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loyal puppy — sjy

SUMMARY: Ever since your boyfriend Jake transformed from his nerdy high-school self into the university's star football player, you've become everything you thought you’d never be. Jealous. Anxious. Clingy. But Jake really doesn't mind your newfound possessiveness. He encourages it, even. So when he defies expectations again to star in a musical with a stunning costar, you spiral. Now, the “lowkey” relationship you once insisted on gets jeopardized under the weight of your own insecurities.

PAIRING: popular!jake x fem!reader

WORD COUNT: 26k+

GENRE: secret!relationship au, university!au, grumpy gf x sunshine bf (?), smut, angst, fluff, some toxic themes

WARNINGS: mdni, nsfw, porn with plot, tsundere!reader, lowkey crazy!reader, whipped!Jake, lowkey masochist!bf Jake, switch!Jake, emotional constipation, he want that cookie bad, jealousy, avoidancy, football = soccer, unsafe/unprotected sex, cursing, sweat, dacryphilia, storage closet sex, lots of biting/marking, 69, cumplay, jewelry play, begging, failed pull-out method, creampie, squirting, lmk if i missed anything

A/N: Not to pick a favorite child but… I loved writing this fic so much.

jaeyun-ie

0210sjy

━━ PLEASE JUST TAKE MY SISTER OUT SEQUEL.

(🥐) After Riki Nishimura’s hundred-dollar boyfriend scheme works a little too well, everyone now has to survive the aftermath: family dinner.

bf! jake x fem! reader ˗ˏˋ riki is your younger brother, he's annoying, romcom, highschool au, (kind of) mean reader, patient jake, fluff, just fluff, cute stuff 📌💌 very short ficlet sequel of PLEASE JUST TAKE MY SISTER OUT. anj’s note: i didn’t expect the amount of people to ask for a sequel, im honestly soo happy you guys enjoyed please just take my sister out. i literally did not see it coming at all?!?! i also didnt realize how many people would relate to y/n LMAOOO anyway a few asked the meeting with riki’s girlfriend for the sequel, so here it is! i really enjoyed writing this so i hope you would as well. i might write an actual part 2 because i really do enjoy their dynamic ughh im just not sure how to rn!! ALSO very important, jake and riki is exactly how i picture them age-wise in the photo.

Jake Sim has always been the only person who knew how to hold you without making you feel like something fragile.

He had seen the sharpness, the control, the way your love sometimes came out harsher than your intentions, and it held on through a kind of grip you didn’t know how to adjust. He knew what everyone else called cruel from you was usually just your fear, standing with its arms crossed, pretending not to care. Somehow, he never flinched from the ugly parts. He never tried to smooth you down into someone easier to like, and never prayed for it either — because he liked you the way you are.

Unfortunately, Jake’s personal experience with loving you did not come with a training manual for the general public, to everyone’s unfortunate fate. Other people, tragically, were not Jake Sim.

You were better now, in ways that mattered. Not kinder, exactly, not in the way that made you softer or easier to digest, but more patient and less convinced that every person who entered your life needed to be assessed for specific requirements. Maybe you were a bit classist in the sense that it has nothing to do with class, you didn’t care if someone was rich or poor, actually. You cared if they were stupid, careless, or suspicious.

You had learned how to pause and consider how people would react to you. Sometimes. On good days. With enough effort without giving more than necessary — you’d never give in work for people you couldn’t care less about. Your mouth remains a separate legal entity that needs strict supervision, far greater than your own, wherein Jake actually steps in.

Now, he didn’t have you tethered on a leash, because that would mean he had control over you, and Jake doesn’t believe in fairy tales. He also believed in dismantling the kind of patriarchal system that insisted difficult women only became lovable after a patient man sanded them down into something more socially acceptable. So to say your boyfriend has managed to tame you down and has completely changed you for the better of fitting in social codes! is bullshit and is something that would never happen. That was propaganda. That was something a man with a podcast would say.

It was more of… he had emergency preparedness.

Which was why, by the time you finished preparing food, Jake had already arranged the plates on the dinner table to help you out without getting in your way and letting you do your own thing. Forks on the left, knives on the right, napkins folded neatly beside each plate. He even set out water glasses, juice glasses, and, for some reason, wine glasses.

Riki stares at the table. Then at Jake. “Why are there wine glasses?”

Jake scoffs, like Riki was unreasonable. “For drinks.”

“She’s seventeen. She doesn’t drink wine.”

“I know.”

“So why are there wine glasses?”

Jake picks one up and inspects it like this was a very normal conversation. “For juice.”

Riki blinks. “Juice.”

“You can put juice in a wine glass,” Jake says.

Riki only stares at him for a long second before looking at you, as if expecting you to step in and restore reason to the room. Unfortunately for him, you are too busy adjusting the serving dish in the center of the table, making sure it sits exactly where it should.

“It looks nice,” you say simply.

Riki exhales, defeated. “She’s just coming over for dinner.”

You glance up. “I’m aware.”

Still, you leave the wine glasses where they are.

It is not that you are nervous. At least, that is what you tell yourself while wiping the counter for the third time, checking the food twice, and pretending not to notice Jake quietly moving around the dining area in the way he always does now, helping without getting in your space. He knows better than to take over. He only fills the gaps you leave behind, setting down plates, moving chairs, handing you a towel before you ask for one.

“You’re doing too much,” Riki says finally, watching as you wipe the edge of the counter one last time.

“I made dinner because she’s coming here for the first time.” You glance at him, and for once, there’s no sharpness in it. “I want to put effort,” you say. “She’s important to you, so I’m going to treat her like she is.”

Before anyone can say more, the doorbell rings.

Riki freezes dramatically — shoulders stiffen, his hand goes briefly to his hair, and for one second, he actually looks seventeen with his first love, scared because you’re meeting her. Your expression softens before you can stop it, watching him mumble a few things beneath his breath and reach for the foyer.

You straighten, inhale once, and deliberately relax your face. Your eyebrows loosen first, then your jaw. You try to make your mouth sit neutrally instead of in the natural line that has apparently made several people assume you find their presence uncomfortable. You even relax your cheekbones, which is a ridiculous thing to become aware of, but you do it anyway — only to try and smile anyway.

Jake notices, obviously. He comes to stand beside you, his arm slipping over your shoulders, warm and easy. You glance at him, trying not to ruin your work. “What?”

He presses his lips together, but his eyes are already amused. “Nothing.”

“You’re laughing.”

“I’m not.”

“Are you making fun of me?” You glare at him, but unfortunately, ends up ruining all the work you have just done.

He laughs under his breath and pulls you a little closer, not enough to make a scene, just enough for his thumb to brush once against your shoulder. “No. You just look cute.”

The front door opens, which makes you and Jake both go quiet at the same time, though his arm stays comfortably around your shoulders while you immediately stiffen.

“Relax, okay?” he murmurs, low enough that only you hear him.

“I am relaxed.”

“You’re not.”

“I was,” you whisper back, eyes fixed toward the hallway. “Riki is making me tense. You’re also making me tense.”

His mouth twitches. “He’s nervous.”

“He said it himself, it’s just dinner.”

“I know, baby.”

“You’re not helping.”

“I’m literally holding you.”

“Exactly, now I’m tense again.”

He laughs under his breath, and you glare up at him again, which, unfortunately, ruins your face for the second time. He only looks more amused, his thumb brushing slowly against your upper arm as if trying to smooth the tension out of you by touch alone. From the foyer, you hear Riki’s voice, lower and softer than usual, which makes something inside you pause. He says something you don’t catch, then a girl answers, her voice careful but sweet. There is the quiet sound of shoes being removed, then footsteps moving closer toward the dining room.

Jake’s hand starts moving lightly over your arm, not enough to distract you, just enough to remind you to breathe when he can feel that you’re growing nervous too.

You’re nervous because for the first time since Jake, you care about being liked.

Riki appears in the doorway first, already looking embarrassed before anyone has even done anything. His hand hovers at the small of her back, not fully touching, just guiding her forward like he wants to be careful with her but does not want anyone to notice. That alone makes you want to be nicer immediately, though instinct comes first and you also want to make fun of him.

The girl, neat and pretty, exactly the kind of girl you expected Riki to like. Not loud kind of pretty, or trying too hard to be noticed. Just soft-faced and carefully put together, with her hair tucked behind one ear and both hands holding a small paper bag in front of her. She looks nervous and polite, but not helpless and boring. There is something bright in her expression when she glances at Riki, something that makes his ears go red when he catches it.

He clears his throat. “This is her.” He immediately looks annoyed with himself for a shitty introduction. “I mean, this is my sister.”

The girl smiles at you, a little shy but trying. “Hi. It’s nice to meet you.”

You make sure your face is still behaving before you smile back, lifting your eyebrows and relaxing your eyes. “It’s nice to meet you too.”

“And this is Jake,” he says, already sounding tired before the sentence is even finished. “My friend. Her boyfriend.”

Jake smiles. “Hello.”

For a second, it goes very well.

Riki’s shoulders lower slightly and Jake’s arm loosens around you. Riki and the girl steps further into the dining room and she notices the table, the food, the glasses, the napkins, the ridiculous amount of effort you had pretended was casual even though you really did give more than you would.

“This is really nice,” she says, smiling so wide and bright, then seems to remember the paper bag in her hands. “Oh, I brought something. It’s just pastries. My mom said I shouldn’t come empty-handed.”

“That’s sweet,” you say, already nodding in appreciation.

Then she adds, with a small nervous laugh, “Especially if it’s you.”

What the fuck does that mean?

You pause, though it isn’t a big, dramatic thing. To anyone else, it probably looks like you are simply processing what she said like a normal person. But unfortunately, everyone in the room knows you and knows that you are not doing that. Riki freezes first, because he has lived with you long enough to understand what careless words mean to you, his face going blank.

Then you nod slowly, because the worst part is, you are not even mad. You are curious, deeply curious, academically curious, the kind of curious that has ruined evenings before because you’re an older sister who can’t let things slide.

“Sorry,” you say, still polite. “What does that mean, exactly?”

She looks suddenly unsure. “Oh. Riki just told me you’re a bit unhinged sometimes. So I wanted to put my best foot forward.”

She is smiling, though not plainly rude, she looks like she has said something funny and is waiting for the room to understand it as a joke. Riki seems to understand this too, because he lets out this small, awkward laugh, like he is trying to help her land the joke before you set it on fire. Jake does the same thing, smiling polite and easy, to smooth the room over, but his arm tightens around your shoulders, and he straightens beside you, casual enough that it might pass as posture.

You, however, are not laughing yet. You are looking at her, a little amused, even impressed. Because she is standing in your dining room, holding pastries with both hands, looking sweet and proper, and somehow still had the nerve to call you unhinged to your face before the dinner you made yourself.

Interesting. Very interesting.

You nod once, slowly. “Okay.” then you breathe. “Calling me unhinged five seconds after walking in is —”

Then Jake’s hand covers your mouth.

