꒰ ʀɪᴅᴇ ᴏʀ ᴅɪᴇ — ꜱᴇQᴜᴇʟ ꒱ ˎˊ˗ finally together!!! everything is good now, right? RIGHT?
being together with enjin changed absolutely nothing and somehow, it changed everything.
you still stole food off his plate and he took the last drag from the cigarettes you shared. still called each other names. still shoved you when you annoyed him a little too much and you bit his shoulder in return.
the cleaners barely noticed a difference at first. and let’s be honest if gris wouldn’t have told semiu and semiu wouldn’t have told riyo etc etc, then no one would’ve a clue.
except for the little things.
suddenly enjin reached for your hand whenever you sat down next to him. in return you leaned against him. then the ridiculous golden shine in his eyes whenever he looked at you. and them forehead kisses. all the fucking time.
disgusting behavior honestly. you two should be ashamed for that constant pda.
riyo threatened to throw up at least twice a day. follo awww’ed awfully often and zanka approved a lot of your relationship.
however. oh. now it comes.
the biggest difference was terrifyingly small for you, because you suddenly cared what enjin thought of you. as a woman.
that was so fucking stupid. actually really stupid because this was enjin. your enjin.
the very same enjin who once held your hair back while you threw up behind headquarters after bad alcohol.
enjin who knew exactly how disgusting your period cravings got. and who had heard you complain about period shits with the passion of a dying soldier.
you once yelled “I THINK MY UTERUS IS DETACHING” while lying face down on his bed and he’d answered, “damn. can i have your boots if you die?”
huh? your feet were small and delicate. the fuck did he want with your boots? absolute weirdo question.
what you wanted to say was that there was never shame between you. until now.
because now he kissed you and fucked you and ate you out daily. now he looked at you like you were so damn beautiful and with so much love.
so, for now fucking reason your brain decided that meant your period was suddenly horrifying.
that led to your current situation. you were curled in your bed with a heating pad while contemplating death. your cramps felt demonic and your asshole hurt and you had bled through your pad.
“stupid fucking uterus,” you muttered miserably. “come out and fight me, you little bitch.”
a sudden knock echoed through the room and you froze. of course it was enjin. duh.
“alive in there?”
normally you’d yell something dramatic back, but today. you just couldn’t. shame crept up your neck.
“hey, you ignoring me?”
“no.”
“you sound weird.”
“i’m dying.”
“that’s not specific enough.”
you groaned into your pillow and felt very unfortunate for how well your wonderful boyfriend knew you. because the door opened and there he was. carrying food in one hand and immediately narrowed his eyes at you sprawled dramatically across the bed.
“whoa,” he said. “you look terrible.”
“thank you.”
“you smell like pain.”
“that’s because i am pain.”
enjin snorted softly and sat beside you. you liked how the mattress dipped and his warmth and familiar scent wafted to you.
it was comforting. also made it worse.
suddenly you became hyper aware of everything. the blood. oh fuck, did you smell? the cramps. your hair that clutched for dear life on one side of your skull and stood in every direction possible on the other side.
enjin reached over automatically to press his palm against your forehead. no fever - that relieved him.
“what’s wrong?” he asked.
you hesitated. and nope. you didn’t hesitate. even when you just blurted out bullshit you didn’t hesitate.
“you okay?”
“yeah.”
“you’re being weird,” he told you for the hundredth time.
“i’m not.”
“you are. haven’t insulted me once which is pretty insulting.”
pouting you pulled the blanket higher over yourself. “it’s just my period.”
“that’s it?”
“what do you mean that’s it?” you frowned.
“i thought you were dying.”
“i’m dying.”
“you say that every month.”
“because every month my organs attempt mutiny.”
your man relaxed instantly now that he understood. usually this would’ve been the part where you launched into graphic descriptions about cramps and blood clots while he listened with horrifying calm.
now you were pretty quiet and pouting.
“something’s off here,” he huffed.
“no.”
“yes.”
“nothing’s off.”
“you haven’t talked about period farts once.”
you looked offended. “why would you even notice that?”
“because usually you announce them like natural disasters.”
“thats slander.”
“you once called yourself ‘the crimson shotgun.’”
“okay, but that one was hilarious.”
enjin grinned, but it faded when he saw that you still looked so uncomfortable. emotionally. yeah, and he thought he might understood.
“oh.” he blurted out and you looked away. “oh fuck seriously?”
“don’t.”
“you think i’m gonna find you gross now?”
“i don’t know!”
the words exploded out of you before you could stop them. your face burned immediately afterward.
“i mean it’s different now.”
“how?”
“because we’re together.”
“okay?”
“and what if you suddenly realize i’m disgusting?”
enjin stared at you in pure disbelief. then he additionally laughed in pure confusion about what’s going on inside your head.
“baby,” he cooed and you shot him a glare. “i’ve seen you puke in an alley.”
“that was before.”
“you once farted on my leg and blamed the bed.”
“that was ONE TIME.”
“you clogged my toilet twice.”
“you promised never to bring that up again!”
once you feel better you’ll beat the ever loving shit out of him. what the fuck?
enjin was fully grinning now. all while you hoped another pit would open and you could jump in head first.
“you literally drooled on my chest this morning. again.”
“stop talking.”
“and now period blood is where you think i’ll draw the line?”
you covered your face with your hands and he gently grabbed your wrists to pull them down. his expression softened - SOFTENED - when he saw your embarrassment.
“ohhh. you’re serious.”
yeah, no shit dude. your eyes stung and your lower lip wobbled dangerously.
“i just…” you muttered weakly. “i know it’s stupid.”
“it is pretty stupid.”
“thanks.”
“but not because of you.” his thumb brushed your cheek lovingly. “you think i started loving you after we got together?”
oh man, he was so cute. and now he leaned in like he was about to tell you a little secret.
“i loved you when you were gross too.”
a giggle bubbled from your throat despite yourself. “that’s not romantic.”
“it’s true though,” he hummed, happy with himself. “you think some blood’s gonna scare me away after surviving your cooking?”
“okay, fuck you.”
“there she is.”
you shoved his shoulder weakly and he caught your hand. he even kissed your knuckles. he was so sweet.
“you wanna know the real difference between us being friends and dating?” he asked.
you mumbled, “what?”
“back then i had to pretend not to stare at your ass.”
you gasped loudly. enjin laughed right as you smacked him with your pillow.
“there she is!” he wheezed again while dodging another hit. “that’s my girl!”
the full realization hit him two days later. the problem with dating your best friend was that suddenly you became aware of things that never mattered before.
for you it had been periods.
for enjin it was the horrifying realization that he might actually be a disgusting man.
like said, the thought hit him two days later while pulling on socks with holes big enough for three toes to escape through.
he stared at them. his toes stared back.
then slowly looked around his room. clothes pile in the corner. three empty bottles near the wall. a shirt hung from the lamp because apparently the drawers were too civilized.
and what was up with the plate over there? hmm?
“OH NO!” he yelled into the empty room
your words replayed in his head. again and again. he loved your voice, alright? but that was just fucked.
‘what if you suddenly realize i’m disgusting?’
at the time he’d laughed because the idea of you grossing him out was ridiculous. but now his brain had cruelly turned the mirror around.
what if he was the gross one?
what the fuck brain? what was your problem?
with growing horror enjin realized that your friendship had erased every normal boundary between you years ago. another horrified scream erupted from his throat as memories filled his head.
he’d walked into the bathroom while you showered to piss because “you’ve seen me half dead before, this ain’t intimate.”
you once brushed your teeth while he sat on the toilet arguing with you.
he burped directly in your face at least twice a week.
one time he woke you from a dead sleep by accidentally ripping ass loud enough to shake the mattress. you’d thrown a pillow at his head without even opening your eyes.
“NO!”
he thought about… showering. to be fair he showered, technically speaking. maybe not with the frequency expected by civilized society.
the pit wasn’t exactly full of luxury hygiene standards, okay?
sometimes missions ran long and then the exhaustion hit harder. other days he washed the important parts and called it a successful day.
to be fair, you never cared before. hell, half the time you smelled equally awful after missions.
but now you were his girlfriend. his actual girlfriend. woah.
suddenly enjin became deeply aware that you were also insanely pretty. like… distractingly pretty. the kind of pretty that made his chest ache unexpectedly when sunlight hit your face.
which raised one devastating question: why the hell were you dating him?
“damn,” he muttered, staring at himself in a cracked mirror later that evening. “she could do way better.”
“talking to yourself now?”
enjin let out the most embarrassing shriek known to mankind and jumped at the ceiling. all while you stood in the doorway holding snacks, looking pleased with yourself.
and so gorgeous which was unhelpful. he quickly wiped his mouth.
“your room smells horrible,” you added.
his soul briefly left his body. this was it. you’d leave him for someone clean like… gris.
“what smells horrible?”
you sniffed dramatically. “smells like wet socks and regret.”
“wow. okay.”
you grinned and wandered inside anyway, immediately climbing onto his bed like you belonged there. okay, okay. you did belong there.
that should’ve comforted him. instead he became hyperaware of every single thing around him.
there was a boxershorts on the floor. why was there a boxershorts on the floor?
and another sock - fuck no.
“don’t look around too hard,” he said quickly.
you blinked. “why?”
“no reason.”
“enjin.”
“nothing.”
your eyes narrowed instantly. your face inched closer as you inspect his expression. then you gasped. “oh my— are you embarrassed?”
“no.”
“you are!”
“i’m literally not.”
“you just kicked something under the bed.”
“was a spider.”
the fuck?
you burst into laughter and snorted right into his ear. usually enjin loved your laugh. right now it made him want to evaporate, because you kept looking around his room with visible amusement.
“you live like a divorced raccoon,” you informed him.
“that’s harsh.”
“there’s a spoon in your toolbox.”
“yeah.”
“why?”
“emergency soup.”
you stared at him before you laughed even harder. enjin groaned dramatically and flopped face-first onto the bed beside you.
“stop judging me.”
“i’ve known you for years.”
“exactly. so mind your business.”
“you used motor oil as hair product once.”
“that was one time.”
“you own one towel.”
“one good towel.”
“it’s crunchy.”
“that means it’s experienced.”
you wheezed laughing while enjin grabbed a pillow to hide his face. and suddenly he remembered exactly why he fell in love with you. because even now, even while roasting him alive, you looked at him with so much affection it hurt in his chest.
it didn’t change the insecurity in him tho. especially later that night.
you stayed over, curled against his chest while half asleep. one of your legs tangled with his under the blanket. hmm, he loved that. was so comfy and warm.
you were his home.
his brain meanwhile couldn’t stop yapping about every gross habit he had.
for example yesterday. he had walked into your room and thrown himself on your bed without asking, because “our relationship status didn’t magically make me polite.”
he also had burped a couple of times earlier.
his arms tightened around you. please don’t leave me.
since you got a sixth sense apparently your voice filled the silence. “what’s wrong?
“nothing.”
“you sound thoughtful.”
“that’s insulting.”
“it’s accurate.”
enjin sighed then muttered into the darkness, “what if you realize i’m gross?”
you went completely still against him. your head snapped around and your neck cracked a bit. “huh?!”
he immediately regretted speaking.
“nothing.”
“no, repeat that.”
enjin stared at the ceiling with deep suffering.
“you got weird about period stuff,” he grumbled. “now i’m thinking maybe you had a point.”
you blinked at him. it took you a few seconds to connect the dots. then you stared at him horrified.
“umbra,” you whispered.
oh no. no no no no.
you only used that nickname and voice when emotionally devastating honesty was incoming.
“i watched you pull glass out of your own arm with kitchen tongs once.”
“yeah?”
“you ate noodles off my stomach after i spilled them.”
“in my defense—”
“you literally walked into my shower to pee because you said and i quote, ‘steam helps me piss.’”
“that was scientifically sound.”
“you own socks that look legally deceased.”
enjin groaned loudly while you started laughing into his chest. you robbed closer and kissed his chin. fuck, you were so adorable.
“you know what changed after we got together?” you asked quietly.
“what?”
“nothing important.”
his chest tightened. you poked his cheek gently.
“you’re still my gross weird little raccoon man.”
“little?”
“don’t ruin the moment.”
“and you’re still disgusting too.”
you gasped dramatically. “i’m beautiful.”
“you clogged my sink with food once.”
“that was a plumbing issue.”
“you threatened your uterus with violence three days ago.”
“it started it.”
enjin laughed helplessly. do you had any idea how much he loved you? or did you just waddle around thinking you’re only a little loved by him?
oh. he also got a sleepy kiss.
when you settled back against him afterward, mumbling, “you’re the prettiest boy ever actually,” enjin genuinely thought he might combust on the spot.
he learned a valuable lesson this night: love wasn’t becoming cleaner or softer or more presentable. it was just finding someone who looked at all your ugly little human parts and stayed anyway.
to be fair you were never and never would be a normal couple. after the two incidents your relationship somehow made both of you worse.
one of your friends wanted to speak to you individually? not a chance.
somehow you managed to even annoy zanka. zanka! who looked up to enjin so much.
the most unbearable moments was when the two of you fought. because shouldn’t you be still in the honeymoon phase??
“move,” you snapped.
“no.”
“you’re crushing me.”
“you’re dramatic.”
“your elbow’s in my rib.”
“build character.”
at the moment enjin was sprawled fully across you on the couch in headquarters while you attempted - and failed - to shove his heavy body off. he only grinned wider, cheek squished against your shoulder.
“you smell nice,” he hummed happily.
“that’s because unlike you i bathe.”
“cruel.”
“you literally used my shampoo and then said, ‘our scents should unify.’”
“that was romantic.”
“that was psychotic.”
from across the room riyo looked genuinely exhausted. “you two were easier to deal with before dating.”
“no we weren’t,” both of you answered immediately.
you paused and looked at each other at the same damn time.
“actually true,” enjin admitted.
“yeah,” you nodded thoughtfully.
the tension you had carried before had exploded into the open constantly.
enjin needed to touch you all the time. his hand on your knee. an arm around your waist. his thumb brushing over your wrist. his body had finally stopped pretending not to reach for you.
you were just as bad.
you stole his clothes constantly, because they smelled like smoke and enjin. and when enjin was on a mission without you you sniffed them.
also, you sat in his lap automatically during meetings because there weren’t enough chairs (sure, sure). your lips were fucking unstoppable when it came to smooching your man left and right.
disgusting behavior. soulmate behavior.
everyone suffered, because you were so awfully cute with each other. especially semiu. when was it her turn?
“you’re smiling at her again,” she huffed one afternoon.
enjin blinked. “huh?”
“you’re doing the thing.”
“what thing?”
“the stupid thing where she talks and you look at her like you’re gonna lick the ground she walks on.”
you nearly choked laughing. meanwhile enjin looked offended.
“i don’t.”
“you absolutely do,” you wheezed.
“no, i don’t.”
“you’re doing it right now,” semiu pointed out.
riyo and rudo made gagging noises in the background, like some haters. enjin flipped them off without looking away from you which only made everyone groan louder.
it wasn’t even your fault. you refused to take accountability.
cards on the table. there was something terrifyingly natural about loving each other. your bodies had figured it out long before your brains did.
you fit together so easily. so beautifully.
sleeping especially became dangerous. before dating sleeping together meant tangled limbs and accidental violence.
now it was still violence, but also those soft moments.
let’s get back to the first night after you two got together. enjin woke up the next morning and yes, you were next to him. not unusual. but you were kissing his shoulder and neck sleepily. man almost had a heart attack.
you didn’t even remember doing it.
“you kissed me while being unconscious,” he accused over breakfast.
you blinked. “what?”
“tiny little kisses.”
“shut up.”
“i’m serious.”
“you’re lying.”
“i’ve witnesses.”
“you absolutely do not.”
“so fucking cute,” enjin threw up his arms.
but then you saw the little smile on his face, the way the tips of his ears tinged pink. it was so adorable.
enjin had been always beautiful. enjin in love stole your breath away.
you threw bread at him instantly for making you feel so fuzzy and having your stomach full of butterflies.
enjin looked unbearably smug the rest of the day.
the real problem was that both of you kept forgetting you were allowed to act like a couple now. years of friendship didn’t disappear magically overnight.
so sometimes your brains short circuited. one night you were relaxing on his bed when he casually stripped naked in front of you to change. dick out and everything.
you glanced over. you gasped. then you suddenly realized: oh no. he’s naked. he’s hot. why is he so hot? does he know he’s hot?
enjin noticed your staring. “why’re you looking at me like that?”
you looked away violently. “no reason.”
“baby.”
“shut up.” ugh. the nickname. you started to like it.
“oh shiiit,” he laughed. “you’re flustered.”
“you’ve muscles unexpectedly!” you gestured wildly. “and other things.”
“unexpectedly?!”
“you usually look homeless!”
“that’s the meanest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
he looked ridiculously pleased about it which was unfortunate. because then he started flexing on purpose and his dick did that thing. the twitch.
“wow,” you deadpanned. “now you look homeless and stupid.”
enjin tackled you onto the mattress immediately. you screamed laughing while he trapped you underneath him. no fucking care for his nudity.
“take it back!” he shouted.
“never.”
“you wound me.”
“you’ll survive.”
he grinned down at you and that playful moment turned into something completely different. his forehead rested against yours automatically and your smile turned softly.
for seconds you just stared at each as this feeling - this special feeling - filled you. the awful, beautiful realization that somehow the person you laughed with hardest was also the person you loved most.
enjin’s thumb brushed your cheek. “you know what’s weird?”
“what?”
“i thought getting together would change us more.”
“me too.”
“but it’s kinda like…” he huffed a laugh softly. “like we were already doing this.”
your chest hurt immediately, because he was so right. the love you had for each other always been there - buried underneath bruises and jokes and late night conversations. underneath shared cigarettes and bloody missions and sleeping shoulder to shoulder because the world felt less cruel that way.
you’d already built a life around each other long before kissing and sex got involved. now you just got to say it out loud.
unfortunately emotional moments never lasted long between you. right after enjin kissed you sweetly his stomach growled loud enough to shake the room.
you burst out laughing instantly. “hello to you too!”
