nat. ❤︎ 90s adult. she/her. part time moody artist and writer. full time basement wife of toji fushiguro. a mix of personal & multifandom blog (fic & occasional selfship). sfw, nsfw, & dc friendly, dddne.
all aged eighteen and above are welcome, provided that you:
i. behave like an adult, ii. are against censorship + use your own discernment (we do not yuck anyone’s yum in this house), and iii. refrain from exhibiting rude behavior to the hostess and other guests alike. otherwise you’ll get hardblocked.
member of @maplewood-valley ★
get comfy ❤︎ make yourself at home. 🍸
I am being basement-wifed... it's been 5 years
*fka nattywhines, martinimourning — (archived and moved blogs, currently reworking old writings and creating new ones). pls don't export, plagiarize or feed any of my work into AI or outside of its original platform be it tumblr or ao3.
anyway, life update from me is that as some of you may have known or deduced atp that most of my wardrobe has been neutral colors but for some reason since the start of this year I’ve been naturally gravitating towards more pink stuff which used to be my favorite color as a kid and you know what?
genuinely I’m proud of myself for finally posting that fic (last rb) it was the most cathartic writing session I’ve had in a long time like I actually was so close to finishing it back in march but you know stuff and things and then I could finally post it mwehehehe
⊹ tags: angst, nsfw, mdni, can be fluff if you squint optimistically, implied age gap, grief, mentions of death, mentions of divorce, alcohol, implied depression, non-curse au, reader experienced loss though the person is unspecified.
⊹ note: very loosely inspired by sally rooney's intermezzo and how the characters dealt with grief, roland barthes' camera lucida and lover's discourse: fragments. hmm this is possibly act one out of three. 2,421 words.
» don’t like reading on tumblr? read this on archive of our own.
It is said that mourning, by its gradual labour, slowly erases pain; I could not, I cannot believe this; because for me, Time eliminates the emotion of loss (I do not weep), that is all. For the rest, everything has remained motionless. For what I have lost is not a Figure, but a being; and not a being, but a quality (a soul): not the indispensable, but the irreplaceable. ROLAND BARTHES. CAMERA LUCIDA.
ACT ONE.
You were too young when you first learned what loss of a loved one looked like, when you’d seen firsthand what it means for a body to be devoid of a life. What it means for grief, a concept that is abstract in nature, to take shape and manifest into something that felt tangible, something that felt real.
Though you could always point to where it hurts the most, despite its lack of concrete form, but there you can trace a shape of absence. Not so much as a void as how you've heard most people describe it, there's weight to its vast emptiness and you always felt like you could make out its outline. So maybe, you think, it's more like a speck of stain on a cloth instead, or more like an unidentified new organ manifested in the body and less like an unwelcomed tumor. Sometimes it shrinks, contained. But sometimes, it grows too, swallows, its shape becomes yours.
It’s not something that can be healed with any medicine or surgically removed with a knife. Not even the good old recipe of time could, not entirely, and not exactly permanently, at least.
That, you know for sure. Having tried different concoctions and ways to give yourself a fixing for about the past decade. From paid sessions to prescribed medications to alternative healings to alcohol and anything else you could get your hands on.
But nothing roots you into the temporary sense of rehabilitation more than the body of another. It brings you back to earth, here, there's a shape to you, you can feel, and you can be touched.
To be loved, however, was a different story. One that sounds more terrifying than wanted, complicated. With love implies the possibility of being reminded of loss, it's safer without. Without nothing to lose, what else on earth is there to hurt you?
It’s not that you’ve never heard declarations of love aimed towards you before, it’s simply that you’re not sure if they understood what it entails to love you. So you leave before they do, or they leave when the illusions of love have shattered.
He understood this well, too, but you didn’t know that yet. Not now, at least. For now you’re sitting across from him in the booth of a dive bar, with faint sounds of music and traces of tobacco in the air, the rhythmic tapping sounds of the pool table and chatters of the night's patrons act as a constant anchor in the background. For now, he's just another guy you talk to at some bar, maybe just another guy you wouldn't mind to be taken to bed with for one night.
"So," he said to resume the conversation as you both settled into the booth, "what brings a girl like you to a place like this?"
He gestures to the place you're in, as if it's an unthinkable place for you to be in. He was eyeing you then, intensely too, just for a moment before he took a sip of his second glass of beer that night, a dark and dry Irish stout.
