a question mark above hanni's head. "i like you too." you replied, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear. she tackled you in a hug, your back colliding with the bed's soft mattress and sheet as her hair created a curtain between you two and anyone who might walk in.

she grinned as she pulled away, which grew larger in size when you reached in to give her a peck on the lips, palm on her cheek as your thumb caressed it, before hanni leant down for a kiss. "that spider's a damn genius."

broken records i know i have requests but i wont be able to work on them yet since assessments are appearing and i figured that you all need to be fed so i've published this one in my drafts which has been here sinve day 1

#kpop #kpop gg #wlw #kpop gg x reader #kpop gg oneshots #kpop imagines #kpop oneshots #kpop x reader #new jeans x reader #new jeans #newjeans x reader #newjeans hanni #newjeans #pham hanni x reader #pham hanni #hanni x reader #nwjns hanni #hanni pham #crying at my own oneshot

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sawyerconfort · 9 months

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fire(and)place | jackie taylor x fem!young shipman!reader

TWO POSTS IN A ROW, I'M GETTING BETTER!

Ok, just want to let you guys know that this is an experimental post, because I really want to start watching Yellowjackets and I decided to write oneshots about it...

So, I'm sorry if there's anything wrong with this story regarding the context of the series, I didn't really watch it and only watched snippets of the episodes to cheer myself up and see if I liked the atmosphere of the series.

Btw, it's a story with a character played by Ella Purnell, I think there's no way to go wrong, right?

Hope you like it!

Enjoy!

Requests open but taking things slow!

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Prompt: After your older sister has a nasty fight with Jackie in the woods, you decide to take matters into your own hands and confront her. It would all go down too well, though, if you didn't have a crush on her.

***

You didn't expect things to get to this point. In fact, you didn't even want things to get to this point. You knew better than anyone else how much Shauna liked Jackie, considered her her best friend, and how close Jackie actually was to you because she was best friends with your older sister.

Which is why, when you woke up to the screams echoing in the cabin that middle of the night, after accidentally falling asleep and snuggling into Natalie's shoulder - she was warm, in your defense - you wondered why Jackie wasn't there, and the way Shauna looking at you as soon as you opened your eyes was completely decisive.

"Why the hell are you yelling this time?", you asked, your voice coming out low and rather sleepy. "Where's Jackie? I thought we'd go hunting when we were all together, didn't we?"

"Not anymore," Misty blurted out unintentionally. "Your sister decided to fight Jackie, and she's outside now, who knows where, in the cold maybe."

Shauna rolled her eyes. "She started it!"

"Shut up you suckers!" you yelled, standing up and brushing a few strands of Natalie's gorgeous blonde hair out of her clothes a little bit before heading for the door. "You shouldn't have done that, you shouldn't!"

"Where are you going, (Y\N)?"

"Do what you didn't do. Apologize to Jackie and save her from dying of hypothermia at least."

You rolled your eyes as you left, slamming the cabin door slamming and leaving the girls exchanging skewed looks. Misty stopped Shauna with her arm and your sister had to watch you go, against her will, outside in the snow, just when she should have been protecting you.

***

It wasn't too hard to find Jackie, knowing at first that even if she was intensely hurt by Shauna or any of the girls, she wouldn't go far. The girl was as scared as you were about navigating the forest alone, so she could be anywhere, just close.

It was practically freezing outside, and you found yourself picking up your pace several times to keep your shoes from sinking into the icy white snow - sometimes it was quite pointless and you practically froze just by dipping your toes a little bit. But it helped you to locate yourself, when the fog gave way to a figure turned on its back, hugging its own legs, with that varsity jacket that you knew so much, and that, dammit, she never took off her body!

It didn't take much for you to know it was Jackie and, relieved to see her, you walked over slowly and sat down where she was, beside her, avoiding eye contact.

"Please don't tell me Shauna asked you to come after me as a consolation prize," she said, rolling her eyes, still hugging her legs. Her voice emitted a little air from her lips, and when you looked up, her mouth was purple.

Quickly, you needed to take action. You dug with your hands until you couldn't dig anymore, but eventually you found some sticks and stones, which were more visible in the middle of the snow. By rubbing the two together, you created a little bit of fire and arranged some lighter pieces of wood to create a fire. Jackie sighed in relief and another little smoke came out of her mouth.

"No, she didn't ask. I came at my own risk," you finally replied, taking a deep breath as well. It was nice to feel something warm as you sat on the icy ground. "May I know what happened between you two? Why did you fall out so quickly? Everything was so good…"

She didn't answer, and you decided to play with the situation.

"It's only when I fall asleep that you decide to let go, right? That's serious, Jackie, it's a lack of a worthy mother figure."

Jackie laughed, and dammit, you loved it when she laughed. You loved when you could make her laugh, when you could see her little eyes close as she turned her head towards you and looked into her eyes like she was looking at a little sister.

That's what you were to her, a little sister. And that was all.

"I don't know why Shauna is mad at me. Sometimes I thought it might be Jeff, but now that I've broken up with him, I…I don't know anymore," Jackie sighed. "I thought you knew, since you're sisters, and she should tell you everything…"

"Uh, one point less for you…", you chuckled nervously, sighing. "Shauna never tells me anything. She pretty much hates me, I think maybe she'd rather I was a Barbie doll instead of a normal flesh and blood person…" you huffed. "Seriously, I had to beg her to let me on your team, really."

"But she was right, (Y\N), you were still too young. It could cause problems in your class, because you're a year below us."

"I'm not a kid anymore, Jackie, I make my own decisions, and I've decided I want to make the team," you replied in an authoritative voice. "No one can change that now, I also wanted to win, I wanted to help you on the team, not just watch from the stands…"

Jackie nodded, smiling and pursing her lips. She looked at you, and again, there was that annoying little "big sister look" thing she always gave you. You pretended you weren't affected by him and tried to ignore it, but it was impossible.

"If I ask nicely, will you go back inside and make up with Shauna?" you asked in a whisper, looking at Jackie again.

"(Y\N), it's no use. Shauna really hates me now, there's no going back."

"But that can't happen! How am I supposed to be if you guys are fighting forever? How am I going to convince my mom to let me go to your party without Shauna around to babysit me?"

Jackie shook her head. "I'm sorry. Really."

"But that couldn't happen! It's so unfair!"

"(Y\N), stop whimpering like a baby!", Jackie complained, turning to you. "It's irritating, okay? It doesn't help at all!", her voice was different, and it was clear that she was very irritated with the situation.

You widened your eyes, an intrusive thought running through your mind as you stared back at her, your voice trailing off. "You find me annoying? Really?"

"No, that's not what… Ah, (Y\N), come on, I'm sorry, okay?", Jackie clicked her tongue on the roof of her mouth and looked at you, her voice becoming quiet and calm, like she was talking to a puppy. "That's not what I meant, I swear, it's just…I'm really pissed off right now, and if you keep forcing me to make it up to her, I'll…"

You nodded, holding back tears, but didn't say anything. Then, there was a moment when Jackie surprised you by cupping your chin with her fingers and forcing you to look into her eyes. Gorgeous, huge, but gorgeous, you could easily get lost in the whole pool of charisma that was inside them.

"Come on, give me a smile please, (Y\N)…", she whispered, still holding you by the chin, and you smiled, blushing slightly. "That's it. I love seeing you smile, (Y\N), really. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be rude to you, but this whole situation is killing me."

"Everyone is nervous, Jackie, it's normal…", you explained, whispering, too lost to focus on one thing. "We should be playing right now, winning medals, lifting trophies, but here we are, stranded on a shitty island."

"Hey, at least we still have people to count on…", she whispered back, smiling. "People we like, that's what matters to me at least," Jackie laid her head gently on his shoulder and looked into the crackling fire. "Like, I like you a lot, (Y\N). I don't know what I would do if we had a fight…"

You were taken aback by the revelation. You were already used to Jackie's surprises and her nonsensical phrases, but this time, it rang true. Too bad you felt more than just a liking, and that you couldn't truly tell her that for fear of losing the friendship.

"Me too… I like you, Jackie…", you whispered. "But…"

"But you really want to dump me now, don't you? Yeah, I know. I figured my lack of affection would hurt someone one day…"

"No!", you said, kind of loudly, startling her too. "No, what I meant is… that I like you. Like hell. But it's not just liking… a friend. You know… I'm…"

She quickly pulled her head away from your shoulder to look at you, laughing in disbelief.