“i’m being vulnerable here.”
“you sound possessed.”
“feed me.”
“you’re huge. why are you always hungry?”
“growing boy.”
“you’re almost thirty.”
“and still growing.”
you laughed so hard your stomach hurt while enjin buried his face dramatically into your neck. he tried then to eat you as he bit your neck and pulled on it.
let’s be honest. this was love too.
it wasn’t just pretty honeymoon moments and sweet gestures. it wasn’t just kisses and holding hands and whispered promises at 3am.
it was moment like this. ridiculousness and the comfort behind it. that you could sit together in silence without it feeling heavy or awkward.
home wasn’t the cleaners headquarters. home was enjin now.
later that night rain hammered softly against the windows while the two of you lay tangled together in bed. your head rested on enjin’s chest while you soothingly caressed his tattooed skin.
rain was still bad. but it was better for him now. at least a little bit.
after a moment you spoke up, “do you think we were always gonna end up like this?”
enjin didn’t answer immediately and you had to look up to him. because maybe… no. absolutely not.
“yeah,” he said simply.
that answer felt bigger than anything else. the gravity of this single word was so intense that you hid the tears in his neck. your throat tightened embarrassingly fast.
“you sap,” you muttered weakly.
“you’re literally crying.”
“no i’m not.”
“there are tears on my neck.”
“that’s your problem.”
he laughed quietly, before he pulled you closer until there wasn’t an inch of space left between you. loving him was naturally like breathing and you had to crawl completely on top of him. something he approved of so much.
after all, everything finally made sense. every fight and laugh. every almost. every stupid little moment that led here to this very moment.
soulmates weren’t always soft. sometimes they were loud and messy and smelled vaguely like smoke and bad decisions. they argued over everything and nothing and emergency soups.
sometimes they burped in each other’s faces.
they fell in love so slowly neither of them noticed until it was already stitched into their bones, and that was the most beautiful part.
you and enjin never became different people after falling in love. you just finally realized you already were.
Summary: Everyone aboard the Polar Tang knows you draw. Landscapes. Islands. The crew. But after all, every artist has a favorite subject. Law certainly doesn’t have a clue… until one forgotten sketchbook changes everything.
A\N: I loved writing this!! 🥹 Thank you so much for the request, I hope I did it justice and that you enjoy it. Lyyy
Word count: about 6.3k
Contains: artist!reader, friends to lovers, established relationship, domestic fluff, mutual pining, slow burn, Law being the prettiest muse imaginable, anatomy references, crew shenanigans, very lovesick Law.
Warnings: fem!reader, use of y/n a few times, reader draws Law shirtless for anatomy studies (non-explicit), mentions of tattoos, lots of fluff.
From the occasional oil painting to the countless sketches and drawings chronicling your adventures, the Heart Pirates had always known you were the artistic sort.
It had been your combat skills that first caught the captain’s attention and earned you an invitation to join the crew, yet it didn’t take long aboard the Polar Tang for everyone to discover that your talents extended far beyond the battlefield, reaching into all manner of creative pursuits.
More often than not, your drawings had a documentary quality to them, quiet observational pieces you worked on whenever you found a spare moment between steering the submarine, carrying out missions, or exploring the countless islands you visited.
Your sketchbook was practically an extension of yourself, tucked beneath your arm wherever you went, ready to preserve whichever moments happened to strike you as the most charming or interesting.
Within the quiet comfort of life aboard the submarine, away from responsibilities, you immortalized little moments for yourself.
Bepo laughing so hard he could barely catch his breath. Penguin and Shachi bickering over something neither of them would remember five minutes later. Law reading. Shachi asleep with a book draped across his face. Law nursing yet another cup of coffee. Ikkaku playing cards with Jean Bart. Law performing surgery. Bepo napping on the deck. Law fighting to keep his sleepy head from dropping onto his desk.
You had even drawn the Polar Tang itself from nearly every conceivable angle.
Looking back, you probably should have noticed just how often one particular man in a spotted hat kept finding his way onto those pages.
You never did.
It simply seemed natural that he would be there, considering he was the person you spent the most time with, constantly helping him organize paperwork in his office.
Even then, your drawings had been beautiful, but there was a certain distance to them. You simply captured the scenes unfolding before your eyes, nothing more. Everyone knew that.
Sometimes the captain would even ask whether you had finished a particular sketch, taking it into his hands and studying every detail despite how embarrassingly self-conscious it made you to have him inspect your work so carefully.
As time passed, though you never consciously noticed it yourself, he began appearing more and more often.
Then again, why wouldn’t he? The two of you spent so much time together that his presence had quietly become part of your everyday life. No matter where you went, he somehow ended up there too.
Even if you stumbled upon a vast meadow bursting with wildflowers on some distant island and wandered off to paint it in peaceful solitude, your grumpy doctor of a captain would inevitably appear not long afterward, muttering that he failed to understand what was supposedly so fascinating about flowers in the first place.
“Spring is coming. I feel sorry for those who don’t think that’s important…”
He would roll his eyes, mumbling something about you being far too much of a romantic, yet settle down beside you anyway, quietly watching you work.
You really did have perfectly reasonable explanations for your drawings. Honest.
Whenever you decided to practice drawing hands, you somehow ended up filling half a sketchbook with studies of Law’s from every possible angle and position.
“He’s got the most defined bones out of everyone,” you would explain. “Besides, the tattoos create great shadows.”
If your sketchbook happened to contain studies of his hoodie or his hat, it was only because you were practicing different fabric textures.
Obviously.
And if you happened to be studying facial expressions, then of course it only made sense to have half a dozen sketches of him frowning over paperwork, followed by another ten or so of him smiling faintly while reading one of his comics from various positions.
Everything was perfectly logical.
Perfectly easy to explain.
Which was precisely why Bepo’s reaction made so little sense one afternoon as the two of you lounged around together while he absentmindedly flipped through one of your filled sketchbooks.
“There’s… a lot of Captain in here,” he observed.
You merely shrugged, taking another sip of your coffee.
“There’s everyone.”
He turned another page.
“He’s in this one too… And here… This one’s him as well.”
“Coincidence,” you replied, dunking a biscuit into your coffee. “I draw everyone. We probably just spent more time together that day, so I ended up sketching him a little more.”
The polar bear said nothing.
Silently, he counted thirty-two drawings of Law…
…and two of Penguin.
You only began questioning the state of your own emotions when you noticed that one of your sketchbooks was nearly full, yet didn’t contain a single drawing of anyone else from the crew.
There were still the usual everyday sketches of Law scattered throughout its pages, of course, but now they were joined by an ever-growing collection dedicated almost entirely to his tattoos.
Heat spread across your cheeks at the mere thought of wanting a better look at them. Up close. Close enough to faithfully capture every intricate line, even the ones hidden beneath his clothes.
Somewhere along the way, you’d forgotten that those pages had originally begun as anatomy studies.
Now they were filled with careful observations of the muscles in his arms and chest, how each tattoo stretched and shifted ever so slightly as he moved.
You had even asked him not to move once while trying to capture a particular angle.
“Hold still.”
Law didn’t so much as glance up from the medical journal in his hands.
“…Why?”
“Your forearm tattoo curves weirdly when you rotate your wrist.”
Too absorbed in his reading to question it, he simply extended his arm toward you without another word, letting you do… whatever it was you were doing.
It wasn’t until nearly ten minutes later that he realized you’d been staring at him the entire time.
Your mind drifted back to all the afternoons spent watching him from the opposite side of the office, your heart racing as you quietly melted at the sight of him getting irritated over paperwork that refused to add up.
Without realizing it, you had filled pages with sketches of his furrowed brows, his slightly pursed lips, the faint puff of his cheeks whenever he grew annoyed, somehow ending up with eleven different versions of that expression alone.
Then there were the shadows his eyelashes cast across his cheeks.
The subtle curve of his lips whenever a smile escaped him.
His eyes.
His eyes in every imaginable expression: irritation, concentration, curiosity, happiness.
Oh God.
I’m in love with our grumpy captain.
The doctor of the Heart Pirates found himself increasingly confused by your recent behavior.
He would never admit it aloud, but he was worried.
For the past several days, although you still spent your usual hours working beside him in the office, you had begun avoiding him whenever you could.
You still sorted mountains of paperwork as diligently as ever, only now you always wore your headphones, leaving little room for conversation. Whenever he asked you something, you’d slip one earbud out just long enough to answer before immediately putting it back in. Sometimes you didn’t even hear him the first time.
He never commented on it.
Everyone had days when silence was preferable to the noise of other people.
God knew he had more of those than anyone.
Still, your company had always been one of the few he genuinely enjoyed, and he couldn’t shake the quiet hope that perhaps tomorrow you’d be a little more willing to talk to him again.
It felt strange in other ways too.
Whenever he found enough free time to join the crew for an evening card game, you were no longer sitting beside him as his partner.
Instead of exchanging knowing smiles and whispering advice over your next move, you now found yourself across the table beside Shachi, laughing every time he stubbornly ignored your suggestions and confidently played exactly the wrong card.
A faint pang of jealousy, one he would sooner die than acknowledge, settled somewhere deep inside his chest as he caught himself glancing in your direction throughout the evening.
Across the table, Bepo seemed equally distracted, nervously darting his gaze between the two of you while absentmindedly throwing random cards onto the pile.
Law had always claimed he enjoyed card games.
The truth was, his favorite part had never been the cards.
It had simply been sitting beside you.
Faced with the alternative, he couldn’t help but admit to himself that he would’ve rather skipped the game altogether.
The following afternoon, after excusing yourself from the office for half an hour to go listen to Penguin’s newest collection of music he’d picked up on the last island, the submarine’s brooding captain remained behind to finish his paperwork.
Or rather…
He sat with his pen hovering uselessly above the page, wondering whether he’d done something over the past few days to upset you.
Perhaps he’d been too cold.
Perhaps you’d finally grown tired of trying to get through to him and decided the more entertaining members of the crew were simply better company.
Regret quietly settled over him. He should’ve asked you to go somewhere together on the next island. Just the two of you.
Now charismatic Penguin had probably charmed you with his music collection…
…and who knew when you’d come back to him…
His spiraling thoughts were interrupted by an unusually cheerful polar bear entering the office with a steaming cup of green tea.
“Captain, where’s Y/N?”
“What does that have to do with me?” Law answered with mild irritation. “She can spend her time however she wants.”
After a brief pause, he muttered,
“As long as she gets back soon enough to finish this documentation, she can spend time with whoever she wants for as long as she wants.”
Bepo pretended not to hear the second half.
Still smiling to himself, he set the cup beside Law, who acknowledged it with a quiet nod of thanks.
“Hmm… Y/N really is a wonderful artist, isn’t she?”
Silence.
“As you know… she draws everyone on the crew.”
“Hm.”
“You have the most pages, though.”
“…What?”
“Not fair,” Bepo chuckled as he walked out of the office. “You’re one lucky guy.”
He left behind one thoroughly bewildered captain.
Later that day, the two of you were updating the submarine’s library. Law stood atop a ladder placing the newly acquired books onto the shelves while you handed them up one by one, carefully recording each addition.
Every so often your fingers brushed against his.
Each fleeting touch sent an unwelcome current racing through both of you, one you silently agreed to ignore. You’d pretend to examine the bookshelves with great interest while embarrassment painted your cheeks, and the tips of his ears.
This angle is really not helping my increasingly ridiculous crush, you thought, looking up at your captain from almost directly below.
From there, the sharp line of his nose seemed even more striking, and you found yourself watching the slow rise and fall of his long eyelashes.
Ridiculous.
Ridiculous.
The word echoed through your mind later as well while the two of you worked in companionable silence, cataloguing documents together.
It echoed again as your pencil unconsciously recreated those same thick eyelashes arching above serious golden eyes.
Then the tattooed heart with the smiling Jolly Roger emblazoned across his chest.
You jolted when you heard your captain calling your name, snapping your sketchbook shut almost instantly.
“Could you take these books back to the office?” he asked. “We’ll go through them properly tomorrow. Keep two or three with you and leave the rest on my desk. Then head to dinner. I’ll join you once I’m finished here.”
Still distracted, you nodded, gathering the towering stack of books into your arms.
The pile was so high you had to steady it with your chin to stop it from collapsing like a house of cards, a sight that made an unexpected wave of fondness wash over Law.
In your haste, however, you failed to notice that your sketchbook, buried beneath the stack, had slipped free and remained behind on the table as you left the library.
Once he’d finished highlighting the necessary information and sorting tomorrow’s paperwork into neat piles, Law finally prepared to head for the dining hall.
That’s when he noticed something lying on the table where you’d been sitting.
Of course.
You’d forgotten something.
He walked over and picked up the light-colored sketchbook, intending to return it the next time he saw you.
Still…
Curiosity quietly tugged at him.
Just one look.
He opened it.
A drawing of himself.
He turned the page.
Another one.
He flipped to the middle at random.
Him again.
Another page.
A detailed anatomical study of muscles.
He flipped toward the back.
A meticulous rendering of his hands.
…What the hell?
He stood there staring at the sketchbook in complete silence, so stunned that his thoughts seemed to short-circuit altogether.
More than embarrassed, he was simply… astonished.
Not because someone had documented him in such painstaking detail.
But because you had.
And not because he was the captain.
Simply because he was him.
After everyone had finished dinner, full and ready to retreat for the night before another day awaited them, Law quietly asked you to stay behind.
“I think you forgot this,” he said, a faint smirk tugging at the corner of his lips.
If the earth had opened beneath your feet and swallowed you into its deepest depths, straight to the bottom of the Grand Line, you wouldn’t have protested.
You felt like you were dying.
Before you could snatch the sketchbook from his hands, he deliberately opened it to one of the more detailed portraits, the kind that made it painfully obvious you’d spent hours bringing it to life.
“You spent that much time on this?”
“…Maybe.”
Silence settled between you, and for the life of you, you couldn’t decipher what was passing behind those amber eyes.
“You got the eyes wrong.”
That…
That was not what you’d expected him to say.
“What?”
“They aren’t always that harsh. Or that distant.” His gaze lingered on the drawing for another moment. “They’re softer. Especially depending on who’s standing in front of me.”
He tried to sound casual, though the warmth creeping into his cheeks betrayed him far more effectively than his voice ever could. It was, whether he intended it or not, a confession.
“You’ll have to take another look from up close,” he continued, gently placing the sketchbook back into your hands. “You can fix it tomorrow, when we visit the next island.”
With that, he turned toward the door, wished you goodnight with the smallest of smiles, and left.
Your heart threatened to leap straight out of your chest and join the rest of his collection.
Not that you would’ve minded.
And that…
That was how it all began.
By the time the two of you were together, the quiet blooming of your relationship could be traced through your sketches alone.
Little by little, they transformed into increasingly intimate moments, the sort only someone who shared another person’s quietest hours would ever have the chance to witness.
Law lying in bed, still wearing his glasses as he read.
Law fast asleep with his head thrown back, mouth slightly open, snoring without the slightest hint of dignity.
Law first thing in the morning, hair hopelessly disheveled, not quite awake yet.
A cup of coffee slowly growing cold beside him.
Law laughing so hard he doubled over.
His head resting in your lap while insisting he was only “resting his eyes.”
Whenever his gaze happened to fall upon one of those sketches, an unfamiliar feeling quietly settled inside him.
He had expected studies.
Those had never embarrassed him. To your pencil, he’d simply been another subject worthy of observation. A body was a body, and as a doctor, he understood the fascination that came with studying the way muscles shifted beneath skin or bones dictated movement. Those were the kinds of drawings an artist made when captivated by form.
But these…
These were something else.
They reached far beyond anatomy, and that singular way you saw him unsettled him in a manner he couldn’t begin to explain.
This wasn’t merely what he looked like.
It was what you had chosen to see.
Not the captain.
Not the Surgeon of Death.
Not the man whose name people spoke in hushed voices.
Your gifted hands had filled page after page with the version of him that existed only in the quiet spaces between responsibilities, in fleeting moments rarely witnessed by anyone else.
As though those ordinary, forgettable fragments of his life possessed a beauty he had never once thought to assign them. As though simply existing beside him had been enough to make them worth remembering.
Much like every moment he spent beside you had become filled with countless little memories he knew he would carry with him for the rest of his life.
He hadn’t even realized you had been watching during those moments of quiet contentment. He’d always assumed those tiny glimpses, the rare instances when he allowed himself to truly relax, belonged to him alone. They were the sort of moments no one else would notice, let alone consider meaningful.
And yet…
There they were.
Preserved with the same tenderness another person might reserve for sunsets or constellations.
His breath caught.
The feeling blooming inside his chest was unlike anything he had ever known, something impossibly gentle brushing against his heart, as though wings had suddenly begun to unfurl from it, eager to lift it free and carry it out into the open air.
As your relationship settled into something comfortably familiar, Law gradually became the most frequent subject of your artwork, much to the dismay of certain rather jealous members of the crew, who weren’t above voicing their complaints every now and then.
“There has to be something of me in here somewhere,” Penguin muttered as he flipped through your sketchbook. “Captain… no, Law… Captain again… Captain… Ca… AAAH!”
He yelped, dropping the sketchbook in sheer panic.
It never reached the floor.
An already irritated Law caught it with one hand before it could even come close.
“Be careful.”
“I CAN’T BE CALM WHEN I JUST ACCIDENTALLY SAW TWELVE DRAWINGS OF YOUR ABS, CAPTAIN!” Penguin cried, his face turning scarlet.
He immediately yanked the brim of his hat down over his eyes as though it might erase the memory.
“I can’t believe you never drew the time I absolutely demolished that guy!” he continued dramatically. “It was legendary! A once-in-a-lifetime moment! But no! Apparently all you ever feel like immortalizing are this Surgeon of Death’s hands and ridiculously thick eyelashes.”
He stared at Law in theatrical disbelief.
“…Who knows what else I would’ve found if I’d kept turning the pages.”
Now it was your turn to blush.
