➤ in which the king of curses, known for terror and bloodshed, will become your husband. sukuna normally slaughtered others without thinking twice, but you were the only person who could curse, fuss, and walk away unscathed. with any remark he made, you could make a witty retort twice as fast. he grumbles (but secretly loves it.)
Sukuna never had to say a word. His presence spoke volumes, and made people bow their heads with horror-stricken resignation. Others dare not look at him, as they didn't want to become another example of his wrath. Everyone in your village knew of him, where he lurked: a forest on the outskirts. A forest nobody attempted to traverse.
Until you were sent to find herbs.
You had a hard time finding the plants you needed, so you made the decision to wander through the forest. If no one has ever been there, the place must have an abundance of plants. You thought, but there was still a small, lingering fear of coming across him.
That was the day he first saw you, but you were still unaware. It was nearing sunset, the sky calming down to soft orange hues. Everything in the forest was still clearly visible, and he wasn't necessarily hiding. Sukuna would make himself known if he wanted to be.
His first thought was that you were a beautiful, yet foolish woman. Why would you come here alone? Wander so far away, just for herbs?
Once he saw you struggling with a certain herb, he made a fast, upward motion with his pointer finger. The plants stem fell off, ending your struggle.
You were taken aback, cursing under your breath with confusion. You could feel a chill, and goosebumps appeared on your skin. You secured the plant, but it wasn't by your own devices.
"I helped you, and I get no word of gratitude?" A deep, throaty voice spoke.
That explained your recent chills. You turned around to see the man you thought was a myth. Seven feet tall, two pairs of arms: the bottom pair crossed, the top pair resting on his hips. The wind ruffled his black haori and light-colored pants. He had foreboding stature, yet to you he was enticing, alluring. He was looking down at you, eyes slighty narrowed with analysis, trying to figure out your next move, how you would react.
You didn't scream or run, but you replied. "I usually don't thank men who lurk from afar. If you had made yourself known, I would've."
That wasn't what he expected. His eyebrows furrowed, making small wrinkles on his forehead. "It is not lurking when it is my forest."
"Then do you prefer the word stalking?" You stood to your feet. "I believe that's a better fit."
His scowl deepened. "You are lucky I've let you stay here for so long. I'm sure you are not oblivious, you know who I am. What I am capable of."
"I do." You nodded. "Yet, my village needed herb, which this forest has plenty of. So, I suppose I will thank you for that."
His lips twitched, wanting to say more, but he pushed it back down. "You will leave now." His voice boomed. "Go, while I am still giving you a chance."
Sukuna's words held no malice, and his threats were always empty. Every other day, he'd spot you in the forest again picking and cutting plants. He caught on to the routine, figured out where you'd enter, and left a pile of plants near it. The pile increased in size as the weeks passed, and the small basket you carried wasn't enough anymore. Sukuna crafted you a bigger one. When your yukata got caught on a branch, he left you a new one. A blue yukata bright as the sky on a spring morning, that's how he saw you.
When the herbs turned into gifts, you realized this was a courting attempt, as much as you didn't believe it.
You went back to the forest, but not looking for any herbs. You wanted to find Sukuna, but he found you first.
He stated your name. "Do my gifts suffice?"
"Your gifts have been nice, but they've also made me weary. I've given you no reason to do this, so there must be something you want in return."
"You're smart." The corner of his lips curved into a smirk. "I want you to be my wife."
He stated it like it was common knowledge, not a proposal. Not asking for lifelong devotion.
"Your wife?" You questioned, dumbfounded. "That's not humorous at all."
"Do I look like I am trying to make you laugh?" He met your eyes, repeating his prior statement. "I want you to be my wife. You are gorgeous, I've given you gifts, are you not satisfied?"
"I just told you I liked your gifts, didn't I? It's just, what did you expect from me? I am not all powerful like you are."
"Your words hold more power than I have ever seen." A genuine compliment. "They can quickly irritate me, but I've grown to appreciate the irritation. You could say i've grown fond of it." Sukuna slightly swayed. Only admitting something like this could make the King of Curses waver.
You smiled. "You're nothing like what I've heard. You're sweet."
His fond expression quickly turned into a frown. "Watch yourself. I have uttered those words for nobody else. Nobody but you."
Sukuna became your husband, and you moved into the estate. Spacious halls to accommodate his frame. Everything was left neat and tidy due to the servants who worked. You'd adjusted to living there, but not to his huge body.
Both of you were in the bedchamber, moon high in the sky. You attempted to sleep, but one of his arms would occasionally fall onto you. Every time you moved it, he would grumble.
"Wife," he huffed. "could you stop moving while I'm trying to get a moment of rest?"
"You're telling me to stop moving? You have not stopped moving since you've laid down!"
"That is not true." He quickly denied.
"It couldn't be more true! You, stop moving your arms."
"Or what?"
"Or I will move to the guest room. No, I changed my mind, you will move to the guest room."
"You think you can—" He turned over and assessed your glare. "fine."
You slept soundly that night, and he only kept one arm around you. That was more comfortable for you, and the only thing he wanted was to hold his wife.
…YOU LET ME CALL YOU BABY BUT I CAN’T CALL U MINE ?
sum. when geto is partnered up with you for a ‘fake family’ project, it gives him the perfect excuse to touch you as he pleases. but when you continue to laugh him off, can his frat brothers help him make you see him as boyfriend and not ‘bestie’?
“you’re partners with y/n?! that’s your sign to lock in, man. stop playing safe and take the fucking leap.”
ΣΧ
“i think we should name the baby ‘nagito komaeda.’”
“i think you’ve lost your damn mind.”
in the common room of the sigma chi frathouse, geto suguru has his legs spread lazily & his back against the old couch. he’s scrolling through his phone with bleary eyes as sato & sukuna debate a name for their project’s fake baby. sato gojo is scribbling names in red on the whiteboard. ryomen sukuna is taking up half the space on the living room couch.
“sukuna the second,” sukuna says with a gulp of his cola. he sets the can down with a thud & crosses his feet over the wooden coffee table, leaning back into suguru’s space. “it’s the only respectable option. suguru, what do you think?”
geto suguru thinks that sukuna hasn’t showered today.
he also thinks his privacy screen is his greatest investment. ryomen sukuna has his cheek smushed against suguru’s shoulder and his brown eyes blinking up at him, but he doesn’t notice that geto is scrolling through your instagram posts, staring at pictures where you look too pretty to be real with a tight jaw & stifled heartbeat. sukuna flicks his temple. “helloo. earth to suguru?”
suguru’s silver piercings are glistening in the heat. he blinks once, twice—memorizes the photo on his screen where you’re grinning while hugging a plush bear bigger than your head—& clicks his phone off with a sigh. his head rolls back in defeat.
“y/n is my project partner.”
the room goes silent.
gojo sato freezes against the whiteboard, marker still in hand. sukuna has leaned away from suguru, eyes wide, as if suguru has just admitted to not showering this morning. the two boys stare at suguru. then at each other, then back to suguru again.
“ouuuu shii,” they drawl simultaneously.
“please don’t start this nonsense…”
“suguru, this is huge!” sato lets his marker fall to the floor, and runs to crouch in front of geto, elbows on suguru’s knees. “think about it, man. you and the girl of your dreams. partnered up to play husband n’ wife and take care of a plastic baby.”
suguru bites his cheek, neck hot. “it’s just a project.”
“no, it’s an opportunity,” sukuna corrects. “this is the girl who calls you bestie even when you look at her like you wanna eat her alive.” he snaps his fingers. “this is your chance, idiot. to show her you’re husband material. you have an excuse to call her wifey, for fuck’s sake.”
suguru’s phone is tight in his palm. his thumb is still tracing the line of your smile in the image he was staring at before he clicked his phone off.
“she thinks i’m her friend,” suguru murmurs, voice half-gone as he slips his phone into his pocket. “she’s comfortable with me. i’m not gonna ruin that by acting like a feral dog.”
“you’re already feral, idiot. y’think i didn’t see you staring at her IG photos like a creep?”
geto blinks. “how did you—“
“not important!” sato interrupts, slapping suguru’s thigh. he rests his chin on suguru’s knee, blue eyes glimmering in the light. “what’s important is, you have an opportunity. she’s already comfortable with you—you just have to take it further. call her sweetheart. baby. wife. see if she doesn’t stop you. take the leap, suguru.”
“take the leap,” sukuna grins.
take the leap. but the leap is a jump with no safety net. geto suguru knows what’s at stake. he knows if he ever let himself get too greedy—too carried away—he risks losing the friday mornings spent at the library with your head against his shoulder while you pretend to read from a book. he risks your voice calling his name across campus, and the way you hug his arm when you haven’t seen him in days, and the way you tug the piercing on his lip with a playful smile when you want his attention. geto suguru knows better than to risk it. he knows not to take the leap.
but he nods, lips tight as he reaches for his car keys on the table. “i’ll take the leap.”
“let’s go, daddy geto!” sato roars, dapping sukuna up. the boys watch with stupid grins as geto shoves things in his pockets. geto glances at the time: 5PM. “i’m going to her place now, we agreed to meet up.”
sukuna clutches his heart, then waves. “go get your wifey, asshole.”
suguru doesn’t look back. it’s time to fucking leap.
# SHOW TIME !
“suguruu, stop acting responsible and come cuddle me.”
ah, you’re such a fucking bother.
it’s sometime after six and geto suguru is in your bedroom with his shirt tossed somewhere on the floor and his silver chain cold against his chest. he’s putting together the plastic baby crib in preparation for the project’s official start on monday, and trying very fucking hard to ignore the fact that you’re all sprawled out on your bed behind him: hair fanned out, pillow to your chest, and whining his name because who are you if not a tease?
“you’re such a bad husband,” you mumble wistfully. “leaving your wife all alone on her bed like this…”
god.
geto’s throat bobs. there’s blood in his throat but his eyes skim the instructions with hazy focus. lord knows he wants nothing more than to press you into the covers and kiss you till you’re laughing his name and you can’t fucking breathe, but he knows the minute he pads over there you’ll laugh in his face.
his mouth dries.
“someone has to build the crib, angel,” he murmurs. it comes out lower than he intended, but whatever—it came out regardless. pet name number one, okay. “unless you want our fake baby sleeping on the rug?”
“i want my fake husband,” you hug your pillow tighter, and geto can hear the pout in your voice. your eyes are still on the ceiling, and geto doesn’t miss the fact that you don’t comment on the pet name. perhaps you didn’t hear it. perhaps you just don’t care. “and the baby is plastic,” you grumble. “it doesn’t care if it sleeps on a mattress or a floor.”
he hums. “bet it doesn’t complain as much either.”
“hey!” you gasp, chucking your pillow at him with a laugh. geto’s lip twitches in a smile. he rubs the back of his head, sweeping away the black strands falling in his face. he turns to glance at you, and then he wishes he didn’t, because you’re staring back at him with the brightest eyes he’s ever seen.
he bites his cheek. and then he pads over to you.
you watch, starry eyed, as geto lets the instruction manual glide to the floor. he presses a knee into the mattress, leg swinging over your thighs, bed dipping underneath his weight. his hair tickles your jaw and his chain dangles in front of you and geto suguru smells like dogwood and something too warm to have a name.
you blink up at him. “Hi.”
“Hi,” he murmurs. “you look cute like this.”
he shouldn’t say that, he knows he shouldn’t, but you’re already curling your hand around his necklace and letting your thighs squeeze underneath him. and geto’s eyes rake down your body—just once, just a little, because he knows better than to leap that fucking far. so he bites his lip.
“i always look cute..” you mumble, lashes fluttering and voice fading underneath him.
“mm, but you look extra cute today,” he mutters, “like a real life mommy.”
you tug his necklace, grin cheeky. “geto suguru. are you trying to seduce me?”