One second you are speaking, the next his palm is gently but firmly over your mouth, cutting off whatever fire had been lining itself up behind your teeth. The room goes silent, then you slowly turn your eyes up to him. Jake smiles at Riki’s girlfriend like this is normal, like he did not just manually mute you in your own house.

“She thinks you’re funny.”

You make a muffled sound against his hand.

He glances down. “You do.” He keeps his hand there even when you glare at him.

Riki stares at the two of you with a mixture of horror and resignation. “Yeah. They’re like that. Sorry. It’s kind of their dynamic.”

His girlfriend looks between you and Jake, then at Riki, then back at you. For one second, she seems unsure whether she should apologize, laugh, or leave the pastries on the nearest surface and run — which is what most would consider the safest option, but instead, she laughs. It is small at first, but it turns real when she sees the way Riki’s ears have gone completely red and the way Jake is still holding you like a person trying to keep a cat from knocking a glass off the table.

“I’m sorry,” she says, smiling now. “I really meant it as a joke. I just thought of breaking the ice a little.”

Jake slowly lowers his hand, but his arm stays around you just in case. You hate that, you hate being treated like a rabid animal (you are, in this scenario, you really are). You inhale through your nose and fix your expression with as much dignity as possible. “I know. I understand the joke.” but you’re not laughing.

You nod once, polite. “I just think it’s very brave.” Jake’s eyes close for half a second. “It takes a lot of confidence to walk into someone else’s house shamelessly —”

Jake’s hand covers your mouth again, faster this time around. More resigned, like he knew the first intervention had only delayed the inevitable and was now dealing with the consequences of optimism.

You freeze beneath his palm, offended all over again.

Jake smiles at Riki’s girlfriend. “She appreciates your confidence,” he says smoothly. “And the pastries. We’ll eat them for dessert.”

Your eyes narrow, attempting to talk but your words are muffled. He keeps his hand there.

Riki, who looks like he is aging in real time, turns to his girlfriend with a stiff smile. “Let’s just eat. She cooks great food.”

The sudden rushed compliment makes you pause, which works better than Jake’s hand. Your irritation loosens by half an inch, and only then does he slowly remove his hand from your mouth, before placing both his hands over your shoulders and gently steer you toward the kitchen.

The second you reach the kitchen, you whip your head to him and whisper, “She called me unhinged.”

Jake reaches past you for the serving spoon. “Technically, Riki did.”

You stare at him. “And she repeated it. In my house.”

“She was just joking, baby.”

You grab the bowl of pasta from the counter, still whispering because you are civilized, apparently. “And you covered my mouth twice. That was crazy of you.”

He sighs. “I had to.”

“No, you did not have to.”

“You were about to call a seventeen-year-old shameless.”

When you freeze because he did make a point without having to rub it on your face, he then exhales a laugh and takes the heavier dish from you before you can protest, carrying it like he knows you’ll keep arguing better with your hands heavy. “You’re doing fine. Just be careful with her, she’s new.”

You inhale once, slow enough to remind yourself not to speak in weapons, then head back to the dining room with Jake following behind you, dish in hand and looking far too pleased for someone who had just done censoring. Riki and his girlfriend are already seated when you return. She sits neatly with her hands in her lap, taking in the table with careful politeness, while Riki looks like he has not breathed properly since he opened the door.

You smile again, because she’s new and you don’t want to scare her anymore. Jake catches it and has the audacity to look fond. You then sit across from them while Jake sits beside you, close enough for his knee to brush yours under the table, which you pretend not to notice.

For a few moments, dinner begins normally.

Plates are passed around, the wine glasses are filled with juice, as Jake planned. Riki relaxes little by little, especially when his girlfriend compliments the food and you do not immediately ask her for a detailed explanation of what she means by that — even though you want to ask just that. You only say thank you, which makes Jake glance at you like you have just performed a miracle.

Then Riki reaches for the tongs. “What do you want?” he asks her, voice quieter than usual.

She looks at the food, still shy. “Maybe just some of the crab rangoon bread.”

He nods and puts a few on her plate, carefully enough that you have to look down at your own plate to stop yourself from smiling too hard. Because it is sweet, sweeter than the teenage boy had ever been to anyone.

Unfortunately, Jake also notices. Without a word, he reaches for the tong, mimicking Riki’s careful expression so obviously that when you realize, you immediately swat his hand away.

“Stop.”

Jake bites his lip, trying not to smile. “What? I’m just serving you.”

“Stop it.” you hiss before you give him a look, but he only lowers his head and reaches for his glass, still smiling into it like he thinks he is subtle. He is not subtle. He has never been subtle a day in his life when it comes to annoying you.

Across the table, Riki stares at both of you. “Can you two stop?”

Jake, unhelpfully, says nothing, while you sigh and apologize.

Dinner continues after that, though with the fragile peace of something that knows it has survived two near-death experiences already. Riki’s girlfriend eats carefully at first, then relaxes when you ask if she wants more pasta instead of asking for her full academic history. Riki, to his credit, keeps checking on her without making it too obvious, which unfortunately makes it very obvious. Then she looks around the dining room, her eyes moving from the shelves to the framed photos, the organized sideboard, the little dish near the entryway where keys are kept. “I really like your house,” she says. “It feels so put together.”

You glance up from your plate. “Thank you.”

She smiles, encouraged. “Riki said you did most of the organizing.”

You are in the middle of taking a bite of pasta, which means the thought arrives before the social filter does. You chew once, swallow, then ask very casually, “Did he also tell you why I had to?”

Jake nearly chokes on his juice, the liquid gurgling in the cup though not loudly, but enough that his hand immediately goes to his mouth and Riki looks like he has just aged another five years in front of the girl he likes. Under the table, Jake’s hand lands on your thigh so fast it might as well have been an emergency brake.

You look at him and he looks back at you, eyes wide, expression painfully calm. His hand squeezes your thigh once, gentle but firm, because apparently this is what your relationship has become now. Morse code for please be more careful.

Riki’s girlfriend looks between everyone, confused but still polite. “Oh, I mean, he just said you’re really responsible.”

“That’s one word for it,” you say.

Jake’s hand tightens again, which makes you look down at his hand, then back at him. “What?”

He smiles at the table. “Nothing.”

Riki puts his fork down slowly. “Can we not?”

His girlfriend presses her lips together, trying not to smile, and the effort makes you pause. She does not look scared this time, because if anything, she looks like she is starting to understand the rhythm of the room. She’s starting to understand you beyond Riki’s unhinged stories about you, and for the second time, another person doesn’t feel like scurrying away.

That should embarrass you. And it does, at least a little, because you’ve learned social awareness. So you pick up your glass and take a sip, choosing to let the subject die before it grows bones and starts walking around the table. After a second, you say, “Sorry. Thank you. I do most of the organizing.”

Jake’s hand relaxes on your thigh and Riki exhales. His girlfriend smiles, warm and careful. “It’s nice. It feels like someone really takes care of it.”

That lands softer than you expect, and your spine relaxes so profoundly. For once, you do not make a joke out of it. You only nod, looking down at your plate. “I try.”

Jake’s hand stays warm on your thigh for another second before he lets go and reaches for his glass. He looks across the table, eyes moving between Riki and his girlfriend. “So,” he says, lighter now. “Where did you two meet?”

Riki pauses with his fork halfway to his mouth. “School.”

Jake nods slowly. “Wow. Detailed.”

You huff a small laugh before you can stop it, and Jake glances at you, pleased with himself. Riki glares. “What else do you want me to say?”

His girlfriend laughs softly, then looks at Jake. “We got paired for a project.” Her shoulders loosen a little more. “He was really serious about it. I thought he didn’t like me at first.”

Jake turns to you, voice low but not low enough. “He’s your brother.”

You nod solemnly. “Unfortunately, yes.”

His girlfriend smiles wider now, looking more comfortable than she had when she first walked in. “It was cute, actually. mean, he was responsible,” she says. “During the project. He kept checking if I was done with my parts, and he fixed the slides when the file got messed up.”

No one says anything right away, not even Jake who usually teases the shit out of the younger boy. Not because there is nothing to say either, but because Riki looks so embarrassed that teasing him feels too easy, and maybe a little unfair. His ears are red again, his fork held loosely in his hand, his eyes stuck on his plate like looking up might make the compliment worse.

You look at him and feel something quiet pull at your chest.

Responsible and nice.

It is strange hearing someone else say that about him, not because you do not believe it, but because you know him differently. You know the boy who forgets to answer his phone, who leaves his shoes by the door, who argues about curfew every time. You know him as your brother before anything else, the one you have to keep taking care of. But she knows this version too, the one who fixes things, checks on people, and doesn’t freak out when there’s a problem.

You clear your throat and look back at your plate before your face can do anything embarrassing. “That sounds like him.”

When you glance up again, Riki is looking at you. Not shocked exactly, because he is not unused to you caring. His expression shifts, small and unsure, like he does not know what to do with being seen properly by you. Not just as someone you have to worry over, but as someone who could be responsible without you standing over his shoulder. Maybe you have been so busy seeing him as a problem waiting to happen that you forgot he could also be someone else when you were not looking.

Maybe you have been unreasonable, and once the thought settles, you look down at your plate and take another bite before your face can fully betray you.

Jake notices anyway. And so he takes over for you.

He sits back, smiling now. “So, what tricks did he pull out of his ass after the slides? Did he act mysterious? Pretend he doesn’t care?”

His girlfriend laughs, and this time it comes out easier. “A little.”

Riki looks at her immediately. “No, I didn’t.”

“You kinda did.”

You and Jake laugh before you can stop it, and Riki points his fork at you. “Don’t laugh,” he says.

His girlfriend smiles into her glass, clearly enjoying this more than she expected to. The nervousness has not disappeared completely, but it has softened enough for her to look around the family table without looking like she is waiting for someone to test her.

After that, the questions continue, though you make sure they sound less like a background check and more like actual interest. The stories come out between bites, one after another, most of them harmless, some of them embarrassing, and nearly all of them at Riki’s expense. Jake keeps the teasing light, Riki keeps hating it, and his girlfriend keeps laughing in a way that makes him look down at his plate every few minutes like that will hide the fact that he likes hearing it.

The room relaxes in small things.

Riki stops sitting so straight, his girlfriend reaches for the juice herself, and Jake’s chair shifts closer to yours without either of you saying anything. At some point, you stop trying so hard to manage the room. Jake does most of the talking now, the three of them fall into conversation easily, voices overlapping, laughter coming in small bursts.

You let yourself sit quietly while you continue eating your food, listening more than speaking, watching Riki talk to someone who looks at him like he is not a problem to solve or a boy to keep alive through constant reminders. She looks at him like he is someone she likes, someone she chose willingly.

At some point, his girlfriend glances across the table and catches your eye. You know you could nod politely or look away or pretend you had only been reaching for your glass.

Instead, you smile at her. Not the careful one you had built earlier with relaxed eyebrows and softened cheekbones. But a small and sincere one.