"A terrible date," you said after taking your own sip of your drink. "It's actually the first one I've been on in a while since things ended with this last guy I was seeing."
"Oh? Sorry to hear that."
"About the date? Or about the breakup?"
"Hmm both, but more the breakup, I mean."
"Oh, it's no big deal, really. I mean, it was mutual, it was never going to work out anyway so we ended it amicably, kind of."
He raises an eyebrow and nods slightly, though he doesn't push further. Maybe he's trying not to pry, or maybe he's trying to get a read on you, you're not too sure which is which.
You were sure though that you liked talking to him, liked seeing his face, hair ravenous dark and a scar on his lip that paints him in a perpetual smirk. You also liked the way he's looking at you, liked the way his voice sounds, too.
"Hey," your fingers fiddle with the olive pick sitting on the lips of your glass, "what does that mean, anyway, a girl like me? What kind of girl do you even think I am?"
He laughs then, the second one that night, a hearty and deep-bellied one with a smirk of a grin that, to be honest, drive you a little crazy. "Well I mean you told me yourself earlier, apparently a princess like you is too good for a Guinness."
You gasped in a feign offense, "Oh I am not a princess and that is not what I said!"
"Sure."
Earlier in the night when you were still seated at the bar he’d offered you to try a sip of his beer and 'split the G', you somewhat politely declined, telling him "Do I look like I drink stout and can split the G?" before taking a sip from your glass of martini.
"Ugh, what I meant was I can't drink stout! I don't drink beer much anyway, maybe those fruity IPAs—you know those pale ales, those I can still stomach."
"Picky and particular. You know, you're not helping your case here, princess." He takes another sip, "Also, IPAs? I didn't take you to be into those, makes me think of those hipster home-brewed beer."
"Well you don't know anything about me now do you? Besides, please—you're—what—a middle aged guy like I'm pretty sure you have a buddy or two who has picked up a home-brewing hobby. Isn't that what guys your age do anyway when you're bored or having a crisis?"
"Ouch," he says while putting hand on his chest. "I am not middle-aged, not yet at least. But, point taken, I do have friends who dabbled here and there."
"See, and what—you don't?"
"Not really that big into alcohol if I'm being honest. This," he says as he lifts up his glass, "is just something I do once in a while to blow off steam, I don't drink that often."
You rest your chin on your hand, tipping your head sideways, "Huh, really?"
"Really," he says between sips, "why, does that surprise you?"
"Well you just seemed to be so familiar with the bartender, so I just thought you were a frequent flyer."
"Nope, just know the guy who owns the place. This is basically the only place I go to, for a drink, or two, sometimes more."
"Oh?"
"Well on the off chance that I end up finding myself in good company I'll order more so I can stay longer."
"Hmmm."
Maybe it's the liquid courage, or maybe you're just seeking for a little adrenaline rush to makeup for the previous less exciting encounter. But either way, you don't mind being the first to push the buttons.
"Okay, well, are you?"
"Am I what?"
"In good company right now."
"Well, that depends on how the company's behaving the rest of the night." He says with a smile, voice punctuated slightly at the word behave you nearly missed it. But you caught enough of it that you shift slightly in your seat.
"Hmmm. Okay, fair. But that also depends on what you have to say," you pointed to the absence of ring on his finger with a nod, "I mean, what about you, what's your story? What's a guy like you, and no offense your age, doing talking to a girl like me?"
You learned that he was married, twice. Separated from the second, not so much detail on the first, somewhat dodged the topic, even.
He could've lied about it all, of course, isn't that what men often do anyway? Lying about the existence of a relationship and supposed-presence of a ring? But what you don't know is none of your concern, as long as you're told a guy is single, everything is fair game. What is truth and what isn't of another person's life, a stranger's no less, is none of your business.
⟢
The truth that you have yet to learn though, is this; that he is drinking out alone because it's been plaguing him again, she has been plaguing him again. Nearly two decades later and he could still make out her absence, which in turn pulled him into a reckoning of all the things he had done since, and all the things he had to live through before her.
He had a second chance, briefly, short-lived. Divorce wasn't too much of a surprise, all things considered, they had only been married because each of them were so lonely, so equally clueless in being a parent. But once the kids got older, there was nothing left that they had in common. As time moves and all love lost, separation became par for the course.