“no,” he murmurs, and his voice is too low and the words come too fast. “i’m being a good husband. taking care of my wife’s needs before she even asks.”
he’s still propped up over you, bare pecs heaving & chain glinting too close to your face. the heat of his body pricks at your skin. you tug him closer by the chain: “and what needs do i have?”
“attention,” he murmurs, thumb grazing your cheek. “you've been whining since I got here. wanted me to stop working. wanted me to come cuddle you.”
“i was only joking..” you mumble, slightly shy. and geto wishes you wouldn’t say that. wishes he didn’t know that already.
but he’s a patient man. and how can he be upset when you look so pretty underneath him?
“i know,” he murmurs, voice warm, half-lidded eyes boring into yours. “i’m sorry. am i making you uncomfortable?”
he says he’s sorry but his thumb still grazes your cheek, because he can’t not. you lean into him reflexively, and then you blink.
“what—? no, no. it’s just—“ your brows furrow, and you frown in that way that makes geto want to kiss it off. “it’s just… you’re so good at this, geto!”
his thumb pauses over your cheek. “what?”
“this husband thing!” you grin up at him, cheeks flushed. “you made me feel all hot and funny inside. your future wife is gonna be so lucky.”
geto blinks. you keep going.
“you were so hot,” you cup his cheek with a palm, and geto’s jaw is slack. “and you’re so responsible setting up the baby stuff. whoever you date and marry is gonna be so lucky. in a way this is perfect practice, isn’t it?”
his jaw tightens. “yeah, practice.”
he doesn’t say you’re the only girl he’s ever wanted, the only girl he’ll ever want, that last summer when you fell asleep on his couch with his hoodie on your shoulders he thought about you with his last name; or that every time you swat his chest and laugh away his efforts his heart cracks a little in his chest. he doesn’t tell you he’s only a man and his heart can’t take much more much longer.
but he squeezes your hip. bites your neck so you giggle and swat him away. rolls off you and pretends his chain isn’t still warm from your grip.
geto suguru pads away to kneel by the crib’s side. “is my wife gonna keep whining, or is she gonna help me fix this?”
SATO’S REMARK : TOUGH LUCK. BUT KEEP AT IT, BROTHER!
HUSBAND TACTICS #2: GET DOMESTIC !
taught by: toji zenin
“wanna woo her? take her on a family-esque activity. that’ll show her you’re husband material.”
ΣΧ
sigma chi’s frathouse kitchen is two bottles of bourbon & cranberry jam left open on the countertop. in the kitchen suguru geto is there, a hyper-realistic plastic baby on his hip as toji scribbles grocery items in handwriting geto will have to pretend to understand.
“here’s everything,” toji grumbles, clicking his pen and passing the note to suguru. geto’s face scrunches immediately, piercings glimmering as he squints his eyes in a desperate attempt to read the list. “how the hell is your handwriting worse than sukuna’s?”
“you’ll figure it out. it’s for meg,” toji answers, bored, drumming his pen against the sticky counter. “and some of the organic stuff my girl likes. i’ll be back late today, so i need you to drop it off at my place.”
suguru shifts the doll over his chest, taking one last look at the sorry note before stuffing it in his pocket. “are you taking meg with you today?”
“no, he’s home with the babysitter,” toji grunts, slipping his hands into his skinny jean pockets to hide the fake ice on his wrist. “new job’s paying good, so i’m taking the missus out on a date.”
“aww,” suguru softens, smile tugging at his lips. he’s pleased to see toji doing better, to say the least. he’s engaged to a pretty, rich lady now; working hard as a ghost writer for drake, all while being a good young father to meg. he pats the doll’s head absentmindedly. “that’s cute. what are you planning?”
“luxury shopping date,” toji mumbles.
“really?” suguru tilts his head. “where are you going?”
“shoppers drug mart.”
geto doesn’t comment.
“you should take that girl with you,” toji says, hands still in his pockets. “take her n’ your plastic doll grocery shopping. it’s good domestic practice. get her some expensive strawberries and see if she doesn’t fall head over heels.”
suguru bites his lip, phone already heavy in his pocket.
can’t hurt to try, right ?
# SHOW TIME !
suguru wishes you wouldn’t do this to him.
wishes you wouldn’t look all cute standing by the store’s glass doors, lashes fluttering as you blink around trying to find him. he should raise his hand, text you he’s just two aisles over and you should move before the lady behind gets mad at you for blocking the entrance. instead he watches with a fond smile as you frown and fumble to grab your phone from your purse.
he sighs, walking over to stand behind you with the fake baby in his arms. your eyes are still on your phone as your thumbs tap frantically, typing a message to send to his contact: ‘SUGURU. where are u???’
his lip twitches. he’s leaning so close over your shoulder that he can smell your shampoo, and your hair is tickling his nose, but you still don’t notice. so cute. geto thinks you’re so cute.
he hums into your neck. “who are we texting?”
“suguru!” you gasp, whipping around at the sound of his voice. he’s looking down at you with those half-lidded eyes, teasing smile, dark sweater sleeves rolled up to reveal his forearms. you frown at him. “you scared me! don’t you know you shouldn’t sneak up on vulnerable young women?!”
suguru blinks. “what?”
“you heard me,” you grumble, fake pout on your lips as you lean down to the plastic doll in his arms. “hi, lafayette. daddy’s being mean to mommy again.”
“i still can’t believe you named our baby after a revolutionary leader.” geto mutters.
“he’s my fave in hamilton,” you hum, slipping lafayette into your arms. “shall we get shopping?”
——
in geto’s shopping cart, there’s five shades of lipgloss, a bag of plantain chips, and four other items that are not on the shopping list.
geto suguru needs to start saying no. but it’s hard to deny you when you look up at him with those pretty eyes, batting your lashes all sweet in that way that makes his chest hurt. so he pushes the cart, resigned, watching the sway of your hips as you balance lafayette on your side and coo silly things to him like he’s a real human child. he shakes his head, bites his lip. geto suguru is utterly fucked.
“suguru! look at this!”
he shouldn’t look. because it’s just going to be another item you’ll seduce him into buying, but he looks anyways. you’re pointing at a box of dinosaur cereal—a clear off-brand version of froot loops. “lafayette would love this. can we get it for him?”
he pads around the cart to get a better look. “lafayette can’t eat cereal.”
“i meant megumi,” you coo, running a hand down his pecs. “he likes dinosaurs. he’ll love this.”
“no, he likes gummy worms,” but geto suguru is already distracted by your hand stroking his chest. his lip twitches, “you want this for yourself, don’t you?”
“caught me,” you flash him your sweetest smile, squeezing his pec before setting mamdani in the cart. geto watches as you lean up to the top shelf, skirt riding up your thighs as you reach for the box of cereal. his eyes drop. but then his neck heats and he quickly looks away.
“suguruu,” you frown, still reaching. “help me.”
suguru lets out a rough breath. he shouldn’t help, but he always will—what else can he do when you call his name like that?
he steps behind you, chest pressing against your back, arm reaching up and caging you in the process. your breathing hitches. suguru doesn’t miss it.
“suguru,”
“hm?”
“what are you doing?”
your voice comes out breathy, and suguru has to pretend he doesn’t like the way you sound or how you’re staring up at him with big eyes. he hums coolly. “i’m helping my wife.”
“oh,” your lashes flutter as he reaches to tug down your skirt. his knuckles brush your thigh & you glance down at his arm snaking around your hips before mustering up a smile.
you tease, “such a good husband, protecting my modesty.”
“mm,” he murmurs, “the best.”
your mouth opens slightly, but no words come out. geto watches your lashes flutter—shy? nervous?—as your hand curls around his bicep to steady yourself. your palm squeezes his arm. he lets his hand dip to squeeze your inner thigh, and prays you don’t hear his breathing hitch.
“do good husbands usually grope their wives..?” you murmur, and geto thinks you’re teasing, but your lashes are low and your voice is so small and god he wants to kiss you so badly.
“don’t think so,” he mutters. “am i bad?”
“so bad,” you breathe. and your breath is hot & he’s leaning so close he can feel it on his lips. you squeeze his arm, eyes boring into his, and you really need to fucking stop before he leans down and kisses you. “but i don’t mind.”
god. you’re gonna fucking kill him. geto parts his lips to speak but you get your words out first.
“so,” you beam up at him, “the cereal?”
oh. the cereal.
fuck you and the cereal.
he doesn’t mean that, though. his jaw tightens as he lifts the box and drops it into the cart. his hands shove in his pockets, and geto suguru can only blink away the irritation burning in his eyes.
“thanks, sugu,” you lift lafayette into your arms. he’s gripping the cart handle right now, trying to ignore the fact that you’re smiling up at him and cursing himself because even now he thinks you are so beautiful.
“well then,” you chirp, grin sweet, “back to shopping!”
TOJI’S REMARK : SHE DON’T WANT YOUR ASS 🤦🏿♂️
HUSBAND TACTICS #3: GET SMOOTHER.
taught by: toru gojo
“your problem is that everything you do maintains plausible deniability. i think it’s time you claimed her in a way she can’t deny.”
ΣΧ
the good news is, even though geto ended up spending $200 on items not on toji’s list, the plantain chips you roped him into getting were really good. the bad news is, sato gojo is lying here on his lap, forcing geto to feed him said chips while gaming on sukuna’s nintendo switch.
“sugu, i want one,” -> geto feeds sato a chip. chew, swallow. “i can’t believe you embarrassed yourself like that.”
suguru’s eye twitches. “no more chips for you.”
they’re on the bed in toru’s room, and toru gojo sighs before slipping his headphones off at his desk. “sorry, but you guys are getting crumbs on my bed.”
sato laughs. “as if sukuna doesn’t jerk off in here every other day.”
“that was before he finished therapy,” toru mumbles in response, cheeks flushed in dismay. god bless geto for enrolling sukuna in therapy for his exhibitionist kink, despite sukuna’s wishes. toru takes his glasses off, runs a hand through his hair. “suguru, what’s this about you and y/n?”
“every time suguru tries something with her, she laughs him off,” sato snitches. he flashes geto a clumsy grin, smile totally innocent. “sugu, i want one.”
geto shoves him off his lap.
“maybe you’re not obvious enough,” toru plays with the stem of his glasses. “you guys are super close. even if you’re touching her, she might not take it seriously because she’s used to touchy friendships.”
“yeah!” sato agrees, fist pumped up, face flat on the floor. “my thoughts exactly, twin brother.”
“shut up.” geto and toru say simultaneously.
“anyway,” toru continues. “maybe get bolder. do something she can’t pass off as ‘just friends’.”
geto stares at the chips in his lap. “just friends, huh?”
#SHOW TIME!
geto leans by the kitchen door. “hi, mommy. what’re you doing?”
suguru’s over at your house for dinner. he’s just put lafayette to sleep in his crib, and he has his hands in his pockets as he pads over to you, sweatpants low on his hips. his arms cage you by the stove. “you smell good,” he mutters.
you ignore him. “i’m making dinner!” you beam, turning to face him.
geto can’t even tell what you’re showing him. in your hands is a charred mess, and geto can only pray the squiggly thing on the plate is spaghetti and not something else. his brows furrow in amused confusion as you beam up at him, lashes fluttering.
he cocks his head. “is this a burnt offering?”
“rude,” you swat his chest, and geto only smiles, eyes tracking the way your hair falls over your shoulders. you mutter curses as you shift the plate away, staring at the pot in dismay. “i wanted to cook for you.” you grumble.
his lip twitches. “like a real life wife?”
“yeah,” you turn to him, lips in a pout as you play with the chain on his chest. “but it didn’t work out. can you believe it?”