And she smiles back. Something quiet settles between you, not approval exactly, because you are not her teacher and she is not there to pass. Just an understanding that she is trying, and so are you.

Later, when everyone has started moving around after dessert, the room breaks apart naturally. Riki and Jake end up near the sink, arguing over who is actually helping and who is only standing there only trying to look useful, obviously not wanting to get an earful from you. Your brother’s girlfriend gets pulled into the conversation for a while, laughing softly when Riki complains that Jake is “too comfortable” in the house, but eventually the noise settles behind you as you slip out to the front porch with one of the pastries she brought.

You lean against the railing, pastry in hand, and take a small bite. It’s good, soft, sweet, and clearly homemade, which makes you feel slightly worse about almost interrogating the girl who brought it.

The door opens behind you a minute later. You glance back and find her standing there, hands clasped in front of her like she is not sure if she is allowed to join you.

“Hi,” she says.

You swallow. “Hi.”

She looks at the pastry in your hand, then smiles a little. “Is it okay?”

You look down at it, then back at her. “It’s good.”

Her face brightens, visibly relieved. “Me and my mom made them.” She steps out slowly, leaving enough space between you like she is still learning the proper distance. You appreciate that more than you probably should.

For a moment, both of you just stand there, looking at the front yard while the muffled sound of Riki’s voice carries from inside. She breaks the silence as she says, “I’m sorry again. About earlier. The unhinged thing. I really thought it would be funny.” she winces.

“It was funny,” you say. She gives you a look like she does not fully believe you. You take another bite. “Eventually.”

That makes her laugh, small and careful, but real. Still, you notice the slight rigidness of her shoulders, and her fingers when they fidget with one another. She’s trying, that becomes obvious because you don’t recall anyone willingly staying alone in one room with you — not before or after Jake.

You take another bite of the pastry, buying yourself a second before you say anything too sincere. “I’d like to think that I’m not scary all the time.”

She smiles. “I know.”

You try not to snicker. “You don’t know that yet.”

“I kind of do,” she says, then looks embarrassed by her own confidence. “I mean, Riki talks about you a lot.”

You lower the pastry slightly. “Does he?”

She nods. “Yeah. He complains, but not in a bad way.” she says, laughing softly. “It’s more like… he’ll say you’re annoying, but then he’ll mention you picked him up from practice. Or that you made him eat before school. Or that you texted him because it was raining and he forgot an umbrella.”

Inside, Riki says something loud enough to make Jake laugh, and you remain quiet here. His girlfriend looks toward the door, her expression softening in a way that makes you pause, because you recognize that look. It’s the way Jake looks at you when he thinks you aren’t looking.

“He acts like he hates it,” she says. “But I don’t think he does. I think he likes knowing someone checks.”

You do not answer immediately, because there is nothing funny sitting close enough for you to grab. No sharp comment or an easy correction, just the truth, standing there on your porch in the shape of a seventeen-year-old girl who somehow sees your brother clearly.

So you nod once. “Maybe.”

She glances at you, then says, quieter, “I like him a lot.” Her eyes widen slightly especially when you look at her, like she has surprised herself by saying it directly. “Sorry. That was sudden.”

“No,” you say with a chuckle. “It’s okay.”

She tucks her hair behind her ear. “I know we’re young, and it’s not like I’m gonna marry him right now or anything. I just wanted you to know I’m not trying to get him in trouble or make things harder for you.”

It isn’t some grand statement, but it makes you freeze. It is actually the plainness of it that gets you, the fact that she says it like she understands there is something to make harder.

You are not Riki’s mom, you have never been his mom, and you will never be his mom. But somewhere along the way, between your mother leaving and your father forgetting the smaller parts of parenthood, you had become the person who checked the locks, remembered his schedule, asked if he ate, picked him up, got mad when he lied, and stayed awake when he was late. You gave up so many normal years to make sure he was safe, and he gave you so much shit in return, so much stress, so much noise.

A boyfriend too, apparently, which was still deeply annoying.

You blink once, but your eyes are already starting to sting.

She notices immediately. “Oh my God, I’m sorry.”

You let out a small laugh and look away, wiping quickly beneath one eye with your finger. “No, you’re fine.”

“I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

You sniff once. “I’m barely crying.”

That makes her smile, nervous but relieved. You both stand there with the porch light above you and the muffled sound of boys arguing inside, just before you take another breath, then glance at her.

“He told me,” she says softly. “Uhm. Just. About your mom. And your dad.”

Your face stills and she rushes to explain, eyes widening. “Not in a bad way. He wasn’t gossiping. He just said you had to do a lot. That you’re strict because you had to be. And I think I understood that more after meeting you.” She smiles a little, almost apologetic. “I mean, yes, you’re scary.”

You laugh despite yourself, and she laughs too. “But not in the way he made it sound. It’s more like...” She pauses, searching for the words. “You were kind of just left with him.”

It ruins you enough for your throat to tighten and your eyes to grow wet again before you can stop them. She looks panicked again, hands up like she wants to hold you. “I’m so sorry. That sounded so sad.”

“No,” you say quickly, laughing under your breath as you wipe at your eye again. “No, it’s okay.” You nod, then look down at the pastry in your hand because it is easier than looking at her. “It’s just weird.”

“What is?”

“Hearing someone say that,” you admit, voice quieter now. “Other than Jake.”

Her expression softens and she laughs quietly, looking down at her hands. “Riki talks about him too.”

You blink. “Jake?”

“Yeah.” Her smile grows a little more embarrassed, like she already knows what she is about to say will sound too sweet. “He said Jake is the only one who can tell you to calm down without making you mad.”

You stare at her as she glances toward the door, then back at you. “I think I get it now. It’s just nice. The way he looks at you.”

You immediately look away. “Okay.”

“I know. Sorry. That was cheesy.”

“It was very cheesy.”

“But very true.”

You take another bite of the pastry, mostly to give yourself something to do that is not react like an idiot. “You’re bold.”

“I’m learning from you.”

That makes you laugh. “You’ll need it,” you say, glancing at her. “If you’re going to be around a lot.”

For a second, her face goes completely still. Because the meaning seems to land, and her whole expression brightens before she can stop it, which isn’t loud or dramatic, just this shy, happy thing that she immediately tries to hide by looking down at her hands.

Riki appears halfway through the door a second later, squinting at the two of you like he has walked in on a meeting he was deliberately not invited to. His eyes move from her face to yours, then immediately to the pastry in your hand. “What are you doing?” he asks, already suspicious. “Are you threatening her?”

You give him a deadpan look. He stares back, of course.

“I’m eating,” you say.

His girlfriend laughs softly and steps closer to him. “She’s not threatening me.”

He still does not look convinced, but his hand finds hers anyway, like he has forgotten to be embarrassed for half a second. She lets him, smiling down at their joined hands, and the sight makes your face do something dangerously close to softening.

Jake then appears behind Riki. He takes one look at the porch, at the way Riki and his girlfriend are standing together, then at you. He steps around Riki and comes to your side, his arm slipping around your waist before he presses a quick kiss to your temple.

Riki’s face twists immediately, while his girlfriend, however, makes the worst possible sound, somewhere between a laugh and a squeal she clearly tries to hold back.

Jake ignores them completely, looking down at you instead. “Can I steal you for a bit?”

You barely get to frown before he guides you back inside with a hand at your waist.

“Steal me?” you repeat under your breath.

“Borrow,” he corrects, smiling.

The kitchen warmer from the leftover food and the light above the counter. Jake brings you there gently, not cornering you exactly, just turning you until your back rests against the counter and he stands in front of you, hands on your hips while yours stay on the pastry.

He only looks at you, then his gaze drops to the pastry on your hands, just before you take another bite. “I wasn’t done.”

“I can see that.”

“It’s good.”

His brows lift, innocent in a way that has never worked on you. Then, without looking away from you, he leans down and takes a small bite from the pastry in your hand. He straightens slowly, chewing while eyes remain on yours. For some reason, that makes your face warm faster than anything else he has done all night.

Then, very maturely, you say, “Ew.”

Jake laughs immediately, the sound low and pleased, because he knows you well enough to hear what you are actually doing. You take another bite from the same pastry anyway, mostly out of principle, and his smile only gets worse. Then he leans closer, pressing his forehead down against your shoulder with a quiet laugh. His hands stay at your hips, warm and steady, keeping you there without really keeping you anywhere.

“You’re so mean,” he murmurs.

“You know what you got into.” You huff, but it turns into something too close to a laugh when he presses a kiss to your shoulder. Then another, higher, near the side of your neck, soft enough to still feel like teasing. You try to keep eating like this is not affecting you at all, but Jake knows you too well, and the small smile against your skin says he caught it.

“Stop,” you mutter, though you make no actual effort to move.

He lifts his head just enough for his mouth to brush near your jaw, playful and warm. “Did she call you unhinged out there too?”

You glare at the cabinet over his shoulder. “No.”

“Did you call her shameless?”

“No.”

His brows lift, impressed. “Really?”

You swallow the bite of pastry and give him a flat look. “I don’t like how surprised you sound.”

His smile tilts. “‘Cause I know what I got into.”

You stare at him for a second before realizing he has only thrown your own words back at you, and you roll your eyes, but the smile slips through anyway. Instead of saying anything, he lowers his face and rests his mouth against your hair. Not quite a kiss, just there, warm and quiet and resting. You sigh and lean into him too, your weight shifting from your feet to him, and Jake takes it without needing to adjust.

“I like her,” you say after a moment.

His lips move against your hair. “Yeah?”

“A lot.”

Jake lifts his head just enough to look at you, and his expression is teasing, but his eyes are too soft to fully sell it. “Wow. A lot?”

You narrow your eyes. “What?”

His gaze drops to your mouth for half a second before returning to your eyes, entirely too pleased with himself. “I thought I was the only person allowed to understand you and survive.”

A laugh slips out before you can stop it, light and embarrassingly fond. He lets out a faux disappointed sigh, shaking his head but his smile is kinder. “Now there’s competition.”

“She brought pastries.”

“Very strong opening.”

His thumb brushes once at your side, your throat tightens before you can stop it. Jake lowers his voice. “I’m still the one who gets to hold you after.”

You only look at him, standing close enough that the kitchen feels smaller around you, the pastry forgotten between your fingers, his hands steady at your waist. Jake looks at you for another second, like he is waiting to see if you will tell him to stop.

You do not.

So he leans in and kisses you, soft at first, careful enough that you almost hate him for it. Your eyes close before you can think better of it, and the hand not holding the pastry slips up to his shoulder. Then his hand tightens at your waist, just a little, and the kiss deepens enough to make your thoughts go quiet. Your other arm finds its way around his shoulders too, pastry and all, awkwardly trapped somewhere behind his neck.

He laughs against your mouth, a smile pressing into yours. When you pull back to breathe, he does not go far, his mouth drifts to your jaw instead, and you let out a small, helpless laugh before you can stop it.

“Jake.”

“Hm?”

You tilt your head anyway, trying to sound annoyed even though you are smiling. “Behave. They’re still here.”