“Penguin, no… I’ll draw you soon, it’s not like there’s any—”
“That’s none of your concern,” Law interrupted flatly, still holding the sketchbook securely against his chest.
“She can sketch whatever she wants.”
His golden eyes shifted toward Penguin.
“And if you’re ever that careless with her artwork again…”
A brief pause.
“…we’ll have a conversation in my office.”
Penguin visibly paled.
“…You know what? I suddenly feel very well represented already.”
Even your anatomy studies had grown more detailed.
More intimate.
By then, you could shamelessly ask him to stay perfectly still for ten minutes so you could capture the angle of the tattoo stretching across his chest. The easiest position usually involved you reclining halfway against his lap so that his torso angled ever so slightly toward you, allowing every contour of his chest, abdomen, and arms to reveal itself beneath shifting light. Every muscle found its place upon the page, every subtle ridge and hollow observed with painstaking care.
“Don’t move.”
“I’m not moving.”
“…Your breathing counts.”
He sighed.
“That also counts.”
You frowned at the page, erasing another line.
“Something’s wrong…”
Law leaned forward just enough to glance at your sketch.
“You’ve pulled the pectoralis major too far toward the sternum.”
You looked up at him.
“…Do you enjoy ruining my confidence?”
“No.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
“I enjoy preventing anatomical inaccuracies.”
“…That’s somehow worse.”
The corner of his mouth twitched.
“Your tattoo work is flawless,” he said, his eyes returning to the page. “It’s just the muscle beneath it.”
“…You couldn’t have started with that?”
“You would’ve stopped listening.”
Sometimes you drew him while he was occupied with something else, and other times, simply because those quiet moments together filled you with such contentment, you found yourself sketching those beloved muscles and bones entirely from memory.
One evening, the two of you sat close together as Law leafed through a medical textbook while you frowned at a sketch of his back, trying to make sense of the broad planes shifting beneath his skin.
So absorbed were you in your work that you never noticed him leaning over your shoulder.
“The trapezius overlaps the latissimus dorsi more than that.”
You looked at him blankly.
“…Do you ever say upper back like a normal person?”
“No.”
Having long since accepted that you would never possess his encyclopedic knowledge of osteology and myology, you had resigned yourself to spending the rest of your life with one impossibly adorable, hopelessly pedantic doctor who insisted on correcting you every chance he got.
“You’re looking at the tendon, not the muscle.”
“Law.”
“Hm?”
“I’m going to need you to use words normal people actually know.”
He sighed, as though you had just asked the impossible.
“…The stringy bit.”
Laughter burst from you before you could stop it.
“See? You can do it.”
“That’s the flexor digitorum profundus,” he informed you knowingly.
“…Mhm.”
“You have no idea what I just said.”
“Not a clue.”
“You’re pretending to understand,” he accused, already preparing an impromptu lecture.
“I love listening to you talk.”
He froze and blinked twice.
The tips of his ears bloomed a brilliant shade of pink as something entirely incoherent escaped beneath his breath, quiet enough that you couldn’t make out the words, though they still managed to tickle something warm inside your chest.
“You sound cute when you get all professor-like.”
Watching your normally composed, reserved boyfriend become so hopelessly flustered filled you with entirely unreasonable satisfaction.
I could get used to endless medical lectures if teasing him always earns me this reaction.
After months of constant reminders about proper anatomical terminology and what felt like several medical lectures every month, though you would never admit just how much you’d secretly enjoyed them, you gradually found yourself using words that had once sounded like an entirely foreign language.
There was something undeniably attractive about having such an absurdly brilliant and beautiful boyfriend all to yourself.
The first time Law had enthusiastically begun explaining the intricacies of the human neck and casually mentioned the sternocleidomastoid, your instinctive response had been to blink at him and mutter, “Bless you.”
Now, whenever he gently corrected your drawings with the same term, you simply nodded.
“I know, I know.”
Without even looking up, you adjusted the line.
“It attaches to the mastoid process, and mine’s too straight.”
Law slowly looked up from his book.
“…I’m proud of you.”
You stared.
“…Was that a compliment?”
“I’ve given you several.”
“You’ve given me homework.”
You teased him, fully aware that countless more assignments would follow, each one secretly becoming your favorite. Every now and then he’d even reinforce those lessons in practice, tracing surprisingly gentle kisses along your neck as he pointed out precisely where each muscle and delicate bone lay beneath your skin.
You had barely blocked in the basic shapes before a familiar voice drifted over your shoulder.
“You’ve exaggerated the deltoid.”
Law had been quietly watching you work for quite some time, long enough that, for once, you had begun to believe he’d found nothing to correct.
Alas…
It had simply been too good to be true.
Without even turning around, you let out an exaggerated sigh.
“There he is.”
“What?”
“My insufferable anatomist. I was wondering how long you’d last before correcting me.”
“I lasted twelve minutes.”
“That’s a personal record.”
A quiet hum escaped him.
Almost a laugh.
“I was trying to let you finish.”
“You failed.”
He rolled his eyes, muttering beneath his breath.
“I’m only trying to help.”
You smiled despite his incurable inability to leave your drawings alone.
“I know.”
Your voice softened.
“You always do.”
Something shifted behind his eyes.
“I know how seriously you take your work.”
His voice had grown quieter now.
“I want your references to be as accurate as they deserve.”
He hesitated before adding,
“…I’ll survive even if that means you’ll keep calling me insufferable.”
He leaned forward just enough to study the page more closely, one finger hovering above the paper without touching it. He knew better than to smudge charcoal.
“The contour’s right,” he said after a moment. “It’s just the insertion that’s slightly off.”
A brief silence followed.
“…The shading’s beautiful, though.”
You blinked.
“You noticed the shading?”
“I notice everything.”
There was an almost bashful quality to his voice now.
“I’ve known you long enough to learn a thing or two myself.”
He cleared his throat.
“…Though you should still fix the deltoid. It’s exaggerated.”
“No. I made you look stronger.”
“I don’t need artistic charity.”
“No?”
“No.”
You erased the line with theatrical reluctance, grumbling under your breath.
“It looked good.”
“It looked inaccurate.”
“It looked handsome.”
The faintest blush dusted the tips of his ears.
“Those aren’t mutually exclusive.”
More often than not, Law would catch himself watching your hand move across the page, your pencil gliding with practiced confidence as it gathered fragments of him into graceful lines.
The feeling it stirred inside him remained wonderfully unfamiliar, equal parts strange and intimately warm. Somehow, in your drawings, he always appeared calmer than he’d imagined himself to be, softer around the edges, and with time he came to realize that the version of himself reflected through your eyes was the one he preferred above all others. It was the man he wished to be when you looked at him.
And perhaps that was why he found himself hoping you would never stop observing him with those endlessly hopeful eyes that seemed to hold love in every blink.
With all of that in mind, it wasn’t long before Law noticed something else.
In every drawing of the crew, whether they were gathered around the dinner table, celebrating at a festival, pelting one another with snowballs, or simply spending a quiet evening together in the lounge, one person was always missing.
You.
Not just from that sketchbook, but from every sketchbook he’d ever seen.
At most, a hand would occasionally appear, or perhaps a glimpse of your legs stretched across his lap in one of the quieter sketches of the two of you together, but you were never there as part of the crew.
He didn’t ask you about it immediately.
Instead, he continued to watch in silence, patiently waiting until the right moment presented itself.
It came while you were sketching Shachi’s birthday celebration.
Everyone was there.
Penguin and the birthday boy laughing as they clapped each other on the back.
Ikkaku and Jean Bart raising their glasses in a toast.
Bepo sprawled comfortably across the couch beside what had to be his fourth slice of cake, absentmindedly rubbing his contentedly full stomach.
The captain of the Heart Pirates sat at the far end of the sofa, wearing the faintest smile as he spoke with someone outside the frame.
The only indication of that unseen person was a pair of legs draped lazily across his lap.
“Why aren’t you ever in these?”
The question escaped him before he could stop himself.
You blinked, lowering your eyes to the drawing once again.
“What?”
“You draw every member of the crew.”
“…Yeah?”
“Except yourself.”
Your expression turned genuinely puzzled, tinged with a hint of embarrassment.
“I don’t know.”
“You’ve never wondered why?”
“I guess… it just feels… strange.”
You hesitated, searching for the words.
“I can see all of you. I know your faces, the way you move, the energy each of you carries. But I don’t know how I’d even draw myself. It feels awkward.”
A sheepish smile tugged at your lips.
“And I’d probably ruin the whole picture.”
“Hm.”
Law understood that feeling better than most.
The quiet estrangement of looking at yourself and finding a stranger where you ought to have felt at home. He had spent years treating his own body as little more than a vessel for a mind that never quite seemed to belong inside it, as though the two merely happened to coexist rather than truly belong to one another.
So he carried your confession with him long after the conversation had ended, already wondering how he might one day convince you to see yourself with the same tenderness you so effortlessly gave everyone else.
It had been the end of one of those wonderfully uneventful days, the kind that settled over the submarine just before setting sail from another island the following morning.
The two of you had spent the evening tucked away in your room, reading, dozing, and quietly enjoying one another’s company.
Your head rested comfortably in his lap, your eyes closed in contentment as the long, deft fingers of one hand lazily combed through your hair, gently scratching your scalp. With the other, he absentmindedly flipped through the latest pages of your sketchbook.
More than once, his eyes lingered over the confident strokes of your pencil, quietly admiring the remarkable skill behind them. It filled him with a strange sense of pride to know that the same hands capable of holding their own in brutal pirate battles could also create something so delicate, so patient, so impossibly beautiful.
Then his breathing caught.
He had reached another sketch of himself.
He was lying curled against you, his head resting on your shoulder, lips slightly parted in deep, peaceful sleep while the brim of his hat had slipped low enough to shade his eyes.
Of you, only fragments remained.
The curve of a shoulder.
A curtain of hair cascading over it.
The soft folds of your sweater.
He noticed immediately that the drawing hadn’t been finished. The shading remained incomplete, certain details lacked the refinement so characteristic of your work.
Had you been fully awake, you probably never would’ve let him see something unfinished.
But that wasn’t what held his attention.
Near the bottom of the page, written in your careful handwriting so small it might easily have gone unnoticed, were three simple words.
My favorite view.
It was almost unbelievable that three ordinary words could settle so deeply beneath his ribs, finding a place he had long believed incapable of holding this kind of warmth.
As though, without ever searching for it, he had stumbled upon the final dream his soul had been quietly waiting for all along.
It wasn’t the sketch itself that moved him.
It was the realization that someone had looked upon one of his most unguarded, most ordinary moments and found it worthy of preserving.
Worthy of calling beautiful.
Worthy of returning to again and again.
For as long as he could remember, Law had believed love always demanded something in return. That it had to be earned, repaid, or would inevitably be lost.
And yet, within every careful line you had drawn and every shadow you had patiently built, there had been nothing except a quiet admiration for the man he was when he wasn’t trying to be anything more than himself.
For the first time in his life, it occurred to him that perhaps it truly was possible to be loved not for what you chose to show the world, nor in spite of everything you carried within you…
…but simply for who you were.
Perhaps…
Perhaps this was happiness.
Not the loud, fleeting kind he’d always assumed belonged to somebody else, but the quiet sort that slipped beneath your skin unnoticed until, before you realized it, all you wanted was for the moment to linger a little longer.
He didn’t know how to put any of it into words.
Instead, his fingertips drifted slowly across the paper, careful enough that one might have thought he feared smudging the graphite with a single careless touch. He traced those lines for longer than he needed to before gently closing the sketchbook.
Then he drew you closer.
Burying his face in your hair as though it were the safest place in the world, he pressed countless quiet kisses against your forehead and the crown of your head, holding you with a tenderness that said everything he could not.
Basking beneath the golden light of the setting sun in a meadow on the newest island you’d docked at, you and Law had quietly slipped away from the rest of the crew, content to spend the afternoon wrapped up in one another.
Reclining in the grass, you watched clouds drift lazily overhead, you pointing out the shapes they formed while your ever-skeptical boyfriend dismissed each one with an amused scoff, the two of you talking about nothing in particular.
After a while, Law reached into the backpack he’d thoughtfully brought along for your little excursion away from the submarine and pulled something out.
It was the sketchbook you’d been searching for days, the one you’d eventually given up on finding and replaced with a new one before you had the chance to finish it.
“Where did you find it?” you asked, eyes widening as you instinctively reached for it.
Instead of handing it over, Law shifted a little closer, gently guiding you back until you were sitting comfortably between his legs. Then he opened the sketchbook to its final pages.
There, spread across a single sheet, was someone who looked remarkably like you.
You were lying on your stomach atop the bed, surrounded by towering piles of books. The books themselves had been drawn with stiff, ruler-straight lines, yet each one had been filled with painstaking, almost childlike details, right down to your favorite titles and editions. You rested against the fluffy white blanket he’d done his earnest best to capture, your hair spilling loosely around you in delightfully unruly strands, your smile warm and just a little crooked, every tooth nearly the same size. He had even attempted shading, and truthfully, it wasn’t bad at all.
Ever the meticulous man, the Captain of the Heart Pirates had even placed his familiar spotted hat beside you at the corner of the bed.
You stared at the page, speechless, as warmth stung unexpectedly behind your eyes.
“…There was one person missing,” he murmured, rubbing the back of his neck. “I may not be very good at this, but…”
He never got to finish.
You threw your arms around him so suddenly that you nearly knocked him onto his back.
He let out a quiet, startled, “Mm…”
“It’s beautiful! Thank you so much,” you said, your voice thick with emotion as you peppered his cheeks and the corner of his lips with grateful kisses, leaving him blushing a deep shade of red. “You’re actually not bad at this. We might have to become colleagues.”
A quiet laugh escaped through his nose.
“Yeah, right,” he scoffed.
“It’s perfect.”
“It objectively isn’t.”
“It is.”
“The perspective’s wrong.”
“I don’t care.”
“My line weight is inconsistent.”
“I don’t care.”
“The left eye…”
You kissed him again, effectively silencing yet another critique before it had the chance to escape.
You couldn’t help imagining him, a man who had never been blessed with an artist’s hand, sitting down with nothing more than a pencil anyway, enduring every crooked line and every failed attempt simply because, somewhere along the way, he’d decided you deserved to be seen. To be remembered. To see yourself through his eyes.
No one had ever loved you so deliberately.
And in that moment, you silently promised yourself that you would never let that happiness slip away from your heart.
It was well past midnight by the time you began teaching him how to draw hands.
You gently turned his wrist.
“Loosen your grip on the pencil.”
“Like this?”
“A little.”
You nudged his fingers into place.
“You’re holding it like you’re about to perform surgery.”
“…Old habits.”
As everyone aboard the Polar Tang already knew, drawing hands had long since become second nature to you. While you carefully sketched Law’s hand, he concentrated on drawing yours.
On the same sheet of paper rested two intertwined hands.
One was long and slender, tattooed from wrist to fingers, its elegant bones subtly visible beneath the skin as the thumb traced a gentle caress across the other.
The second was smaller, the fingers a little stiff, the nail beds broader than he had initially managed to capture. Fortunately, under your patient guidance, it changed shape minute by minute until it became something that felt perfect to the two of you, even if any self-proclaimed art critic, whose opinion neither of you had asked for in the first place, would’ve called it an awkward collision of two entirely different styles.
The finished page found its place in a frame on your bedside table before the two of you drifted off to sleep, laughter still lingering softly between you in the darkness.
It would stay there for years afterward, long after dozens of sketchbooks had come and gone, because neither of you could ever bring yourselves to replace the first piece of yourselves you had left on the same page.
You were near the bar with Ikkaku, laughing as she told you about Shachi getting swindled by a twelve-year-old earlier that afternoon.
“I wasn’t swindled,” Shachi shouted from the table.
“You paid two hundred berries for a rock,” Ikkaku called back.
“They said it was a local artifact!”
“It was a rock.”
You laughed into your cup.
A man beside you glanced over.
“You’ve got a nice laugh.”
You turned your head.
He was tall with a smile that had probably worked for him often enough to make him careless with it.
“Thanks,” you said politely.
He nodded toward your cup. “Can I buy the next one?”
“No, thank you.”
His smile did not fall. “Waiting for someone?”
You took another sip. “No.”
“Then one drink won’t hurt.”
At the table, something clicked.
A glass set down too hard.
“I said no,” you told him.
The man lifted both hands, still smiling. “Fair enough. Didn’t mean anything by it.”
“Good.”
He tilted his head. “Though if your friends are busy, I wouldn’t mind keeping you company.”
You felt the faint pull of Law’s power a half-second before it happened.
“Room.”
Your stomach dipped.
“Shambles.”
The tavern blurred.
You landed hard in someone’s lap.
A hand caught your hip.
A cup toppled.
Penguin yelped from the bar, now holding your drink.
You looked down.
Law looked up at you.
He had not moved from his chair. He sat exactly where he had been at the end of the table.
Except now you were sitting sideways across his lap.
His hand rested at your waist.
The entire Heart Pirate table went silent.
Then Shachi whispered, “Oh, this is bad.”
You stared at Law.
Law stared back.
Your heart slammed once, hard enough to annoy you.
“Captain,” you said.
“Yes?”
“Did you just Shambles me into your lap?”
Law looked past you toward the bar.
The man who had been talking to you was now standing beside Penguin.
“He was bothering you.”
“I had it handled.”
“I handled it faster.”
Your eyes narrowed. “That is not the point.”
“You landed safely.”
“In your lap.”
“It was the nearest open seat.”
“There are three open chairs.”
Across the table, Ikkaku pressed both hands over her mouth.
You could feel heat creeping up your neck.
Law’s face remained calm, but his fingers lightly traced up your side.
“You are unbelievable,” you said under your breath.
Law leaned back slightly, looking almost bored.
“You should be more aware of your surroundings.”
“My surroundings changed abruptly.”
Bepo made a faint distressed sound.
Shachi lost the battle and started laughing.
For one brief moment, something flickered across Law’s face.
Irritation, maybe.