“i believe it,” he hums, but in reality he’s trying not to laugh, or rather, avoiding thinking about how glossy your lips look when you pout. his palms find your waist, “need your hubby to help?”
you smile up at him, “if he’d be so kind.”
geto lifts you by the hips before you can think better of it. you yelp as he sets you down on the counter, gripping him in a panicked hug. “suguru! you can’t just do that!”
he smiles, big. “do what?”
“lift me! and without warning!” you’re still hugging his neck tight, heart racing against his collarbone. he laughs, face in your hair to muffle the sound. his hands are splayed on your back, anchoring you against him.
“stop laughing at me,” you frown, and geto pulls back. he still has that lazy smile on his lips. “i’m not laughing,”
“yes you are,” you cup his face, smushing his cheeks in your palms. “look at your smile. it’s mocking.”
“adoring,” he mutters, gaze reverent.
“lying,” you pout, frown deep.
geto doesn’t argue. he only watches, eyes half-lidded, as you lift a palm from his cheek to card through his hair, stroking softly. you’re still pouting, still pretty. his thumb presses into your spine.
“i’ve never lied to you in my life,” he murmurs.
“yeah?” you’re still raking his hair, eyes never meeting his own. “then were you laughing at me just now?”
“no, mommy.”
“see?” you cock your head. “liar.”
he lets out a long, shuddering breath, hands sliding from your back to your waist, then down to squeeze your hips. you’re still stroking his hair, unbothered. no idea that you’ve got him crumbling beneath you.
“you feel so soft,” he murmurs before he can think better of it.
you tilt your head. “my hips?”
“and your waist, and your thighs,” he drawls, and he’s not even thinking straight anymore. “everywhere.”
you stare at him, brows knit, hand pausing in his hair. “suguru,”
“yeah, baby?”
“you’re being bad again.”
he lets out a strangled breath. he’s staring at your lips, he has been for a while now, and his gaze is bleary & eyes half-lidded. “sorry mommy,” he mumbles, “are you uncomfortable?”
“no?”
“then i’m gonna kiss you now.”
“sugu—“
and he does. he pauses just slightly—just enough to let you pull away if you don’t want this, if you don’t want him—but you don’t so geto presses his lips to your own. his first thought is gloss. your lips are so glossy; strawberry sweet & sugary fake. he lets his tongue slip out to lick your mouth, before cocking his head to kiss you deeper. you squeak, moaning into his mouth, kissing him back as he presses you into him. your thighs squeeze around his waist and geto slips a groan past your lips.
“so good,” he chases your lips when you pull away to breathe, “taste so good, pretty,”
you let him press sloppy kisses to your jaw, hands still in his hair.
but geto doesn’t notice how you freeze underneath him.
TORU’S REMARK: MY ADVICE WORKED?! THIS IS WHY I’M THE BETTER TWIN!! :)
HUSBAND TACTICS #4: GO GET YOUR WIFE !
taught by: ryomen sukuna
“good progress, bud. now all you gotta do? maintain the pace. keep showing her you’re the man now.”
ΣΧ
in sigma chi’s living room, ryomen sukuna is strapped to an armchair as sato hooks him up to a birth simulator.
idiots, the both of them. it started with sukuna saying that taking care of their plastic baby isn’t much work after all, and so motherhood can’t be that bad, and giving birth must not be that bad either. sato, ever the feminist, decided to challenge him on that. now it’s a weekday evening and sato is pressing electric pads to sukuna’s belly with his tongue in his cheek. sukuna the second (their plastic baby—sukuna won the argument it seems) is crying somewhere in the distance.
“nice work, daddy geto,” sukuna hums, shifting so sato can press another pad to his belly. “you’ve gotten the girl.”
geto has. so why doesn’t he feel like it?
you kissed him back. kissed him again. in fact, he’d say he had your lips for dinner. but the texts he sent you this morning are still unread: did you sleep well? can we talk?
geto shakes his head, relaxing into the sofa with his legs spread out as he watches sato fumble with the machine. “now all you gotta do is keep up the good work,” sukuna mumbles. “easy-peasy.”
“i feel like something’s wrong,” geto plays with his necklace. “but i’m not sure what it is, exactly.”
“nothing’s wrong, dumbass,” sukuna squints, watching sato frown at the remote. “you’re just not used to being forward. months of holding back will do that to ya. what you need to do now? ramp it up. tell her you wanna put a baby in her or something. girls love that shit.”
“oh, i agree with that. it’s like saying she’s wifey type.”
“you get me, sato.”
sato grins. then he presses a button on the remote and sukuna screams.
“jesus christ of nazareth!” sukuna roars, jerking in the chair. “fuck—! turn this shit off! sato!”
sato watches him jerk with his hands on his hips, lips bent in a clumsy smile. “what? i can’t hear you over your screaming!”
suguru eyes his frat brothers, both sukuna’s—and sukuna the second’s—cries roaring in his ears. he’s still not sure why this is even happening, but he’s long concluded both his frat brothers were born with a brain. he sighs, burying his face in his hands.
he really needs to fucking see you.
#SHOW TIME !
geto wasn’t sure you’d want to see him.
but you’d already planned to meet up today; long before he kissed you on the countertop, long before he sent you six messages & deleted them all when he received no response. it would be wiser to stay home but he shows up anyway, because he’s a coward who’s trying not to be, and he hasn’t eaten anything in days because everything in the sigma chi kitchen suddenly tastes like your lips.
you greeted him with a smile on your face.
lafayette on your hip, pretty smile as you beckoned him in. said you were just about making lunch. asked him to go handle it in the kitchen because obviously you don’t want to see his face.
geto shakes his head, stares at the water running off his hands in the sink. he has to think positive.
“lafayette, baby, please don’t cry,” your voice comes from the living room. “mommy’s trying so hard—oh my god. i swear i’m gonna take out your batteries!”
geto laughs through his nose before he can think better of it.
he wipes his hands, pads over to the doorframe to watch you fuss over lafayette in the living room. you’re bouncing the plastic robot in your hands, trying to get it to stop its automated wailing. “shhh. want me to sing you a song, baby? you like songs from hamilton, right? okay, okay. why do you cry like you’re running out of time—”
lafayette screams. geto falls in love.
well he was already in love, but somehow his heart has gone sticky in his chest. it’s silly, isn’t it? but geto’s thought about it a lot. your laugh in the kitchen on sunday mornings, your contact saved with his last name, you waking him up at 3am for some ridiculous craving; and he’d get up to retrieve it, of course. because geto suguru would go to the ends of the earth for you if you’d allow it.
is it weird to think of domestic life with someone you aren’t even dating?
probably. but then he thinks about your thighs squeezing his waist on the kitchen counter, your pretty moans in his mouth, your hands in his hair—and god. god god god. geto suguru has never wanted something so badly.
so he doesn’t think too much before padding over to join you in the living room, arms wrapping around your hips. “hey.”
you tense, just a little, just enough that geto doesn’t notice, then relax into him just slightly. “hi. are you being bad again?”
he can hear the smile in your voice, but your usual playfulness isn’t as strong. “maybe. you look cute, bouncing our baby like that.”
you force a smile, eyes dropping to lafayette wailing in your arms. “well—“
“you’d make such a pretty mommy,” geto breathes, and even he’s not sure what he’s saying. all he knows is you’re warm and pretty and in his arms and it’s all he’s ever wanted, all he’ll ever want.
you don’t respond, and geto’s in his feelings now, so his mouth keeps moving: “i think about it a lot,” he murmurs. “mornings with you. you burning the eggs because you’ve never been a good cook.” his palm shifts to your belly. “and i’ll eat them anyways.”
“suguru,”
“and you’d get mad at me for eating them,” he breathes, collapsing into your neck. “tell me you don’t need my sympathy and frown up at me while bouncing our baby on your hip. and then you’d kiss me because you secretly find it sweet of me.” he breathes. “i think about it a lot.”
“you’d make such a pretty wife, such a pretty mommy,” geto breathes. and your neck is so warm, and his lips are ghosting over it, and as his palm glides over your belly his dizzy mind flashes back to sukuna’s words: girls love feeling like they’re wifey!
so he kisses your neck. “can’t wait to see you round with my baby.”
if you were tense before, you’re frozen now.
“suguru.”
“hm?”
“i’m uncomfortable.”
geto freezes.
you step out of his hold, lafayette to your chest, pretty eyes looking up at his. but you’re not looking at him with your usual fondness. your eyes are bored—unimpressed—something geto’s hazy mind can’t seem to name. your lips are tight. “i think you should take lafayette for the weekend.”
“y/n—“
“and don’t contact me,” you snap, irritated. “don’t call, text, nothing. i just—“ you bite your lip, “you need to leave, geto.”
not suguru, geto. okay. okay.
geto leaves with lafayette in his arms. his heart is still in your living room.
SUKUNA’S REMARK : WHO TOLD YOU TO SAY THAT?!
HUSBAND TACTICS #5: DIVORCE COURT !
taught by: nanami kento
“you’ve been leading with actions instead of words. are you really surprised?”
ΣΧ
is it so bad to be forward?
geto has his head on the steering wheel & his heart in his throat. lafayette is crying in the backseat but geto doesn’t care, doesn’t care to rip out the batteries or at least sing the doll to sleep. instead he grips the steering so hard his knuckles turn white.
can’t wait to put a baby in you.
why did he say that? he wants to blame it on sukuna but he can’t. geto knows it’s all on him, of course. he let himself get too love drunk, too hope drunk, too drunk on a future that will never exist. he thought about sato and sukuna who don’t think before they talk and still manage to get the girl. but life has never let him have anything easy, and with you in his arms he managed to forget that. now the only girl he’s ever wanted thinks he sees her as just flesh, and geto is a coward so he doesn’t plan to redeem himself.
it’s best to let you go.
“do you intend to drive?”
nanami’s voice is flat beside him. it’s more of a bored comment than a question, and geto lifts his head up slow. nanami kento is beach-blond hair & pressed on clothes and a bored look that never seems to leave his face. he stares at geto. geto stares back.
“i’m going through a crisis.”
“i observed. should i get toji to drive me instead?”
“have a heart, kenny,” geto slumps against the driver’s seat. nanami’s license is on a three-day suspension for being slightly tipsy while driving, and it’s unusual for kento, but we all have our problems. geto reaches for a cigar in the glove box. nanami smacks his hand away.
“this is about y/n, correct? sato told me all about it.”
of course he did—what a snitch.
geto rests his head on the wheel, careful not to let the horn sound. “is it my turn for some advice?”
“i suppose,” nanami pushes up his glasses. “did you ever try speaking english?”
geto blinks. “english?”
“the others advised you to be forward, correct?” nanami starts. “touch her, kiss her, all of it. but did you ever speak english? tell her that you liked her? wanted her?”
geto blinks. but kento’s not done.
“i heard about what happened most recently, sukuna told me all about it,” nanami sighs. “telling a woman she’d make a pretty mom. telling her you can’t wait to see her round with your baby.” kento scoffs. “you have your domestic fantasies, geto. but do you know how terrifying that is to a woman who you haven’t even told ‘i love you’?”
ah. geto knew he’d been missing something.
he’s always been a coward. at thirteen, he pierced his own ears with a ballpoint pen and hid the bleeding from his parents for weeks. at seventeen, he got his first tattoo, and charred it off with cigarette butts until all that remained was the outline. at nineteen, he kissed a girl and blocked her the next day. at twenty-two, he fucked up his chances with the only woman he’s ever loved. geto suguru has never known how to handle wanting something. he either destroys it or runs far, far away.
“so what do i do now?” geto asks, brows knit. “she told me to stay away from her.”
“then you do exactly that,” nanami’s already unbuckling his seatbelt. “give her the space she needs. you’ve crowded her for long enough, suguru.”
he has, hasn’t he?
“i’ll ask toji to give me a lift,” nanami is standing outside the car. “you’re in no condition to drive.”
nanami slams the door shut. lafayette is still crying in the backseat.