He pauses against your jaw before he laughs, low and quiet, his forehead dropping to your shoulder again. “These fucking kids, bro.”

You laugh properly this time, unable to help it, and shove at his chest with the back of your hand. You point the pastry at him. “You’re literally twenty.”

Jake lifts his head, face still tucked too close to yours, and shrugs like you have just made his point for him. “Exactly.”

He only smiles, then wraps his fingers around your wrist and gently brings your hand closer to his mouth. He does not even ask this time. He just holds your gaze, entirely too pleased with himself, and takes another bite from the pastry you were very clearly threatening him with.

You stare at him. “You have a problem.”

Jake swallows, still smiling. “You’re my favorite problem.”

Your eyebrows pull together immediately.

His smile drops by half. “Wait.”

“I’m a problem?”

“No.”

“You just said I’m a problem.”

Jake presses his lips together, clearly trying not to laugh because he knows that would only make this worse. His hand is still around your wrist, but now he looks like he has realized he is holding evidence at the scene of his own crime.

“I meant,” he says carefully, “you are my favorite person who causes problems.”

You stare harder. He closes his eyes for a second. “No. That’s worse.” He exhales a laugh. “Okay. You’re not a problem.”

“Good.”

“You’re just a lot.”

You scoff. “Wow.”

“No, no.” Jake’s hand tightens on your hips you try to pull away, though he is smiling too much to look even slightly sorry. “I like a lot. I love a lot.”

Your face warms before you can stop it. Then, because apparently he has decided to make it worse for your health, he shrugs. “I’m greedy.”

A laugh breaks out of you before you can hold it in, sudden and helpless. You turn your face away, but he follows just enough to catch it, smiling like he has been waiting for that sound all night. “You say terrible things.”

Jake’s smile softens, but he still looks entirely too pleased with himself. “I’m being honest.” His hands settle at your waist again, warm and steady. “You’re scary that I like. Mean that I like. Bossy that I like.”

You stare at him for half a second before another laugh slips out, softer this time, shaking your head because he is genuinely ridiculous. “That is not how compliments work.”

“It worked.”

You hate that he is right.

You hate that he is looking at you like that again, like every difficult part of you is something he has already made room for, and does complain about it. Like he is not trying to soften you into something easier. He’s seen it, and still somehow looks at you like you are the easiest choice he has ever made.

So you stop arguing. You catch the front of his shirt, fingers curling into the collar, and pull him down to you. Jake’s breath catches a little before your mouth meets his again.

This kiss starts soft, but only for a second. Then his hand tightens at your waist and your arm slides around his shoulders, the pastry still trapped awkwardly in your other hand, and you cannot bring yourself to care.

Riki and his girlfriend are somewhere outside. The dishes are still in the sink. Someone could walk in and you should probably be thinking about any of that, because it’d be embarrassing to be caught pressed on the counter like this.

But you do not. Your mind goes blank in the simplest, stupidest way, all because Jake is here.

Jake is close, the warmth under your hands, the smile against your mouth, the person holding you like he already knows where all your sharp parts are and has never once thought to let go.

So, for once, you let yourself stop thinking. You just kiss him back.

holdingmybreathe

fireladylisa

— 𝒸uddles and confessions 𝜗ৎ

໒ྀི 𝖘ynopsis: for as long as you've known him, you've been in love with your bestfriend, zuko. you were good at covering it up, but there was one issue: he won't stop cuddling you! (ft. modern!zuko)

໒ྀི 𝖜ord count: 5.3k

໒ྀི 𝖗ating: 18+, fluff, a little angst, p in v sex, unprotected sex, choking, half of a creampie, oral (fem receiving), smut without plot

Zuko was upset again.

You could tell just from the way he walked into your apartment, muscles rippling underneath his red number 1 jersey, lips set in a thin line and his messy hair falling from the bun he had put in before he left for his game.

He slammed the door behind him, sliding his cleats off with an annoyed huff when he couldn't get them undone as fast he wanted. Then he's ripping his jersey off and tossing it across the living room without a care to where it landed.

You were too sick and tired to yell at him that just because you had given him a key (for emergencies btw) doesn't mean he can just trash the place! Instead you just watched from the couch with a piece of tissue sticking out your left nostril, your favorite fuzzy blanket pulled up to your chest as you lay your head on the arm rest.

Zuko didn't even say anything when he finally looked at you, just huffed and frowned before moving to you and ripping your blanket off.

"Hey! I was using- ah!" You yelp when he freefalls onto your body face first, his large frame squishing you deeper into the couch as he nuzzles his face in the crook of your neck and mumbles, his rough voice muffled and vibrating against your skin.

"I'll keep you warmer."

Your body goes into shock although Zuko cuddling you was nothing new. You two had been best friends since you were in diapers as your dad was best friends with his. You were as thick as thieves and maybe a few years ago this wouldn't have bothered you but now that you were sporting the biggest crush on him, possibly in love with him, it made your heart leap.

The way his hot breath blew onto your skin left it tingling as goosebumps formed on your arms. Just when you were going to tell him to move, he wraps both arms underneath you and tightly around your waist. He presses his body deeper and you actively have to fight back the urge to moan because his body was in fact warming you better than the blanket could.

Zuko was always heated like a furnace and you often joked that in another life he must have been able to wield fire.

zaerilyn

requested by thankgodmyphoneswaterproof ᰔ

5 TIMES ZUKO BURNED THE PALACE + 1 TIME THE MAID FINALLY UNDERSTOOD WHY

art cr @ oouyox on X

18+ MDNI, smut, adult!zuko, fire lord!zuko, established relationship, newlywed, dom!zuko, jealous!zuko, fire lady!reader, water/icebender!reader, cockwarming, oral sex, edging, creampie, semi-public sex, dry hump, etc ... DEAR DIARY, it’s my sixth day as a palace maid & apparently fire lord zuko burns things down whenever he’s alone with his wife. i asked the head maid about it, but she said i’m still too innocent to understand ...? is it because the fire lord is abusive ?! i just hope the kind fire lady is okay :<

O1 | HOPELESSLY DEVOTED TO YOU

The palace staff had quickly learned to read the architectural warning signs. At first, the occasional flicker of the wall sconces was easy to dismiss as a normal side effect of living inside the Fire Nation royal estate, where ceremonial flames burned at nearly every corner and the Caldera heat had a personality of its own. A candle trembling during a tense council meeting was not unusual. A brazier roaring too brightly after the Fire Lord received bad news was simply part of palace life. Firebenders were emotional people, after all, and the palace had housed generations of them.

But then the Fire Lord got married, and suddenly the entire palace became one prolonged fire hazard.

Whenever Zuko was struck by a particularly intense wave of desire for his wife, his inner fire reacted with embarrassing honesty. The decorative flames burning in the iron wall sconces would surge upward, roaring to life in blinding, unnatural pillars of gold. Lanterns trembled on their hooks, curtains smoked at the edges, and the very air in certain corridors grew so thick and hot that walking through them felt like stepping into the throat of a dragon. It became common knowledge among the staff that if a hallway suddenly felt like a furnace and the torches were licking the ceiling, you simply turned around and walked the other way.

No one said anything directly, of course. This was the Fire Lord and Fire Lady, newlyweds and apparently determined to test the structural endurance of every room, corridor, garden, balcony, kitchen, archive, and unfortunately, the royal study. The guards developed a silent rotation around the affected areas. The maids began carrying water basins with the same exhausted professionalism soldiers carried spears. The council, with great suffering and even greater self-preservation, pretended not to notice whenever their notoriously strict, punctual ruler arrived at official meetings with his collar pulled suspiciously high and his hair slightly more ruined than court protocol allowed.

You, naturally, found the entire situation hilarious. Zuko didn’t.

“You’re ruining my reputation,” he muttered one morning over breakfast, glaring into his tea as if the jasmine leaves had personally betrayed him. His hair was still half-loose from sleep, his robe lazily tied at the waist, and the faint reddish mark just beneath his jaw was doing an absolutely terrible job of staying hidden under his collar.

You lifted your teacup with both hands, blinking at him over the rim with exaggerated innocence. “My love, your reputation survived banishment, piracy, treason, and that one unfortunate ponytail era. I think it can survive people knowing you like your wife.”

His golden eyes narrowed. “I do not merely like my wife.”

“Oh?”

His gaze flicked to your mouth, then back to your eyes with the grim seriousness of a man discussing military strategy. “I am devoted to my wife.”

Your heart did something terribly inconvenient inside your chest. Then Zuko, apparently deciding that ruining you emotionally before breakfast was perfectly acceptable royal behavior, added in a lower voice, “Obsessed, even.”

The candle between you burst into a sudden, dramatic flame.

Both of you looked at it.

From the doorway, the head maid closed her eyes and took a very slow breath. “Not again,” she whispered.

O2 | SEVEN MINUTES OF HEAVEN

The first major casualty of your absolute lack of restraint was the royal study. It had started as a minor disagreement over a passing comment made by a visiting Earth Kingdom dignitary, which really should not have escalated as quickly as it did. The dignitary had been harmless enough, charming in that polished diplomatic way, with smooth compliments and practiced laughter that clearly meant nothing beyond courtly manners. You had barely paid him any mind. Zuko, unfortunately, had paid him too much mind.

By the time the heavy doors of the royal study closed behind you both, the Fire Lord’s fiercely protective instincts were already simmering dangerously beneath his skin. The room smelled of cedar, parchment, ink, and the sharp metallic bite of ozone, a scent you had come to associate with your husband trying very hard not to set something on fire. He stood near the shelves with a scroll clenched in one hand, his jaw tight enough to cut glass, while you leaned against the edge of his massive oak map table and crossed your arms.

“You are being ridiculous, Zuko,” you said. The table behind you was covered in carefully arranged naval documents, trade routes, council reports, and one very important scroll that had taken three ministers nearly a week to prepare. “He complimented my diplomacy. That is literally his job.”

Zuko’s eyes flashed. “He complimented more than your diplomacy.”

You rolled your eyes so hard it was honestly impressive you didn’t see the back of your own skull. “You know I only have eyes for you. Besides, you are one to talk. Honestly, with your history, I’m surprised you didn’t accidentally marry half the Earth Kingdom before I got here. Total womanizer.”

Zuko went completely still.

The scroll in his hand lowered slowly, and you realized a fraction too late that you had touched something far more tender than simple jealousy. Over the past decade, Zuko had mellowed into a composed ruler, a man capable of silencing entire council chambers with nothing but a look. But there were still old wounds beneath all that control, places where rejection and loneliness had carved themselves too deeply into him. Your teasing had landed somewhere dangerously close to one of them.

“A womanizer?” Zuko repeated quietly.

His voice was calm, and that was what made it worse. It had dropped into that dark, gravelly register meant only for you, the one that made the back of your neck prickle and your spine instinctively straighten. He placed the scroll down on the desk with careful precision, then moved around the table with slow, heavy steps until he was standing directly in front of you, crowding you back against the polished wood.