Not with you.
With himself.
Law slowly removed his hand from your waist.
You stood, straightened your shirt, and picked up the drink Penguin had carried over with a wide, terrified grin.
“Thank you,” you told him.
Penguin nodded too quickly. “Of course.”
You looked back at Law.
He had gone back to his drink as if nothing had happened.
As if his ears were not slightly red beneath the brim of his hat.
Interesting.
Very interesting.
—————————————
After that, it became a problem.
Not a large problem.
Not a problem Law would admit existed.
But a problem.
If someone stood too close to you while helping unload cargo, Law would switch them with a crate.
If someone offered you a flower at a market, Law would switch the flower with a wrench.
If someone leaned in too close while asking for directions, you would suddenly find yourself six feet to the left, while Bepo appeared in your place looking deeply apologetic.
“I’m sorry,” Bepo would say to the stranger.
The stranger would blink.
Bepo would bow.
“I don’t know why I’m here either.”
The worst part was that Law never looked guilty.
Not once.
He always had an excuse.
“You were standing near an unstable stack of barrels.”
Or:
“That man was suspicious.”
Or:
“You were blocking my line of sight.”
You tried ignoring it.
The final straw came on a quiet evening three islands later.
The Polar Tang was docked for the night. Most of the crew had scattered, leaving you with a few others at an outdoor food stall.
Law was nearby, sitting at the far end of the stall.
You were listening to a local man who had been telling a genuinely funny story. You were laughing before you could stop yourself.
The man grinned at you.
“That smile. Been trying to get that all night.”
Oh no.
You felt it before you heard it.
That familiar pressure in the air.
The room forming.
You whipped your head toward Law.
“Don’t.”
Law’s fingers had already lifted.
His eyes met yours.
For one charged second, neither of you moved. Then his mouth flattened.
“Room.”
You pointed at him. “Trafalgar Law, I swear—”
“Shambles.”
The world snapped.
You landed behind the food stall with Law beside you.
Alone.
The noise of the others dulled behind the hanging canvas. The light barely reached here, leaving the two of you in a strip of shadow.
You stared at each other.
This time, there was no easy excuse.
Your pulse beat hard in your throat.
“You have got to stop doing that,” you said.
Law folded his arms. “He was flirting with you.”
You stepped closer. “And?”
“And,” he said slowly, “you were encouraging it.”
“I was laughing at a goat story.”
“He said he was trying to get your smile all night.”
“He did say that.”
Law’s jaw worked once.
You stared at him, heat rising in your chest now.
Not embarrassment this time. Not exactly anger either.
Something worse.
Something braver.
“You can’t keep doing this,” you said.
His eyes dropped to your mouth for half a second.
You stepped closer again.
“If it bothers you, say it bothers you.”
Law’s gaze lifted back to yours.
“It bothers me.”
The words came out flat.
Too controlled.
Law looked irritated the second he said it, as if the admission had escaped without permission.
You softened, but only a little.
“Why?”
His brows drew together. “You know why.”
“No,” you said. “I want to hear you say it.”
“That’s unnecessary.”
“You teleport me across rooms, Captain. I think we passed unnecessary three islands ago.”
Law looked away first.
“I don’t like watching them try,” he said.
Your heart thudded.
“Try what?”
His eyes came back to yours.
“To get your attention.”
Your voice lowered. “Why?”
His stare held yours.
“Because I want it.”
The sound from the street felt very far away.
You took one more step. “You have my attention.”
Law did not move. His eyes searched your face, looking for the trap.
“You’ve had it for a while.”
His arms unfolded slowly. “You should have said something,” he said.
Your laugh came out soft, breathless. “You first.”
Law’s mouth closed.
“You have been swapping people with crates instead of admitting you’re jealous.”
“I was not jealous.”
You gave him a look.
Then he said, lower, “Fine.”
Your stomach flipped.
“Fine?”
His hand lifted.
This time, there was no blue glow.
Just his fingers brushing your wrist.
“Jealous,” he said.
The word was quiet. Rough around the edges.
It did something terrible to you.
His fingers circled your wrist, but he did not pull.
For once, he waited.
So you stepped into him, grabbed the front of his hoodie, and dragged him down the last few inches yourself.
Law met you halfway.
The kiss hit hard.
For half a second, he did not move.
Then he kissed you back.
His hand slid from your wrist to your palm, then between your fingers, pressing your joined hands against the stacked crates beside your shoulder. His lips moved over yours carefully at first.
You kissed him harder.
Law groaned. He lifted your chin higher with the pressure of the kiss, changing the angle.
His tongue slid against yours, slow at first, then firmer when you answered him.
He stepped closer.
Your other hand rose to the side of his face, brushing the edge of his hat. The brim shifted. Law caught it without breaking the kiss and pulled it off, setting it blindly on one of the crates beside you.
Heat rushed through you.
You caught his lower lip between yours and tugged lightly.
Law froze.
Then he made a quiet sound against your mouth, and his hand pressed more firmly against the back of your neck.
Someone nearby called your name.
Both of you froze.
Law’s forehead lowered until it almost touched yours.
Penguin’s voice followed. “Captain? Are you back there?”
Law closed his eyes.
You bit your lip.
His hand was still at your waist. Yours were still curled in his hoodie.
Penguin’s footsteps came closer.
“Captain?”
Law exhaled through his nose.
You slapped a hand over your mouth to smother the laugh.
His eyes opened, narrowed on you, but there was no real bite in it.
The canvas shifted.
You both turned your heads.
Penguin pushed it aside, took one look at you tucked close to Law with his hat off, and went completely blank.
Then he lowered the canvas again.
From the other side, he said loudly, “Didn’t find them.”
Shachi’s voice answered, “You absolutely found them.”
Plot: You decide to leave positive affirmations behind.
Pairings: reader x Law / reader x Shanks / reader Mihawk
A/N: Silly shorts
LAW
The first note appeared on Law’s desk three days after you decided he was too grumpy for his own good.
Law noticed it immediately.
In your handwriting:
Today is a great day to do your best!
Law’s expression did not change.
Behind him, the Polar Tang hummed quietly through the water.
He picked up the note.
“Ridiculous,” he muttered.
He crumpled it.
Then paused.
Then uncrumpled it.
Then stared at it again.
Today is a great day to do your best!
It was not.
He opened the top drawer of his desk.
He put the note in the drawer.
Then he shut it very firmly.
—————
After that, you got worse.
Not dramatically.
Just enough to make him suffer.
A blue note on the inside of his office door:
You are capable of amazing things!
A pink note on his favorite medical text:
Believe in yourself!
A green note on the coffee tin:
Your attitude determines your direction!
Law took that one personally.
He found you in the galley ten minutes later, note in hand.
You were making tea.
He held it up.
You looked at it.
Then at him.
“That one felt relevant.”
“My attitude is fine.”
“You threatened to throw Shachi overboard because he hummed near your office.”
“He was off-key.”
“He was happy.”
“He was loud.”
“You see how this supports my point?”
Law’s jaw shifted.
Across the galley, Shachi made a choking sound into his cup.
Law did not turn his head. “Leave.”
Shachi stood immediately. “Yep.”
Penguin followed him out, whispering, “Your attitude determines your direction.”
“Penguin.”
“Gone, Captain.”
The door slid shut.
You were still smiling when Law looked back at you.
“This is a waste of paper,” he said.
“It’s brightening your workspace.”
“My workspace does not need brightening.”
You gave him a kind look. “That is exactly what someone with a dark, emotionally hostile workspace would say.”
His eyes narrowed.
—————
By the second week, the crew started looking for them.
That was when Law’s patience began to crack.
Shachi found one on the infirmary cabinet that said:
Every day is a fresh start!
He read it aloud in a bright, dramatic voice.
Law appeared in the doorway.
Shachi froze.
“What,” Law said, “are you doing?”
“Reading.”
“Don’t.”
“It was on the cabinet.”
“It wasn’t for you.”
The room went silent.
You looked up from the bandages.
Penguin looked at Shachi.
Shachi looked at Penguin.
Bepo covered his mouth with both paws.
Law realized what he had said approximately one second too late.
His face did not change.
But his ears went red.
You turned very slowly back to the bandages.
A smile crawled across your face.
—————
Later, you found the note tucked inside one of Law’s medical books.
Just placed there like a bookmark.
You stood beside his desk, fingers resting on the page, staring at your own handwriting.
Every day is a fresh start!
You should not have felt so warm about it.
It was a ridiculous note.
A terrible note.
The kind of thing printed on a poster in a waiting room beside a fake plant.
But Law had kept it.
Law, who called them meaningless.
Law, who claimed they were clutter.
Law, who apparently did not want Shachi reading them because they were not for him.
You heard footsteps behind you.
“You’re snooping,” Law said.
You turned.
“You left it in a book on your desk.”
“That is not an invitation.”
“It was my note.”
“It was on my cabinet.”
“That I put there.”
“For me.”
The words landed between you.
Neither of you moved.
Law’s mouth tightened.
You looked down because looking at him was suddenly difficult.
“For you,” you repeated quietly.
He was silent.
The ship creaked around you, low and familiar.
You shut the book carefully. “I’ll stop leaving them in public places.”
Law looked at you.
You could feel it.
You made yourself keep going. “Since they’re apparently private.”
His eyes narrowed slightly, but there was no bite in it.
You moved past him toward the door.
Law looked down at you.
Then he said, low, “The public ones are irritating.”
Your heart kicked.
You glanced up. “And the private ones?”
His eyes held yours.
“Less irritating.”
Your smile started before you could stop it.
“Wow,” you said. “That’s practically a love confession coming from you.”
Law’s face went flat. “Don’t push it.”
Two days later, you found a pale blue sticky note on your own door.
The handwriting was sharp. Controlled. Familiar.
Your methods are annoying.
You stared at it.
Then, underneath, in smaller letters:
They are not ineffective.
You peeled the note from your door carefully.
Law slowed, just slightly.
You folded it once.
Then again.
Then tucked it into your pocket.
His eyes flicked to the movement.
You smiled softer this time. “I’m keeping it.”
Law looked away.
“Do what you want,” he said.
So you did.
SHANKS
The first note appeared on the galley door.
You are capable of amazing things!
Lucky Roux found it before breakfast, stared at it for a long moment, then opened the door and yelled, “Who thinks I’m amazing?”
“You made eggs,” Hongo said from the table.
Lucky pressed a hand to his chest. “I feel seen.”
After that, the notes spread.
One on the main mast:
Every day is a fresh start!
Yasopp read it aloud, then looked out at the gray sky and the choppy sea.
“Feels accusatory.”
“It means be positive,” you said.
“It means I have to do chores again.”
One on Beckman’s rifle case:
You’ve got this!
Beckman peeled it off, looked at you across the deck, and said, “I know.”
“You’re supposed to feel encouraged.”
“I am encouraged by competence.”
“You’re welcome.”
He stuck the note back on the case anyway.
Rockstar found his on a barrel near the rigging.
Believe in yourself!
He stood a little taller for the rest of the morning.
By noon, he had tried to give three dramatic speeches and volunteered for a task no one had assigned.
Beckman took the note away.
“Hey,” Rockstar said. “That was helping.”
“That was the problem.”
Hongo found one on the infirmary cabinet.
Your hard work matters!
He stared at it, then looked at the medical supplies he had just organized.
“Hm.”
That was all he said.
But he left it there.
Yasopp found another near the cannons.
Your attitude determines your direction!
He turned it sideways.
Then upside down.
Then called across the deck, “Does this mean I’m allowed to avoid work if my attitude says no?”
“No,” Beckman said.
“You didn’t even think about it.”
“I did. No.”
Shanks loved the whole thing.
Of course he did.
He kept finding notes and bringing them to you like treasures.
“Look,” he said, holding up a pink one. “I am the captain of my own happiness.”
“You are the captain of the ship.”
“I can be both.”
“You are barely one.”
He grinned at you, delighted. “That felt personal.”
“It was encouraging.”
“It was rude.”
“It was accurate.”
His grin only widened.
By evening, most of the crew had at least one note. Some had kept theirs. Some had traded. Lucky had three stuck to his hat. Yasopp had added one to Beckman’s coat that said Smile! It looks good on you! and then fled for his life.
You were cleaning up when you found one last sticky note on the inside of your cabin door.
It was red.
Not yours.
The handwriting was Shanks’s.
Meet me in my cabin tonight?
You stared at it.
Then stared harder.
Behind you, the doorframe creaked.
Shanks leaned there, smiling like he had contributed something meaningful to the ship’s emotional well-being.
“Encouraging, right?”
Your face went warm. “That is not an affirmation.”
“No?” His grin widened. “I felt encouraged writing it.”
“Mine say things like Believe in yourself.”
“I do believe in myself.” His eyes flicked to the note. “That’s why I asked.”
Your mouth twitched.
He noticed, of course.
Shanks leaned in slightly, voice dropping just enough to make your stomach flip.
“So?” he asked. “Should I expect you?”
Mihawk
The first sticky note appeared on the breakfast table.
Bright green.
Cheerful.
Offensive.
Mihawk stopped beside his chair and looked down at it.
Today is full of possibilities!
He looked at you.
“What is this?”
“Encouragement.”
“It is paper.”
“It’s a positive affirmation.”
“It is a visual disturbance.”
“You’re welcome.”
Mihawk lifted the note between two fingers and examined it with cool displeasure.
“I do not require a square of adhesive paper to inform me that time continues.”
“It’s supposed to make you more positive.”
“I am positive.”
You smiled into your tea.
He did not throw the note away.
That was your first victory.
—————
After that, you became worse.
Tastefully worse, in your opinion.
A pink note on the wine cabinet:
You deserve nice things!
Mihawk peeled it off and said, “I am aware.”
A blue note on his favorite armchair:
Rest is productive!
That one annoyed him most.
“I rest adequately,” he said.
“You read reports in that chair.”
“That is restful.”
“You sharpened a knife in it last night.”
“That was also restful.”
“You see how this supports my point?”
His eyes narrowed slightly.
You smiled.
He kept the note on the side table.
—————
Perona discovered them by lunch. She floated through the hall holding one that said:
You bring light into the world!
“Did you give this to him?” she demanded.
“Yes.”
She looked horrified. “Why?”
“To improve his mood.”
Perona stared at you.
Then at Mihawk, who was silently removing a purple note from the mantle.
Then back at you.
“He’s going to retaliate.”
“He wouldn’t.”
Mihawk’s eyes lifted.
Perona drifted closer and whispered, “He absolutely would.”
—————
The retaliation came that evening.
You found a sticky note on your bedroom door.
It was black.
Of course it was black.
The handwriting was elegant and precise.
Your optimism is persistent.
You stared.
“That is not an affirmation,” you called down the hall.
Mihawk stood at the far end with a glass of wine in hand.
“It affirms your lack of restraint.”
You pressed your lips together.
He looked far too satisfied with himself.
—————
By the end of the week, the castle was covered in bright squares.
Not many.
Mihawk removed most of them.
But never immediately.
That was the important part.
You caught him reading one beside the window.
You are enough!
“This one is particularly vague,” he said, placing the note carefully on the windowsill instead of throwing it away.
You looked at him.
He looked back, calm as ever.
“You like them,” you said.
“I tolerate them.”
“You keep them.”
“I study my opponent’s methods.”
“I’m your opponent?”
His mouth curved faintly.
“In this matter, regrettably.”
You tried not to smile.
Failed.
Mihawk saw, of course.
His gaze dipped briefly to your mouth, then returned to your eyes with infuriating composure.
The next morning, you found another black note on your teacup.
Your smile is dangerously persuasive.
You stared at it until your face warmed.
Across the table, Mihawk calmly buttered his toast.
Plot: Trafalgar Law is very good at control. Unfortunately, he is less good at falling in love. It’s inefficient. It’s disruptive. And attempting to correct it only makes the problem worse.
Deviation — Law is annoyed when he realizes he has feelings for you.
Encroachment — You get drunk and Law has to intervene.
Correction — You hadn’t planned the kiss. It wasn’t calculated. And now, watching him move through the ship like nothing happened, you start to wonder if you imagined that part.
Exposure — Law stops denying his feelings for you.
Detection — You and Law just got together. The crew has questions. So do the Straw Hats.
Scheduled Intimacy — Law is trying to work and you’re trying to…get him to work on someone something else.
Normalization — Your presence becomes normal and that terrifies Law, because it means he finally has something to lose.
Come Back — Goodbyes force the truth between Law and you.
Stay — He had told himself love was a liability. Inefficient. Dangerous. But when death came close, it wasn’t fear that made him fight. It was you.
Summary: You're haunting Law's dreams, and he's finally reached his breaking point.
Content: Smut, AFAB!Reader, Wet Dreams, Masturbation, Vaginal Sex
Word Count: 2.8k
Law would give anything to stop thinking about you. At least to stop thinking of you topless, moaning his name.
He had never thought of you in such a way, he would insist to anyone who would listen. No, of course he never had sexual thoughts about you: you’re his friend! One of his closest, oldest, dearest friends. A very beautiful, kind, and beloved friend, whom he had known long before he became the cool and collected captain he was.
Okay, maybe he had a few of those thoughts back when you were both teens and his hormones had run wild. But he pushed them down, like a good friend would. And anything he had done to banish those thoughts was between him and God. That was years ago, anyway, and he had fully convinced himself he only saw you platonically.
Until the damn dreams started.
Law had never been particularly fond of dreams. They were never kind to him. Faces of those he’d lost, those he failed to save, mistakes he couldn’t undo all haunted him at night. He was reluctant to sleep at all most days, only giving in after you or Bepo had forced him to lay down and exhaustion overpowered him. Once he would have been grateful for pleasant dreams or a full night’s sleep.
Law! Yes, Law!
Your voice haunted him, the image of you on top of him. The way you so sweetly called for him, the way you clenched around him, the way your chest bounced with every movement. God, it was intoxicating. He would give anything to hear you call his name like that again. Anything except risk your friendship, one of the only things that kept him grounded in life. When he woke up from the first dream, a stain on his pants and shame in his heart, he swore he would never let something like this affect your relationship.