# SHOW TIME !
geto suguru is back in your room again.
not in the way he’d like, not sprawled on your bed or with you curled into his side. he’s sitting diagonally across from you on the mini-table you have laid out, because he’d tried to sit opposite you and caught the way your lip twitched with irritation.
geto is on his best behavior.
the plastic doll is asleep in its crib as you and suguru fill out spreadsheets. logs on feeding times, that sort of thing. he stares at the gleaming columns—empty. they’ve been empty for an hour now, because geto suguru can’t stop his eyes from shifting from his laptop screen to your face.
“feeding log,” you say flatly. “did you do the 2PM ?”
“yeah,” he did—he thinks. everything is blurry.
“no you didn’t,” you bite. “i’m literally looking at the column right now. it’s empty. and it shouldn’t be.”
geto’s fingers twitch over his keyboard. the spreadsheet in front of him is empty, but the previous one—the one you’re looking at—shouldn’t be. he remembers logging it yesterday with his back bent over the kitchen island, eyes clouded over, thinking, wondering if he should send you a message.
he croaks, “i did fill it in. check the—“
“you didn’t,” you snap, and geto’s never had you snap at him before so he’s not sure what to do with that. “i’m literally looking at it right now. can you please take this seriously?”
“okay,” he swallows.
you turn back to your laptop, irritated. geto fills out the spreadsheet in front of him. he won’t give you reason to be upset with him any longer.
———
the second time geto sees you after the incident, it’s at the local library.
you’re already done with today’s work, and the walk back to the residences is long & winding. geto suguru knows his place. he has his eyes down on the pavement, wind flinging his hair in his face, three feet behind you because you’d eye him if he got any closer.
you’re shivering.
and geto noticed it three minutes ago, to be honest. noticed how your shoulders hugged together, how you shoved your hands into your pockets. he should give you his jacket. you’re cold, and he doesn’t want you getting sick, and he doesn’t want you to snap at him or shoot him down but you’re cold and you’re beautiful and geto suguru is calling your name before he can think any better of it.
“y/n—here.”
he holds out his jacket. you turn back to look at the material, and then back at him.
“i don’t want it.”
he should stop. “you’re freezing. i don’t want you to catch a—“
“i’d rather freeze.” you deadpan. “can you not speak to me?”
geto bites his lip. he stops himself before he can say okay.
——
in the library’s study room, geto suguru has his head on his keyboard and eyes staring at the glass door.
his phone chimes, but he doesn’t check the message because he knows it’s just team snapchat. but then it chimes again, and geto reaches for his phone even though he knows there’s no point.
—
y/n :)
where are you
i have your location.
we need to work on the project
—
geto scrambles—actually scrambles, he accidentally knocks over the chair behind him—and then he breathes. wipes his face with his hoodie sleeves. breathes again.
when you walk in, you don’t say hi.
you sit diagonally across again, and open up your laptop. you look pretty today. hair loose over your shoulders, cheeks flushed from the weather, lashes fluttering in the light. and your lips are glossy again, like they were in the supermarket, like they were on the kitchen counter—and oh god. geto needs to stop staring.
but he doesn’t. he watches, mouth slightly agape, as your nails click at your keyboard. he can tell you’re upset or irritated, and he thinks—no, knows it’s because of him, and he really needs to get this work done so you won’t get sad and snap at him again. he doesn’t want to be in trouble. he doesn’t know what to do when you get like that. so he turns his eyes to his laptop. but somehow, they drift back to your face again.
“can you stop fucking staring at me?”
“sorry—“ he flinches. “i’m sorry, i’ll look away.”
there’s a lump in his throat. he’s looking at the screen but he can’t quite see it, and the numbers and columns have mixed together and swollen up on the page.
but you aren’t done.
“seriously, what is your problem?” you snap, irritated. “we have a project to do. and you’ve been letting your stupid feelings get in the way of it all!”
he wants to say he’s sorry again, and that his feelings aren’t stupid but he’s sorry, and it’s all he’ll ever be, but instead his voice comes out as a croak. “i’m trying.”
you stare at him in disbelief. his fingers are shaking under the table. has he always been this jumpy?
“you need to try harder,” you snarl. “or what? too busy thinking about marrying me? having me round with your baby?” he shrinks. “what the fuck, geto?”
he doesn’t know how to explain that that day in the living room he wasn’t thinking of actually giving you a baby, at least not right now. he doesn’t know how to explain that when he looks at you he thinks of forever, he wants forever, and ever since starting this project ‘forever’ has looked like wedding bells and sunday mornings and grocery runs with a mini-you in the cart. he doesn’t know how to say he wants you to be his, your last name, your everything, and it’s sick and twisted and too much too fast but geto suguru has never been able to want in increments.
so he shrinks. stares at his keyboard. you snap, “say something!”
“i’m sorry,” he croaks, eyes on his lap. “i didn’t want to—i wasn’t trying to—“
“you scared me!” you snap. “geto, you scared me. you’ve been scaring me! these last few weeks—“ you slam your book shut. “touching me. kissing me. and i don’t mind—swear to god i don’t. but you’ve been acting so weird so suddenly! saying things you’ve never said before. is this some kind of twisted roleplay?!”
geto stifles a breath. tries to count in his head so he doesn’t breakdown in front of you. he knows that wouldn’t be fair. you keep going:
“i don’t know what i’m supposed to think,” you grip the table. “my best friend of how many years gets partnered with me for a project, great! but then he starts kissing me on countertops. standing too close in grocery stores. telling me i’d make a pretty wife and mommy and—it’s weird! i don’t know where it’s coming from! he’s never said he likes me in his life, but he can’t wait to see me round with his baby?”
you’re sniffling now. “what the fuck, geto?”
your shoulders are shaking, and you’ve sat back down, and your pretty face is in your hands as you cry. geto’s heart aches. because you’re not supposed to cry because of him. because he’s not supposed to make you uncomfortable, or confused, or upset, and he’s done all of that in the span of a week. and geto’s mouth dries. he wants to pad over and hold you in his arms but he knows he doesn’t have the right to fucking do that.
he breathes in, deep.
“i’m sorry—for moving too fast,” his hands fist. “i’ve been in love with you since freshman year. and i tried, i swear i did, to show it. but you always laughed it off. and instead of telling you outright, i just got more and more aggressive with it. i think part of me has always thought you’d never feel the same,” he swallows. “so i thought it’d be safer to show it than say it out loud. but that was only safe for me.”
he bites his lip. you’re still bawling into your hands, small and terrified, and geto‘s eyes sting. he can’t believe you’re shaking because of him.
“baby—“ he catches himself, “please don’t cry,”
“i hate you,” you sob, “i’m never gonna forgive you ever.”
he swallows. “you don’t have to. but please don’t cry,” his hands tighten on his jeans. “i don’t know what to do when you cry.”
and it’s the first time geto’s been honest, because he really doesn’t know. because you’ve never cried because of him, and normally if you ever cried at all he’d drag you into his chest but right now that doesn’t feel appropriate.
but he gets up anyways.
takes your hands from your face. and you’re so gorgeous even with tears on your cheeks, eyes glistening wet, lips puffed out & nose flushed from crying. and he wants to hug you so badly, but for now he settles for crouching to your height and wiping the tears from your eyes.
you glare down at him, and he should be scared again but all he can think is that you’re so fucking cute. your nose is all puffy and your eyes slightly red. “you’re such an idiot.”
“i know.”
“and this is so cliché.”
“i know.”
“and i want you too, but slower.”
“i didn’t know that.”
“you know it now,” you curse. “you’re an idiot, i swear.”
geto breathes. and then you cup his face, watching the way his eyes glisten with wet. “you still haven’t confessed to me, suguru.”
“i love you,” he says too quickly. “since freshman year. i think about you too much. you’re always on my mind, and i don’t want anyone but you, and i love you so much y/n and i’ll love you forever if you’ll let me—“
you interrupt him with a kiss.
BONUS !
“i can’t believe he said he wants you round with his baby.”
the project is long over, and today you’re on the countertop of the sigma chi kitchen, legs swinging as you gossip with sukuna. he has your plantain chips in his hands, leaning against the counter as he eagerly munches on the snacks.
“i told him to approach you calmly and honestly, y’know? told him girls love communication,” sukuna clicks his tongue. “nobody listens to me in this household.”
you laugh, “really? that would’ve saved him a lot of trouble.”
“right?” sukuna shakes his head, passing you a plantain chip. “he’s got his brain in his ass cheeks, i swear.”
you giggle, and right then, the door swings open. sato gojo hurts in with his arms spread out in glee. “we’re back!”
geto trudges behind him, holding too many shopping bags for one person. sato has already run towards his room, leaving you and sukuna confused—but then geto drops the bags to the floor with a thud. he looks up at you. “hey,”
sukuna absentmindedly blocks your head with his own. “yo, man.”
“can you move your fat fucking head?” geto walks past him, ignoring the gasp sukuna lets out. he brackets you on the counter, forehead slightly sticky with sweat, chain glistening in the afternoon heat.
he murmurs, “hi, baby.”
“hi, handsome,” you cup his face. “back from your date with sato?”
“not a date,” he mumbles, kissing your palm, then your cheek, then your jaw. “was getting groceries.” he murmurs. “missed you so bad, pretty.”
you gigle, squeaking and squirming away as he attacks your face with kisses. he pulls back teasingly, smile smug, before you tug him back in by his chain. sukuna watches calmly, shoving another plantain chip in his mouth. he nods in approval of the flavor.
but he quickly grows bored. “don’t get too comfortable guys. i’ll whip out my dick and start stroking right now.”
“what...?”
“can you pretend to be normal?!”
before suguru can strangle sukuna, sato bounces back into the kitchen. his grin is clumsy, cap tilting off his hair, and in his hands is a machine that looks like a mini-tablet and a bunch of wires connected to pads at the ends.
art credits to @/kcokaine on tumblr, line divider by @/cursed-carmine, first gif divider by @/anitalenia, second gif divider by @/cafekitsune, pics from pinterest!
Sukuna and his possessive girl cat. She's always vying for his attention and never letting anyone come too close to him. That is, until she met you. Maybe, just maybe, you can be the one to win her over.
cw: SFW, fuff, girl cat Sukuna, domestic life with reader, reader is implied to be a PhD student, gender neutral reader, modern AU, established relationship, all characters are 18+, proofread, 1.3k wc!
a/n: I wanted to try something different, so here damn, take it LMFAO.... also fun fact! the thesis mentioned is a project I did for my bio class during my 2nd year! this was supposed to be a short fic.. it's longer than I wanted it to be but I couldn't stop writing </3 anyways enjoy!
a/n 2: I forgot to mention, but reader refers to the cat as "pip"; however, I decided against naming the cat after spending an hour trying to find a good name on reddit….
It was late at night when Sukuna found her.
A damp cardboard box next to the trash compactor of his apartment complex, and inside was a ball of fur, curled into itself. Shivering from the cold, while the thin blankets barely did anything to keep her warm. The lamppost over his head flickered on and off, lighting up the pathway leading to the dark, filthy alleyway where she was.
The sound of his footsteps had her curious head peeking from under the blankets, and before he knew it, he was staring back at a pair of green feline eyes. Her brown fur was matted and wet, and her ears stood tall. His hands reached forward slowly, hesitantly—only to be followed by a hiss. However, the smell of his sandalwood perfume and his calm patience comforted her. With his hand open and welcoming, she nuzzled her face into his warm palm.
Soon enough, huddled beneath the warmth of his hoodie, she found her home. And Sukuna, who couldn't even take care of a rock, found himself becoming a cat dad overnight.
It took some time for her to ease up to him, to trust him, but little by little, with each treat and each scratch behind the ear, Sukuna won her over. She was one spoiled cat; that much was sure. After all, Sukuna could never find it in himself to say no to his pretty girl—whether it was an extra treat, a new toy, or even a sparkly collar that caught her eye at the pet store.