“My wife,” he said, his golden eyes burning with raw, defensive intensity, “I haven’t looked at, let alone wanted, another woman in years. I was abstinent before you invaded my palace, pointed a blade at my throat, and drove me completely insane.”

Your breath caught. The firelights in the study flickered at the edges of your vision, but you could barely focus on them with the way he was looking at you, as if the entire world had narrowed down to the space between your bodies.

“That was…” You swallowed, suddenly finding it very difficult to hold onto your smug little smile. “That was a very dramatic answer.”

Zuko only huffed, low and humorless, his mouth twitching like he could not decide whether he wanted to argue with you or ruin you against the nearest available surface.

“Anyway, you have a council meeting in exactly—”

“They can wait.”

“They really cannot.”

“They can,” he said, and there was something almost dangerous in how certain he sounded. His hands found your waist, scorching through the layers of crimson silk as he pushed closer, forcing the edge of the map table to press harder against the back of your thighs. The carefully organized naval reports crinkled beneath your palms when you braced yourself, and Zuko’s eyes dropped to the movement before lifting back to your face, dark and possessive and entirely too pleased with the way your composure had started to slip.

You opened your mouth to respond, but whatever clever retort you had prepared vanished the moment his lips brushed the side of your neck. Zuko had always loved you with a terrifying kind of intensity, and when his emotions caught fire, he had a habit of kissing like he was trying to prove something to both of you at once. Still, there was nothing uncertain in the way your fingers curled into his collar, nothing hesitant in the way you pulled him closer, dragging him down until his mouth finally crashed against yours.

The kiss wasn’t elegant. It was teeth and heat and months of carefully leashed obsession finally snapping under the weight of one careless accusation.

Zuko kissed you like he was still trying to prove a point, like every word you had thrown at him had struck somewhere too close to an old wound and he had decided the only acceptable response was to make you forget you had ever doubted him. One large, calloused hand slid up your spine, fingers spreading firmly between your shoulder blades while the other gripped your hip hard enough to make the silk wrinkle beneath his palm. You answered by biting his lower lip, and the low, broken sound that tore from his throat went straight through you.

“My lord,” you gasped against his mouth, freezing fingers twisting into the front of his robes. “You’re gonna be late—”

“Don’t care,” he panted, voice wrecked and rough. He shoved your skirts up with impatient hands and lifted you onto the map table in one motion. Scrolls scattered. An inkwell tipped over, spilling black across weeks of careful work, but neither of you noticed.

You barely had time to brace yourself before he pushed your legs apart. He freed himself with jerky movements, and the thick, scorching heat of his cock dragged against your inner thigh. You shivered at the contrast.

“Zuko—s-slow down—” The word broke into a sharp moan as he pushed inside you in one deep thrust, stretching you open around burning heat. The clash of temperatures dragged ragged groans from both of you.

He moved with none of his usual restraint after that, the table creaking beneath you as ruined scrolls slipped uselessly to the floor. Your freezing hands clutched at his shoulders, frost blooming beneath your fingertips before melting almost instantly against the fevered heat of his skin.

“You’re unbearable when you’re—ah!—jealous,” you managed between breaths, the words shaky and broken.

Zuko let out a breathless, almost pained laugh against your neck, hips never slowing. “And yet you keep giving me reasons.”

He shifted just enough to find the angle that made the whole room blur at the edges.

“Zuko—right t-there,” you gasped, head falling back as your legs tightened around his waist. The firelights in the study answered before he could, flickering wildly as his control slipped. Flames stretched higher in the sconces, throwing restless gold across the walls, while a nearby candle flared too bright and caught the corner of a discarded scroll.

Neither of you stopped.

Zuko moved with terrifying concentration, one hand planted against the table, the other gripping your thigh as if he needed something solid to hold onto. The room filled with heat, paper crumpled beneath you, and somewhere behind him, another small flame caught at the edge of an old tapestry.

“Zuko—ah, I’m g-gonna—” Your words dissolved into a broken moan as you came first, sudden and shattering. Your walls clenched tight around his burning length.

The cold rush dragged him over the edge right after. He buried himself deep with a choked groan, hips stuttering as he spilled inside you. His inner fire roared so fiercely that two of the wall sconces burst into tall, uncontrolled flames for several seconds before slowly settling.

For a long moment, the only sounds were your ragged breathing and the soft crackle of the small fires still licking at the edges of the room.

Zuko stayed buried inside you, arms wrapped tightly around your waist. His breath was hot and uneven against your neck. You carded freezing fingers through his messy hair and pressed a soft kiss to his scarred cheek.

“…You’re definitely late now,” you whispered, voice hoarse.

When Fire Lord Zuko finally strode into the grand hall—hair slightly mussed, ceremonial robes hastily straightened, and a very obvious trail of fresh dark marks blooming along the side of his neck—the temperature in the palace had spiked noticeably. The decorative fire sconces outside the royal study were still flaring brighter than usual.

Avatar Aang took one look at him, then at the faint sheen of lingering frost melting on Zuko’s collar, and choked violently on his tea.

The rest of the council suddenly found the table extremely interesting.

Zuko, however, simply took his seat with that terrifyingly composed Fire Lord mask firmly back in place. Though the faint, smug curve at the corner of his mouth gave him away completely.

He was exactly seven minutes late.

And he didn’t look sorry at all.

O3 | “SIR, I’M NOT PAID ENOUGH FOR THIS.”

The outdoor training courtyard was not safe from your antics either. The afternoon sun was blistering, turning the stone tiles warm beneath your bare feet, but the heat rolling off Zuko’s skin was even hotter. He moved across the courtyard with lethal precision, dual dao swords flashing in sharp silver arcs as he pressed forward. You met him strike for strike, your waterbending weaving through his aggression like a river cutting through stone. He had trained under masters, survived wars, fought prodigies and assassins and spirits, but you had learned his body in motion with a familiarity that made every sparring match feel less like combat and more like a private language.

He swung low. You stepped over the blade. He pivoted, and you caught the shift in his weight before he completed the motion, twisting your wrist and drawing moisture from the air until it hardened into a wicked, glittering blade of ice. With a sharp sweep of your ankle and a perfectly timed pull of water beneath his heel, you sent him off balance. Zuko hit the ground with a rough grunt, and before he could recover, you vaulted forward, straddling his waist and pressing the freezing tip of your ice dagger directly against the erratic pulse beating at his neck.

“Dead,” you panted, victorious and breathless, a smirk curling at your lips.

Zuko didn’t look at the blade. He looked at you.

His dark hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat, his chest rising and falling beneath the open collar of his training robe. His golden eyes dragged slowly from your triumphant expression to the way your thighs pinned him in place, and the sudden clash of your freezing temperature against his scorching skin visibly wrecked whatever remained of his concentration. A soft cloud of steam curled where your bare legs pressed against him. His hands flexed once at his sides, then slid up to grip your thighs with desperate, reverent heat.

He had simply stopped trying.

“You’re distracted,” you accused, breathless and smug.

Zuko’s gaze flicked back to yours, dark and unashamed. “Well, you’re sitting on top of me.”

“That is a terrible excuse.”

“It’s a very convincing one.”

You laughed, delighted, but the sound barely had time to leave your mouth before his hand moved to the back of your neck and pulled you down into a kiss. The ice dagger dissolved instantly, melting into a harmless stream of water that ran over his collarbone and disappeared into the fabric of his robe. You meant to tease him for surrendering so easily, but then his hips shifted beneath you, and the thought scattered completely. Through the thin layers of training clothes, you felt the unmistakable hard line of him pressed against you, hot and insistent, betraying exactly why his focus had slipped in the first place.

Your breath caught against his mouth.

His grip on your thighs tightened, and when you moved by accident—just a slight shift of your weight over his lap—his reaction was immediate. A rough, strained sound broke low in his throat, his head tipping back against the ground for half a second before his golden eyes snapped back to yours, darker than before. The victory in your expression slowly turned into something far more dangerous.

“Oh,” you breathed, unable to stop the smile spreading across your lips. “So that’s why you lost.”

You shifted again, deliberately this time, just enough to make the heat between you drag in a way that stole the air from both of your lungs. Zuko’s hand slid up to your waist, holding you in place, but he did not push you away. If anything, he pulled you closer, guiding the slow, heated movement until the line between sparring and something far less appropriate blurred completely.

Around you, the courtyard seemed to inhale. The lanterns along the wall flared, the training posts began to smoke, and a nearby guard, who had unfortunately chosen that exact moment to enter through the side gate, stopped mid-step, stared at the scene, and very slowly turned around.

He did not get paid enough for this.

Two more guards followed him without a word.

By the time the flames around the courtyard settled, three practice posts had been scorched, one stone pillar had cracked from thermal shock, and Zuko had somehow managed to look both smug and completely ruined at the same time. You brushed ash off his shoulder later, trying very hard not to laugh, while he stood there with his hair destroyed, his robe uneven, and the kind of expression that made it very clear he had absolutely no regrets.

“This is why the staff avoids us,” you told him.

Zuko leaned down until his mouth brushed your ear. “Good.”

O4 | STEP ONE: CALL HIM ZUZU!

But the most chaotic incident happened in the supposed privacy of your royal bedchamber, fueled by three generous glasses of imported plum wine and your unfortunate discovery of Zuko’s old travel chest.

You were delightfully, shamelessly drunk, rummaging through the old belongings he had kept tucked away at the back of the chamber while he watched you from the bed with the wary patience of a man who knew his wife well enough to expect disaster. There were old cloaks, worn maps, a few dull blades wrapped in cloth, and several items from the years he clearly did not enjoy discussing unless he was already half-asleep and emotionally ambushed by your cold hands on his chest.

Then you found the mask.

The infamous wooden Blue Spirit mask stared up at you from beneath a folded travel cloak, its painted grin just as dramatic as the stories had promised. Your eyes widened. Your mouth fell open. Zuko, immediately sensing danger, sat up.

“No,” he said.

You slowly lifted the mask.

“No.”

“Zuko.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Zuzu.”

His expression tightened. “Don’t Zuzu me.”

You turned toward him with the biggest, most delighted smile he had ever seen, clutching the mask like a sacred treasure. “Katara told me about this.”

Zuko closed his eyes.

Of course Katara had told you. Katara had a gift, and it was not just waterbending, healing, or her terrifying ability to mother people into becoming better versions of themselves. No, Katara had the supernatural ability to make traumatized boys confess their entire life stories to her. Jet, Aang, Sokka, Zuko; somehow all of them had, at one point or another, looked into her kind blue eyes and decided, yes, this girl absolutely needed to hear the worst thing that had ever happened to them.

And now, thanks to her, you knew about the Blue Spirit, which meant Zuko was doomed.

It started as a joke, as most of your terrible ideas did. You had dragged the mask out of his travel chest with far too much excitement, demanded he put it on, and somehow managed to bully the Fire Lord of the Fire Nation into indulging you with nothing but sparkling eyes and a smile he had never learned how to refuse. The bargain had been simple, if deeply unfair: he would wear the mask, and in return you would sit sweetly in his lap—taking him fully inside you and staying there without moving.