But then it happened again.
And again.
And again.
Always something different. Sometimes you were on top of him, sometimes below him, sometimes on your knees, sometimes bent over his desk. Every time your beautiful eyes blinked at him, filled with tears of pleasure, your sweet voice keening for him to give you more, more, more. And every time he woke up to a problem needing to be solved and more feelings to push deep down, never to return. Until the next night, when it happened again.
He had never been more grateful that he had his own room. He can’t imagine how humiliating it would be if someone else saw him like this, biting down on his pillow as he rut into his own hand. If someone saw the way tears slipped down his lashes as he sped up, heard his cry of your name muffled into the fabric between his teeth, he would never be able to recover.
But luckily, no one ever would. His shame would stay in the dim light of his cabin, and his carefully protected image of control would remain unblemished. You’d never suspect a thing.
But the thoughts remain.
And he could handle that, really, he could. He’s a grown man, he can control himself. But you just keep pushing him, not even knowing what you’re doing. It’s small things, really. Yesterday, when you laughed at a dumb joke Shachi told you, you leaned forward enough to show off just a hint of your cleavage. Something that shouldn’t even phase him, but made him white knuckle the table to stop himself from throwing you over his shoulder and marching down to his room.
The day before that, you put your hand on his knee during dinner, thumb gently brushing against him as you smiled and told him you thought everything was going to be okay. You’ve comforted him like that a thousand times, but he couldn’t focus on the tender tone of your voice, only the feeling of the warmth of your hand seeping through his pants. He imagined that hand sliding higher and higher, how that warmth would feel somewhere else.
He had to excuse himself from dinner. You thought he was still upset, tried to follow him in concern, and he just barely managed to fend you off before he ran to his bathroom and took care of the hard-on you’d given him. He prayed you didn’t hear his quiet moans of your name or the sound of him pumping his cock in his hand.
A thousand small things, ways you show you care or small motions that show off your body, all building pressure that threatens to burst whenever he looks at you, threatens his carefully crafted control.
You’re so determined to break him, but he remains strong.
Until you wake him halfway through the worst dream yet.
Law! Law! God, yes, Law! Your voice is still ringing in his ears, your cunt still tightening around his cock, as your hand shakes him awake.
“Law! You can’t sleep here, you’ll fuck up your back.” Your voice is so soft, so concerned, as you try to pull him up from his desk. He can already feel the pain in his spine as you pull him to his feet, but he can’t bring himself to care right now.
He’s hard, he’s horny, and you’re right here, your hands on him as he can still hear you screaming his name.
He takes a step forward, his arms threatening to wrap around you, and he can just barely process that you’ve removed your hands from him as your eyes shift away from him.
“Law?” Your voice is meek, nervous, not at all like his dreams. But the red on your cheeks, the way your eyes shine? Those are familiar. He’s so close now.
“Do you know how hard it’s been?” He can barely keep the shake from his voice.
“What?” You take a step back, but your back hits the wall behind you.
“I’ve been holding back for months. Trying to keep control, to not ruin this, but you just,” he takes a step forward.
“Keep,” another step.
“Haunting me.” Your chests are pressed together, and he can feel every breath of yours as your tits press against him. They feel even better than he imagined. He almost expects you to push him away, to run, but you don’t. Instead you stare at him with your stupid, beautiful doe eyes, lips slightly parted, face flushed, and he can’t hold back anymore.
Your lips are soft. They’re slightly tacky from your chapstick, and he’s delighted to find it makes you taste like strawberries. You tense for a moment, and he fears he’s frightened you, ruined everything, but then your arms wrap around him and he knows you’ve wanted this just as badly as he has.
His hands grip your ass as his tongue presses firmly against your lips, which you almost immediately part wider to allow him better access. One of your hands presses firmly against his back, while the other slides forward to grope at his chest. Your fingers press into his shirt, seemingly torn between pulling him closer and feeling every inch of him beneath your fingertips. His hips roll against his will, and the whimper you let out into his mouth destroys what little self control he has left.
He lifts you with ease, pulling you impossibly closer, before throwing you onto his desk, papers and logs be damned. Nothing on it is more important than him being inside of you as soon as humanly possible. In his dreams, he always stripped slowly and sensually, teasing you until you were begging for his touch, his cock, but he’s going to explode if he isn’t inside you within the minute. He practically rips off your uniform, throwing it behind him, where he can hear it take something that sounds suspiciously like his lamp down with it, glass shattering when it hits the floor. He can’t bring himself to give a shit.
“Law,” you say in that squeaky little voice you always get when you’re surprised. “What’s—”
Your sentence breaks off into a moan as he sinks his teeth into your neck. He can smell your shampoo mixing with the scent of your sweat, and god he really might break this desk beneath you if you keep driving him insane. Your hand shoots to the back of his head, gripping his hair and tugging as you continue to let out little whimpers and moans with every thrust of his clothed hips against your panties.
“Every night, you ruin me, and I have to wake up and pretend to forget,” he groans into your neck. “Every night you give me everything I’ve ever wanted just to take it away. You’re cruel.”
He wants to take off his jeans, but he can’t bring himself to remove his hands from you. You’re so much better than his dreams, soft and warm and real beneath his fingers. His mind could never have conjured up such a perfect feeling.
You must have read his mind, because your hands slide his coat from his shoulders, fingers tracing his abs down to his waist. He’s so lost in the feeling he doesn’t understand your intent until you let out an adorable frustrated huff. “Stop moving for a second,” you snap, fingers struggling to grab the button of his jeans.
“I don’t know if I can.”
“If you tackled me to the desk so you can grope me while you cum in your pants I’m leaving.”
The laugh that rips through him stills him just long enough for you to pop the button and rip his pants and underwear down. The fabric catches on his thighs, but you’re stuck, frozen, watching his cock spring out of its prison. Law has always been proud of his body, but nothing has made him feel sexier than watching the way your mouth falls open looking at him.
“You’re drooling,” he chuckles.
“I am,” you say, not taking your eyes off of his dick. You reach for it, fingers tracing lightly up his length, and watch as it twitches in response.
“Don’t tease me,” Law says through gritted teeth. One hand grips the desk for dear life, the only thing holding him back from slamming into you like an animal.
“Oh? Don’t what? I couldn’t hear you.” Your fingers trace back down, following the vein, touching enough to stimulate but not enough to pleasure.
Law is a proud man. He does not beg. He would never—
“God, please—” His voice breaks off once you mercifully wrap your fingers around him, thumb rubbing briefly against the head. He shudders, head falling forward, pressing himself as deeply into you as he physically can.
“It’s even bigger than I imagined,” you murmur.
“You imagined me?” He tries to make his voice sexy and gruff, but it comes out as more of a whine.
“All the time.”
He latches onto your neck, both to get himself to stop talking before he makes himself sound as undone as he feels, and to mark you as his. He desperately needs to leave some kind of sign that this happened, something to tell him tomorrow this wasn’t just another one of his tortuous little dreams. This is real, it is the best thing that’s ever happened to him, and by god is he going to make sure he remembers every single moment.
His free hand reaches for your panties, pulling them down far more carefully than he did your uniform. The delicate lace is a bit less durable than thick canvas. You hiss as your cunt is exposed to the air, your hand slightly tightening around his cock.
He removes himself from your neck to look you in the eye. Your face is flushed, your pupils blown out, and your hair is a mess. You look beautiful. “Ready?”
“Please fuck me already, Captain.”
You barely have time to get your hand out of the way before he’s slamming into your entrance, the force of it shaking the desk beneath you. You feel heavenly, warm and wet, clenching around him. Law lets out an absolutely mortifying noise, halfway between a moan and groan, and you clench around him tighter in response.
“God—”
“Oh Law—”
His dreams didn’t compare to the real thing. Your voice dripping with desire and want, the friction as he pulled out inch by torturous inch, it was beyond dream or fiction. He could never have conceived something so wonderful. He ruts back into you, to the hilt this time, your hips slamming together with near bruising force. The desk shakes again, creaking dangerously, but he doesn’t give a shit and he can’t imagine you do either.
One hand remains on your hip to stabilize you, and the other takes the opportunity to explore your chest as he kisses you. Your teeth clack together, your noses bumping, but none of the awkwardness detracts from the feeling of your soft lips against his. You easily allow his tongue into your mouth, putting up no fight to the tidal wave of lust driving him to consume you whole.
Your chest is so soft beneath Law’s fingers he could weep. His teenage self would have killed a man to feel this, and frankly, he still would now. You whine into his mouth when he pinches your nipple, a sound that he swallows greedily. He wants every part of you, every noise and smell and feeling you can offer.
He tries to keep control of his hips, but he can feel his pace growing quick and sloppy. He wants so desperately to remain in control of everything, to spend the entire night giving you all of the pleasure you could stand, but you feel so good around him and he’s needed this for so very long.
He pulls back for a breath, chest heaving, and he sees your eyes have grown unfocused, your mouth still open as the spit connecting you catches the light.
“Law, yes, god, yes!” You sing like an angel. He can feel your legs growing tense as they tighten around his hips, and he’s assured to know you’re as out of control as he is. His hand reaches down, his fingers not hesitating for a second before finding your clit. His rough fingers press against you, rubbing experimentally as he tries to follow your expressions to see what way will best make you fall apart beneath him. You’re far too gone for such intense study, as every move he makes brings you closer to the edge. Your nails dig into his back, dragging down his shoulderblades, and it takes everything in him not to cum instantly. He’ll be damned if he cums before you do.
Your breath quickens as your moans turn to high pitched whines, growing louder and louder until one final thrust and rub brings you beyond the edge. You throw your head back and scream, your arms pulling him closer until your chests touch, your legs wrapping around him and locking him in place. You spasm around his cock, squeezing as though your life depends on it, and he follows soon after with the small thrusts your legs will allow him.
You collapse beneath him, boneless, as he comes as deep into you as he physically can. He falls on top of you soon after, barely catching himself on his forearms to keep from crushing you. His chest heaves as he tries and fails to catch his breath, so instead of breathing he settles for suffocating while admiring your beautiful flushed face. Your eyelids have fallen shut, your mouth letting out little puffs of air as you struggle with the same problem he is. His dreams never got this far, to the after.
It’s amazing.
You look so amazing fucked-out beneath him, a smile on your face that he’s sure you aren’t even aware is there. He could live in this moment forever, just staring at you, knowing he’s the one who made you look like this.
Even as he leans forward a little too far and a loud crack lets him know the desk is giving out beneath you.
He just barely manages to pull you on top of him so his back hits the floor instead of yours. You’re tucked into his chest, his arms wrapped around you protectively. You stare at the desk’s remains as he stares at you, and when you laugh, his chest tightens. God, he might be more in love with you than before.
As he lifts you, watching the way your eyes sparkle as you giggle and ask how he’s going to explain the desk to the crew, he thinks he can live with some more frustrating dreams. It’ll never compare to the real thing, and he has a feeling you won’t mind him coming to you for more help in the future.
Tag List: @pandora-writes-one-piece @shy-writer-999 @dreamcastgirl99 @eggrollforyou
you’ve been in love with your best friend from high school, but buried all of your feelings to keep your friendship safe. enjin doesn’t realize his own until someone else starts looking your way, and he’ll do anything to be the only one in your heart.
tags ˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ modern/college au, frat!jin, fem!reader, best friends to lovers, she fell first he fell harder, jealous and possessive enjin, barely there zodyl and reader (two scenes at the start to push the story forward), mentions of recreational drug use and drinking, swearing, plot with porn, virgin!reader, first time p in v sex, oral (f receiving), implied size difference, mating presses, whole lotta praising, talking you through it, enjin’s a down bad softie!! he's also a biter, and uses a lot of pet names, possible dacryphilia if you squint, kind of proof read but i blacked out halfway through, not beta read
wc ˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ 10.3k
a/n ˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ did i hear someone say more frat!jin…? I AM HERE TO PROVIDE! i’m not the most comfortable with writing smut, but i wanted to give it a shot. i hope it turned out alright, and i do wanna try writing it more, so be patient with me since it’s a bit rough :,) ya girl needs practice lol. not the happiest with this one but i must feed you all with more of my agenda… xx
It’s the most picture perfect Saturday morning in August—the sun coming in all warm and golden through the kitchen windows, the air still cool before it turns gross and sticky later, and birds singing like they’re only there to romanticize the start of the semester. The first week of classes is over, no assignments due and no responsibilities pulling at you yet. Everything is so quiet and calm. So peaceful.
You should be in bed. Still asleep. Rotting peacefully all warm n’ cozy under your comforter.
But no.
You’re in Enjin’s kitchen at the ass crack of dawn making this dumbass hangover remedies.
The blender kicks on and he groans from the table behind you like he’s on life support. “Does that thing know how to be quiet?”
“Enjin.” Could he be any more dramatic? “It's a blender.”
“Okay? They need to invent quieter ones.”
He went too hard at his frat’s opening party last night. Gris had to physically drag his barely functioning body home earlier this morning, and not even twenty minutes later he was calling you whining and all pathetic, “Please come help me, ma'…”
Were you shocked by the condition he was in? Not even a little. If anything, this is tame for an early-semester hangover. You’ve seen him way worse, like, foaming at the mouth and nonverbal. You’re surprised he hadn’t died from alcohol poisoning along the way.
Did you start bitching at him the second you walked through the door? Obviously. And did he have the nerve to squint at you and go, “Baby, can you not? My head is literally splitting,” like you’re the villain here? Yes. Which only made you double down, because the audacity of catching an attitude while you’re voluntarily providing emergency services before your internal alarm clock went off is, quite frankly, insane.
But you still got to work anyway.
You set the smoothie down in front of him, then slide over the plate of eggs and toast you made. It looks wholesome sitting next to the half-drunk Gatorade he’s been nursing since he woke up.
He stares at the plate, poking at the eggs and breaking the yolk. “I kinda thought you’d bring McDonald’s or something…”
You smack him upside the head and point at the food. Enjin glares at you, yet takes a bite anyway. He can whine all he wants, but he’s the one who begged you to come over—not to mention your breakfast clears a McGriddle by a mile.
Sitting across from him with your arms crossed, you yawn. You were up late too—just not stumbling around his frat house. You stayed in, binge-watching shows to reset your brain after getting handed all your new classes this week.
Enjin had something to say about that too, complaining about how your attendance at his frat was so important to him. But that’s when all the crazies come out, and there was no way you were dealing with blackout freshmen puking on your shoes.
It was bad enough you’re stuck taking care of an almost-puking Enjin as it is.
He's talking, nearly spitting pieces of egg at you.
“Ew, gross—don’t talk with your mouth full. I know your mom taught you better than that.”
He ignores the jab and picks up a piece of toast, holding it out toward you. “You’re going to make a good wife someday, you’ve already had plenty of practice with me.”
You snort. “I don’t play wife with you, I’m basically your maid.”
“Maid, wife. Same difference.”
“You’re such a dick, you know that?”
Your eyes drift past him to the wall behind the kitchen table. The photos are still taped up unevenly with peeling corners—pictures of his frat brothers, old high school friends, random blurry party shots. Then there are the ones of you two.
Prom. Graduation. One from the first time you ever hung out outside of school—both of you younger, awkward, not quite this version of yourselves yet.
You’ve been best friends since high school. He was new, and you were assigned to show him around. He wasn’t all that different back then—still sassy and observant—but he was quieter, less sure of himself, and you were the first person who made the place feel less foreign for him.
Sometimes you think it was fate that shoved you into each other’s lives that day, because without it, you probably would’ve stayed in completely separate circles. You don’t think you would’ve chosen each other on purpose.
As much as you can’t stand him some days, you’re inseparable. He’s—corny as it sounds—your person. And if anyone asked him, he’d say you’re his too. Zero hesitation.
And if things weren’t already stereotypical enough as is, you’d definitely had feelings for him at one point—because who wouldn’t have? Enjin’s always been a hot shot. Even as a teenager he's had that thing about him. It wasn’t exactly earth shattering and shocking that you developed a crush.
You had a boyfriend when the two of you first met (sadly your first and only one, actually), which ended a bit after you and Enjin became inseparable. He said it was because of how close you were. At the time it felt crazy dramatic, but looking back, you get it. When you’re young, any attractive guy with that kind of presence feels like competition.
Especially one who seems to understand you better than your own boyfriend does.
And once that fell apart, you fell. Head over your damn heels. He’s cute and funny, makes you feel important and treats you like you're his girl—just not officially. Princess treatment before it was even a joke between you two—to this day you’re spoiled absolutely rotten. It wasn’t exactly hard to grow heart eyes.
But first and foremost, you were his best friend. That was the foundation, and always had been. And over time, that really did become enough.
It took a little while to settle into that reality, sure. But as you both grew up and matured, you realized something important—you didn’t want to risk losing your person over feelings that might complicate everything. Being his homegirl, his ride or die, the one he calls first—that meant more than anything ever could.
~
One month later…
“Excuse me.”
You turn at the voice behind you.
It’s some guy you’re pretty sure you haven’t noticed in this lecture before—and you feel like you would’ve remembered him. He’s got this blank, almost drained expression—like he hasn’t slept in weeks, which is pretty impressive considering it’s only the second week of the semester. There are faint streaks of grey in his hair too. Damn, how old is this guy?
Okay, he doesn’t look old. Just like he’s lived three lives already and none of them went smoothly. Here’s to a fourth?
“Do you have this week’s notes?” he asks. His voice is nice, low and deep. Pretty, even. It just sounds like he’s running on a dead battery.
“Yeah,” you tap your laptop. “They’re all on here though.” He nods once. “That’s fine.”
There’s a pause. He’s still looking at you.
“So… Do you want me to email them to you, or…?”
He nods again and gestures toward your laptop.
You hesitate for half a second—because, hello, stranger—but hand it over anyway.
“I feel like I haven’t seen you in class before,” you say, attempting small talk while he types in his email. He doesn’t look up. “I’m always in the back. I moved up a few seats because someone kept taking mine.”