She was a feisty cat, and a possessive one too. Ever since the day Sukuna took her in, she never left his side. Constantly vying for his attention with soft meows and her big eyes.
That is until you came into the picture.
With messy hair, clothes stained with coffee and a voice that brought a smile to his face.
You met on a gloomy day. The soft pitter-patter of rain against the windows became your company inside the quaint little cafe. The soft yellow lights highlighted your features, and your attention remained undivided as you stared attentively at the laptop in front of you.
The pull was magnetic—at least for him. Even as he was giving his order, he couldn't help but keep his eyes on you, throwing a look over his shoulder every five seconds—a small, hopeful part of him waiting to catch your attention.
His gaze wandered across the room, and in a cafe that was hardly crowded, he chose to take the seat right in front of you. The scrap of chair legs against the floor had you looking up, only to be met with, most possibly, the hottest man your eyes have ever laid upon.
Standing before you, Sukuna looked like a man of sin.
His leather jacket hugged each built muscle of his arms, his hair tousled and swept back, as if he'd been running his fingers through it all day. Silver hooped earrings decorating his ears glinted under the soft lighting of the cafe. His lips curved up into a smirk, peering down at you with piercing eyes, catching the way your eyes trailed across the pretty tattoos on his sharp features, until they met his—making heat rush to your cheeks from being caught.
It took your brain a moment to process what was transpairing, and once you did, your face warmed with embarrassment. Not only did he catch you staring, but your own attire left you feeling embarrassed. Clothes dishevelled and hair a mess from sitting in this quiet corner for hours, working tirelessly on the last few pages of your thesis on the role of engineered microbial enzymes for plastic biodegradation.
"Hey."
Dear god, his voice was equally as hot as him.
"Hi."
And eventually, you found a home with him too.
You still remember the first time you came over to his place, his arm wrapped around your waist as he guided you through the doors of his apartment. The second the door creaked open, you were greeted by a dash of brown fur, and the sound of excited paws against wood flooring filled the quiet atmosphere. Your heart warmed at the sight, watching her tail curl around his calf as she welcomed him back home.
Reaching forward to pet her, you were met with a hiss, turning her back towards you in rejection. A frown crossed your face, while the man towering behind you laughed as if he was having the time of his life.
"What..." You were left dumbfounded, disappointed by her hostility. Sukuna merely chuckled, his arm pulling you to him, planting a kiss to your hairline.
"Don't worry about her," he reassures, while the her in question left the room long ago, preferring to spend her time with a toy mouse and not with you. "It'll take some time for her to warm up to you," his hands reach for the collar of your jacket, helping you slide your arms out and hooking it to the coat hanger, "or to anyone," he said under his breath.
Your ears, however, did not miss his whispered words.
Since then, you found yourself competing for his attention with a cat, of all things. Every kiss shared was interpreted with a meow, every attempt to cuddle on the couch met with her sliding herself between you two, and every lingering touch of his trailing further was met with a paw smacking away at his eager hands.
It wasn't until that one night when everything changed.
Pulling up to the parking lot of his apartment, you slammed the door to your car shut, locking it while your hands juggled between your purse and car keys.
Your phone, on the other hand, was caught between your right ear and shoulder as you stayed on call with him. Sukuna was stuck at work, held back in a meeting, while you were already waiting outside of his door. Digging through the purse, you find the spare keys to his place.
"Kay, don't worry," you reply, twisting the doorknob and stepping inside. On his end, all he hears is shuffling, and then the sound of your keys placed onto the counter as you take off your coat. "I can take care of her, Sukuna." You roll your eyes at the thorough instructions he was throwing your way.
With a sigh, you hang up the call, making your way further into his place, your feet leading you straight to the living room where she was perched up on the beige couch, cuddled into herself like a loaf of bread.
"Looks like it's just you and me today, pip," you say, placing a hand on your hip, receiving a dejected meow in response from her.
It was going to be a long night.
Your attempts all felt fruitless, throwing a toy or treat, only for her passive attitude to dismiss you. Even following her dinner down to the last scoop, mixing her dry and wet food as instructed, you were met with a flick of her tail in disinterest.
By the time you gave up, the day had already passed—tirelessly at that. It wasn’t until you let your guard down, giving up with a defeated sigh and plopping yourself down onto the couch, that she moved. Slowly by slowly, through the periphery of your eyesight, she was inching toward you on the couch, while you mindlessly scrolled through Netflix.
Until she finally reached out, pawing at your hands. Your heart swelled at the sight of her big eyes and the soft meows, letting go of your frustration from the day you finally gave her a pet—nails scratching behind her ears as her eyes closed in contentment.
And when Sukuna finally came home that night, exhaustion on his face from the day wearing him down, he was met with the sight of you two lying on the couch—her small form cuddled into your chest underneath the throw blanket.
late night coversation between heianera!sukuna and wife!reader.
After a night of rough passion, the king of curses lays down on the bed, breathing heavily as he runs his long fingers through his hair.
You, far less athletic than your mountain of a husband, are much out of breath, panting even.
His higher pair of arms are now sprawled out on the headboard, one knee up as he watches you, observes you.
His eyes are locked on to your figure as you crawl towards his body and sit next to him, leaning your head on his bicep. “That was the best yet, my king…” Your voice is a soft murmur of bliss in the heated room.
He lets out a sharp and quick breath as he pulls your hair back to appreciate your pretty face. “I would argue that I did my best performance on our wedding night.”
You smile at the memory and can’t fight the flutter of your eyelids closing in exhaustion as he lets go of your hair. “I can’t argue with that.”
You sigh softly and listen to the wind ruffling the leaves and a few animals passing the estate, foxes by the sound of it.
The pull of sleep is so strong you almost give in, but then your husband blows away every speck of sleepiness from your eyes.
“Do you love me?”
Your eyes snap right open and you pull away from his skin to catch at his expression. “What…?”
Sukuna was not a man who needed or even wanted love, much less felt the need to be reassured.
His voice was not quiet, hesitating either. It was surely demanding an answer and you’re not quite sure what the right one is.
You look away and hesitate slightly, going with the safest route. “I do…as much as anyone loves their king-“
“I mean the other kind. The one you mortals sing and write songs about.” His gaze is piercing, really focused on getting that answer.
You give up on avoiding his eyes and look straight into them. “I am sorry, Ryomen, but I fail to see where is this coming from. Since when is love relevant to you?”
“It is not. It’s a mere weakness that I do not have. I am asking whether you do.” He crosses his lower pair of arms.
“Did someone tell you I do?” You keep dragging it on purpose, trying to figure out what he wants to hear.
“Kenjaku did. He assumed anyway, got me thinking.”
Out of all the people, Kenjaku was not one of the culprits in your mind. “In what context did he say that?”
It’s his turn to look away and sigh in annoyance. “He made me a proposal. Something that requires me to go away for a while, somewhere you cannot follow. Nosy, as he is, he wondered what you would think of it, since ‘you love me’. I denied it right away, telling him our marriage is not built on love, but it did get me thinking. So answer.”
You go deep in thought. You have never really thought about it like that. “I guess I do.”
Uncharacteristically, his eyes widen and his arms slowly fall back go his sides. “You do?”
You nod and slowly place your head on his lap. “I guess I am as weak as any other mortal when it comes to feelings.”
He leans his head back against the wall, his voice quieter than before. “Did you accept my marriage proposal out of love?”
“That day, I accepted it for the love of my king, not as a lover. I do not remember when my feelings for you started either. One day I just noticed that even if I really tried, I could not be afraid of you. I would accept you at your worst and that says something. Your worst is not easy.” You keep your eyes glued to the wall, afraid to hear his response.
“What do you love about me then?” There’s a hint of curiosity in his low interrogating tone.
Your eyes widen slightly in surprise. He isn’t scowling nor scolding. You look up at him. “I love how smart you are, how clever and witty. You always know what to say and what to think.”
“You are strong and powerful. You have that regal nature omitting from you. When you talk everyone listens. You remain undefeated in skills, combat and brains.”
You lift your head from his lap and sit up, resting your hand on his chest. “You are so unbelievably handsome.”
His gaze darkens as he keeps listening to your flattery. Nothing he hasn’t heard before, but it feels different coming from you.
You lightly trail your hand down his torso as your tone lowers. “Your body…”
The hand explores his rippling muscles, from abs, arms, thighs. “Your tattoos…”
“Your…” Just as you’re about to reach for his cocks he grabs your wrist and slightly tilts his head, tutting.
“Just because you happen to be my wife does not mean you can touch your king as you please.” There’s no bite in his words, he grins instead. “Continue.”
You gladly continue stroking his ego. “Hmm, where was I then…Right, him. I love him as well.” You trail your finger over the lips of his stomach mouth.
The mouth grins in appreciation, mirroring Sukuna’s face mouth.
“You are not angry with me?” You lock eyes with your husband.
“Love is a weakness, do not let it get ahold on you.” His arm snakes around your waist. “Altough I do not mind you loving me so, I demand these words and actions do not leave this room. They have not so far, so I trust you know what you’re doing, wife.”
You can’t help but stare at his lips. “You do not love me then.”
“I do not. But it is nothing personal. I have never loved anyone.” He takes ahold of your chin and pulls you closer until your lips meet.
The kiss is the first soft kiss you’ve gotten from him. You softly sigh into it.
He leans back to watch your expression. “I mean it. Love makes people foolish, reckless. While I do not mind people dying for me out of loyalty, I command you not to do the same.”
You kiss him again and throw your arms around his neck, pulling him right against your body.
He groans into the kiss and takes ahold of your hips, pulling you even closer.
The kiss doesn’t escalate into a heated make-out like it usually would. It’s slow, soft and so incredibly unusually vulnerable from him.
“Promise me you won’t turn reckless from this weakness which has possessed you, wife.” He mutters against your moving lips.
You lean back and smile softly, admiring his features in the dim lighting. “I promise, my king.”
Sukuna kisses your forehead before guiding you back onto his chest. “Good girl. Go to sleep now.”
You press your cheek on his peck and close your eyes, letting the rise and fall of his body rock you to sleep. You listen to his breathing, heart beating.
The air is thick with his unsaid words. His command, the kisses, he was being too vulnerable with you. Reckless even.
You smile softly against his skin before planting a sleepy kiss on it. “I love you, Ryomen.”
You hear him scoff before his hand hesitantly makes it’s way on your back and starts trailing up and down on your spine.
synopsis; when packing up old memories, you should never take a stroll down memory lane. It’s a shame neither you nor Leon got that memo. On the off-chance Leon had gotten it, he isn’t too keen on listening to it.
cw; MDNI. smut, angst, divorce, p-in-v, cowgirl position, outdoor sex.
"Is that everything?"
"Think so." Leon grunts, sweat beads above his brow. He wipes it away with the back of his hand and cleans himself on his shirt. Electricity was cut last week, so no AC today. The house never had good ventilation either; no mold nor mildew, the air just tended to stagnate.
It's curious how one's entire life could be packaged away so neatly at the drop of a hat. Folded and compartmentalized, years worth of memories stuffed in boxes labeled 'kitchen', 'bedroom' ‘decor’ and so on and so forth.
If it weren’t necessary, you’d apologize for making him do all this in the middle of blistering summer. You would’ve done it all yourself and sent him an invoice if you hadn’t gotten so busy yourself. Leon himself didn’t bother to do it because he never bothered to do anything without you telling him to do it first.
Complacency is the devil.
The killer of all things good, sunk its teeth right through Leon’s carotid and dragged him off some years ago, it seems. You lean against the kitchen island and silently take in how barren your home suddenly is now.