"Are you telling me that… you're in love with me?", Jackie asked, confused, frowning. "I mean, like, you? In love with me?"

"Yeah, I think that's right…", you replied. "I'm sure, actually. I'm in love with you, Jackie, and I've never felt that way about anyone in my entire life.

"Damn, (Y\N), that…that was cute, you know?"

Your smile faded, and Jackie saw it right away. It made her laugh, and when you least expected it, she kissed your cheek, then leaned in a little closer to kiss your lips, and you were taken aback by the feel of icy, frozen lips pressed against yours.

Jackie didn't seem to regret the impulse. She was clearly nervous, but she was shivering too, from the cold, and as you kissed, she touched your face with trembling hands over and over again, sometimes hesitating between your cheek and your shoulders.

Her lips were cold, because of the ice, and they were soft, because they were a girl's lips. The girl you were in love with and had kept that secret for a long, long time.

"Was that your way of saying you like me too?" you asked, afraid that this was more of a threat than a genuine question from someone who was confused when she pulled away from you.

Jackie smiled, nodding and blushing as she kissed you again. This time, the touch lasted a little less, and when she pulled away, her face was hidden in the crook of your neck.

"I don't know why it took me so long to figure this out…" she whispered. "It was literally in my face the entire time. That's why Shauna hates me. Because of you, (Y\N). She's so jealous because you guys are sisters, and because I'm her best friend…"

You smiled. "And that makes you regret liking me?"

"Never, I swear…", Jackie whispered. "I actually love the fact that I like you. It's comforting because I knew I'd never have to say it out loud since the two of us are inseparable…"

You smiled again and it was your turn to hide your face in Jackie's neck. She hugged you with both arms and breathed in your scent, sighing. She was clearly warmed by the touch of you on her body.

"Now, if I ask nicely, will you go back to the cabin?"

"(Y\N)!", Jackie sighed, before kissing you again, only this time, all over your face, laughing every time her lips meet your skin. "God, will you stop being so cute? This way I won't convince you that I'm mad at your sister!"

"It never convinced me, to tell you the truth. You two are failures to disguise that, deep down, deep down, you still like each other. And I'm happy about that, because I know that, no matter what, you'll have to put up with me for the rest of your days!"

The girl smiled. "Yeah, not that I'm complaining, either."

And there you two idiots were, giggling by a poorly made fire for the rest of the night, after an awkward but completely adorable confession.

#lgbt #romance #oneshot #imagine #fluff #yellowjackets #yellowjackets x reader #jackie taylor x reader #ella purnell #ella purnell x reader #i love jackie she's such a babe #and she deserved so much better it's unfair #my computer almost didn't let me finish this one #please send me a new computer please

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lotus-lamps · 4 months

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im not late YOU'RE late (man whats with me and niko related celebration art and being late with it)

this did not turn out the way i wanted to but. oh well.

HOWEVER. I GOT A NEW APPLE PEN FOR CHRISTMAS. SO. INCREASED ART MOTIVATION AND ART CAPABILITIES LETS GOOOOOOOOO

also yes i AM obnoxious enough to put my watermark in the middle of the drawing. yes new watermark. old one was boring lol. plus i rarely go by cozm now

okay bye bye enjoy your break!

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romamoff · 3 months

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Love is for children.

Pairing: ? 😊 Warnings: none, than it being my first fic and maybe not the best! Word count: 2.5k

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Peace. The assassin didn’t quite expect to feel peace in this situation. Yet she felt calmness and warmth spread through her whole being, filling every fiber of her body and every piece of her soul and mind. Where once were racing cruel thoughts, now settled silence. Her green eyes fell back on the other redhead of the team, currently occupied with her face only inches away from the humanoid toaster. Vision had his hands on her hips. There was a time where Natasha wished that those were her hands… but it's not her place anymore to think like that. So now, as she watches Wanda’s arms snake themselves around his neck, a shallow smile spreads across her lips and she simply turns around and leaves the kitchen again, not wanting to intrude… at least that is what she tells herself.

So apparently a broken heart isn’t as bad as people make it seem all the time. Cause after all… Love is for children. It's this thought that brought a solemn calmness into the russian. But Clint's voice suddenly cuts through the silence within her mind. “Natasha? Are you okay? What happened?” A frown forms on Natasha’s forehead as though she didn’t quite understand why his blueish-green eyes watched her with sorrow and concern. He reached out and took something of her cheek. Confusion made its way onto Natasha’s expression. But as she turned away from his strange gesture and threw a quick glance back over her shoulder her confusion vanished: as she watched Wanda now smile at Vision, whatever she was trying to tell herself made no sense anymore. Love is for children. It wasn’t the thought that calmed her, it was the wishful thinking that everybody had that thought.

No. They didn’t think like that. Wanda clearly didn’t think like that. Wanda, who smiled softly at Vision with teary eyes as if he held all the stars. Wanda clearly didn’t believe that love is for children. Wanda clearly was in love. But not with her… not with Natasha… not with me. And now all the calmness and silence in her exploded into chaos. Her heart pounded against her ribcage as if it tried to punch some sense into her. She heard her blood rush through her ears and her mouth suddenly became dry. Swallowing around a huge lump in her throat, she faced away again and fixed her eyes on one of her closest friends again. Clint reached out again and this time the former spy knew what he was getting off her cheek: tears.

She tried to tell him that she was fine and that there was nothing wrong, but her body didn’t cooperate anymore. The emotions that suddenly broke through were absolutely unfamiliar to the Widow, who grew up suppressing nearly every emotion in her body. The flood of her own feelings began to drown her: her breathing became erratic and shallow at the same time. Her chest tightened and it felt like someone poured melted steel into her insides. She felt like her blood froze in her veins and her lungs were filled with cotton, leaving no room to breathe properly. Panic filled the redhead at her own state, that now was completely out of her control. A situation completely unfamiliar and strange to the disciplined and usually put together spy.

Luckily Clint seemed to understand what was going on and grabbed her. He laid her arm across his shoulders and supported her weight at her hip, to get her quickly out of there. His heart broke for Natasha. Of course he understood what was going on even without Natasha voicing it. Any person with eyes would catch on to the situation… and he wasn’t surprised. The archer had suspected for a while that his former target was madly in love with the younger witch. Love is for children… yeah sure. He had seen the way she looked at her… the way she made sure the younger woman was safe in their missions… the way her eyes stayed on Wanda just that few seconds too long.

Clint rushed the now sobbing woman into her own room. He knew that the spy would feel safer in her secured, well known, own safe space. With efficient and precise steps the pair made it over to the bed on one of the walls. As soon as they hit the mattress to sit down, everything inside Natasha broke. Every pent up emotion. Every feeling she pushed down. Every thought she didn’t acknowledge. One of her hands shot out of reflex up to her mouth, but to no avail: heavy sobs wracked her frame and echoed through the silence. Heaving deep breaths, she tried to regulate her stuttering breathing and regain some control. But her chest felt tight and her throat closed up on itself. She looked up at Clint with a pleading look on her face. The worry was clearly etched on his face, although to Natasha it looked unfocused as her vision got blurry by her own tears, which kept flowing down her cheeks.

Without a second thought Clint gathered one of his best friends in his arms. Even his own body started to shake with the force of the redheads’ sobs and his heart broke for Natasha all over again. Carefully he guided Natasha’s head onto his shoulder and leant his cheek on the top of her head. “We will get you through this Nat.” He murmured quietly. But that just seemed impossible to Natasha right now. She was flooded with so many conflicting emotions at once, it made her head spin and she felt dizzy and sick to her stomach. Actually, she felt her stomach turning and bile rising up her throat. Too fast for Clint to follow, the widow bolted into her own bathroom and next thing he knew, he heard her retch her guts out. But before he could sprint into action, a voice by the door made him freeze on the spot. “Natasha..?”

Unbeknownst to Clint and Natasha their abrupt exit alerted Wanda and Vision. The young sokovian must’ve grown curious to know what was wrong, cause right now she is standing in Natasha’s doorway with a worried and slightly confused look on her soft features. Clint almost gave himself whiplash with how fast his head snapped from the bathroom door to the young witch. “Wanda!” he proclaimed a bit too loud as his body jolted off the mattress and towards the young woman. His only concern right now to protect Natasha… and Wanda seeing her like this was probably the opposite of what was good for Natasha.