He held no hope out for any glimpse of the third. Not yet.
But another, different kind of truth is this; tonight wasn't the first time he'd seen you, though he wasn't sure if you actually remembered him, too. He was, genuinely surprised to see you there of all places. You looked like someone who wouldn't set foot in a place that doesn't at least have a wine selection older than the 1990s. But it was a welcomed surprise, he always liked seeing you, even then in passing, but especially tonight, earlier next to him at the bar, then across from him at the booth, and now pressed against the wall as he finally gets to kiss you.
It would also be a dishonesty to himself not to admit that he'd been thinking of kissing you since you entertained the thought of conversing with him. Wanting to kiss the space where your neck and shoulders meet when he saw the flimsy strap of your dress fall over as you tilt your neck sideways —was that on purpose?— liked the way your hair fell and cascade down then, too. Wanting to hear what other sounds your voice makes the moment he heard you speak, which turned out to be better than he could ever thought.
He kept kissing you, now tipsy and all giggly in his arms, legs all but liquefied since the moment he slid his foot back up your shin under the table, a response to the previous nudging of your toes onto his. Lost your composure even more than you thought possible when he placed his large hand over your knees in the cab, opening them slightly to run a hand up your thigh. He didn't move his hand up further, didn't need to, just held it there firmly, thumb slowly moving back and forth your inner thighs it was enough to make you feel like you had more to drink than you actually did.
You nearly laughed again then, feeling a nudge in your lower abdomen from where his body pressed onto yours with your back against the wall. But not before he pushed his knee between your legs, sliding up and pressing it to where you're soaking. He could feel you, your warmth, your dampness.
"Hmm, someone's excited." he says as he kisses along your jawline
"Hey, isn't that supposed to be my line?" you said between breaths, before you hear your own voice erupts into a moan as he kiss and licks the underside of your jaw.
"You never shut up, do you?"
"Hmm, no."
"Good, let me hear you," he said before biting the skin of the crook of your neck.
He chuckles at your moan, picks you up then and not a moment too soon, one hand hiking up the hem of your dress before snapping the band of your lace panties against your soft skin. But you, impatient as you always have been, instinctively grind yourself against him in response. He teases you then as he places you on the edge of the bed, said something about you and your greed, but all you could think about is how badly you want him to rip your clothes off by his teeth.
You moan and lift your head off the bed when you feel his hand palming you where you want him, fingers caressing where your desire has pooled, palm pressing down your clit. He could feel it, how bad you wanted him, could see the sheen of your slick spilled all the way down to your inner thighs.
He pulls it to the side, eyeing the translucent string where your panties and your core once connected.
"Christ," He muttered under his breath. "You're always this wet?"
"Maybe. Maybe not. Why don't you find out yourself."
"Don't test me, kid."
"Hey, I'm not a k—oh fuck." He dipped his head then, tongue stubbornly pushes itself into your folds, desperate to taste you and all you could do was press the base of your palm into your eyes.
⟢
Admittedly, though not so different than yourself, Toji had tasted more women than he had variations of alcohol. But he could've sworn there's something different with the way you taste, something about it that he likes more than he thinks he should.
Maybe it's how responsive you are to his touches, maybe it's the voices you make and how easy it is for him to coax them out from the depths of your throat, maybe it's how tight you're squeezing just his fingers alone, maybe just because it's you.
You knew that your dress will be crumpled in ways beyond fixing that night. Sweat slowly seeping through its fabric from being bunched up along your lower back, legs folded into mating press as he lose himself and his tongue on your taste.
He looked up then, fingers came to replace where his nose was, nudging your clit like a pinch, the pressure from either side making your head spin it made you stifle your moan.
But he only egged you on,
"Didn't I tell you, let me hear you."
He laps his tongue again then, but not before spitting where you're already wet. He drinks it up; your moans and the way your fingers tangled themselves in his hair, he moaned into you as he felt a tug, telling you not to let go.
Finally, he came up for the second time, kissing you on the mouth so you know how good you taste, too. Fingers tugging the hem of your dress saying, "Take this off, I want to know if you feel as good as you taste."
a/n initially I wanted it to be a long fic with three acts, but I hit a snag on the second plus I think it might've been a tad too long if I didn't...