“This late in?” You let out a small laugh. “Swear some people don’t understand seating rules.”
“There are seating rules?”
“Um… yeah. Like, once you pick your seat the first week, everyone just collectively agrees that’s your spot.”
He finishes typing and hands the laptop back to you. You’re still not sure what to make of him. You glance at the email he sent it to. “Zodyl… cool name.”
“Thank you.”
You try to introduce yourself in return, but he cuts you off, “I know.”
You’re spent thinking about that interaction for the rest of the day. You’ve met some interesting people before, but he’s definitely up there.
Later that evening, sprawled out on your floor and staring at the ceiling while Enjin lounges on your bed—you’re rambling, replaying every second of it while he half listens, tossing in comments whenever he feels like it.
“He kind of looks like a bug,” you say, sitting up suddenly. “Wait. What if he is a bug and just hasn’t figured out human interaction yet?”
Enjin hums. “Sounds like you’re bug-phobic.”
“I am not! I can be accepting of bug people. He seems nice enough. Just… super weird.”
“Maybe he thought you were pretty. Made him nervous.”
“He did not seem into me—”
“Nah, he wanted a piece of that and short-circuited.”
You smack his leg. “Shut up. Quit being an ass.”
“I’m serious!” He kicks that same hand, “Guys get weird when they’re into someone.”
He’s not overly concerned about this Zodyl guy, but you forming connections with random men has always made him cautious.
Enjin knows how guys are. He is one—and you’re his girl to look out for.
“Zodyl…” He finally looks up from his phone to glance at you on the floor. “Isn’t he the one who hangs out with that super wacked-out group?”
You scoff. “Aren’t you one to talk.”
“I think he’s a narc. Actually—no. Maybe not. Pretty sure one of his friends is on drugs.”
“Can you be nice for, like, two seconds?”
“Says the girl who just called him a bug. Guess we’re both hypocrites.”
~
When you walk into class again, Zodyl is sitting in the seat next to yours. He doesn’t acknowledge you when you drop your bag down and pull your chair out, just sits there facing forward like a creepy NPC in a horror game.
You've started unpacking your things when he speaks. “Thank you for your help.”
“With…?”
“Lending me your notes.”
“Oh.” You remember. “Yeah, no worries. I’m glad I’m not taking them for nothing.”
“I didn’t steal anyone’s seat.” Zodyl looks at your confused expression for a brief second before facing forward again. “The seating rules.” He adds, a strand of hair falling near his nose in a way that feels cinematic. “No one had been sitting here. I didn’t take a seat.”
You can’t help but laugh. “I mean, I wasn’t filing a complaint.”
“I didn’t want you to think I was inconsiderate.”
The professor starts shuffling papers at the front, and students are settling in. “Do you care if I stay here?” he asks.
You look at him properly this time. Okay, maybe he doesn’t seem as strange up close. “Not at all,” you say, smiling. “Mi casa es su casa.”
“What?”
“Never mind.” You wave it off. “You’re welcome to sit there, Zodyl.”
After class, he hands you a piece of paper. You take it, looking confused as you glance down at it and back up at him.
He gestures toward sheet in your hand. “Your number.”
You blink. “My phone number?”
Passing you a pen as confirmation, you think he could’ve passed you his phone instead—but sure. This works too.
“If I need more help. You do well with this subject.”
“Yeah, of course!” You beam at the compliment. “Always happy to be of assistance.” You think, just for the faintest moment, there may be the slight chance of the smallest smile on his face. Or you’re crazy.
As he’s going to leave, “I like your sweater. Purple is a nice color on you.”
Later that afternoon, you burst into Enjin’s apartment without knocking. “Zodyl asked for my phone number. Well, sort of. He didn’t really ask—”
Enjin barely reacts to the intrusion—you do this all the time—mid-sip of his beer.
“Bug-man?” He asks, eyeing you as you pace around his kitchen.
“Yes, bug-man,” you’re practically doing laps around the room. “But he’s not actually that scary up close.”
“He was up close?”
“He moved to the seat next to mine. And then asked if it was okay that he stayed there.” Pause. “It was kind of cute.”
“So now bugs are cute?”
You grab an apple off his counter and throw it at him. “Shut up, Jin’. I’m trying to tell you what happened.”
Enjin holds his free hand up in mock surrender. “My bad, mama. Continue.”
Your pacing begins again, along with the rambling. “He kept staring at me. Like, a lot. At first it was uncomfortable. Full eye contact, no blinking. I thought he was glitching.”
“Some people pay extra for that kind of attention.”
“What did I tell you about shutting up? Anyway, he asked for my number. Said it was for ‘help with class,’ but then he complimented my sweater.”
Putting your hands on your hips, you grin at Enjin, all teeth and bright eyes. “So now I’m kind of flattered by the staring. Maybe you were right. Maybe he does think I’m cute.”
Enjin tilts his head, “Of course he thinks you’re cute,” a beer is tossed to you. “I’ve been saying that. Took someone long enough to catch up.”
He gestures his can towards you. “Just don’t let him steal my spotlight.”
Which, unfortunately, after a few weeks, kind of started happening.
You were talking to Zodyl more. In class, obviously—but outside of it too. Sure, sometimes it was about lecture stuff—he did need help here and there. But he’d also start talking about projects he was working on, random ideas, or things he was building.
You still made time for Enjin, it would’ve been crazy not to. The routine included being at his place constantly, or he was at yours, or you were out somewhere with the group, or at one of his parties. You saw him pretty much every day.
But now, sometimes your phone would buzz and you’d glance down mid-conversation. Or you’d cut yourself off to respond to a text. Or you’d casually bring up bug-man (the nickname stuck).
It wasn’t that you had a new guy friend. You’ve always had them. You and Enjin share a huge friend group—you’re close with Gris, with Follo, with August and Corvus—even the dweeb kids Zanka and Rudo that Enjin somehow adopted during his fraternity service hours at the high school. You being friends with other guys has never been new, never been weird, and never been a problem.
What was new was that this guy was clearly into you.
And, again, Enjin knows how guys are. Enjin is guys. Mr. Easy. Mr. I-know-exactly-what-they’re-thinking-because-I’m-thinking-it-too. So yeah, it made him stressed. Not because he thought you couldn’t handle yourself—but because he knew how quickly things could flip. He didn’t like the idea of you getting played, used, or fed some bullshit.
You were his to look out for.
At first he didn’t pay much attention to Zodyl. But now? His guard was fully up, because if anyone was going to rescue you from a bad situation, it was him.
He crashed out a little when you skipped your weekly fast-food movie night to study with that… thing. You hadn’t missed one since you started them as teenagers. Sick? He’d just show up at yours. Busy? You’d make it work.
But no. Here comes the cockroach, interrupting tradition.
It didn’t help that Zodyl knew who he was, too. Which, okay—fair. Enjin was known campus-wide for more than a few reasons. That wasn’t the shocking part. What was shocking was how much he knew.
“Okay, so he’s a narc who hangs out with a druggie and now he’s a stalker,” Enjin said at one point, throwing his hands up after you casually mention something Zodyl knew about him that felt way too specific. “How the hell does he know about my lucky umbrella?”
You sigh, rubbing your forehead. “First of all, he’s not a druggie and his name is Jabber—”
“The fuck kind of name is Jabber? That’s not helping his case.”
“—Second of all,” you continue over him, “you carry that umbrella everywhere. Even when it’s sunny. Zodyl is just observant.”
“Why am I being observed?” Enjin demands. “And how does he know it’s lucky!”
He didn’t like Zodyl. Not at all. And technically, he didn’t even know him. Even if Zodyl somehow knew too much about him.
One time, Enjin spotted him in passing on the way to class. Decided to be mature about it for you. If this guy was going to be in your life, the least he could do was be polite.
He waved. Gave him his best smile, pearly white canines flashing in greeting. “Hey, man!”
Zodyl didn’t even look at him.
But Enjin had always been your number one complication when it came to men. Either he scared them off—because being best friends with a hot, confident guy is intimidating (see: your last boyfriend)—or he attracted the wrong ones. The kind who only got close to you because they wanted proximity to him.
Zodyl was neither. He didn’t seem repelled by Enjin, and he didn’t seem particularly interested in knowing him personally either. No weird fan behavior. Outside of, okay, maybe some mildly stalker-ish observational habits.
It was a nice change of pace—having someone who seems interested in you and not because of who you’re friends with. Even if Zodyl was kind of weird, and you could never fully get a read on what was going on in his head.
Enjin stayed cordial. For the most part. He’d toss in a comment here and there when you brought Zodyl up—nothing too serious, just enough to let you know he had opinions—but he never outright fought you on it. Unless it was something justified, like ditching movie night. That was so different.
Even with all his side-eyes and sarcastic remarks, he knows you’re an adult. He knows you’re not naïve. If anything, he knows you too well to think you’d let yourself get played without noticing.
That doesn’t mean he stops thinking about it.
Or worrying about it.
~
Follo squints at you, Semiu, and Tomme as you push your way into the kitchen. “What are you three supposed to be?”
It’s Halloween, aka the biggest party of the semester. The house is so packed you can barely see the floor, just a blur of shoes and spilled drinks and strobe lights.
“We’re kiss, marry, kill,” Semiu says, lifting the plastic knife she’s been carrying around all night.
“That’s basic.”
Her eyes narrow at him. “And what are you?”
Follo taps the crooked paper plumbob taped to a headband on his head. “I’m a Sim.”
You laugh. “Be serious.”
“I am serious.”
Semiu turns to Gris, who’s leaning against the counter with fake blood smeared across his shirt. “And you’re… bloody Adam Sandler?”
“I didn’t have time to get a costume, and the blood is from Corvus fighting for his life with Party City vampire gel. At least I’m not dressed as a prisoner.” Gris nods toward Enjin, who’s standing there in an orange jumpsuit. He just smirks. “It was either Ghostface or this, and I wanted to get handcuffed.”
Semiu clicks her tongue. “Of course you do.”
Tomme glances over her shoulder. “Tamsy’s somewhere in the living room as an angel.” You’re still laughing at everyone, all the shots in your system from the pre-game making things way funnier than they are. “So we’re all just Pinterest stereotypes tonight, let’s call it even.”
You make your way over to Enjin’s side—like you always do—and hold your hand out for his drink. He passes it without question. Your first instinct is to chug, then just as quickly you gag. “Ew, what the hell is in this?”
“A lot,” he takes the cup back. “We all brought different alcohol and just mixed it together. August added grenadine though, so it’s pretty much a cocktail.”
“That’s not a cocktail. I feel like I just drank water straight from Chernobyl.”
He laughs and throws his arm around you, pulling you into his side. In a house this packed, being next to him is the best place. He’s your designated safe spot.
“Are you supposed to be ‘kiss’?” he asks, poking one of the lipstick marks Semiu left on your cheek.
“Well I’m not wearing a veil or holding a knife, am I?”
“Do I get one?” Enjin puckers his lips dramatically, and you slap your hand over his mouth. “Go find someone to put you in handcuffs so I don’t have to deal with you.”
“I tried, there are no cop girls here. Very disappointing.”
“Should’ve gone with Ghostface. You would’ve gotten laid faster.”
Gris leans over Enjin’s shoulder, eyeing you. “So. Where’s your boyfriend?” Heat flushes your face. “He’s not my boyfriend.”
Enjin feels something hot twist in his chest. He couldn’t even get thirty minutes of standing next to you without that thing getting brought up. “He doesn’t seem like the party type anyway,” Enjin’s jaw clenches, voice tight.
“Yeah, but I asked if he wanted to come anyway. He wasn’t interested.”
Thank fucking God, he thinks.
And then, like clockwork, your phone lights up.
Every ounce of relief he had evaporates the second he sees the name on your screen.
“He can’t get enough of you, huh?” Follo throws in.
Enjin is actually going to punch someone.
You look down at your phone, and your lips curve softly. Your face lights up in a way that makes something in him snap. Before he even thinks about it, he snatches the phone out of your hand and lifts it above your head.
“Enjin!” you shout, jumping for it. “Give it back!”
“Get off your phone,” he holds it higher as you try to climb him. “Live in the moment.” The messages are still open. He sees the photos you sent earlier—your costume and a selfie of your trio.
zodyl !!
You look pretty.
Have fun tonight.
His grip tightens around your phone. For a split second he considers smashing it. Instead, he locks the screen and shoves it into his pocket. “No more phone tonight.”
“Whatever,” you shrug him off, visibly annoyed. “What is your problem?”
He doesn’t answer.
“C’mon,” you grab Semiu and Tomme’s hands. “I wanna dance.”
You drag them away to the group of people that are dancing in the living room, but never leaving Enjin’s line of sight. He never let you at parties.
Listen, you haven’t had a boyfriend since high school. You’ve never really shown much interest in dating either. So the idea of you actually having something with this guy?
The hairs on the back of his neck stand up.
Leaning back and watching you dance, Enjin decides to actually look at you. Like, really look at you. Figure out what it is that’s suddenly pulling Zodyl’s attention your way.
He starts with your face. Glitter highlight catching the lights, eyeshadow sparkling every time you turn your head. That loose, drunk smile painted in lipstick that matches the kiss prints on your cheeks and collarbones. Your hair falling in messy pieces around your face, swaying as you move.
Then lower.
The lace bra strap peeking out from under your little red dress, the fabric hugging you just right to leave very little to the imagination. His eyes trace the dip of your back. Your eyes. Your hair. Your neck. Your lips.
Your tits and ass.
You.
Oh.
Oh shit.
When did you get this hot?
He suddenly becomes hyper-aware of how you stand out from everyone else in the room.
You’re the most attractive girl at this party. And not in a “she’s my best friend so I’m obligated to think that” kind of way.
It’s a “I’ve suddenly opened my eyes and realized my best friend would be more than capable of getting my dick hard” kind of way.
He’s never thought you were ugly, of course he’s always known you’re pretty.
It’s just—back in high school, you were so dorky. In his head, that’s kind of where you stayed. His silly best bud.
When you’ve known someone that long, they sort of freeze in your mind. You stop updating the image. So he’s always seen you as that teenage girl he met freshman year.
He realizes you’re not that girl anymore. You’re grown. You’ve been grown.
Fuck, when did that happen?
Had you always gotten this kind of attention looking like this, and he just never clocked it? How did he, of all slutty men, miss your glaring sex appeal?
Is that why all of his past lovers got so angered by you? Because you—who’s objectively funny, smart, and clearly very attractive—were his girl best friend?
He always brushed it off as jealousy over the attention. And yeah, sure, he gave you a lot of it. Now he’s starting to think that wasn’t it. They weren’t just annoyed, they were threatened. Just as bad as the guys who saw him with you.
You were competition.
And if he were in their shoes? He’d feel insecure standing next to you too.
Now, knowing there are guys looking at you like that, something fires up under his skin. It doesn’t feel protective anymore, not like it usually does.
It feels territorial.
You’re his girl. You’ve always been his girl—and now there are other men looking at you?
Absolutely not.
That doesn’t work for him. That’s never been how this goes.
~
It becomes Enjin’s number one mission to steer Zodyl away from you. Or better yet, steal you back. Not that you’d actually been taken from him, but his ego took a hit that night, and something in him shifted. There’s this new awareness when he looks at you—and he doesn’t know what to do with it except act.
Operation: Kill The Roach.
After the party, he’s insufferable. Groaning every time your phone lights up. Rolling his eyes when you answer a call. Going dead silent the second Zodyl’s name gets mentioned. Any hint of him in your sentence and Enjin’s already bitching.
“I dunno babe, I just get bad vibes. Like, he ate birds as a kid or somethin’…”
“Birds?!”
You’re over it. Completely.
What used to be light teasing turns into actual arguments. Every time you say you’re going to hang out with Zodyl, it’s a fight. Every. Single. Time. He argues like it’s his job. You can see the jealousy plain as day—it’s written all over him—but what you don’t understand is why it showed up out of nowhere. He was fine before!
You try reassuring him. Tell him he’ll always be your best friend. Which, apparently, is the worst possible thing you could say. Nothing lands right anymore. You don’t even know what he wants from you at this point.
You and Enjin argue sometimes. That’s normal. But it’s never been like this between the two of you.
After one particularly nasty fight, you’re sitting on his bed, laptop open, trying to focus on a paper. He’s right beside you, silent. You can practically feel the heat radiating off him—the tension is suffocating.
You’re too tired to deal with it anymore.
“Hey.”
You don’t even look at him. “Don’t start again.”
“Do you think I’m hot?”
That makes you turn. “Come again?”
He’s staring at you like he’s dead serious. “I asked if you think I’m hot. Sexy. Attractive. Whatever.”
“I mean, yeah. Who doesn’t?” You squint at him. “Isn’t that what gets you pussy?” Snorting a little. “Definitely not your personality.”
“Okay…” His jaw tightens. “Do you think I’m hotter than Zodyl?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Pretty straightforward question, ma.”
“It’s not though?” He was being insane.
“Who’s more attractive? Me or him?”
“Dude, where is all of this coming from?”
“I’m not dude.”
“Okay, Enjin. Get your panties out of a twist.” You roll your eyes and scoff at his attitude, turning back to your laptop.
He shuts it mid-citation.
You barely have time to react before he moves in, bracing his arms on either side of you and popping your personal space bubble. You fall back slightly onto the pillow behind you, catching yourself on your elbows.
“Stop avoiding the question.” His eyes are locked on yours, and this doesn’t feel like your usual play-fighting.
“I—”
“Swear to God, if you dodge it again.”
“I don’t know!” You’re flustered now, fully. He’s not backing off. You swallow. “I guess I haven’t really thought about it?”
“Then think about it.”
You hesitate.
Sure, Zodyl is attractive. In his weird, bug-adjacent way. Handsome. Broody. That whole mysterious thing that works on people if you ignore the super off-putting energy.
But Enjin is… Enjin.
He has a reputation for a reason—anyone with functioning eyesight would say he’s sexy. You’ve also seen the parts no one else gets to. The real personality under the persona. You watched him grow into the man he is today.