Green, concerned eyes searched the room, before landing on the bathroom and then fixing themselves back on the archer. “Clint, what is going on? Is Nat okay?” she asked and tried to wriggle past him into the room. But the older man gently grabbed her shoulders and threw a quick glance in the direction of the bathroom as Natasha seemed to throw up again, oblivious to what was going on in her room. “uhm… uh… yes, she just went a bit too hard on training today. You know how she can be!” He tried to brush the witches' concerns off with a half hearted chuckle. But to his misfortune Wanda wasn’t having any of it and her eyebrows scrunched in worry and a bit of confusion. Yes, Natasha was known to train really hard. But she would never risk any more harm to her body, since she is dead set on the fact that it was her strongest weapon… which might be true, but that’s beside the point!

“Oh, come on… she wouldn’t risk that. Is she sick? What’s wrong?” she inquired and pressed further. Clint actually had to apply some force now to hold her back and decided to try a different approach. “Wanda, come on. You know she wouldn’t want anyone to see her like this. She would hate that!” It seemed to do the trick, cause Wanda actually faltered in her movement and looked back at him. A fleeting look of understanding ghosted over her face but - to Clint's misery – she brushed it off and her concern for Natasha won over. “Clint please… I just want to know if she’s okay.” Wanda cringed at that… obviously Natasha was not okay, but her brain was riddled with worry and this was the only sentence she came up with.

“Is my help required?” came a voice from the hallway. Clint couldn’t help the groan that broke free as his eyes landed on the humanoid robot who definitely was not helping Natasha right now. “NO!” his voice boomed and surprised everyone… including himself. He was usually not known for outbursts, but could you blame him right now? But what really perplexed him, was the reaction of the young auburn haired woman in front of him. Wanda calmly looked back at Vision, muttering a “No, thank you.” and dismissed him with a rather cold expression. But what really threw Clint off, was the fact that Vision just nodded without a visible reaction, turned and went back the way he came from. Could this be any more confusing and chaotic?

“Wha… Wanda?” Of course! A big sigh, followed by a deep inhale came from the archer as he turned around to see that Natasha had apparently finished throwing up and was now standing there with red, puffy eyes and a horrified expression on her face. He immediately let go of Wanda and positioned himself between the two women, his back facing the witch. Natasha just looked past him, mouth agape and eyes wide in embarrassment. “Do you feel better now? Man, that chicken sandwich must’ve gone really bad!” he tried his best to offer an explanation and an excuse to Natasha. “I… uhm… yea…” she stuttered out between irregular breaths and quickly averted her eyes from Wanda back to Clint, after new tears threatened to spill upon seeing the young witch she fell so deeply for.

But leave it to Wanda to stay worried and not budging a single second. She was by Clint's side in an instance and fixed the russian with a determined, piercing glance. Natasha couldn’t help but gulp at her sudden closeness. “Don’t make me read your thoughts. I’m so worried Nat! That was the third excuse he came up with… Please..?” The young witch pleaded and laid a tender hand on Natasha’s still shaking shoulder. Clint just gave up and accepted the fact that his attempts on fixing this chaos just wouldn’t help. He stood upright and offered a small smile to Natasha. “I’ll leave you some space. I’ll be in the living room if you need anything.” The Archer turned and left the room, quietly shutting the door behind him to at least offer some privacy for his best friend.

Natasha on the other hand was very tempted to just bolt after him and get the hell out of here. But the more logical part of her brain knew damn well that she couldn’t run now anymore. Wanda wouldn’t let go of this that easily and she had to face her eventually. That still didn’t help the anxiety rising inside her like a storm. Her hands grew sweaty and began to shake as she gestured towards her bed as a signal for Wanda to take a seat. The younger witch followed that immediately and sat down gently. Natasha used the second to close her eyes shut for a second and fight down the nauseous feeling that made a comeback in her stomach. Here goes nothing.

She took a deep breath and turned to sit next to the sokovian. “Wanda…” she gritted out, but didn’t get much further as her nerves took over and her voice broke on that one word. The witch reacted on instinct and grabbed a hold of Natasha’s still shaking hand. That one point of contact set up a variety of reactions inside Natasha: she felt a tingling sensation radiating from her hand and warmth spread into her whole body. A calmness settled back in her mind, but it had a bittersweet feeling to it and Natasha had to swallow a lump in her throat back down. She took a shuddering breath and angled her body, so she could face Wanda and she saw nothing but empathy and concern in her eyes.

Natasha actually felt her cheeks heat up, probably for the first time in her life and for a second she sits dumbfounded. Worry etched itself on Wanda’s face and she mistook Natasha’s silence for unease. “Nat… it's going to be okay. Just take your time. Do you need me to leave?” the witch spoke quietly and averted her eyes again. That seemed to pull the russian out of her trance and she physically shook off her thoughts. “No!” came the abrupt reply and Wanda’s eyes snapped back up to meet green ones again. “I… I mean, no. Please don’t leave. I need… I mean… I need to talk to you about something.” She rambled on, before she took a deep breath. “говно, why is this so hard…” Natasha murmured to herself.

“Okay, here goes nothing…” Natasha fixed her gaze on Wanda’s. If she is going to do this, she is going to do it right. Wanda deserves that. “I didn’t eat something bad…” “Yeah, figured that.” The witch cut in. “Sorry… keep going.” She added a bit sheepish and Natasha couldn’t help the fleeting smile that passed her lips, but it got swallowed by her anxiety rather quickly. “I… I saw you with Vision in the kitchen earlier..” she admitted with a defeated, shallow and broken tone in her quivering voice. The younger sokovian looked genuinely confused about that statement. “Okay… so?” Wanda wasn’t sure at all how to react to that statement.

Natasha suddenly stood up frustrated at herself and paced the room in front of the witch, feeling the need to move her anxiety ridden muscles. “I was told love is for children! My whole life I believed in that!” Wanda decided to stay quiet at that and just let Natasha get whatever it was off her chest first. “Love would make me weak! Love would give others the chance to break me! But Wanda…” Natasha seemed to wrestle with herself and a deep sigh left her mouth. “Wanda… pushing it down and losing it is what truly broke me…” The younger woman watched her intently and something inside her grew curious at that. Natasha took a few seconds to gather her next words carefully. But every rational thought had left her body and she decided to just go through with it. “Wanda… I fell for you. Love is not for children…” Suddenly a flood of emotions mixed on the witches’ face: curiosity, nerves, anxiety, empathy… but… hope? … happiness?

~A/N: I really hope it wasn't too bad!! I'd love to hear from you how you liked it! 😊

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suddencolds · 6 months

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Foreign Home | [1/1]

hello!! I am back after 8 months of not-really-writing with an 8k word fic (which I cut down from 9k words). this is another OC fic w/ Vincent and Yves, who were introduced here!

anyways, this is very character-centric and establishes some things I wanted to establish about them / their world... I hope the little detour into character-development territory is okay.

Summary: Yves has told all of his friends that he's dating Vincent, so it's going to look increasingly suspicious if Vincent never shows up. Good thing Vincent is compellingly good at lying. Anyways, what could go wrong at a housewarming party? (ft. banter, fake dating, cat allergies)

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Yves spends three weeks turning down invitations.

It’s lucky, he thinks, that he’s been able to stay in contact with so many friends from university—that so many of them have settled here, in New York. It’s less lucky considering his current circumstances:

Out of the people who made it to Margot’s New Year’s party, almost all of them remember Vincent. And—even more inconveniently—many of them seem set on inviting Yves and Vincent places.

Yves thinks up a dozen excuses. No, Vincent can’t join on our coffee outing—he’s got an important, un-reschedulable meeting with a client that Saturday. Sunday? His Sunday’s booked through until 5pm. I know, busy season is the worst to plan around. Or, I think Vincent’s going to be out for a business conference that weekend. The 22nd? I can check with him, but he’s taking a redeye flight the night before—I think he’ll be jet lagged.

The number of excuses he is capable of coming up with is unfortunately finite. Perhaps sorry, I think Vincent has an optometrist’s appointment that afternoon isn’t Yves’s best work, but he has to say something.

Really, it’s just more work to invite Vincent elsewhere—to explain that they’ve played their role as a couple a little too convincingly. That his friends all want to meet Vincent, now.

Back during his days of rowing crew, Yves has given out his fair share of relationship advice to the underclassmen, which has unfortunately—according to Margot—“cultivated an air of mystery about his personal love life.” It was always him and Erika, until it wasn’t. (Ex-matchmaker Yves and his mysterious, highly coveted new boyfriend, Leon says, when Yves complains, which is how Yves decides he will no longer be consulting Leon on the matter.)