Which, technically, you were doing.

The plum wine had left you warm and loose above him, your arms looped lazily around his neck while Zuko sat against the pillows with the last of his dignity barely hanging on by a thread. He was buried deep inside you, thick and throbbing while your walls wrapped snugly around his cock. He tried very hard to act like this was not the most unreasonable form of torture you had ever invented.

The mask stared back at you with its sharp painted grin, pale tusks, hollow eyes, and all the dramatic menace of a nightmare that had learned theater. It should not have been funny. It definitely should not have been romantic. But you, warmed by plum wine and your own terrible sense of humor, looked at him like this was the most delightful thing you had ever seen.

Zuko, unfortunately, had no idea what to do with that.

He had been perfectly willing to toss the mask aside the second you dragged it out of his travel chest, but you had whined so dramatically when he reached for it that he froze mid-motion, one hand hovering beside the painted blue grin.

“Nooo,” you complained, clutching at his wrist with both hands. “Keep the mask on.”

Zuko went still beneath you.

“You can’t be serious.”

“I’m extremely serious.”

“The mask is crooked.”

“That makes it better.”

“It does not.”

“It does,” you insisted, squinting at him with the solemn concentration of someone trying very hard to appear artistic while very drunk. The Blue Spirit’s painted grin stared back at you, all sharp teeth and dramatic menace, while the actual Fire Lord behind it sat painfully still beneath your attention. “You look very mysterious.”

“I look ridiculous.”

“Ridiculously hot,” you said, then reached up with both hands to adjust the strap.

Unfortunately, your coordination had been murdered by plum wine. Instead of fixing it, you somehow made the mask tilt even farther to one side, turning the fearsome Blue Spirit into something lopsided, sulky, and deeply offended. You stared at him for one long, silent second.

Then you giggled.

It was such a small thing. A drunken little request, harmless and silly, made with your eyes bright from wine and your smile too soft to be cruel. Still, insecurity struck him faster than reason could. For one brief, awful second, his mind went somewhere old and ugly, back to every stare that had lingered too long on his scar, every flinch hidden behind polite manners, every person who had looked at the burned side of his face before they looked at him.

His voice came out quieter than he intended. “What, is the mask better?”

You blinked.

Then your expression changed so quickly it almost hurt to watch. The teasing vanished, replaced by something fiercely offended, as if the thought itself had personally insulted you. “No, silly,” you said, already reaching for the edge of the mask. “I just wanna tease you.”

Before he could answer, you pulled it off his face and yeeted it over your shoulder with absolutely no grace. Weee. The mask sailed through the air in a tragic little arc before landing harmlessly somewhere among the cushions.

Zuko stared after it, then he stared back at you.

Without the mask, his face was fully visible in the dim amber light of the bedchamber: the strong line of his jaw, the softness of his mouth, the old scar that had shaped him without ever making him any less beautiful, and the golden eyes that had once burned with anger but now looked at you with something so painfully devoted it made your chest ache. You cupped his face with both hands, your thumbs brushing over his cheeks with tenderness.

“Nothing beats your pretty face, Zuzu.”

Zuko went completely still.

There it was again, that impossible thing you did to him. You could tease him until his ears went red, bully him into wearing an old vigilante mask, laugh at his suffering like it was your favorite hobby, and then suddenly say something so gentle that it cut through every defense he had ever built. You were smiling at him like his face, scar and all, was not something to tolerate or look past, but something precious. Something beloved.

And because the spirits were apparently cruel, you said it while sitting so close, while your body was wrapped around his, while he was already buried deep inside you and trying very hard to pretend he was not losing every last scrap of composure he had left.

It made him want to come right there and then.

“Stop,” he rasped.

You tilted your head, still smiling. “Huh? Why?”

His hands tightened at your hips, not enough to hurt, only enough to keep you still. His jaw worked once, the muscle in his cheek jumping as he tried to gather whatever dignity had not already been ruined by you. “Just…” His voice came out strained, almost embarrassed. “Don’t move, unless you want to get pregnant.”

For one second, your wine-softened mind processed the warning.

Then your smile turned wicked.

“You do know I can just bend your—” You paused, waving one hand vaguely between you with far too much confidence for someone explaining absolutely nothing. “Your fluids, right?”

The gesture made no scientific sense whatsoever, but you delivered it with the calm certainty of a woman who had never once allowed anatomy, physics, or basic decency to stop her.

You leaned closer, lips hovering near his, mischief bright in your wine-soft eyes. “Besides, it’s not like that hasn’t happened before.”

Zuko’s eyes shut for half a second.

“That is not the problem.”

“Then what is the problem, my lord?” you asked sweetly, pressing slow, teasing kisses along the side of his neck, up the sharp line of his jaw, and finally near the corner of his mouth.

His breath left him unevenly, almost a laugh and almost a groan. He looked humiliated by his own body, but too far gone to pretend he was not completely ruined by you. “The problem,” he said, voice tight with restraint, “is that we have barely done anything.”

Your expression brightened with realization.

“Oh,” you whispered, delighted. “So this is about your pride.”

“Don’t sound so pleased.”

“I’m very pleased.”

“Y/N.”

You shifted just enough to make his grip tighten again, just enough to pull a rough, broken sound from low in his throat. His teeth caught against his lower lip, his head tipping back against the pillows as if sheer stubbornness alone could hold him together. It was adorable, actually. Devastating, but adorable.

The more he thought about it, the worse it became. The warmth of you around him, your legs wrapped lazily around his waist, your hands still cradling his face like he was something worth loving carefully. Every soft movement, every breathless little laugh, every fond look you gave him pushed him closer to the edge he was desperately pretending he had not already reached.

So naturally, you moved again.

Ever so slowly. Teasingly. Just enough to shred whatever pride he had left.

The lantern beside the bed flared so brightly the room flashed gold.

Zuko’s composure broke all at once. His hands clamped around your hips, his whole body going tense beneath you as a low, wrecked groan tore from his throat and disappeared into the curve of your neck.

“Fuck, Y/N— I’m—” His voice broke into a wrecked groan. His hips jerked up once, twice, then he came hard.

You felt the first thick spurt of his cum shoot deep inside you, hot and sudden. His member pulsed strongly, again and again, flooding your walls with rope after rope of warm release. It was so much that it quickly spilled out around where you two were joined, slick and messy, dripping down his shaft and over your thighs every time he twitched.

Zuko shuddered beneath you, mouth open in a silent moan as another powerful spurt filled you. His whole body tensed, muscles straining, while the sconces around the room surged with bright blue-white flames that lit up the entire bedchamber for several long seconds. One of the hanging lanterns flared so intensely the flame nearly touched the canopy before settling.

When it finally slowed, Zuko was breathing hard, chest heaving, looking thoroughly ruined and a little mortified. A faint sheen of sweat glistened on his skin, and his golden eyes were glassy with pleasure and embarrassment.

Then you looked down at him, unbearably pleased with yourself.

Zuko dragged one heavy hand down his face as if asking the spirits why they had made him fall in love with the most infuriating woman alive.

“Haa…” he breathed, glaring at you with absolutely no real anger. “You just love to test my patience, don’t you, my queen?”

A sweet, bright giggle escaped you, echoing through the quiet chamber. You leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to his scarred collarbone, feeling his pulse jump beneath your lips.

“Oh, absolutely.”

His laugh was low and wrecked, his hands sliding carefully back to your waist.

And the night, of course, was only beginning.

O5 | THE FIRE LORD IS A SUCKER FOR HIS WIFE

Tucked deep behind the private wing of the palace, the moon garden was quieter than the formal courtyards and far more intimate than the public terraces. Zuko had commissioned it shortly after your wedding, though he had tried to be painfully casual about the entire thing, as if personally designing a secluded garden filled with your favorite flowers, a koi pond cold enough for your waterbending, and shaded stone paths made specifically for evening walks with you was not the most obvious confession of devotion in the world. It had a narrow pond lined with black volcanic stones, clusters of red fire lilies blooming beside pale moonflowers, and a curved stone bench beneath a low maple tree whose leaves looked almost black under the night sky. The servants rarely entered unless summoned, the guards only passed the outer gate during patrol, and the entire place was usually reserved for those rare moments when the Fire Lord wanted silence with the only person he could never bear to be away from for long.

Naturally, that peace didn’t last.

You found Zuko on the stone bench long after midnight. Stripped down to only his outer robe hanging loosely from one shoulder, he stubbornly braved the biting cold as if the freezing night temperature meant nothing. His long hair had slipped free from its tie, dark strands falling over his face and sticking to the damp line of his neck. The moonlight caught the hard planes of his bare chest and abdomen, tracing silver along old scars, tense muscle, and the familiar golden warmth of his skin. One arm was draped lazily over the back of the bench, but the pose was too deliberate, too careless in the way only Zuko could be when he was trying to pretend something didn’t hurt.

Then you saw the blood.

A dark smear stained the exposed skin of his upper thigh, where a shallow but ugly cut had torn. It was not fatal, not even close, but it was bleeding enough to make your stomach twist and your irritation rise immediately behind it. Zuko, of course, looked more annoyed at being discovered than concerned about the wound itself, because apparently becoming Fire Lord, surviving assassination attempts, getting married, and promising to stop carrying the entire world on his shoulders had done absolutely nothing to cure him of his lifelong allergy to asking for help.

“You’re bleeding,” you said.

Zuko glanced down at his thigh as if the wound had personally inconvenienced him. “It’s just a scratch.”

“It’s leaking.”

“That is usually what blood does.”

You stared at him.

He stared back.

The lantern beside the koi pond flickered once, as if even the flame knew he had said the wrong thing.

With a long, suffering breath, you crossed the garden, gathered your skirts in one hand, and crouched down between his parted knees before he could argue again. Zuko’s expression shifted immediately, the sharp edge of his stubbornness catching on surprise. You ignored it, drawing water from the koi pond with a smooth curl of your wrist until it rose in a clear ribbon and wrapped itself around your fingers. The moment your glowing palms settled near his thigh, the moon garden filled with soft blue light.

“You should have called me,” you murmured, keeping your eyes on the wound as the healing water spread gently over torn skin.

“I didn’t want to wake you.”

“You woke three guards, two ministers, and probably half the turtle-ducks by bleeding through the royal hallway, but yes, thank you for sparing me.”

His mouth twitched. “The turtle-ducks are strong. They will recover.”

“You’re impossible.”

“You married me.”

“Still questioning that.”

His quiet laugh was low and tired, but it warmed the space between you more intimately than any flame. You pressed your thumb near the edge of the wound to guide the healing water deeper, and Zuko’s breath caught despite his best effort to hide it. The muscle beneath your hand jumped. His fingers curled against the stone bench, long and tense, while the lantern above his shoulder flared a little too brightly.

You looked up.

He looked away with the stiff, guilty dignity of a man who knew exactly what his own fire had just confessed.