And he’s one hell of a man.
“Um… you?” It comes out sounding like a question.
He’s way too close. “Why’d you say it like that? You lyin’ to me?”
“No.” You push at his forehead with one finger, trying to create space. “I just had to think about it.”
“Do you need to be convinced?”
A squeak slips out, “Convinced…?”
Your face is burning. He doesn’t even fully know what he meant by that, but you’re flushed and breathing shallow and looking at him like that, and his mouth is running ahead of his brain.
One of his hands lands on the headboard behind you—leaning in to where you can feel his breath on your cheek. “Yeah,” he murmurs. “I can convince you.”
You don’t know what to do with your hands, folding your arms awkwardly across your chest. “Jin’… be honest, are you jealous?”
He jerks back like you slapped him. “Jealous?” The idea is preposterous. What he’s feeling is far deeper than that. “No. I’m not jealous.”
You give a small, unimpressed laugh. “It’s been kind of sounding like it.”
He sits back with a huff, and you’re still half-reclined, heart racing, trying to process whatever the fuck just happened.
“Awh, c’mon. You’ll always be number one in my heart.” There you go, trying to reassure him again. You’re teasing, but the way you phrase it makes something twist in his chest.
Number one. Like there’s a ranking. Like there could be a number two. A number three. Like you could still choose someone else, and he’d just—
No. It doesn’t matter if he’s first or hundredth. There’s no room in your heart for any other man.
He doesn’t even know what he wants out of that. A relationship with you?
A relationship?
With you?
The two of you already have one. Just not the romantic kind—and the ideas never really crossed his mind before.
But now that it has, it won’t leave.
And the more he sits there, the more one thing becomes very clear to him. He wants—no, needs you to be his.
Enjin only ramps it up from there.
He’s working overtime with you now. Picking you up from every single class, whether you ask him to or not. And when you walk out of the one you share with Zodyl, he makes a whole production out of it—grabbing your arm, tugging you into his chest, telling you how much he missed you. Even if he literally saw you twelve hours ago.
Zodyl doesn’t react. No expression. Just a quiet “goodbye,” and he walks off.
Then texts you anyway.
So Enjin starts getting more physical. Not that physical affection was ever weird between you two—it’s always been a thing—but this is different. It’s doubled and bolder. A hand sliding onto your thigh with a squeeze while he drives. Pulling you tighter against him during movie night and pressing kisses to the top of your head. Fingers threading through your hair while you’re trying to focus on homework.
At parties, where he used to just rest a steady hand on your lower back to keep you grounded and near him, is now both hands planted on your hips. Your back flush against his chest, chin resting on your shoulder.
He even starts stripping down when he knows you’re coming over. Shirt gone. Sweatpants hanging low on his hips. Hair loose instead of slicked back—the way he knows you like it. He corners you in the kitchen once while you’re cooking, pressing in close under the excuse of “just grabbing a cup.” Tattooed biceps right by your head as he reaches above you.
Once, knowing you were coming over, he walked out into the living room straight from the shower—still dripping. Water tracked down his chest, droplets falling from the ends of his hair.
He stretched slowly, arms lifting over his head so his muscles flexed and shifted on purpose, towel falling enough to make you nervous he was about to flash you. Then he looked at you like he’d just noticed you were there. “Hey, pretty girl,” cue a very fake yawn, “when’d you get here?”
It’s way more intimate than it’s ever been. Friendly affection got left behind a mile ago.
He’s pulling out every trick he has. And Enjin has magic. He knows exactly how to use his charm, his presence. He’s slutting himself out more than ever before, and he’s laying it on thick.
Maybe too thick. More than he needed to.
Because there’s one thing he doesn’t know.
You used to have feelings for him.
You were still frustrated with him. Still violently annoyed. He was overbearing, dramatic, and utterly impossible lately.
But after that night—after he had you pinned between pillows and freedom, barely any space between you—you couldn’t ignore the feelings that slowly started to resurface.
The energy between you felt different. The way he looked at you wasn’t the same anymore. The way he touched you for sure wasn’t.
You started feeling like that same teenage girl who had the fattest crush on her best friend. The one who read too much into every lingering touch and every half-smile. He was getting you all hot n’ bothered—it was embarrassing. You thought you’d grown out of that.
You’re adults now. You don’t get to have dramatic, delusional fantasies about your best friend suddenly realizing he wants you. That’s middle school shit.
Even if, lately, he’s been acting like he’s fighting for his own damn life every time you’re around.
~
“I wanna go bowling,” Follo announces, taking a drag from the blunt as he lays practically horizontal across the back of the couch. Enjin and Gris have shoved him off at least three times already just to mess with him, but he keeps climbing back up like it’s his assigned seat.
Everyone’s at Enjin’s place for the night. There’s a movie playing in the background that no one’s actually watching, drinks scattered across the coffee table, his favorite cracked ashtray sitting in the middle as a decorative piece.
Follo pushes himself upright—immediately losing balance and sliding off the couch again. “Ow,” he grunts. “Who wants to go bowling?”
“Right now?” Gris looks at him like he’s insane.
“Yeah. Right now.”
“We are not going bowling right now,” Enjin snatches the blunt from his hand. “Maybe this weekend.”
“Can’t this weekend!” August calls out from the floor. “I have a project due!” You sink back further into the armchair. “I can’t either.”
Follo groans dramatically. “You of all people should be able to go. Please?”
“I already have plans. I’m sorry though.” You give him a sympathetic look and he whines at it. Tomme shifts on the floor, propping her chin on your leg as she looks up at you. “What’s got you busy?”
You hesitate for half a second. “Uh… I have a date.”
That gets everyone’s attention.
Gris lets out a low whistle, and Semiu nods approvingly. “You go girl. Your years of celibacy are finally over.” You flip her off playfully. “Shut the fuck up, it’s not like that.”
“Fine,” Follo sighs, still pouting. “You’re excused from bowling, I guess. Congrats that he finally grew a pair.”
“Thank you for approving my time off, Follo.”
Enjin goes completely still where he’s standing. Lips pressed into a thin line. Teeth grinding so hard it looks painful.
“You look mad,” Follo’s still beneath him on the floor. “Be happy for her!”
Enjin shoots him a look that could kill. “You’re too high,” he mutters, planting his foot against Follo’s chest and nudging him back. “Green out. Right now.”
Follo starts dramatically thrashing like Enjin’s actually crushing him, even though he’s barely applying pressure.
He can’t even look at you. He knows if he does, he’s going to say or do something he can’t take back. And he has no idea what that something would even be.
But you’re looking at him.
And Follo’s right. Why can’t he just be happy for you? He’s your best friend. He’s always been your loudest supporter, and your biggest cheerleader. Every win, every milestone, every dumb little achievement—you’ve never had to question whether he’d show up for you.
So why is this so different?
You can’t deny that when Zodyl first asked you out, your instinct was to hesitate. With the way Enjin’s been acting lately, and old feelings creeping back in at the worst possible time—not to mention the possibility that actually dating someone could put space between you and him—you were torn.
Enjin doesn’t look at you for the rest of the night.
He stays mostly silent, tossing in a response here and there so he doesn’t completely kill the vibe. But he won’t meet your eyes. Won’t laugh at your jokes. Won’t even brush past you the way he usually does.
Even after everyone leaves and you stay behind to help him clean up—like you do—he acts like you’re not there.
When you’re done, you grab your things and head toward the door. “I’m leaving!” you call out. Your hand is already on the handle when you hear footsteps, quick and uneven.
“Wait.”
He can’t let you walk out like this. You turn. “Yeah?”
Enjin closes the distance in two strides and pins you against the door. One hand on either side of your face, holding you there.
“Are you…” he starts, then stops, thoughts racing faster than he can control. “Are you going to go on that date?”
He’s so close that you can feel his breath. It pulls you straight back to every moment lately where he’s been inches away, touching you like he does. Your heart is pounding so hard you think he can hear it.
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because I don’t want you to.”
You should be furious. You should call him controlling. Tell him to get over himself. But instead, you’re just hurt. “Why can’t you be happy for me?”
The question hits him harder than anything else tonight. It loops in his head until only one answer presents itself.
“There’s only room for me.”
“I’ve already told you—”
“No.” His voice is stern. “There’s only room for me.”
“Listen to me,” you plead. “You'll always be my best friend, and that’s never going to change. It’s okay for me to try out a relationship. I won’t leave you behind. I promise.” Your hand lifts to give him a pinky promise, and he pushes it away. “Then try it out with me.”
You freeze. “What?”
“A relationship. Have one with me.”
“Jin’, hey. Like I said, you’re my best friend—”
Those words land wrong just like the others.
Enjin steps back, retreating. “Yeah. You’re right. Sorry, ma’. I overstepped.” As much as he hates to do it, he’ll throw in the towel if you weren’t willing. “Be safe getting home, okay? Have fun this weekend.”
“Stop.”
“It’s late, and I know you like your Saturdays quiet and—”
“Enjin.” Your voice snaps, sharp. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“What are you saying to me? What have you been saying to me?” You step toward him. Every step feels loud. “Do you like me?” You’re right in front of him now, grabbing the collar of his shirt and pulling him down so he has to look at you again. He lets out a half-laugh, half-breath. “Understatement.”
“Since when?”
“I’ve always liked you, baby.”
“When?”
He runs a hand through his hair, frustrated. “Think it started when you came in talking about that bug—” You tighten your grip. “Sorry. Zodyl. When you told me he was texting you n’ shit.”
“And then it was thing after thing, and I realized you’re my girl. Nobody else’s. You’re my girl in every way, whether you feel the same or not.”
“I don’t—” Your voice wavers. “I don’t understand.”
He sighs, disgruntled. “Well I’ve been trying to show you—”
“Then show me now.” The words make Enjin's heart stop. “I’ll be receptive. Help me understand.”
“You don’t know what you’re asking.”
“I do,” you push. “Help me understand what you’re feeling.” The way he hesitates makes you frustrated. “Please?”
He surges forward and bites down on your neck—hard. Aggressive enough that you know it’s going to leave a mark. He pulls back just enough to drag his tongue over the indents of his teeth, like he’s making sure it sets.
Your hands fly from his collar to his shoulders with a sharp gasp. It hurts—really fucking bad—but the way he’s kissing over it now makes your stomach twist and heat pool.
“My girl,” he mutters against your skin, words rough between messy kisses and lingering nips. “All mine.” His hand slides up your waist to your collar, tugging it aside so he can press another bite into your shoulder.
“Ngh—Jin’, wait—” you whimper as he does it again.
“Showing you,” he’s completely lost in it. In you. In the act of marking you up. “Showing them.” His hands are gripping you like he thinks you’re about to disappear. Like if he loosens his hold for even a second, you’ll slip through his fingers.
When he finally pulls back, his pupils are blown wide, chest rising and falling too fast. He looks utterly wrecked. “I’ll do anything for you, ma’,” he breathes, voice rough, almost breaking. “So quit lookin’ at other guys and just belong to me. Shit—do I gotta get on my knees and beg?”
This is Enjin. The cocky, arrogant, campus-famous flirt whose ego usually fills the room before he does. And right now he’s undone.
For you.
You rub his shoulders, trying to soothe him, thumb brushing over his cheek, under his eye. “You’re so stupid, you know that?”
He frowns slightly.
“Stupid and blind.” A laugh escapes you as you recall how obvious you were about your feelings when you were younger. “I had the biggest crush on you in high school, I was so down bad.”
“Was?” he hones in on the word.
“Well, yeah,” you tap his cheek. “I had to get over myself if I wanted to stay your friend. And I did. I learned to be okay with that because I knew the chances of you feeling the same were slim to none. I figured I wasn’t your type.”
“My… my type?”
Thinking back now—late nights next to someone else, wondering if you got home safe, if you’d eaten, if you were laughing somewhere without him—he realizes you’ve always been the woman that mattered the most to him. Checking all of his boxes.
“You always teased me. Called me a dork or weird like I was just your annoying little sidekick—” His fingers hook into your belt loops and he yanks you forward before you can finish, lips crashing against yours.
It’s desperate, rough and messy. Nothing like the soft, perfect first kiss with him you imagined when you were sixteen.
Your hands paw at his chest as he kisses you like it’s life or death, like this is the only way he knows how to prove himself worthy for you. With those fresh bite marks burning against your skin, a declaration of his claim on you, you’re living out your childish wet dream of your best friend.
With Enjin.
He pushes you backward and you stumble, falling onto the couch with a breathless laugh that dies the second he follows.
Enjin doesn’t hesitate. He’s on you immediately, bracketing you in, one hand planted by your head while the other grips your waist. He wedges his leg between yours to keep you right where he wants you. “Should’ve realized sooner,” frustration and want tangled together in him. “Could’ve saved us so much time.”
He rolls his hips down just enough to make you gasp, a soft sound slipping out before you can stop it.
“Fuck,” he growls into your mouth. “You’re so hot.”
The compliment goes straight between your legs. The idea of Enjin looking at you like this—wanting you like this—used to feel delusional, so far fetched. And now you’re pinned beneath him while he kisses you stupid.
This is different from anything you’ve ever had. Your kisses with your ex-boyfriend don’t even compare. Those were childish polite pecks.
The way he makes out with you is art. He nips at your bottom lip, drags his tongue along the seam of your mouth until you part for him. His hands slide under your shirt, palms warm against bare skin, fingers splaying like he’s mapping you out because he never got to before.
He’s going to make up for lost time.
Enjin knows you’ve never done anything like this before. Semiu wasn’t joking about your years of celibacy, and the fact that he’s the one you’re here with right now does something reckless to his ego.
He wants to be the one you remember, the one your body responds to without thinking. The one who teaches you what this is supposed to feel like. He wants it burned into you so deep that no one else even registers—in a way where when you close your eyes, it’s him. When you think about being touched, it’s him. When you imagine wanting someone, it’s him.
He’s not just trying to win—he’s trying to make sure there’s no competition ever again.
A hand slides up your stomach to the underwire of your bra, teasing the edge and making you shiver. His thumb brushes over your nipple, leaving you gasping for air—a silent plea for more. All while his other hand finds the waistband of your pants, tugging impatiently as he kneads your breast. Every touch of his ignites your skin.
Enjin pulls back just enough to look at you, hand still hooked at your waistband, thumb brushing the skin there while his lips trail back down to your neck—slower this time, less frantic.
“Is this okay?” He’s bracing himself for rejection. “If you don’t want this, I’ll stop. We can pretend it never happened.”
“You can go on your date,” he adds, voice rough but steadier than before. “And I’ll stay in my place.”
As much as Enjin doesn’t want you to deny him, he meant it when he said he’ll do anything you ask of him—even though the erection in his pants hurts so bad right now.
“No,” fingers fisting into his hair as you try to pull his lips back onto yours, you thrust your hips up to meet his—desperate for any friction to satiate the pooling between your thighs. “I don’t wanna stop, don’t wanna go—”
In one smooth motion, he’s lifting you up and carrying you straight toward his bedroom. The door barely makes it open before he’s tossing you onto the bed—hands everywhere, guiding you, pressing you down.
He goes for your shirt first, tugging it up and over your head with impatient hands, barely giving you time to catch your breath before he’s working at your pants too.
Enjin sits back to look at you, nearly bare in nothing but your undergarments. Your chest is rising and falling, cheeks pink with swollen, glossy lips—his eyes trace your form, staring at the marks on your neck and shoulder. The expanse of your skin to leave more.
He feels his dick twitch and drool.
Shrugging his shirt off and tossing it aside, the tattoo along his stomach makes his abs stand out every time he moves. That mixed with the view of an imprint of his ever so hard cock beneath his sweats? You’re salivating.
Enjin catches you looking and grins. “Like what you see?”
“I could say the same for you.”
“Is that even a question?” He laughs under his breath. “Fuck yeah I do.”
He leans down, mouth trailing lower, lower, lower—kissing along your stomach, over your hip, until he’s hovering right where you need him the most. He hooks one of your legs over his shoulder, pressing a slow kiss to the inside of your thigh.
It’s soft, almost sweet. And then he bites again.
You jolt, and he looks up at you with that dangerous half-smirk as a faint red mark begins to bloom. “And this,” he traces his finger in a circle around the mark, “is for only me to see.”
His breath ghosts over your soaked panties, hot and teasing. Your hand presses against his forehead to stop him, and he groans at your touch. “Wait,” your hips twitching up despite yourself. “You don’t have to… I know some guys don’t like—”
Enjin makes a show of pulling the lace down with his teeth. He flicks his tongue along your slit just once, slow enough for you to feel every damn nerve ending scream for more before pulling back with a shit eating grin. “Nah, that ain’t me, mama.”
The second those words leave his mouth has you clenching around nothing.
His tongue drags a filthy stripe from your entrance to your clit, and the second he tastes how wet and sweet you are has him grinding into the bed. “Fuck," he rasps, “look at that. All for me?” His thumb replaces his mouth just long enough to circle slow, maddening patterns while his other hand pins your hips down.
You choke on air when he finally sucks hard on that swollen bud—the vibration of his groan shooting straight through you as one finger sinks inside without warning. “Mine,” Enjin repeats like a prayer between licks, teeth grazing where it makes stars explode behind your closed eyelids.
Your fingers fly to weave through his golden strands of hair—letting out a louder moan than you intended to—before slapping a hand over your mouth to muffle your sounds.
No, he can’t have that.
With his free hand, he pulls yours away to lace your fingers together. “Awh, don’t do that. Let me hear you.”
Rough tongue sending sparks coursing through you, he slips in another finger—curving them just right to hit that spot inside of you and drive you mad. His fingers tighten around yours, holding your hand like a lifeline—and you can see him shaking, straining as he fights the need to just get closer to you.
You’re practically crying from just his mouth and fingers alone—you can’t imagine what it’ll feel like to have him inside of you. “Agh—fuck! Oh, Enjin—”
“That's it,” he’s purring against your clit, “keep sayin’ my name just like that.”