“My friends really like you,” Yves says to Vincent, offhandedly, when he runs into him on the way back from lunch.

Vincent blinks at him.

“You’re saying that like it’s a bad thing.”

“They really like you,” Yves says. “They want to meet you. They think we’re an interesting couple, and they keep pestering me for double dates and inviting you out to a whole bunch of events. I’m running out of excuses as to why you can’t come.”

“Oh,” Vincent says, deadpan, but there’s a slight twitch to his lips, as if he’s trying not to laugh.

“I’m dead serious,” Yves says. “I told Nora that you couldn’t make it to dinner because of an eye appointment. Now if I want to keep this up I’ll need to photoshop you with new glasses.”

“I am a little overdue for new glasses,” Vincent says.

“Not the point. Regardless, I need to keep this up until we stage a breakup.”

“A breakup?”

“A fake breakup. To our fake relationship.”

“Is there someone else you’re interested in?”

“No,” Yves says. “But I’m preemptively saving you the stress.”

“The stress of playing your boyfriend?” Vincent says. “Last time, that just entailed going to a well-organized New Year’s party. I wouldn’t consider that exceptionally stressful.”

“That’s just the beginning. Don’t tell me you want to be dragged along to every dinner party and every downtown outing and every birthday I go to in the foreseeable future,” Yves says. “On top of working 60 hours a week, you’ll have to say goodbye to your weekends.”

“So that’s why you’re plotting our breakup.”

“Yes,” Yves says. “I’d need to explain to everyone how I dropped the ball.”

“I’m sure those new glasses must’ve been the dealbreaker.”

Yves laughs. Truthfully, Vincent could wear the most terrible, unflattering glasses in the world and still manage to look like someone whom Yves wouldn’t bat an eye at upon spotting at a photoshoot. The fact that his current glasses actually complement him very well, and the fact that he knows how to dress himself is just salt to the wound. “Yes, that’s the entire reason why I dated you in the first place. The glasses.”

“If you wanted to keep our false relationship up for a couple months,” Vincent says, “I wouldn’t mind.”

Yves—who, until now, has been walking in the opposite direction of the floor on which he works—stops walking. “Pardon?”

“I like your friends,” Vincent says. “And more importantly, I don’t think it proves a point to Erika if you’ve just gotten into a relationship you couldn’t keep. So if you wanted to keep this arrangement for a little longer, I would be fine with it.”

Yves considers this.

He’s asked more than enough of Vincent already. But Vincent is right. He’s sure Erika must have her fair share of doubts about all of this—about Vincent, about their fake relationship, about its longevity. She seemed skeptical, when he’d last seen her, that Yves could’ve moved on so quickly. The worst thing about it is that he can’t blame her for that doubt. The worst thing about it is that he’d spent so much time accounting for his future with Erika that he hadn’t seen her start to slip away, hadn’t noticed the first sign of inadequacy, the first time her gaze lingered on someone else, the first time he ceased to be all that she wanted. He hadn’t steeled himself for a future without her, and now, half the time, it feels like he’s still playing catch-up.

If he wants to commit to this fake relationship, he’ll need more than one outing to show for it.

And, despite all odds, Vincent is offering just that.

“Okay,” Yves says, before he can think about how bad of an idea this is. It is really, really inadvisable. He’s sure if he weighs his options for more than a few seconds, he will come to the conclusion that he should be shutting his mouth. “If you’re sure—and only if you’re actually sure—what are your plans after work next Tuesday evening?”

“Nothing as of now,” Vincent says.

“Great. If you can make it, there’s a potluck. Joel’s hosting. He recently finished moving into a new apartment, so I think it’s something of a housewarming party. He lives a little North, past the stadium, so I think I’ll head there right after work—I can drive you.”

“That works,” Vincent says. “What kind of food does he like?”

“I’m not actually too sure,” Yves says. “I think he’s a fan of spicy food. But honestly, I think he’ll be grateful if you bring anything at all—which you don’t have to, by the way. You’re the esteemed guest, here.”

“I’m sure Joel’s new apartment is technically the esteemed guest,” Vincent says. “But I’ll be there.”

“Okay,” Yves says. “It’s a date. I’ll make it up to you in any way you want, by the way—if there’s ever an instance where you need me to lie for you, I’ll do it.”

“Duly noted,” Vincent says. For what Vincent would ever have to lie about, Yves can’t guess.

More importantly, he has a date for next Tuesday. Something about it is more exciting, even in its dishonesty, than it has any right to be.

—

It’s only a few moments after Yves presses the doorbell that Vincent emerges, holding a couple plates covered meticulously with aluminum foil.

“I haven’t cooked for anyone in awhile,” he says, a little sheepishly. “I hope this doesn’t make a bad impression on your friends.” “Are you kidding? It smells really good,” Yves says, and it does—from the doorway, he can make out the scent of sesame oil, roasted garlic, ginger. “They’ll definitely like it.”

Vincent looks off to the side. “We’ll see.” It takes a moment for Yves to properly parse his expression for what it is.

It never occurred to Yves that Vincent might actually be nervous. At work, it’s rare to see Vincent even remotely out of his element—he always volunteers to take on their more difficult clients, and even on the rare occasion that something falls out of his expertise, he picks things up quickly. Yves has seen him give presentations at conferences without a sweat, articulate as ever.

If Vincent had been nervous, those times—over prestigious conferences, over negotiations with major clients, over other difficult points of contention—it hadn’t shown. Either he wasn’t nervous at all, or he was just good at hiding it. But he’s nervous now, Yves realizes, which means—

Vincent wants to make a good impression on his friends. It won’t be his first time meeting Joel, but it’ll be his first time talking to Cherie, Joel’s fiancé, or Giselle, one of Cherie’s friends from work. Mikhail and Nora will be there too. All in all, it’s a decently sized group, but Vincent has talked to larger groups of people before without so much as a shaky voice.

Something about it—about the seriousness with which Vincent regards this whole arrangement—is strangely endearing.

“You have nothing to worry about,” Yves says, and means it in more ways than one.

—

Joel’s new apartment, as it turns out, is already decently furnished, even though Joel had sent out the invitation with the disclaimer that everything is a mess, please bear with us.

“When you said everything would be a mess,” Yves says, leaving his shoes in a line at the door, “I thought your apartment would actually be something other than spotlessly clean and well arranged.”

“It’s easy to make things look neat if you move all of the clutter into the closets,” Joel says.

“It’s just a few boxes,” Cherie says. “But it was tricky to figure out how to place things. It’s a lot more spacious than the apartment we had in college.”

“No kidding,” Yves says. “It’s a seriously nice place.” Back in their last two years of university, Joel and Cherie had gotten an apartment just a few buildings down from the apartment which Yves picked out with Mikhail—they had similar floor plans. Yves distinctly remembers the space: creaky floorboards, space heaters lined up against the walls to last them the winter; decent natural lighting, and never enough kitchen space.

Back then, he and Mikhail had had separate rooms, so their apartment became a spot in which Erika became a frequent visitor, and then, at one point, stopped visiting at all.

But that’s not the point. The point is, the apartment Joel and Cherie have picked out is much nicer than the one they’d had in college—for one, it’s more spacious, and the entire building has nice facilities and looks newer—and Cherie’s eye for interior design has only helped their cause.

“I’m glad you were able to come!” Cherie says, turning to Vincent. “Yves is always telling me about how busy you are with work.”

“He’s the one putting out all the fires,” Yves says.

Vincent smiles, extending a hand for her to shake. “Cherie, right? It’s nice to meet you. And you’re—” He turns to Joel, with a slight sniffle. “Joel. I think we met last time.”

Cherie squeezes his hand. Joel laughs and says, “I’m surprised you remember my name.”

“He’s good with names,” Yves says. An acquired skill from all the hours of networking, probably.

“That’s a useful skill to have, especially if you’re dating Yves,” Joel says. “I swear he knows everyone.” He goes on to tell a story about how, back in university, Yves almost accidentally got elected as vice president for a business club he’d only shown up to once.

At some point into the conversation, Yves ducks into the kitchen to help with setup. He sets out the dish he’s brought—salmon sliders with mango salsa—and the beef skewers that Vincent made earlier (he’s not sure why Vincent was worried in the first place, because the skewers look very competently made). After that, he busies himself with finding a way to keep everything temporarily covered until they eat.

Something soft and fuzzy winds around his ankles.