“Zuko.” you warned him.

“I know.”

“You’re doing it again.”

“I said I know.”

“You’re injured.”

His jaw flexed. “It is not related.”

“You’re sitting here half-dressed, bleeding on a garden bench, and somehow still finding a way to be embarrassed because your wife is touching your thigh.”

The faint color climbing his neck betrayed him completely, but he still had the nerve to look offended. “You’re kneeling between my legs and scolding me. I’m reacting with impressive restraint.”

The words landed between you with enough heat to make the glowing water tremble around your fingers.

For a moment, neither of you moved. The wound was nearly closed now, the angry red line fading beneath the blue light of your bending until only smooth, warm skin remained beneath your palm. You should have stood, smacked his shoulder for being reckless, and dragged him back inside before the night patrol circled past the outer gate again. The moon garden was private, yes, but not unguarded; there were still soldiers beyond the walls, servants in the nearby corridors, and a very official expectation that a secluded garden built for quiet walks would not be used for anything else.

Or so everyone kept insisting.

Instead, your hand lingered against his thigh for one second too long, and Zuko’s golden eyes darkened beneath the loose fall of his hair.

The look he gave you made the koi pond steam.

“You’re enjoying this,” he said.

You blinked up at him with exaggerated innocence, though your hand was still resting a little too comfortably against his newly healed thigh. “I’m healing you.”

“You’re smiling.”

“I’m just naturally joyful person.”

“Joyful person, huh? No wonder you threatened to freeze a councilman’s tongue this morning.”

Your expression didn’t change. “He interrupted my breakfast.”

“That doesn’t support your argument.”

A laugh slipped out of you before you could stop it, soft and bright in the quiet garden, and just like that, whatever remained of Zuko’s restraint seemed to fold in on itself. His expression changed, irritation melting into something far more dangerous and far more tender. He looked at you the way he always did right before the palace lost another curtain, like your laughter was the only sound in the world that mattered and his fire had no idea what to do with the feeling.

His hand lifted from the bench and touched your chin, tilting your face up with a gentleness that made your chest ache.

“The wound is healed,” he murmured.

You glanced down. It was. Completely.

“So it is,” you whispered.

“You’re still kneeling.”

“Well, duh, you’re holding my face.”

His thumb brushed once along your chin, then higher, grazing your lower lip with the kind of careful heat that made the entire garden feel suddenly too quiet.

The moon garden went very still around you. The koi pond steamed faintly at the edges. The fire lilies glowed red beneath the lantern light, and the night air warmed until the scent of maple leaves, water, and Zuko’s familiar cedar heat wrapped around you like a warning.

You forgot whatever clever thing you were about to say.

Instead, your gaze dropped, which Zuko noticed almost immediately.

His thumb stilled against your mouth. “Y/N.”

There was warning in his voice, but not nearly enough conviction behind it. Not when he was still half-dressed on the stone bench, hair loose around his flushed face, newly healed thigh still warm beneath your hand, and looking at you like he had already lost the argument before it began.

You tilted your head with exaggerated innocence. “What?”

“You know what.”

You pressed a slow kiss to the inside of his newly healed thigh, right where blood had stained his skin only moments ago, and Zuko’s breath fractured so sharply it nearly ruined his attempt at dignity. His fingers curled against the stone bench before slipping into your hair. His touch was impossibly gentle, as though holding on to you was the only way to keep himself from falling apart.

“I’m very thorough.”

His eyes narrowed. “That is not what thorough means.”

“It is when I’m the healer.”

You looked up at him.

Moonlight painted silver across his bare chest, the hard lines of his abdomen, the old scars scattered across his skin, and the faint sheen of sweat gathering at his throat. His long hair hung loose and messy, a few strands clinging to the sharp line of his jaw. He looked like a man who had survived wars, assassination attempts, exile, palace politics, and half the world trying to break him.

And somehow, this was what undid him.

“You’re going to be the death of me,” he breathed, voice rough and helpless.

Your smile softened for half a second. “Wrong,” you murmured playfully, kissing him again, slower this time. “I’m going to make you feel better.”

Zuko’s laugh came out low and wrecked, barely more than a breath.

Whatever answer he meant to give disappeared when you tugged the rest of his robe aside and freed him. He was already achingly hard, flushed dark and leaking at the tip. You dragged your tongue slowly from base to head, savoring the way his thigh muscle jumped under your free hand.

Zuko let out a shaky exhale, head tipping back against the bench. “Hah—Y/N,”

You answered by taking him into your mouth, slow and wet, sinking down until he bumped the back of your throat. A low, broken sound escaped him—something between a groan and a sigh, like the tension he’d been carrying all night was finally cracking.

You worked him with lazy, deliberate strokes of your mouth, one hand stroking what you couldn’t take while the other rested possessively on his uninjured thigh. Every time you hollowed your cheeks or swirled your tongue, his hips twitched, fighting the urge to thrust.

The muscles in his abdomen flexed visibly with every stroke of your tongue as his breathing grew more uneven. You could feel him throbbing, getting impossibly harder against your tongue.

When you looked up, his golden eyes were fixed on you—dark, overwhelmed, and completely unguarded. The sight made something warm bloom in your chest.

It only made you greedier. So you slowed down, cruelly deliberate now, learning the exact rhythm that made his breath catch and then denying him the moment he got too close. Every time you felt his thighs tense and his member start to throb harder against your tongue, you eased off, licking lazily along the underside or sucking softly on just the head until his hips twitched with frustration.

His fingers tightened in your hair, not forcing you, but clearly fighting the urge to. “Y/N…” His voice was hoarse, almost pleading. “Don’t—ah—don’t tease me like this.”

You pulled off with a wet pop, lips glistening, and looked up at him with a wicked little smile. “But you look so pretty when you’re desperate.”

Zuko’s eyes shut, his jaw clenching as if the words had struck somewhere embarrassingly deep.

You sank back down immediately, taking him to the back of your throat in one smooth motion. Zuko groaned, head falling back against the bench as his hips jerked. You could feel him getting dangerously close again—thick and pulsing on your tongue—so you pulled back once more, stroking him slowly with your hand.

He let out a wrecked sound, half curse, half whimper. “You’re cruel… but—fuck, hah—you’re so beautiful.”

You hummed around him in response, the vibration pulling another quiet curse from his lips. You took him deeper, faster, letting the wet sounds mix with his ragged breathing and the gentle ripple of water. One of your freezing fingers traced the sensitive skin just beneath his cock, the sharp temperature contrast making his whole body jerk.

The second time you pulled him back from the edge, he lost whatever pride had been keeping him silent.

“Please,” he rasped.

For once, he looked less like a ruler and more like a man entirely at his wife’s mercy.

You looked up at him with a wicked, affectionate smile, still stroking him fast and tight. “Cum for me, Zuzu.”

For a heartbeat, he tried not to.

You saw it in the sharp clench of his jaw, the way his fingers tightened in your hair without pulling, the way his breath caught and broke like he could still argue his way out of surrendering. Then his restraint snapped quietly, then all at once.

The Fire Lord came with a choked, broken groan, his hips jerking up uncontrollably as the first thick, hot spurt flooded your mouth. You moaned around his pulsing cock, swallowing greedily, but there was too much—thick ropes of cum kept shooting across your tongue, so much that it overflowed almost immediately. It spilled from the corners of your stretched lips, dripping messily down his throbbing shaft and over your fingers as you kept stroking him through it. The sheer amount of it made your thighs press together, heat pooling low in your belly at how desperately his body was giving in to you.

He shuddered hard beneath you, muscles taut and trembling, his long hair sticking to his sweat-damp neck and chest. His golden eyes were half-lidded, glazed with raw pleasure as he watched you take every drop like you were starving for him.

The koi pond steamed violently. A nearby fire lily bush glowed red-hot before slowly dimming.

When it finally subsided, Zuko was slumped against the bench with his chest heaving, your husband looked beautifully ruined. You pulled off slowly, licking your lips clean with a small, satisfied smile. A thin string of cum still connected your bottom lip to him before it broke.

“Good boy,” you teased softly.

Zuko stared down at you for a long moment, something raw and helpless in his expression.

“…You’re impossible,” he finally whispered, voice hoarse and wondering, as if he still couldn’t believe you were real.

You pressed one last soft kiss to his thigh and smiled.

“Isn’t this exactly what you wanted, my lord?”

His smirk deepened at your question.

Clearly, you had not realized how much danger that pretty little mouth of yours had put you in.

Zuko was still flushed, still catching his breath, still looking far too ruined for a man who had any right to recover so quickly. But his hands were steady when they reached for you, sliding beneath your arms and pulling you up into his lap before you could even think to escape.

You landed against him with a soft gasp, your skirts spilling messily over his thighs. The warmth of him pressed through the fabric, unmistakable and already returning, and suddenly your teasing smile did not feel quite as victorious as it had a moment ago.

“My wife always knows best, doesn’t she?” he murmured, his voice low against your mouth.

O6 | UPDATE: THE FIRE LADY IS FINE

By the end of the first month, the palace had adapted with the grim efficiency of a nation recovering from war. The maids carried water buckets as part of their standard duties, the guards learned which corridors to avoid based on heat patterns alone, and the council stopped scheduling meetings too close to breakfast, lunch, dinner, sparring sessions, diplomatic arguments, late-night kitchen raids, library research, moon garden strolls, or any moment where the Fire Lady happened to smile at her husband for longer than three seconds. The palace seamstresses quietly reinforced your gowns, the head chef hid the good towels, and the royal archivist posted a handwritten warning outside the study that simply read: NO OPEN FLAMES NEAR NAVAL DOCUMENTS, which everyone understood was not actually about candles.

Zuko pretended to be offended by all of this, but you knew better. For all his muttering about dignity and decorum, the Fire Lord was utterly hopeless. He had spent years learning how to contain himself, how to swallow rage, how to make his fire precise enough to serve a nation instead of destroy it. Yet somehow, all it took was your hand on his sleeve, your mouth near his ear, your laughter pressed against his throat, or apparently the simple act of healing a wound on his thigh, and the most powerful firebender in the world became a walking architectural threat.

The newest maid finally understood after one night, when she heard your bright, breathless laughter from behind the royal chamber doors, followed by Zuko’s low voice murmuring something far too soft to be anger. The sconces outside the hallway flared blue-white, the temperature spiked, and suddenly every vague warning from the senior maids made horrifying, embarrassing sense.

By dinner, her diary had only one update:

DEAR DIARY,

thankfully, the fire lady is fine.

the furniture, however, is not.

After that, she stopped asking questions and started carrying a water bucket like everyone else.

These days, the palace staff had been working very hard. If they were lucky, you had already set the fire down with your bending before anyone arrived. If they were not, they had to manually put out the flames before replacing another curtain, cushion, napkin, table runner, practice post, garden lantern, or emotionally unfortunate bread basket. Still, no matter how violently the sconces flared or how many unfortunate pieces of furniture fell victim to the Fire Lord’s complete lack of restraint around his wife, the flames never once touched you.