The pictures were the first things that went. Not that there were many of them to begin with, only a select few handpicked by Leon himself because he always looked like he was constipated in any you took — fishing trips with Chris, one trip to Italy Spring of 08’, a few from D.S.O. holiday parties, and some from end of year ceremonies when he was in between having too dark hair to be considered blonde and hair too light for it to be brown.
It’s surreal coming to terms that in a week this place’ll be someone else's problem. A new family will settle in and all traces of your marriage will be completely overwritten. They’ll argue over what color to paint everything over and start fresh. The sage green you’d painstakingly picked out with Leon would get replaced with something beige, or worse. Grey.
God, isn’t that a dreadful thought.
But, that’s the point of all this, you suppose. A full, fresh reset. If they want to paint over the ghosts of your marriage and turn over a new leaf, they can, they paid for the place after all. Hopefully they get around to fixing the creaks in the staircase or the leaky sink. Lord knows Leon was never going to get around to it.
You open your mouth to speak. "You talked to the realtor? Everything's squared away?"
Despite being in the email thread, you still ask. The answer is a confident 'yes', it's just hard to fill in the blanks where laughter and easy breezy conversation is supposed to be.
How do you even make conversation in this sort of scenario? Are you supposed to throw a blanket over the elephant in the room and ask him how’s it going? Pretend it isn’t there and talk about work? (Last you knew he was griping about having to take a rookie under his wing again. How long ago was that?)
Ah. It’s a little too late anyways, the boxes are piled high beside the door, tomorrow they’ll come get the last of it and it’ll be on its way to storage til’ you both get your own places and move forward. Leon hasn’t gotten his own apartment yet, neither have you. Chris’s bachelor pad has gotten a little more sadder.
“I don’t know, she didn’t call to confirm.” Leon starts, then grumbles beneath his breath. “Let me check...”
He pops his hip against the island and reaches into his pocket. You frown. Didn’t he reply first? You could’ve sworn he had. You don’t call him out on his ‘bad memory’. Instead you settle in and watch his fingertips dance across the screen, let him pretend neither of you are on edge and painfully aware of the other.
You can't help but notice the pattern is the same. It’s those little things that become engrained enough for you to realize he hasn't changed his password yet, a string of numericals spell out your anniversary.
You’d click your tongue and tease him for still having it set to something so sappy, something holds your tongue, dries it up and scatters the ashes elsewhere, the words ‘Seriously? You’re so corny,’ unwilling to form.
You like to think he’ll change it after you’re gone, replace it with some other important date or nonsense and let the wound heal over. Yeah right. You roll your eyes at that. If you know anything about Leon, it’s that even if something wasn’t to have been his fault; he’d still lose sleep over it regardless. You must’ve exacerbated it by insisting it wasn’t.
Is there even a chance he’d change that after you’re gone?
You really can’t imagine a world where Leon would ever be the type to turn a new leaf and let the wound scab over, he’s always been the sort to pick and prod and keep it fresh and raw. Pour salt and a splash of lemon juice in it every once in a while wondering about the what could’ve beens and the what ifs.
“You find it yet?” You prod, his finger gets to swiping again.
“Still looking.” Leon grunts. You have half a mind to pull your own phone out and call his bluff, you’d find it in mere seconds. Leon’s got his lip jutting out and his brow pulled tighter than usual. He’s thinking.
About what?
Is he just trying to come up with something to talk about too before parting ways? That’s sweet, in a real sad, prolonging-the-inevitable way.
And also probably just you projecting.
Whatever, you’ll play along for now, let him have this. You’ll find something else to do while he turns questions over in his head and no doubt, handpicks the best joke to lighten the mood.
Inevitably, your eyes wander. You can’t help but note Leon looks as if he’s aged another decade this past year, oddly enough. You don’t mean it in a bad way, he looks good. More than good.
It’d be silly to say he looked anything less because of his age; you aren’t young either anymore, your roots show just as much as his do. Greys pop in faster year after year, but that doesn’t make you any less attractive. No, a mature woman is a well seasoned one, there’s an appeal to that.
The same applies to a mature man.
Leon’s greys stand out like little grains of rye amidst wheat. You remember when he’d first noticed them, they looked like platinum highlights then, not so much now. He’d freaked out, ran his hands through his hair and sat on the couch for a good long while, worried himself to death that he’d be slowing down soon. He’d been thirty seven then.
What did it matter if he wasn’t that young agent anymore? An older man is still a functional one, for the most part. If you ignore the wrinkles and looked shoulders down, you’d almost forget a man like him has real bad back problems.
Leon’s always managed to look leagues better than most men his age, he still has a waist anyone would understandably envy. His biceps have real muscle coiled through them, earned through hearty meals and rigorous exercise — no steroids or supplements here.
Your eyes dip from his pinched brow, down the slope of his nose and towards the main attraction. His sleeves are rolled up to expose his forearms, veins pressing firmly against skin, no extra skin to sag and leave him soft.
Leon’s handsome, always has been. Makes you wonder what he saw in you to stay all these years.
There isn’t necessarily anything special about you, as lame as it is to accept and admit. Back then you'd felt like you’d been shoved into the deep end of the pool and left to drown when you’d stumbled onto the dating scene, a doe caught in sights.
Leon had to have had other options, anyone with eyes could come to that conclusion. It always gnawed on your nerves, that thought; he could’ve had anyone else, someone with more experience, more confidence, more everything in whatever department you lacked in.
But he stayed with you. Through all the bumps, Leon patiently held your hand, kissed your worries away, and promised he’d be there tomorrow. You guessed it was easy for him to be there when your flaws were considerably smaller in comparison to his.
Your eyes flit up to his face again, they trace the moles and beauty marks, one hidden against his adam's apple, another beside his nose, the rest are scattered across his body. Your eyes linger on his jaw. It’s hard to ignore he’s let his stubble get a bit scruffy, salt and pepper dotting above his lips and below.
Leon never let it stay for that long because it never came in evenly. It was his biggest gripe. He’d run his hand along his chin and complain underneath his breath every other morning. If you could chalk it up to a change in style, that he’d suddenly decided to let it go rogue, you would.
But you know he’s the type to stick with what works.
He cared more about maintaining it with you around, it seems. You look away before he could notice you’re staring, focus all your attention on the marble counter top.
God you hate yourself. You hate him, you hate this house, you hate everything that has to do with the ugly thoughts that led you to settle on divorce.
If you could disappear into the walls, tuck yourself behind drywall and become some ghost story, — ‘…didn’t Leon used to have a wife…?’ ‘Yeah, but they got her.’ sort of deal — you would. He’s used to loss and grief, it would’ve been a much easier pill to swallow if you’d been lost. It would’ve been better for your love story to end with an em dash.
But you’re alive, and you’re here, and the papers will be signed come Monday.
Your cheek finds its place against the palm of your hand. You’re certain Leon’s bullshitting you about looking for that confirmation email. It’s been three minutes of this tense god forsaken silence.
The grey clouds outside are suddenly more interesting than thinking about or looking at Leon, Leon, Leon.
Outside, summer rain showers bring the promise of thunderstorms, muddy roads, petrichor and puddles. There was a time where you loved the rain, before Leon. (There he is again, he waltzes around in your head and you wish he’d trip.)
You’d open your windows and let the sound lull you to sleep, then get annoyed when a puddle would form on the floor or on the window sill. A few drops splatter against the window pane, the first to trail down like tears.
After Leon, you couldn’t find too much beauty in it, not when you’d wake and find him wide eyed, staring at the ceiling. He never did like stormy nights, you always found him staring up at nothing in the middle of the night, stuck in some trancelike state you had to navigate carefully lest you step on a landmine.
You find yourself hoping Leon’ll be alright tonight. He never did tell you why he was so clammy, always had something to do with work and you got it, you did. You just hope he doesn’t take to the bottle again.
On the other hand, you still find it difficult to sleep without having him next to you. A mountain of pillows makes for a poor substitute, can’t replicate his warmth or the sound of his breathing whenever he would manage to fall asleep before you did.
You shift and let hands your clasp together against marble, forehead pressed against them in mock prayer. What does he really think about all this? Like really think. Not the stuff he’d said to try and make this seem amicable and mutual.
Is he as nervous as you are? Does he even want to make small talk? Is he just waiting for you to bring the axe down again?
‘Hey, I gotta go, actually. Thanks for the years and whatever, bye.’ You’d love to kiss the barrel right about now if he really is just waiting for you to initiate the goodbye sequence and you’ve just been standing here waiting this whole time, deluding yourself.
You want to laugh. Small talk. That’s what you’ve both been reduced to. The last hour you had both been so focused on clearing out what was left of the place there was no real time to try and play house again. He’d give you that awkward stare if you tried to ask him what he thought about the weather lately.
God, what if he hated you?
"Mhm." Leon finally grunts and breaks you out of your reverie, pulls you out the downward spiral before it can drag you under. "Everything’s good. The attorneys are settling the split." He slips his phone back into his pocket and turns, taps his fingers idly against the marble.
You lift your head up, your smile tight and out of place. “That’s good,” You sigh and rest your chin in the palm of your hand again as you settle into a ‘relaxed’ posture. “I’m glad it sold for more. Would’ve been a scam if it didn’t.”
Leon opens his mouth to say something, all that comes out is a quiet ‘amused’ scoff before his eyes go downcast in thought. Conversation was never this hard to make with you. Its weird how suddenly you two became estranged. You shared meals, a bed, a home and last names for years, yet somehow it feels like he doesn't know you at all anymore.
It feels wrong.
Ending things was never his forte, should he just say goodbye, shake your hand and call it a day? Things would be easier that way, it'd be a cleaner, neater, less awkward cut than whatever this was quickly becoming.
And there it is again. The silence. You run your tongue across your teeth and bite back your sigh. God you hate him.
It's funny to think there was a time where you could just skip town, stop answering calls and travel around. Just drift from coastal city to coastal city, wind in your hair, sun on your skin. But you can’t really ghost your ex-husband now can you? Not when you’re this close to the finish line.
Maybe in the future you’ll consider it, punishment for some guy who won’t understand signals of disinterest, if you even decide to date after Leon.
Leon opens the door for escape, "You need a ride or..."
“No!” You scramble to pull your own phone out, “No, I got um. I got one…I’m staying with Val, she actually dropped me off so…I’ll just call…” You trail off and start typing out your; ‘Hey girl! Everything’s packed up :) Save me from this please?’ message.
“Val?” Leon drawls the name out like it’s unfamiliar, your friend group is a variable he never considered much, a bunch of girls he’d heard about a handful of times and saw very little of towards the end.
Your friends never really came around to begin with, living cities apart tends to put that sort of strain when it comes to keeping close. And if they did come around he was always off somewhere else, saving the world and wondering if you’d had dinner midway through.
“Yeah, Val. You met her.” You clarify, brows drawing together in confusion. “At our wedding, she was a bridesmaid? The red head?”
Leon contemplates this. It’s not that he didn’t remember your wedding and who all was there, it’s that all he really remembers from that day is you, you can’t fault him for that. 2007 was a long, long time ago and the world nearly ended a handful of times in between the years.
…Lanshiang, New York, Alcatraz — to name a few. Forgive him for not memorizing the bridal party.
Then, it clicks. He remembers a Valerie, though he’s not sure if it’s this Val. How could he get it wrong? How many red heads go by Val anyways?
He nods and snaps his fingers, stuttering on a hum. “She uh, she’s the girl who fell during...” He trails off and scratches the nape of his neck.
You finish the sentence for him. “Her heel snapped before the photos.” You snort. There we go, it did ring a bell.
“Right. Her.” He leans against the island too, mirrors you and glances towards the front door as if she’d walk right in and haul you away by your forearm, save you from this situation and that’ll be that.
“Is she on her way?”