It’s too much—too good. When you unconsciously try to wiggle away from his hold, Enjin tsk’s—grabbing your thigh by his head and pulling you back, pushing your hips down again to keep you in place. “Where are you runnin’ off to?” His eyes are locked on you. “You're stayin’ right here, princess.”
“Please, please—Jin’, please—” You haven’t got the slightest clue what you’re begging for, but you just know you need more.
The obscene sound of you soaking his fingers punches an embarrassing moan from Enjin’s throat. Your back arches off the bed because of it—lips parted around his name—while he watches with pupils blown black.
Enjin’s hips continue to jerk mindlessly, and he swears he’s going to bust his load in his pants from just the taste and sight of you.
“Ngh—Enjin, I think I’m—” Attempting to warn him of your increasing climax, you’re cut off by him pulling away, coming up to kiss you. It’s softer this time—at least compared to his rough, desperate lips earlier. “Not yet.”
Taking off his pants, he finally releases his cock from its hold. You can’t help but gape at it—tip red and angry, drops of precum leaking down. It’s unfairly pretty.
And it’s big.
He reads the slightly fearful look on your face, rubbing soft circles into your hips. “Hey, we’ll take it slow, okay?” Every touch is a silent promise to you—this is Enjin, you’re safe. He’ll always take care of you.
Lining himself up at your entrance, he looks at you for confirmation. This okay?
You swallow, nodding. He smiles, leaning down to press a kiss against your cheek as he pushes just the tip in.
“Shit—” You wince in pain with a sharp inhale. Enjin’s lips brush over your temple as he pushes in inch by inch. “Relax, baby. Just breathe, I’ve got you.”
Bottoming out has him moaning, head dropping to the crook of your neck. “You feel so good.”
Every muscle in his body contracts, trying not to move—this is your call, and he’ll wait however long he needs to. Eventually, the pain subsides into a dull ache—but underneath it is something better. When you feel his dick twitch inside of you, it makes your breath hitch.
You tap his shoulder.
“You can move.”
Enjin pulls back ever so slightly, before rocking back into you. “You're shaking,” He nuzzles the curve of your shoulder, inhaling the scent of sweat and your perfume. “You okay?”
The feeling of that first thrust catches you off guard, and you gasp—running your hands down the ink on his chest. “Perfect.” You nod profusely. “Please don’t stop.”
Slowly but surely, his hips start rolling in more shallow movements as he watches your face twist with newfound pleasure. You’re clenching around him so hard it’s taking everything in him to last, which was no easy feat right now. “You’re so tight—”
“You sound like that’s a bad thing…”
That makes him laugh, even though half-way through it he chokes on a groan when you tighten up on him again. “No, baby. Far from a bad thing.”
“You’re so wet,” a kiss, “and grippin’ me like this,” a thrust. “Fuck, ma’—it’s makin’ me lose my damn mind.” He picks up speed, and it feels so good that you are crying now. Big, fat tears beading at your lashes and running down your face.
“Shh, don’t cry baby,” Enjin cooes, catching the drops of salty tears with his tongue—lapping them up as they fall. Your nails claw down his back—so hard he thinks he may be bleeding—but that only turns him on more.
It’s kind of wild—seeing you laying beneath him, eyes glazed over and glossy with tears, moaning his name and crying, all fucked out on his dick. Never in a million years would he have thought he’d be balls deep inside of you—but now he’s cursing himself for not doing this so much sooner.
His cock is hitting nerves that your fingers or toys could never reach, and your back arches into him every time it kisses your cervix. You also couldn’t believe you were having sex with Enjin—silently thanking whatever higher power is up there for finally granting your wish.
“You’re so beautiful.” His hips roll in mind blowing circles. “And you’re so smart, funny, and kind.” Every praise is accompanied with a thrust that knocks sounds you didn’t even know you were capable of from your lips.
“You’re all mine, right?” You babble, nod, whatever. But that’s not what he wants. He takes one hand and grabs your jaw, the other reaching down to circle your clit. The added stimulation along with him hitting all of the right spots in your gummy walls makes your vision blur. “Ngh—yes! Right there—feels so good…”
“Wrong answer, try again.” His thrusts are brutal now, all softness out the window. “Let me hear you say it.” He grips your jaw harder, forcing you to look him in the eye, “I know you can. C’monnn—just use your words, princess.”
“Yours!” You cry out, “M’ yours—all yours, oh!” One particular snap of his hips has you practically screaming—you make a mental note to write an apology letter to his neighbors. “Only wanna be yours, Enjin—”
“Always have been—” You take his face in your hands, “Never loved anyone else—”
Your nails raking down the sweat-slick nape of his neck has him moaning and moving like a damn dog in heat, hips jerking like a live wire’s been shoved up his spine. “I never ever will!”
Your voice is like cupid’s arrow right in his heart. No pussy’s ever had him this drunk on it before—losing all of his self control—but that was just the spell you had on him. Constantly pulling at his heart strings, and shit, he wished he'd always loved you this way.
Maybe he had. Maybe you were right that he was stupid—he never really was very good with feelings. He’ll never make a mistake like that again.
“That’s my good girl, always sayin’ exactly what I want to hear…” He’s trying so hard to hold on. “God—M’ sorry, mama—” Enjin’s hands lock around your thighs, hiking them up until they’re flush with your chest and he’s wearing them like a necklace. “Didn’t mean to make you wait this long.”
You didn’t think it was possible for him to get any deeper—but fuck, he was—the stretch burning so good, and you can practically feel him in your stomach. His thick cock bullies into your tight cunt with little to no mercy, forehead pressed against yours, and your walls flutter around him as the coil in your stomach tightens.
“You gonna cum for me?” He goes faster, harder—he could win an Olympic medal at this point. “Please, baby. Need you to—” The pace of his thumb circling around your clit speeds up, giving you about 30 seconds until you fall apart. “Need you to cum all around my cock—”
Your vision goes white as you snap, orgasm rushing over you in mind blowing waves. You fall forward, this time biting down on his neck—hard enough to bleed and bruise.
“Mine—mine, mine, mine—” If you’re going to be his, then he’s going to be yours. No more Mr. Playboy. You’re not about to let him claim you without claiming him right back. If he wants you locked down, then he’s locking the fuck down too.
“Fuck—yeah baby, just like that…” Enjin’s cumming harder than he thinks he ever has in his life—the feeling of your walls spasming and clenching as you experience your own release, your teeth sinking into his skin, the sound of your cries and chanting right by his ear—it leaves him fucking you rough and filthy through both of your highs.
You think this must be what heaven feels like. If you died right now, you’d be at complete and utter peace with the life you’d lived.
His hips slow, easing your legs gently back down around his sides. You’re utterly wrecked beneath him—flushed and panting, skin glowing with sweat, shimmering almost like the glitter you always dust across your collarbones at parties.
You’re the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.
The way your hair fans out on his sheets. The way your lips are swollen and bruised from kissing him. The way your eyes are looking at him right now. He wants to burn the picture of you into his brain forever.
Enjin slowly pulls out and you mewl at the overstimulation, then at the loss of him inside of you. “Was that okay?” His eyes search your face like he’s looking for any sign he messed up.
“More than okay,” you reach up to trace the mark you left on him. It’s dark and gnarly. You wince. “Sorry about that… But was it okay for you, too?”
“Best sex I’ve ever had, baby.”
Enjin drops back onto the bed and pulls you into his chest where you belong. “And don’t apologize. I liked it, was hot as fuck. I feel branded now—might go get it tattooed.”
“You’re gonna get so much shit from the guys.”
“Do I look like I care?”
You run your fingers over the lines of his tattoos, tracing them absentmindedly while he presses a soft kiss to the top of your head. “We should probably get you cleaned up.”
He’s right, your thighs are sticky from your combined juices now leaking out—but you whine and cling tighter to him. “Nooo. Not yet. In a bit.”
“You’re such a spoiled brat.”
“Your spoiled brat, if I remember correctly.”
“Yeah, my pain in the ass.”
His heartbeat thuds beneath your palm, his hand rubbing slow circles into your back like he’s trying to lull you to sleep. “Got a question for ya’.”
You lift your chin to look at him. “What’s up?”
“You still going on that date this weekend?”
You roll your eyes and pinch his cheeks lightly. “Don’t ruin the moment.”
He grins. “Second question.”
“God, what now?”
“Girlfriend?”
Your heart flutters—the best word that could’ve come out of his mouth. You smile softly and nod.
every single time you bend down in front of him he smacks your ass like it’s a reflex. like a doctor hitting your knee with that little hammer. he genuinely doesn’t even realize he’s doing it anymore.
when you take off your shirt he hollers, “BOOBIES!” loud enough for half of the cleaner hq to hear. rudo once dropped a wrench because of it.
he got a pic of you in his pocket where you sleep with your mouth wide open, double chin included. he proudly shows it EVERYONE.
calls you baby in increasingly stupid variations. sugarbaby. babycakes. babygirl. babybel cheese. babesaurus rex.
absolutely the type to fake dramatic injuries for attention. “aughhh… my heart…” — “what happened?” — “you looked too pretty.”
if you ignore him for more than ten minutes he starts escalating. first it’s whining. then poking. then laying on top of you like a weighted blanket. “hello? hello? customer service? my girlfriend stopped loving me.”
he cannot flirt normally. ever. he points at you and goes, “that one’s mine btw,” like he found a cool rock.
one time he tried to kiss you smoothly and accidentally headbutted you hard enough to make both of you see stars.
obsessed with making you laugh. if you laugh so hard you snort, he acts like he just won the lottery.
if you’re cooking he WILL appear behind you and steal food straight from the pan while acting offended when you hit his hand away. “wow. abuse. in my own home.”
absolutely the kind of boyfriend who starts fake beef with inanimate objects for hurting you.“this table got one more time to hit my girl before i square up.”
loves putting his cold hands on your skin just to hear you shriek.
kisses you mid-sentence. not romantically either. fully to shut you up because he thinks it’s funny.
every time you wear something slightly revealing he malfunctions, in a “walking into walls because he’s staring” way.
would 100% yell “THAT’S MY WIFE!” over the smallest accomplishments. you parallel parked successfully? THAT’S MY WIFE!!!!
he treats your bra like a deadly ancient artifact whenever you ask him to unclasp it. “okay wait. hold on. i almost got it. why’s this built like a fucking escape room?”
once tried to carry you bridal style to be romantic. immediately dropped you both onto the couch because he tripped over absolutely nothing. another time he knocked you out on the doorframe.
if you’re shorter than him he rests his chin on your head constantly. if you’re taller than him he still tries. the posture is horrendous.
shamelessly fishes for compliments. “babe do i look sexy today?” — “you’re wearing one sock and my shirt?” — “answer the question.”
he sees you naked and suddenly turns into the loudest man alive. “WOOOOOOO!!!!” then rips his shirt off like in the werewolf meme.
genuinely thinks couple arguments can be solved with snacks and cuddles. “okay but what if we held hands and got noodles instead?”
i've read a few different fics now where drunk reader accidentally reveals their and law's secret relationship. but what if it was the other way around? what if famously stone cold bitch trafalgar law got absolutely trashed for some irrelevant reason and suddenly can't keep his hands to himself?
imagine him looking around the room trying to focus his eyes (because god forbid someone notices him losing control even in the slightest) and then his gaze lands on you. you're just standing there talking and laughing with someone else and your smile is just as sweet as always and suddenly he's standing up and walking over to you and before you both know it he has stumbled into your personal space and rests his forehead against the back of your head.
you freeze for a moment. because there's no one else who would do that but also it's impossible that it's him because you're in public and this is not subtle. not subtle at all. if anything the gesture is remarkably tender.
and then you feel him start wrapping his arms around your waist and you smile apologetically at the person you were talking to (who is looking at you like you've just grown a second head) and take his hands to stop him as you turn around and look up at him with panicked eyes.
he just lazily gazes down at you and you can already see the corners of his mouth twitch up and then he starts leaning in. you take a step back and he looks at you all drunk and confused and adorable and for a second you swear you can see a pout.
"law, what are you doing?"
he tilts his head.
"what does it look like i'm doing?"
and you almost laugh because even in his obviously delirious state he doesn't fall out of his habit of ever present nonchalance and assertiveness.
he tries to step closer again and you try to hold him back. you hiss:
"it looks like you're about to let everyone in on our secret, captain."
but he's not listening to you, instead he's trying to lean into your space again so he can bury his face in the crook of your neck. which must look funny seeing as he has to lean down quite a bit and you're pushing at his chest now, actively trying to prevent him from coming anywhere near your face.
"law stop", you try again.
he doesn't.
"i'm serious", you try to reason with him. "you're going to regret this."
but he's too busy trying to wrap himself around you.
"how much did you drink?"
he pulls you closer.
"law-"
you pause.
because when did the room get so quiet?
you almost feel their stares before you actually see them. you turn around. there's an awful silence that stretches out for what feels like a very long moment. then someone snorts (probably shachi) and all hell breaks loose.
people are screaming, pointing, yelling in distress. some are laughing hysterically. you're pretty sure you see penguin hand money to ikkaku out of the corner of your eye. then ikkaku takes out some more money and hands it all to shachi. bepo hasn't moved in a concerning amount of time. it's carnage.
then law's torso finally comes into contact with your back and he puts his head on top of yours and lets out one of those rare sighs that sounds so content that you momentarily forget the chaos around you.
"i love you", he mumbles into your hair, so softly that no one else catches it. you almost don't.
you sigh and hold back the smile that threatens your lips.
you’d never meant to become this important to either of them.
rudo clung to you first. that was easy to explain. you cooked when there was food, patched him up when there wasn’t, scolded him gently and praised him loudly. you stood between him and the world like it was instinct, like you’d been built for it.
enjin watched all of that and fell a little more doomed every day.
𝟷 - the almost-kiss in the kitchen
the kitchen was quiet in that rare way that made enjin brave.
you were standing close, stirring something close to stew, your shoulder brushing his chest when you leaned over to grab salt. he smelled soap and smoke and you. his hand lifted without permission, fingers hovering near your jaw.
he tilted in—
“hey!” rudo’s voice cracked through the room like a thrown brick.
you turned instantly. “what?”
rudo stood in the doorway, arms crossed, eyes narrowed. “why is he standing so close to you?”
enjin stepped back like he’d been caught committing a crime. you laughed it off, ruffled rudo’s hair, and enjin spent the rest of the night staring at the wall like it betrayed him while replaying the half-inch he’d lost.
𝟸 - the rain soaked interruption
it rained hard that day. one of those relentless downpours that soaked through clothes and bones alike.
you came in dripping wet, shivering, and enjin didn’t think when he shrugged off his coat and draped it over your shoulders, fingers lingering as he pulled you closer.
“you’ll get sick,” he muttered, forehead dipping toward yours.
your eyes softened as you smiled up to him.
and then—
“stop flirting.”
rudo appeared from nowhere, towel in hand, jamming himself between you like a wedge. “you’re wet. dry off. don’t lean on weird adults.”
“weird—?” enjin spluttered.
you were already crouching to rudo’s level, thanking him, wrapping the towel around his shoulders instead. enjin stared at the ceiling and wondered if yearning counted as a chronic illness.
𝟹 - the quiet night watch
rudo slept between you on the floor that night, dead to the world.
enjin sat across from you, back against the wall, watching the way your chest rose and fell. the fire crackled softly. enjin watched the way your face relaxed when you thought no one was looking. everything felt fragile and warm.
you met his gaze and held it. slowly he reached out, brushing his thumb over your knuckles. you didn’t pull away, because you wanted it too. so much. he leaned forward.
rudo rolled over mid-sleep and kicked enjin square in the shin.
“ow!”
“don’t steal my person,” rudo mumbled, eyes still closed.
you bit your lip to keep from laughing. enjin nursed his bruised pride and bruised leg in equal measure. he reconsidered every life choice he ever made - but not you.
𝟺 - the teasing accusation
“you like her.” rudo said it casually, like he was commenting on the weather.
enjin froze. “what?”
“you like my big sister,” rudo continued, glaring. “romantically.”
you nearly dropped the cup you were holding. “rudo—”
enjin opened his mouth, heart in his throat, ready to finally say something honest.
“don’t,” rudo warned him, pointing a finger at enjin like a gun. “she’s busy. and tired. and mine.”
you sighed, pulling rudo into a hug and ruffling his hair playfully. enjin watched your arms wrap around the kid and swallowed his confession whole.
𝟻 - the breaking point
it happened after a bad day. blood, exhaustion, fear clinging to all of you.
you’d snapped at enjin earlier, but apologized immediately with tears in your eyes. he’d taken your hands without thinking, eyes fierce and soft all at once.
“i can’t keep doing this,” he said quietly. “wanting you like this.”
your breath caught. “enjin…”
he leaned in… and rudo burst into tears. full on sobbing. wailing like the world was ending. it was such a rare moment to see rudo emotional that you panicked instantly. you dropped enjin’s hands to rush to rudo’s side, pulling him into your arms, whispering reassurances.
enjin stared at the ceiling again. he accepted fate. but he was also going to lose his mind.
𑣲 the one time rudo didn’t stop him
rudo fell asleep on your chest that night, worn out from crying himself dry. you didn’t move. you never did when he slept like that.
enjin sat beside you quietly, and rubbed your arm in comfort.
“he loves you,” enjin said softly.
you smiled tiredly. “i love him too.”
there was a long pause.
“and me?” enjin asked.
you looked up at him then. your eyes softened as you leaned forward - foreheads brushing, and your breathing mingled. it was you who kissed enjin first - just a soft press of lips.
you were careful, but certain. you might wasn’t able to tell him that you loved him yet, but you could show him that just meant as much to you than you to him.
enjin froze before he melted into you. his cheek rubbed against yours as he exhaled shakily.
from your chest, rudo sighed in his sleep. he didn’t wake up. or maybe he was awake and decided to give you that little piece of happiness. maybe he knew that enjin was serious about you, that he longed and yearned for your heart. rudo needed you too, but differently, and maybe he ‘allowed’ enjin to share you.
however - enjin swore it was the happiest moment of his miserable, yearning life.