He looks down, and the soft and fuzzy thing looks back at him with pointy triangular ears. This is news to Yves.

“You guys have a cat?!” He shouts from the kitchen, vaguely in the direction where Joel and Cherie should still be standing. “Since when?”

“Since a month ago,” Joel shouts back.

“Her name is Gingersnap,” Cherie adds. “Gin for short.”

“Oh,” Yves says, kneeling down to scratch her behind the ears. His hands are a little calloused from all the snow he’s been shoveling lately, but Gingersnap purrs anyways, evidently unbothered. “What the hell, guys, now I’m never going to be able to leave your apartment. Consider me a permanent resident.”

“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” Cherie says.

At some point, Gingersnap gets up, mewing, and heads out of the kitchen, and Yves resumes life as an active contributor to the potluck’s success. When he finishes reheating everything up, setting the table, arranging the dishes, and filling up two pitchers with iced water, he wanders back out into the living room. Vincent is there, alone, except he’s not really alone, because…

Oh.

God.

He’s kneeling down, unmoving, speaking to Gingersnap in a soft, low voice, holding out a hand for her.

She approaches him, a little tentatively, and then nuzzles her orange head into the crook of his hand. Vincent smiles—a soft, private smile. “Hi, Gin,” he says.

There’s the low, lawnmower hum of a purr as Gingersnap rolls onto the ground to let Vincent continue petting her. It’s a heartwarming sight—Vincent, from the office, crouched down to pet a cat that’s smaller than his hand. Yves thinks he might cry.

Then Vincent withdraws his hand, reaches up with an arm to swipe at his eyes. Something jolts through his shoulders, a tremor so slight that Yves wouldn’t have noticed it if he hadn’t already been watching—

“—nGkt-!”

Gingersnap mews at him, perplexed but undeterred. “Sorry,” Vincent says to her, quietly, “I’m not trying— to—” It’s all he can get out before he’s veering away again, this time with both hands tightly steepled over his nose for—

“hhIH’—GKKtt-!”

He sniffles softly, though the sniffle is immediately followed by a small, quiet cough. He reaches up with one hand to rub his nose. Yves watches his expression draw uneven, his eyebrows furrowing.

“hhIH…”

Whatever sneeze he’s fighting seems terribly indecisive—but terribly irritating—for the way he rubs his nose again, his eyes squeezing shut in ticklish anticipation.

“HhIH… hh… HH-hhH-hHIHh—”

He cups a hand over his mouth to muffle the sound, and not a moment too early—

“—hIHh’iiIKKTSHh-!”His shoulders jolt forwards with the force of it, though it gives him barely a moment’s reprieve before his breath hitches again, sharply, urgently. “IiI’DSZCHuuhh-!”

“Bless you,” Yves says.

Vincent turns to blink at him. His eyes are a little red-rimmed and watering. There’s a thin flush over the bridge of his nose.

“You didn’t tell me you were allergic to cats,” Yves says, rounding the corner to close the distance between them.

“Slightly allergic,” Vincent admits, turning aside with a liquid sniffle. “It’s ndot - hhIHH-! - a big deal.”

“I didn’t know Joel and Cherie had a cat,” Yves says. “I’m sorry. I would’ve told you if they did.”

“It’s fine,” Vincent says, with a laugh. “I like her.”

“You might like her, but your body doesn’t seem to be a fan.”

“It’s a good thing that I have a consciousness, so I can codtinue petting her.” Vincent sniffles again, lifting one hand to rub his nose with his index finger. Yves does not know how to even begin to tell him what an inadvisable idea that is, but either way, he doesn’t have a chance to before Vincent’s eyes graze shut, and he turns to face away from Gingersnap before he jerks forward, catching a muffled - “Hh’GKK-t!” - into a clenched fist.

“Bless you,” Yves says. “You know, you’re really not going to make the situation any better if you keep on—”

“nNGKT-!!”

“—bless you!”

“hh—hHhih’iiKKsHHhUH!” The last sneeze is noticeably harsher than the others—it sounds loud enough to scrape against his throat, which seems to be further evidenced by the small cough that succeeds it.

“I’ll ask Joel if he has any antihistamines,” Yves says.

“It’s fide,” Vincent says.

“If you insist on spending time with Gingersnap, wouldn’t it be better to spend it without having to sneeze?”

“I would still have to sdeeze,” Vincent says, as if he’s already experienced in the matter—briefly, Yves wonders how many cats he inadvisably plays with on a frequent basis. “Just less.”

“That would be an improvement.”

Vincent looks away. “Antihistamines mbake me tired,” he says, after a little hesitation.

“It’s a good time to be tired,” Yves says. “It’s not like you have any pressing work to get done.”

“I want to make a good ibpression on your friends,” Vincent says, wiping at his eyes with the edge of his sleeve. “That’s ndot going to happen if I fall asleep halfway through dinner.”

“If you did, I’m sure no one would fault you for it.”

“I’ll take something after we finish eating,” Vincent says. “If things haved’t improved by then. ”

“Okay,” Yves relents, and—since it doesn’t seem like Vincent is leaving anytime soon—takes a seat next to him on the rug. It’s a compromise he can accept.

—

Nora gets there next, followed by Mikhail and then Giselle. It’s Yves’s first time formally meeting Giselle, who turns out to be very tall and a little intimidating—she’s come straight from work, so she’s dressed accordingly, and she talks with the sort of quiet authority that Yves knows is usually indicative of years of experience. Right before they sit down for dinner, Vincent ducks out into the bathroom—‘I need to look at least marginally presentable,’ he’d said, seeming like he was in a rush—so Yves saves him a seat at the table.

“Yves,” Giselle says, taking another salmon slider. “You made these entirely from scratch? This is delicious.”

“Thanks,” Yves says. “To be honest, it was a bit of a gamble. I wasn’t sure if the sauce was going to pair well with it.”

“Yves is really good at cooking,” Mikhail says. “That’s half the reason why I roomed with him in college.”

“So what’s the other half?” Cherie says.

“The other half is that he lets me eat his food,” Mikhail says.

Yves laughs. “For a second, I thought you’d have something nice to say about my personality.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Mikhail says.

“Yves is very good at cooking,” Vincent says, emerging from the hallway. Yves blinks at him. Whatever he’d done in the bathroom has done wonders—he looks remarkably put together. Not a strand of his hair is out of place. His eyes are dry, not red, not teary, not irritated, his collar crisply upright, his voice devoid of congestion. The only telltale sign about his ailment is the slight bit of redness to his nose, but it’s winter—that could easily be chalked up to the cold.

He slips easily into the seat next to Yves, his posture impeccable. Yves does everything in his power not to stare.

“I think he’s responsible for some of the best hot chocolate I’ve had,” Vincent continues. That remark is surprising, too—repurposed from a memory as it is, it seems almost like something that could be genuine.

But Yves remembers how easily Vincent had lied, back on New Year’s—how easily he’d drawn the fictitious threads between them, almost thoughtlessly, as if they had always existed.

I could make better hot chocolate, Yves thinks, before he can stop himself. I could really make the best hot chocolate you’ve ever tasted, if I just had time. It’s an absurd thought, and one that he doesn’t have much grounds for. He had been pressed for time, back then—he hadn’t known when Vincent’s ride was going to be arriving—but even if he’d really, properly tried, even if he’d succeeded in making the best hot chocolate he’s capable of making, there’s no guarantee that Vincent would’ve liked it.

He’s surprised by the pang in his chest, now, the desire to make true something that he knows to be false, to be worthy of the compliments that Vincent’s so easily spoken about.

“That’s definitely an exaggeration,” Yves says. “Technically, Mikhail didn’t even know that I knew how to cook when we signed the lease. The real reason why we roomed together is much more interesting.”

It’s a story he’s told before, though Cherie and Giselle haven’t heard it before. It’s easy to fall into it again: Mikhail and Yves met in their first year, over a group project in an intro to finance class. The two other members of their team had been dead weight, and at the time, Yves had thought—incorrectly—that Mikhail was just as bad as the rest of them.

It’s practically a comedy of errors—a series of miscommunications had led them to each finish the project independently. Yves remembers the all-nighters he’d pulled for that, nervous and over-caffeinated, until the day before the presentation, where he found that Mikhail had not—unlike the other members of their group—spent the last few weeks slacking off.

Beside him, Vincent goes still.

When Yves chances a quick look at him, he sees: a slight, almost imperceptible ripple to his expression, before it smooths out again.