You glance down at your phone and feel your heart sink. “She’s forty something out…” You mutter and offer him a small awkward smile. Leon’s brows furrow again. “She lives on the other side of town.” You tack on and wave your own set of keys at him.
“You can go, I know you have that thing with Chris, right? I can lock up.”
The thing with Chris. You say it as if it’s a super important event and not the two of them drinking themselves numb in the corner of some poorly lit dingy sports bar. He loved that about you, always managing to find some way to make things sound better than what they were.
He’ll miss that. He’ll miss a lot of things, actually.
“I can wait.” He shrugs. “Chris isn’t doing much today. He’s..”
“…still on bed rest.”
“…still healing from his last mission?
You both finish the sentence at the same time. Different variations but the same conclusion at the end of the day; Chris’s arm is fucked.
Leon snorts, a small smile makes its way onto his face. “How’d you know?”
“Claire.” You smile back.
That’s another thing. Your lives were so intertwined it’s gonna be hard to ignore you’re gone next time they all go out for drinks. It already is.
“So forty minutes?”
“I guess.”
— x-x-x-x-x-x —
Somehow, you both end up in the garden. It’s easier to sit in silence when you’ve got the rumbling of thunder and the chirping of frantic birds to fill it for you. The only place where you can comfortably sit on is the bench bolted down to the gazebo in the backyard anyways.
The movers took the couch weeks ago, the staircase grew to be bad for Leon’s back after five minutes. At any rate, you’re sure a nail would come through if you sat on it for long.
There’s a respectable distance between you two where you’re perched, not enough room for Jesus, but it’s certainly there. Soft purple passionflower, fruity and fragrant, trails down the column beside you, its vines searching blindly for something to cling to.
You steal a glance at Leon. He’s sat with his hands stuffed in his pockets and his head tipped back, adam’s apple protruding like he’s got something stuck in his throat, his eyes are closed, seemingly content to take a load off and soak in the sounds.
You settle in too, not as comfortably as he has, but enough to let out whatever tensions left over. You’ll miss this place.
The garden always was your favorite, Leon had the gazebo installed year five as an anniversary gift, one peek at the board of magazine clippings you kept was all it took for him to hire contractors and plan it out. You’d bought flower bulbs in bulk just so you had something to do while he painted it white.
Come spring it always brought in all sorts of bugs and pollinators — mourning cloaks, and sootywings on overcast days, monarchs and swallowtails if the sun was bright enough. You wonder if the next family will tear it down in favor of a pool or something. A playground for the children you and Leon never got around to having or if they’d install one of those little playgrounds like the neighbors had.
Absent-mindedly, you bring up a random memory that pops up in your head. “You remember when the neighbors built that privacy fence and put that big ass camera up?”
Leon snorts, he pries his eyes open and stares at nothing in particular. “That guy was a nut job.” Leon mutters.
You laugh and shift in your seat, conversation rumbles to life, purring contentedly. “We always had shitty neighbors.” You hum, dipping further in. It’s easy to talk about the past. “Remember back when we lived in those shady apartments?”
It takes Leon a while, but it dawns on him eventually. He only lived in two apartment complexes with you, the last one was nice and isolated, notably. The unit across was empty the two years you both stayed there — something about it being the landlord's show unit.
That leaves the other option, and those apartments make way more sense. The apartments he used to live in near the DSO, back when he actually valued being on time and you two had just started dating. Living there was fine for him; it wasn't until you moved in that he realized he had to get you both out of there. Being near a government building doesn’t necessarily guarantee the people’ll be model citizens.
“Yeah. Yeah I do.” He grunts. “The guy who always thought we were stealing his packages. Asshole tried breaking in didn’t he?”
“I wouldn’t say that.” It sounds ugly when he puts it like that. “He was just…on something.”
Leon rolls his eyes and stares at you deadpan. ‘On something.’ It doesn’t exactly give a man permission to bust down a door over what ended up being a package that got held by customs. That’s another thing, you always downplayed things. It’s a huge part of why he can’t believe you when you say it’s not his fault.
He’s known you for years and still can’t find a real deal-breaking fault, but he can pinpoint all of his. So how is he supposed to think that somehow you’re the reason this didn’t work?
“Right.” he drags it out, making it clear he doesn’t believe you. He wasn’t home for it, so all he ever had to go off of was the frantic phone call you’d made. That guy was on something, though. Had to be. “I should’ve just moved into your place.”
You quirk a brow. Your place?
Your apartment before him was less of a home and more of a shoebox, it had the basics but that was it. One bedroom that instantly transitioned into kitchen, dining room and entryway. If the neighbors smoked, you smelled it.
You huff. “My place wasn’t any better.”
At least Leon’s had a hallway. And it was near a park you’d both frequented when he wasn’t too tired after work. Dumbarton Oaks with its fields of peonies, tulips and draping wisteria.
You don’t think you can ever go back to it without thinking about Leon, he’s cursed to haunt the grounds with you forever, your hand in his, his eyes on you.
Your lips curl slightly at the edges. He loved that place in the spring too. You turn your head to face him a little better. “Do you remember—“
“Sorry I never got you that dog.” Leon says out of the blue.
Whatever you’d wanted to drudge up slinks back into sludge. It gets a little reaction out of you though, the words die in your throat. Your expression is a mix of bewilderment and amusement - brows twitching, lips pursing. Why does that matter now?
It’s a cliche, the pet every couple gets and then has to coparent. You forgot all about that, he’s dusted those memories off and buffed them out. The late night conversations that came whenever you’d bring it up come roaring to the forefront, the ones that always ended up turning into plans for the future.
At the time, you’d shown him some big, dumb looking chocolate lab with its tongue lolled out and its head cocked to the side, of course he said no. It was too big a dog.
‘We should get a dog, there’s this shelter nearby that...’
‘…No, we don’t even have room for a dog that big…‘
‘…we can only get a dog if our kid asks for one? That’s not fair, that’s so far away!’
‘Sounds fair to me, princess. A dogs a big responsibility…’
‘Yeah, I know. I had three, but what if…’
But that was then. This is now. A dog really would’ve been nice, it would’ve made the house feel a little less lonely, Leon wouldn’t have had to install so many cameras if you had gotten a big dog like you wanted but…
“Sorry, what were you gonna say?”
You wave the memories away, tuck them back into whatever box they tumbled out of. “No it’s fine,” You tuck one leg up onto the bench and wrap your arms around it.
“I know you were like, scared of them.”
Leon scoffs, “I wasn’t scared of dogs.” It sounds absurd. It sounds weak when you put it like that out loud. Leon. The D.S.O. 's legendary and longest standing agent. Leon.
Leon S. Kennedy. Afraid of dogs.
“You’re not?”
“No, it’s just,” he pauses, and you wish you’d just let it go.
There’s a story there he never told you. You wish you couldn’t read him so well either, but his eyes tighten around the corners and give him away, he never could look you straight in the eye when he was hiding something or lying.
“Does it really matter now?” He settles for that, doesn’t mean to sound so bitter, but he does.
There’s a lot of things Leon never told you about nor explained; the keychain, the nightmares, why he’d been so exhausted as of late, and why he’d pulled away and why he’d been disappearing, — another thing you had to forgive, your lawyer would’ve hounded him in court if you hadn’t. — everything is on a need to know basis, and you technically, don’t need to know.
There’s no point in badgering him in attempts to get him to spill his guts. These things really do just…not matter anymore, if you couldn’t get him to be honest while married or at least extend a sliver of an olive branch, then what’s the point in trying to do it now?
They can remain as he’d like them; mystery’s, left abandoned to collect dust alongside the memories.
You try for something light hearted, your smile is soft at the edges, understanding as much as it could be. “It’s fine to be afraid of dogs.” You tease and roll your eyes, nudge his shoulder with yours. “I would’ve been fine with a cat. Or a little dachshund, we didn’t have to get a lab.”
Leon rolls his eyes and leans away from you, slumps into his corner of the bench. It isn’t odd for him to do this, now that he’s got a grip on himself he does this when he’s found himself needled. Instead of reaching for the bottle, he shuts the doors and searches for some sort of reprieve, walks circles in that head of his and still lets the concept of ‘talking things out’ go forgotten.
Ah, you’ve walked yourself into a trap. Your smile falters, and just like that, the easy going atmosphere dissipates like a drop of water in a hot pan.
Was it something you said? (Of course it was.) Or was it something you hadn’t? Did he want an apology? Some sort of understanding? Maybe you should’ve brushed it off, said ‘No, I really really didn’t want a dog anyways, let’s talk about the park please.’ and steered the course back to safer waters.
It doesn’t matter, you repeat. It really doesn’t. You’re stuck in a loop of apathy, dancing to a tune you don’t quite recognize and can’t turn off. The pitter patter of rain softens its sharp edges, though it doesn’t completely erase the need to fill it with something light hearted.
You glance down at the tan line on your ring finger. It’ll take a while to go away, a lighter shade to remind you of what once was until you slip on another. Though you doubt you’ll remarry. Your eyes find Leon again, you wish it was easy to get lost in your thoughts and forget he’s here, let the minutes pass in relative peace; it’s harder to ignore the fact he’s still got his ring on.
You curl your fist and pray he hasn’t noticed yours is missing, it’s tucked away in velvet, left on your vanity to lose its sparkle. The guilt settles heavy in your heart, a snake creeping through the grass that makes you think twice; why does he still have it on? Was it too early to take it off?
There must be some sort of guideline to divorce etiquette you’re missing.
Was there a vital bullet point tucked in one of the blog posts you skimmed through that you actually needed to read? ‘The Do’s and Dont’s of divorce; don’t take your ring off until months after your divorce is settled, it looks bad if you do.’ or some other quirky point written by some ‘journalist’.
The answer to why he has his on is simple, why kid yourself? Leon didn’t want this, there’s no room for miscommunication there. No oh, well, maybe he knew it was dead and didn’t want to pull the plug first, no chance of saying it was mutual even if it might be amicable.
He took so long to sign the papers, dragged his feet and had his lawyer plead for separation first instead under the guise of managing assets and other legal jargon neither of you ever thought you'd have to care for.
You know he was hoping you’d change your mind, that therapy would’ve made you have a come to Jesus moment and rescind your demand. Unfortunately for him, it hadn’t. And at the altar when he’d said forever and always; he’d meant it, every single word.
Then, his hair had been shades brighter and a little shorter, his eyes less crinkled at the edges, his suit and tie impossibly starched and a cold sweat had settled at the nape of his neck, he’d stopped wiping it away lest other people notice.
It was funny to look back on, Mr. Suave rendered down to a fidgeting groom the second the organ began. Every nerve had lit itself on fire the moment you’d walked down the aisle to meet him at the finish line.
At what moment in time had the spark fizzled? What had he missed? (Besides birthdays, trips you’d started to organize alone - no longer clinging to hoping he’d get the days off, and date nights.)
Suddenly the world’s been turned over on its head and he’s meant to forget all about you and all the things you like. Life is supposed to go on and he’s supposed to let the feeling of your hand in his become a distant memory; you’ll be preserved in an imperfect film, the exact moment you fell out of love burned away in the negatives.
One thing resurfaces, however, was this why?
“You think we waited too long to have kids?” Leon asks with the subtlety of breaking glass. Was it then? Had he waited too long? You never gave him a clear answer the night you’d asked for divorce, he can’t help but want to peel it all back and get some clarity.
Would you have stayed if he had gotten you pregnant? The question buzzes around in Leon’s head violently, he’s poked a hornets nest, the poison sinks into his system because the answers yes, isn’t it?
You stiffen visibly, the spotlight is rather harsh. Your heart stutters and comes to a stop in your chest. You hate this line of questioning, everything in your body’s gotten the jitters. So it seems he remembers those conversations too. The topic always came up, in conversation with friends, after grocery trips, in the comfortable silence that followed after dinner.