Even when his control slipped because of you, even when desire made the air shimmer and the palace lights burn brighter than they had any right to, Zuko’s fire always curved away from your skin. It burned around you, sparked above you, and curled through the air like devotion given shape, but it never hurt you. It would never hurt you. His fire had been raised in anger, sharpened by war, and forced for years to survive on pain, but with you, it had learned something gentler, something warmer, something sacred.

With you, his fire had learned love.

And love, no matter how brightly it burned, would always know how to keep you safe.

this is part of the sublimation ( my zuko fic ) universe! read more chapters

this oneshot took me like ~8 hours btw. i need everyone to clap because what the hell </3

anw i alr finished the atla la s2 n it was so good !! altho they skipped n reordered some parts, but it’s prolly bc of the budget... welp, i can’t wait for the movie to come out.

young2keu

borrowed warmth

pairing eom seonghyeon x 6th member!gn!reader

contains sfw. fluff. its cold out. sharing hoodies!!! they cuddle. just lowkey. mutual pining and yearning. clingy hyeon!! but he's lowkey nonchalant about it. he's kind of smooth too. warnings none? wordcount 1.8 k

more hyeon x 6th member!reader.

keukeu-note 🥥 hyeonie req 1 out of 4 lol <3

the company's idea of casual bonding content was apparently to drag their 6 idols to the beach at eleven at night, mid november. which, to you, definitely felt less like team bonding and more like a controlled experiment in human suffering.

the ocean stretched dark and endless behind the cameras, waves crashing hard enough to drown out half the staff instructions being yelled across the sand. cold wind tore through the shoreline relentlessly, sending loose strands of hair into everyone’s faces and making the portable lighting tremble every couple seconds.

“i can’t feel my hands anymore,” keonho whined dramatically for the fifth time in ten minutes, huddled near one of the equipment cases. “if i lose my fingers, i’m suing.”

“you said that during summer too,” juhoon said flatly.

“because extreme weather is oppression, even in summer.”

zhilxn

I’m doing backflips James isn’t real

rikiiduck

niki becoming a dad👀👀

She’s MINE

Dad Riki x mum reader

Sypnosis: Riki got jealous of his own daughter claiming you

Warning: flufffff

now playing🎧- first love- hikaru utada

📍a/n: hiii thank youuu for your request!! I hope you’ll like this one tooo! Edit: this is a pretty old draft😭

The morning sun filtered through the sheer curtains of the living room, casting a warm, golden glow over the soft rug where the center of your universe currently sat.

Your three-year-old daughter, Hina, was deeply engrossed in her morning mission. She wore a pair of mismatched, fuzzy socks, her dark, slightly wavy hair tied into two chaotic little pigtails that bounced every time she moved. And right there on the floor with her, looking entirely too big for the miniature plastic tea set in front of him, was Nishimura Riki.

To the rest of the world, Riki was a man of quiet intensity—sharp, collected, and occasionally intimidating when he was in his element. But right now, sitting cross-legged in a casual gray sweatshirt with a tiny pink plastic teacup balanced precariously between his long fingers, he was just a dad completely wrapped around his daughter’s little finger.

"Drink it, Papa! It's strawberry juice," Hina ordered, her voice high and demanding as she tapped the toy teapot against his cup.

"Ah, my favorite. Thank you, chef," Riki said, his deep voice dropping into that incredibly soft, honeyed tone he reserved only for the two of you. He lifted the tiny cup to his lips, making an overly dramatic, loud gulping sound that had Hina bursting into a fit of giggles, her small hands clapping together.

Sitting on the couch with a warm mug of coffee between your hands, you couldn't help the swell of pure affection that tightened in your chest. You watched the way Riki’s sharp, fox-like eyes crinkled at the corners, a brilliant, genuine smile spreading across his face as he reached out to gently boop Hina’s nose.

He was an incredible father. When you had first found out you were pregnant, Riki had been terrified, constantly reading parenting books and worrying that his naturally quiet, intense demeanor wouldn't be enough. But the moment Hina was placed in his arms, every doubt had melted away. He was patient, fiercely protective, and endlessly attentive. He was the dad who stayed up for midnight feedings just so you could sleep, and the husband who still left sweet notes on the kitchen counter before he left for work. You were, without a doubt, the luckiest woman alive.

Later that afternoon, Riki had stepped away to the kitchen to prepare some snacks, leaving you and Hina on the floor surrounded by her stuffed animals. Hina was currently burying her face into your neck, her small arms wrapped tightly around your shoulders in a sudden burst of toddler affection.

"I love you, Mama," Hina mumbled into your collarbone, squeezing you with all her might. "Mama is mine. Only mine."

You laughed softly, wrapping your arms around her small frame and kissing the top of her head. "Oh really? Mama is yours?"

"Yes! Mine!" Hina declared proudly, pulling back to look at you with fierce, determined little eyes.

"Hey, hold on a minute."

A shadow fell over the two of you as Riki suddenly materialized from the kitchen, setting a plate of sliced apples on the coffee table. Before Hina could protest, Riki slid onto the floor right next to you. His long arm immediately snaked around your waist, pulling you firmly against his side, his chin resting possessively on your shoulder.

He looked across at his daughter, narrowing his eyes in a playful, mock-serious stare. "No way, kiddo. Mama is MINE."

Hina’s jaw practically dropped. She crawled forward, placing her tiny hands on your knee, puffing out her cheeks. "No! My Mama!"

"I bought the ring, I got her first," Riki bickered back smoothly, a teasing smirk playing on his lips as he tightened his grip around your waist, pulling you even closer into his chest. "Find your own wife, Hina. This one belongs to Papa."

"Nooooo!" Hina squealed, lunging forward to tug at Riki’s sweatshirt, trying to physically pry his arm off you. "Mama is Hina's! Mama, tell Papa!"

You couldn't stop the laughter bubbling up from your chest as you looked between the two of them. Riki looked entirely too pleased with himself, leaning down to press a loud, dramatic kiss to your cheek right in front of her just to fuel the fire.

"Papa, no kissing my Mama!" Hina protested, successfully climbing over Riki’s legs to squeeze herself right between the two of you, effectively creating a giant, chaotic family hug. Riki laughed, his chest vibrating against your back as he wrapped his large arms around both of you, burying his face into the crook of your neck.

By the time night fell, the chaotic energy of the daytime finally caught up to the household. After a warm bath and three readings of her favorite storybook, Hina finally drifted off to sleep, her little breathing slow and rhythmic under her star-printed blankets.

Riki closed her bedroom door with an agonizingly slow, careful click, ensuring the silence of the hallway remained unbroken.

The moment he turned around and saw you leaning against the hallway wall, waiting for him, his entire posture changed. The playful bickering dad vanished, replaced by the heavy, hooded gaze of your husband. He walked over to you, his footsteps silent, and didn't hesitate to trap you gently between his arms, his hands resting on the wall on either side of your head.

"Finally," Riki breathed, his voice a low, raspy whisper that sent a familiar shiver down your spine. "She's asleep."

"You were bickering with a three-year-old, Niki," you teased softly, reaching up to rest your hands on his chest, feeling the steady, warm beat of his heart.

"I don't care," he murmured, leaning down so his lips brushed against your earlobe, his breath hot against your skin. "I shared you all day. I let her follow you around, I let her hold your hand... but now it's my turn. I mean it. You're mine tonight."

Before you could laugh, Riki tilted your chin up and captured your lips in a slow, deep, and incredibly possessive kiss. It carried all the quiet built-up longing of the day, his hands sliding down to your waist to lift you slightly, pulling you flush against his body. You melted into him, your fingers tangling in his hair as the quiet house faded into the background.

He pulled back just an inch, his forehead resting against yours, a soft, breathless smile on his lips. "I love our little girl," he whispered, kissing you again, sweeter this time. "But I love you more. Come here."

Hand in hand, he led you into your bedroom, finally having you all to himself in the quiet, perfect world you had built together.

Taglist🍎: @kristynaaah @enhapagluuuuu @daydreamer231 @babyt0matoes @nikidikiy @wvndrls @perolaprincess123 @ceceylosa @nota10butadefinite8 @chaebbys

jiuchip

ᯓ TWO BADDIES, ONE JIUNG — c. jiung (18+)

℘ — bf!jiung (지웅) x reader x fem oc ▸ ⌜ 2.5k ⌟

synopsis ▸ a reacquaintance with your old college friend leads into something jiung never thought he could see himself be part of—but he's willing to try anything for you.

δ — nsfw (mdni), threesome, f/f/m, f/f, switch!jiung, edging, oral (both rec), threeway, unprotected sex, scissoring, jealousy, rough sex, cucking (?), degradation, pathetic ji makes an appearance, it’s still pride month idc

ᯓ an — in celebration of canada day here’s jiung getting fucked up by two pretty girls, yes this was supposed to be a drabble but ended up being a full fic so if it reads a little strange that’s why, yes that is an nct reference

MASTERLIST

jiungbbl

FOR ME

mellownorth

oh my god he’s so beautiful here 🥲

kittennextdoor

18+ riding your nerdy bf till his glasses fall off ˚₊·͟͟͞͞♡

There’s something incredibly hot about riding your nerdy boyfriend until his glasses slide down his nose. He’s usually so composed, always in button-ups, always with those cute wire-rimmed glasses perched on his face, always muttering about formulas or code or whatever he’s nerding out about that day. But right now? He’s a complete mess.

You’re straddling his hips, knees planted firmly on the mattress, riding him to the hilt. Every roll of your hips makes his thick length slide perfectly inside you, hitting that spot that makes you moan softly. His hands are gripping your thighs, fingers digging in like he needs something to hold onto.

“Baby—” he stammers, voice cracking. His glasses are already slipping, sliding down the bridge of his nose as his head tips back against the pillow. His cheeks are flushed, hair messy, lips parted as he tries (and fails) to keep his breathing steady. You smile down at him, grinding your hips in a slow circle, watching the way his eyes flutter behind the fogging lenses.

“You look so cute like this,” you murmur, leaning down to kiss him. His glasses bump against your nose, but you don’t care. You just keep riding him, faster now, taking him deeper. He moans into your mouth, hips jerking up to meet yours. One of his hands slides up your back, the other stays on your hip, guiding you as you bounce up and down on him.

“God, you feel so good,” he breathes, voice shaky. “I can’t- I’m gonna—” His glasses finally slip off completely, landing somewhere on the pillow beside his head. His eyes, those pretty, unfocused eyes, lock onto yours, wide and desperate.

You ride him harder, chasing your own pleasure while watching him fall apart underneath you. When you come, clenching tight around him, he follows right after with a broken groan, hips stuttering as he spills deep inside you.

Afterward, he lies there panting, glasses askew on the pillow, looking completely wrecked and blissed out. You lean down and kiss him softly, brushing his messy hair back from his forehead. He laughs breathlessly, wrapping his arms around you and pulling you down to his chest.