He nearly backtracks—his first thought is that perhaps something he’s said is the source of Vincent’s irritation—but then Vincent turns his face away. There’s the slightest disturbance to the line of his shoulders, and then—

“—gkT-!”

The sneeze is barely audible, stifled as it is into a half-closed palm, though the gesture is subtle, too—easily mistaken as Vincent simply looking away, resting his chin on his hand.

“I can’t believe you guys are still friends after all of that,” Nora says.

“Right,” Yves says. “I was so ready to never talk to him again. But obviously, we still had to give the presentation.”

He talks about how, in a half-asleep effort to salvage the project work, he and Mikhail had found some way to relate their findings to each other, to loosely bind the disparate subjects into a coherent thesis. Mikhail talks, too, about how they’d manipulated their presentation to get their combined work to seem sufficiently on topic.

Mikhail is halfway through his story when Yves sees Vincent jolt forward beside him.

He looks up just in time to catch the tail end of a sneeze—expertly stifled, just like the others—into a clenched fist. This one’s a little more forceful, even in its quietness—it leaves Vincent hunched over for just a moment, his shoulders slightly slumped, before he straightens again, covertly lowering his hand.

There’s a slightly hazy, distant look to his features, as if whatever’s been bothering him hasn’t begun to let up yet.

Yves nudges him with his arm. Vincent doesn’t exactly jump at the contact, but he does freeze, his shoulders stiffening.

“Hey,” Yves says, quietly enough that he doesn’t think anyone else should be able to hear. “You okay?”

Vincent nods.

“You sure you don’t want to take anything?”

Another nod.

“I can’t tell you how little either of us proofread that paper,” Mikhail is saying.

“I reread it three months later,” Yves admits. “And he’s right. We really didn’t proofread it.”

But it was a winning proposal, even though they’d both been too tired to realize it then. And still, Mikhail had still managed to hold a grudge against him for two long months. And then Mikhail had run into last-minute problems with his upcoming lease arrangement, and Yves had happened to find a decently priced two-bedroom apartment with no roommate, and he’d reached out half as a joke.

“You know those friends who say they can never room together?” Mikhail is saying. “Like, they hang out all the time, or they’ve been friends for years, or they trust each other with their lives, or whatever. But the second you put their living habits in close proximity, everything goes to shit? I think we were the opposite.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t just because you two never had a good enough relationship to ruin in the first place?” Nora says jokingly.

She has a point. Yves is starting to think that all of the formative relationships in his life have all happened by accident.

—

Vincent and Giselle get along very well, Yves notes, listening to the two of them talk. Halfway through dinner, they get into a heated discussion about the more outward-facing expectations at work, as Joel and Cherie exchange knowing glances. Giselle talks about feeling accountable for the team she manages—for knowing that if they don’t perform, she’ll take the fall for them; for being careful not to disperse the stress from higher ups unevenly, for constantly feeling her way through how much work is reasonable to expect of them. Vincent talks about the stress of apportioning work to others—the knowledge in his own competence and the knowledge gap when it comes to how others will handle things, the desire to take on more work alone to make sure everything is accounted for.

Nora, who’d had an internship at a different firm after each year in college, weighs in too on the management styles she’d been under, to what extent the expectations from leadership affected the dynamic between her coworkers.

It’s interesting, Yves thinks, that they all have their own subset of worries, even when they come across as people who are so certain of themselves.

As the others speak, Vincent stops periodically to rub his nose with the knuckle of his index finger—an action that always seems to keep the irritation at bay, but never seems to mitigate it entirely. For a moment, his expression goes hazy, his eyes watering ever so slightly, but it always lasts only a moment.

When Mikhail cracks a joke that has the entire table laughing, Vincent takes the opportunity to cough quietly into an upheld fist. When Cherie talks about her and Joel’s extremely mathematical efforts to fit everything into the car before moving, Vincent turns aside, raising a napkin to his face with a quiet, well-contained sniffle.

It’s difficult to tell, at first. But his attempts to keep quiet, to succumb to his symptoms as inconspicuously as possible, take their toll on him. Every time he jerks forward with a near-silent stifle, Yves can tell, by Vincent’s expression when he emerges, that it’s just short of relieving. Every sniffle seems to only add on to the mounting congestion, in the long run. It’s a slow, almost imperceptible unraveling.

And yet, when Yves asks about it—when he offers to ask the others for antihistamines, or when he offers to make the drive to a convenience store himself; when he suggests that they go out to get some fresh air—he’s always faced with the same nonanswer, the same dismissive, I’ll be fine. The same persistent, Don’t worry about it.

So Yves doesn’t worry about it, for now—at least, not outwardly.

—

At some point after dinner, they disperse. Yves talks to Joel and Cherie about the apartment, about the pains of moving in, about the other places they’d considered and about why this one had been at the top of the list. Then about the cat— “we had been talking about getting one,” Cherie says. “And then one day Joel was wandering around downtown, and one of the pet shops there was holding an adoption event, and then when I got home there was a cat in the living room.”

“He didn’t call you to come pick out a cat with him?”

“Have you ever heard of ‘ask for forgiveness, not permission?’” Joel says.

“He texted me before he brought her home,” Cherie says, and scrolls through her phone until she finds a text that says: Would you kill me if I brought home a cat. Just asking for a friend. And hypothetically if we extended this thought experiment it would be an orange cat that’s 2 months old.

“That sounds like a text from someone who’s absolutely decided already,” Yves says. “Ask for forgiveness, huh? So how’s the forgiveness going?”

“I let her name her,” Joel says.

“He’s on litter box duty for the next six months,” Cherie says.

On the other side of the room, Mikhail and Vincent are having a conversation—it could be because Vincent is the person in the room that Mikhail has talked to least, to date, but Yves has a feeling that it’s so that Mikhail can gain embarrassing intel on what Yves has been doing for the past few months.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Vincent turn away, his eyebrows drawing together, raising both his hands to his face to catch a sneeze into steepled hands. Then, not a moment later, his shoulders shudder forward with another.

“Totally off topic,” Yves says, to Joel and Cherie. “Do you guys have any antihistamines?”

“I think we have some Benadryl,” Cherie says. “It should be in the bathroom cabinet, behind the mirror.”

He does find it there, eventually—next to a box of band-aids and a small cylindrical container of cotton swabs. Perhaps he’ll hand it to Vincent, discreetly, when he’s done talking to Mikhail. Vincent had said antihistamines made him tired, but now that dinner is over, it shouldn’t be an issue—Yves suspects people will start heading out soon, and he’ll be the one driving, anyways.

When he steps out into the hallway, Mikhail and Vincent are in the middle of a conversation. It’s a conversation Yves has every intention of interrupting, and no intention of eavesdropping on, until he overhears—

“So,” Mikhail says, “When you first started dating Yves, what was it that you saw in him?”

Yves winces. That’s certainly not an easy question to answer—he and Vincent don’t know each other all that well, and any planning they have done on the basis of their fake relationship has been almost entirely centered around logistics—events, important dates, flagship moments in the relationship, trivia-worthy personal details. Not… this.

But Vincent just laughs, seemingly unfazed. “Honestly, if I told you everything I liked about Yves, you’d want to date him too.”

“That’s a tall claim,” Mikhail says. Yves is positively certain that no permutation of words in the universe could make Mikhail want to date him. “You can’t just say that and not give any examples.”

“I guess Yves is a very considerate person,” Vincent says, with a sniffle. “It actually confused me, at first. When I was growing up, after I moved here from Korea, I was brought up in the sort of environment where there was always an expectation for self-sufficiency. It didn’t matter how young I was, I guess—there were certain things I was expected to know, and certain things I was expected to teach myself.”

Something about his expression looks wistful, if not a little sad. But perhaps this is a trick of the light; perhaps his eyes are just watering from earlier. “My parents trusted me with a lot of things, but it was the kind of trust where they weren’t planning on filling in the gaps for me if I fell short.”

“I know what you mean,” Mikhail says. “That must’ve been difficult.”

“It wasn’t easy,” Vincent says. “But I’m not telling you this because it was a burden to me, or anything. Back then, it was all that I had ever known. It was normal to me, then, because it was inevitable.”

“Yves is a very different person than I am,” Vincent says. “At times, when I was growing up, it felt like kindness was always something that had to be calculated.”

He pauses, sniffling again, before he raises his arm to his face with a forceful—

“hIhh’GKT-! Hh… hh-HHih’NGKktshH!”

“Bless you,” Mikhail says reflexively.

“Thadk you,” Vincent says, sniffling. He lowers his arm. “I was always taught that if you lend a hand to someone else, you have to make sure their success is not the thing that robs you of your spot—that sort of thing. But Yves is kind even without thinking about it. He’s kind even when there’s nothing in it for him.”

“So that was what made you develop feelings for him?” Mikhail asks.

“Eventually, yes,” Vincent says. “At first, I thought that we were irreconcilably different.”

“What changed?”

“Yves is an easy person to like, romantically or otherwise,” Vincent says. “It’s a little disarming to be on the receiving end of his type of kindness. And I think that’s ultimately what made me start liking him. He’s just the sort of selfless person you can’t help but admire, if that makes sense. It’s like—when someone does so much for you out of sheer selflessness, at some point, you start wanting to be a part of their happiness too.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Yves sees a small orange blur—mostly fluff, on four short white legs, with two pointy ears—bound from the kitchen into the living room.

“I get it,” Mikhail says. “That’s an interesting answer. It makes me hopeful that Yves might’ve stumbled into a relationship that will be very good for him.”

That’s a statement he’ll have to revise, Yves thinks wryly, in a few months, whenever it stops being practical for Vincent to keep up this act.

“Oh,” Vincent says, blinking. “What makes you say that?”

“When he and Erika broke up, he was—” Mikhail pauses, briefly, and Yves is thinking about the many embarrassing—but completely, verifiably true—ways he could finish off that sentence. “—he was pretty upset,” Mikhail says, instead, which Yves decides is suitably merciful.

“Look, what’s between them is between them—I’m not going to claim I know all the ins and outs of their relationship. But given that Yves was living with me for much of the time that he and Erika were dating, I’ve seen them interact more times than I can count.”

“I don’t think Erika is a bad person,” he continues. “She’s very ambitious, which I think was good for Yves back when they first started dating. But I don’t think she recognized those things about him—how much he cares for others, how much he gives people the benefit of the doubt, how much he… well, frankly, how much bullshit he’s willing to endure on his end. I think she took his kindness for granted, a little bit, and she certainly didn’t go out of her way to reciprocate.”

“What I’m saying is, I’m glad he met you,” Mikhail says. Beside him, something small and orange hops onto the couch they’re standing next to. “I can tell that what you said was sincere.”

If even Mikhail thought he was being sincere, perhaps Vincent is a little too good of an actor.

“Obviously, it’s early for me to be saying this, so you can take it with a grain of salt,” Mikhail continues. “But I think you could be kind to him in the way he deserves.”

The sentence feels like a punch to the stomach.

And—well.

I’m glad he met you. I think you could be kind to him in the way he deserves.

Yves has really dug himself into this hole, hasn’t he?

Mikhail thinks that Vincent is good for him—Mikhail, one of Yves’s closest friends, someone who is by no means quick to express his approval over whoever Yves is seeing—which means that when they inevitably stage their breakup, Yves is never going to hear the end of it.

Is it cruel to be taking Vincent to all of these events, to be introducing him to all of his friends, when—after the impending breakup—Vincent might never see any of them again? Is it cruel that Mikhail likes Vincent enough to be hopeful that this is going to last?

Yves doesn’t have time to contemplate it more when three things happen.

One—Gingersnap, who is still perched at the very top of the couch, nudges her face against Vincent’s arm and mews softly at him.

Two—Vincent stops what he’s doing to reach out slowly, cautiously, to scratch gently at the fur under her chin. Gingersnap purrs, leaning her head into his hand.

Three—Vincent withdraws his hand, suddenly, as if he’s been burned, twisting away reflexively. He lifts his hand—the same hand he’s been petting Gingersnap with (probably inadvisably) to his face, to cover a resounding—

“hh—hiHH-hHihh’iIZSChHH-uhh! snf-!”

The sneeze sounds ticklish and barely relieving, as if he’s been holding it in all afternoon.

It’s only a few moments later that Vincent’s jerking forward with another ticklish, wrenching, “hh… hhiHH… NgKT-!—hh’hiiIIIK’TSCHhuhH! snf-! hiIh… hIIIH-IITSCHh’yyue!”

“Oh,” Mikhail says, finally comprehending. “You’re allergic to cats?”

“Just slightly— hIh… hH- Hiih—hhH’nNGkT-!” Vincent sniffles wetly, rubbing his nose with the back of his hand. “Sorry to - hh-! - cut our codversatiod short - hH… I… hhiHh’IiKSHhuh! Excuse mbe… hH… Hhh-! I’mb going to rund to the bathroom… hh… hhiIh… hh-HIih’iiIK’SHhUHhh!”

Yves ducks out into the kitchen before Vincent has a chance to head his way. He busies himself with removing a glass from the cabinet and filling it with water, Somewhere behind him, he hears the bathroom door click shut, hears the slightly muffled sound of a sneeze, then another.

He shuts his eyes.

Vincent had said that it was fine. Should Yves have insisted? It’s Yves’s fault, again, that Vincent is in this situation, but then again, he couldn’t have known—both that Joel and Cherie would have a cat, and that Vincent would like her so much. Either way, Yves can’t help but feel partially responsible.

But would it be strange, now, to offer Vincent something to take for it, to openly acknowledge his affliction? Should he have done something earlier? Or should he wait to acknowledge it after they leave?

Against all doubt, he finds himself outside of the bathroom door.

Yves knocks.

There’s the sound of water running, inside, and then the sound of the faucet being turned to shut. Then there’s a brief pause. Yves is contemplating knocking again when the door opens just a crack.

There, Vincent stands, his eyes a little watery still, his nose just slightly redder than usual, his hair slightly out of place—he’s just washed his face, then.

“Yves,” Vincent says.

“Um,” Yves says, holding out the glass of water and, next to it, the bottle of Benadryl. “Thought you could use these.”

Vincent takes the cup, a little hesitantly, and sets it on the bathroom counter. Then he takes the bottle of allergy medicine, unscrews the cap, and removes two small pink pills.

“Thank you,” he says. Yves thinks he’s about to take a sip when he twists to the side suddenly, his eyes squeezing shut, snapping forward with a loud—

“hIIH’IIKKSHh’hUh!”

The hand he’s holding the cup with trembles a bit with the action, but the water inside doesn’t spill.

“Bless you,” Yves says, taking the cup from him, before—

“hIHH… hh-Hhih’iISCHhh’Uhh!”

“Bless you!”

The only acknowledgment Vincent gives him is to take the cup back from him, sniffling, and down the pills in one quick, decisive sip.

“They’ll take some time to take effect,” Yves says, though he’s sure that Vincent knows that already, for the way he knew to take two, even without reading the label on the bottle. “Are you okay?”

“It’s been awhile since my last edcounter with a cat,” Vincent says, sniffling.

“You forgot how bad it was?”

“It gets better with exposure,” he says. And worse without.

Yves says, “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I really didn’t know they’d have a cat.”

“Even if you’d known, I ndever told you I was allergic,” Vincent says. “It’s fine.”

“I should’ve thought to check. Seriously, a housewarming party—”

“I told you, snf, I like cats,” Vincent says, clearing his throat. “So it’s fine.”

Yves looks around—at the bathroom, which looks just as pristine as he’d left it earlier, except that the tissue box on the bathroom counter is a little askew. At the slight tiredness to Vincent’s posture, even as he looks off to the side, tilting his glasses up to his forehead to swipe at his eyes with his sleeve.

“Do you want to get out of here?“ Yves says.

“I cad stay,” Vincent says, as if he really is willing to, despite the side effects. “Do you want to stay longer?”

I want you to be comfortable, Yves wants to say.

Instead, he says, “I think I’ve just about caught up with everyone. Besides, we have work tomorrow, and I think Cherie and Joel do too, so I don’t want to stay too late, you know?”

“Okay,” Vincent says.

“I’m happy you came,” Yves says, stepping past Vincent to put the bottle of Benadryl back into its original spot, where he found it. He snags the glass from the counter on his way out.

“Your friends are a fun crowd,” Vincent says, following him out.

Yves laughs. “I think just between you and me, Mikhail has been dying to interrogate you about this relationship.”

“He did idterrogate me,” Vincent says. “How much of it did you overhear?”

“What?”

“When you were standing out in the hallway.”

Oh. Well, perhaps he hadn’t been as discreet about eavesdropping as he’d thought. Yves says, “Okay, you got me. I heard a good amount.”

“I don’t think Mikhail noticed you there, if you’re worried,” Vincent says. “In any case, it doesd’t matter if you overheard. It was just the same story.”

They step out into the hallway. Giselle has left, already, to be home in time for a cross-timezone call with a team that works somewhere halfway across the world. Yves bids everyone else a goodbye (Cherie and Joel thank him for coming, and Cherie hugs him and Vincent both on the way out; Nora asks Vincent to send her a recipe to his beef skewers, to which Vincent admits sheepishly that he stole from a cookbook, to which Nora says “making it successfully is half the work;” Mikhail says, “If you and Vincent get a place too, I want to be invited to your housewarming party.”)

On the way out, Yves grabs both of their coats off from where they’re hanging in a closet next to the front door, and hands Vincent’s coat to him. There’s never much street parking by the apartment, so the car is parked a couple blocks down, and it’s cold enough to be worth bundling up.

“You’re very good at lying,” Yves says, when he’s sure that the door is shut behind them.

Outside, it’s snowing just a little. Snow falls from the sky in thick white flakes. Vincent pulls his hood over his shoulders, sniffling a little—though whether that’s from the cold or from the allergies, Yves can’t be sure. “Is that a compliment or an insult?”

“Definitely a compliment. I just mean, you play the part really well.”

“So instead of being a good boyfriend, I’m a good fake boyfriend,” Vincent says, lifting his sleeve to his face to muffle a cough into it. “Somehow, that seems much less impressive.”

“It’s arguably more impressive,” Yves says. “It definitely requires a different subset of skills.”

Vincent is quiet for a moment. When Yves looks over, he sees Vincent raise both hands to his face, steepling them over his nose, his eyes fluttering shut.

“hHh… hHh’iiiIKKSshh’uhh!”

“Bless you,” Yves says.

“Ndot— hh… hHh… done — hH-hhIh’nGKKTsHuuh! hHh-hH’IIZSCHHhhuh!”

“Bless you! Cats, huh?”

Vincent hums. It’s snowed all through dinner—the snow under their feet coats the sidewalk, powdery and untouched. Their shoes sink into it while they walk.

“I didn’t know you used to live in Korea,” Yves says.

“It’s not a secret, snf-!,” Vincent says. “But I ndever found an occasion to bring it up.”

Yves can think of a hundred things to say—how it’s strange only learning this information secondhand; it’s strange to play the part of someone who knows Vincent and knows him intimately, and to know so little about him, at the core of it. Isn’t it like that, with coworkers? The only window he has to Vincent’s life is made up of the things Vincent has chosen to share with him—over small talk in the break room, or conversationally over their outings, or during longer drives.

He knows an assortment of trivia, like Vincent’s favorite color (green) or Vincent’s birthday (March 15th) or the number of siblings Vincent has (one), or when he had his first kiss (during his first year in university) or his least favorite chore (vacuuming) or how he spends his weekends (generally at the library downtown, catching up on work or working on his personal projects). But even that was only for the sake of having something to say if his friends asked him—of having a basic understanding of his supposed partner that Vincent could later corroborate.

“Was it very different there?”

“I moved here when I was pretty young,” Vincent says. “But it was very different.”

When Yves looks over, there’s something complicated to Vincent’s expression that gives him pause. “Back then, I was young enough that everything was new to me. So the cultural shift wasn’t as pronounced for me as it was for the rest of the family. I think that’s why they moved back, eventually.”

“Did that happen recently?”

“They moved back just six years after we came here,” he says. “I was in high school at the time, so I stayed with my aunt to continue my education here.”

“Was it difficult living here on your own?”

“Is this useful to you?”

Yves blinks, taken aback. “Sorry?”

“Is this information useful to you?” Vincent says, looking over at him. His glasses have fogged up a little in the cold. “Do you think your friends are going to ask about it?”

“It’s—not exactly useful in that sense,” Yves says, backtracking. “I just wanted to know. But you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

That’s right, he reminds himself—he and Vincent are only doing this for appearances’ sake.

“I got used to it,” Vincent says, finally, which isn’t exactly an answer. “It’s hard to say if—hold on, I— hh-!”

Yves sees him duck off to the side, raising his arm to his face.

“Bless you—!”

“hh-Hhiih’IIZSCHh’uhH!”

The sneeze is muffled slightly into his sleeve. Vincent sniffles, keeping his arm clamped to his face for a moment, in trepidation, before dropping it to his side.

“Apologies, snf-!,” he says, as if he has anything to apologize for. “It’s hard to say if things would’ve been better if I’d gone back with them to Korea. I just know things would’ve been different.”

Yves doesn’t know what to say to that. It feels like something that Vincent has thought about for years, something that Yves couldn’t even begin to comprehend—growing up here, alone. Away from his family, in a country foreign to him, with his family all the way on the other side of the Pacific ocean; staying with a stranger. To say that it had to have been difficult would be a vast understatement.

Had he doubted himself, then? Had it been his idea to stay here, in the States? Had his parents told him it was for the best? Had he argued with them on the subject? Had they listened?

“Do you think you’re happy enough now to justify that decision?” Yves asks.

Vincent is quiet for a bit. Around them, the snow continues to fall, silent and slow, listing upwards on every updrift. “Sometimes,” he says.

—

When they get back to the car, Vincent is quiet. The car is frigid, the window panes cold enough to fog up when Yves puts his hand on them—he puts the heaters on to the highest setting. If anything, being out of the cold seems to make Vincent’s nose run even more—a fact which he carefully obscures, resting his face on the palm of his hand with a few muffled sniffles.

“Thanks again for coming,” Yves says. “I know I—and everyone else—already said that to you like a hundred times. But I mean it.”

“It’s ndo problem, snf,” Vincent says. “I’ll be sure to avoid putting you into contact with cats in the future,” Yves says.

“There’s ndo need for that.”

“While we’re at it, is there anything else you’re allergic to?”

“Not much,” Vincent says. “Unless you pland on getting rid of the entire season of spring.”

“That’s secretly why you chose an office job,” Yves says. “So you could avoid all the pollen by staying inside all day.”

“Busy season was - snf-! - idvented solely for that purpose,” Vincent says.

It’s barely a couple minutes into the drive when Vincent stifles a yawn into his fist.

“Are you tired?” Yves asks. “I mean, you did say that thing about antihistamines making you tired.”

“Wide awake,” Vincent says, before—moments later—hiding another yawn behind a cupped hand.

“Evidently,” Yves says, which earns him a quiet laugh.

“Tell me if you ndeed me,” Vincent says, leaning his head lightly on the passenger seat window. As if this is work, or something. As if Yves could have any conceivable reason to need him during the drive home.

“Not at all,” Yves says. “As a matter of fact, it’d probably be a good thing if you close your eyes. You wouldn’t have to look at all this traffic.” It’s a little past rush hour, but traffic is only just starting to clear up, and driving in the city at any hour has never been a particularly pleasant experience.

Vincent opens his eyes. “Do you wadt me to help navigate?”

“I want you to sleep,” Yves says. “I’m an expert at handling traffic.”

It’s as if all this time, Vincent was merely waiting for permission. Yves isn’t certain if he’s asleep, but he certainly looks to be—when Yves sneaks a glance at him, his eyes are shut, his shoulders slack, and his breathing has evened out. It’s an image Yves wants to thoroughly take in—the slow rise of his chest, his eyelashes fanned out over his cheeks.

Instead, he drives. Instead, he stares hard at the rows and rows of cars before him, at every traffic light, and tries not to think about—

Vincent, at the housewarming party, kneeling down to pet a cat smaller than his hand, despite being well aware of the consequences.

Vincent, calling Yves kind even without thinking about it, talking about him—about his best qualities—with near-artful dishonesty.

Vincent, walking beside him in the snow, talking candidly about growing up here; the unspoken understanding between them about how much he must’ve given up.

That Vincent, the same Vincent from work, asleep in Yves’s passenger seat, while Yves drives him home.

Yves can’t help but think that if he caught feelings for someone like Vincent, Erika would be the least of his problems.

#sneeze fic #snz fic #sneeze kink #snz kink #snz #probably one of the longest oneshots i've posted here #i'm sorry if this is not like #as... snz-driven as usual? it's a little more mellow and i really hope that doesn't make it a boring read #i promise i am in the middle of writing something spicier 😭#my fic #also thank you to everyone who has left comments/come talk to me about fool me twice 🥹 it makes me really happy to know that there are #people out there who like reading these two #yvverse #(<- new tag for them)

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