The house always felt like something was missing. A dog, a cat, a damned parrot. Something that made noise. Something that breathed life into this house. Anything so long as it wasn’t just you and the late night news.
Those two little babies always manifest and never go away when you think about them too hard. The pitter patter of little feet running up the stairs. A boy with that cute little dimple in his chin. A girl with moles scattered around like ink droplets.
What traits or physical attributes would they have gotten from you? Would they have been all Leon in the face or would hints of you be there too? You would’ve torn the gazebo out for them too if they wanted a pool. But, you have to let them go.
You know now the solution would’ve never been children, they would’ve simply been just that; another thing that would’ve filled the silence that came after he was gone.
The only semi-truthful answer you can find comes out naturally. “I…I don’t know.” You glance at him from the corner of your eye. Leon’s jaw is shut tight, molars working against themselves to death.
You’ve come to terms with that, it’s too late to have any of your own either way. No choice but to march on with time. You don’t resent him for wasting your youth, Leon couldn’t ever change the fact he was a man who would’ve never really been home, you knew that when you married him.
You just thought that something would’ve changed down the time. Maybe things would've been different.
That’s on you isn’t it?
“Did you really want kids?” You don’t shy away from asking. Dreaming out loud with Leon was your favorite pastime.
Leon rubs his hand against the scruff on his chin, manages to grit out, “Always wanted a girl.” He risks it, meets your gaze head on. “Would’ve looked like you.”
Your eyes widened slightly, thrown off guard. “Still?”
You figured he would’ve changed his mind and wanted a boy like every other guy seemed to want, could’ve raised him up to be like himself. Named him Leon Jr or something dorky. Just not Scott. You wouldn’t have let him name your son something that dorky. Leon can let that die with him.
“Yeah.” Leon smiles, it brightens the storm clouds around him, it's infectious, you feel your own lips itching to match his mood. He’d have been a good girl dad, he’s got some experience, after all.
“Yeah?” You reach out and shove him lightly, a real smile tugging on your lips. “You would’ve annoyed the hell out of her.” For the first time since you’ve started this whole process, Leon chuckles. The sound is low and rich though carrying a weight he lets out in the sigh that follows.
“You annoyed the hell out of me.” You murmur in jest, it’s lighthearted, he knows. “But she would’ve loved you for it, I loved you for it.” You rest your cheek against the top of your knee and trace the lines on his face, he’s still as handsome as the day you met him, you don’t even notice what you’re starting to say.
“Still do.”
Leon stares back, his eyes have widened a bit but that all doesn’t matter much now. He’s still your tired Leon with his sad blue eyes, worry lines etched in his forehead. With his greys poking out through the blonde — if it could even be considered that anymore, it’s as brown as ale now, aged just like that. — that frames his face. He barely even has smile lines but he musters another big one up for you, accentuates them.
“Yeah?” He rumbles lowly.
You don’t retract it. “Yeah.”
Time itself seems to come at a standstill, everything else blurs. And suddenly, it’s the first summer you both spent out in the countryside after he came back from Spain, and it’s beginning to feel like you never uttered ‘I think this just isn’t working anymore.’ to him.
It rained then too. You could almost pretend that’s where you’re at again, out in the middle of nowhere skinny dipping like brain dead teens in horror flicks, he’d questioned how smart the idea was yet still followed you into the lake muttering warnings to ward off ‘big ass fishes’.
Leon shifts in his seat, turns his body towards you subtly. This is a bad idea. You swallow the thought, Don’t, don’t.. your heart races in your ears and drowns out any reason.
You shouldn’t play with his feelings. Your gaze is pulled downward to settle on his lips, dusky pink and still plush. Don’t. You remember when he’d stopped shaving, somewhere in between 2014 and 2015, you used to hate the beard burn then, you wouldn’t mind feeling it again now.
“I’m sorry, I…” You mutter, “I..I shouldn’t have…”
Leon’s eyes flick down just a fraction too. He always did like the slow burn, you’d play coy and dance around what you wanted, and it’s killing him to know all he’ll have after this is memories that’ll slip through his hands like sand.
The fractures start to show, eyes lingering a second too long for people who are supposed to be moving on after this. The distance between you two became negligible somewhere along the lines enough for them to have long dissolved.
You both move at the same time, all coordination goes forgotten when you come to connect, his nose knocks against yours before your lips finally meet again after having spent half a year apart. Your other hand latches onto the front of his shirt, his finds the curve of your cheek, the jigsaws always fall into place.
Your tongue rolls over and against his, the scant space when lips part is filled with shared breaths and desperate pants, the rains pouring down eagerly now, splashing off the gazebos railing and splattering against the stone, but none of that matters now, not when he’s hauling you onto his lap by your hips like old times.
Your hand reaches out to tangle in his hair as you shift and crowd him against the benches corner, Leon’s hand grips your waist, adjusting your thighs to bracket his.
“Right here?” He cracks one eye open. Yours are screwed shut.
“Mhm.” You pant, your breath is hot against his lips, his teeth clack against yours. “Please.”
That sweet little ‘please’ does all the work for you, his blood rushes southbound all in one millisecond, they left one blood cell in charge upstairs and that one too is screaming ‘go! go! go!’.
Leon keeps you firmly on his lap, one hand rests against the small of your back while the other scrambles down south, working his fly open just enough for future ease. Your lips meet his time and time again, it’s nice to kiss him when he doesn’t taste like whiskey, even better after being deprived of him for so long, you’ll ignore that it’s self inflicted.
His tongue licks into your mouth softly, swipes against yours with a sigh of relief. How long has he been thinking of doing this again? Too long. It’s hard to kill his attraction for you, it isn’t some switch he can just turn off.
You’re it for him, you always were and always will be. It doesn’t matter if he’s gotta sit parallel to you and sign his name on a line come Monday, if it makes you happy. He’ll do it. But right now he can be a little selfish, can’t he?
“This is a bad idea.” You hiss, a reminder to you both, his hand still works its way up your ass, hiking your pencil skirt up enough to expose a whisper of lace.
“I know.” Leon murmurs against your lips, swallows down whimpers and gasps alike. “Just once. ‘s all it has to be.”
Liar, liar, liar, liar—
You cling onto that just once and guide his hands. He’s right. It’s all it has to be. Just one teensy mistake.
You nod dumbly, helping him shove your panties aside, his fingers prod along your slit clumsily, that sharp intake when he dips them between flesh makes you feel slightly self conscious, you’re wet, unmistakably so. He parts your folds with a quiet click and all your worries melt away the second he finds your clit, rubs it softly with his index and makes you stutter out a sweet little moan.
“You needed this, huh?” Leon huffs, it’s easy to fall into line, he hasn’t forgotten this dance just yet, his fingers circle and your clit, “Didn’t mean to let it get this bad.”
Your eyes flutter shut before opening again to watch his face. Leon presses his forehead against yours and closes his own. Two slip in down to the knuckle and out to the tip, rhythmically pumping into your entrance playfully, enough to stimulate, not enough to please.
He did let it get this bad, what with him being gone all the time and leaving you with nothing but a bunch of plastic to fill in the gaps, how gracious of him to finally make it up to you. But you won’t leave him hanging, even if you should.
“Let me help,” You sighed, “please?”
There it is again, that magic word. He never could say no to you, didn’t help he never wanted to in the first place. Leon shifts slightly, tips his hips up and lets you do all the work, it’s hard to focus on anything else but the warmth radiating from between your legs.
Your hand slipped in between you both to find his length, through the fabric of his briefs he’s warm but noticeably, soft. Half-hard, if you were generous, nearly flaccid if you weren’t, it would’ve been a bit of a blow to your ego if the problem was you there. But it wasn’t. Your hand still slips into that weird little gap in his briefs, it was for easy access you assumed.
It was him, age does these things after all, nothing to be ashamed about, though you know he is, in fact, ashamed. You can count on your hands how many times you’ve seen him get pouty when you’d recommend that little blue pill.
“Still having problems?” You murmur against his lips, languidly stroking him to life, thumb rubbing the vein along the side, slipping up to tug the skin encasing his frenulum down, worrying the edge of his cock head til it starts to weep pearly beads of pre-cum.
“Don’t put it like that.” Leon groaned, pushing his cock further into the cradle of your hand, rubbing his fingers through your folds a little harder before lightly smacking them against your pussy for punishment, you jolt and squeeze a little too hard. “Still working, isn't it?”
Now it is. You rut against his fingertips for more, press a kiss to the tip of his nose and smoosh your forehead against his. “Yeah.” You glance down in between you both, watching your hands work in tandem, his stuffed between your thighs, yours working over his lap.
Leon’s cock stiffens up to attention, all his blood going right where it needs to be, thickened up and engorged as much as it could possibly go, your thumb drags a few more beads down to slicken him up, palm twisting to work him not over, but nearly.
Your eyes squeeze shut, your strokes lose their rhythm, blurring faster than you intended, you could never lie that when it comes to this, Leon knows you as well as you know him, maybe even more so, he’d turned you into his own pull apart - put back together attraction over the span of a decade or two and somehow never managed to get bored.
Always found something new to fixate over, a new place to bite, another to nip and suckle at. If you were in your bedroom, he’d have you belly down, ass up for the next hour or with his arm coiled around your neck, but, alas. From here on out, you could only dream.
A choked whine leaves your lips, the slick that’s collected on his fingers makes for easy traction, his fingers work in earnest, two spread your entrance open, scissoring before twisting in deeper. Leon feels the exact moment the pads of his digits start to bully your sweet spot, your cunt clings to him and your whimpers scream: Right there, there, there, there—
But, he stops and pulls out abruptly. Your pussy clenches strongly around nothing, a protest of its own that leaves you chasing the feeling you’re being suddenly denied of, humping the air and wondering where his fingers went. It isn’t long until you figure it out.
You let go of his cock when you feel him take over for you, gripping at the base and effectively relieving you of duty.
“You ready?” His other hand cups the bottom of your ass cheek and tugs it aside, spreading you open and lining himself up clumsily. The tip of his cock nudges against your opening and notches itself to land. You bite the tip of your tongue and fight the urge to impale yourself with him.
“C’mon, yes or no.” Your eyes flick up to Leon’s face. He’s so smug. Staring up at you with that little gleam in his eyes and an easy grin. He sinks you down just an inch more, watches you gasp before tugging you back up. Bastard.
“Yes, please.” You nod dumbly and wrap your arms around him like he’s come home from a particularly long mission, let your body cover his and spread your legs as much as you can without making it hard on him.
The ruddy tip of his cock kisses your folds again, he misses once before he finally notches himself in, parts them with relative ease, sinking in deeper inch by inch and ignoring how his cock kicks and throbs with each warm sigh you let out against him. Your pussy is mind-meltingly warm, slick and viselike, if he weren’t careful he would’ve shoved himself into you instantaneously.
Leon was big, there’s no room for arguing there, he’s always had a cock that makes you think twice before going in with little to no preamble like this, if it hadn’t been for his hands holding you steady you would’ve squirmed away, begged him to kiss it better and really work you open with his fingers, not whatever he was doing before.
It felt like he was splitting you open in the best and worst ways possible, each whimper and whine soothed away bit by bit by him shushing you and rubbing little circles into the divots of your hips to distract you.
One thought makes its way through the haze. You aren’t going to last, your thighs squeeze shut as best as they can, granting your poor clit the friction it’s still begging for, though in a small amount. It’s hard for Leon to focus on lasting in the first place too when your pussy hugs him so tightly, it misses him, that much is clear.
Maybe that’s the part of you that misses him more than your heart does.
His fingers dimple the fat of your hips, squeezing and kneading, savoring the way flesh gives beneath the pads of his fingertips, if he holds on hard enough he won’t let himself get carried away by the wave.
“You okay?” Leon pants. He presses kisses where your cleavage is pressed against his face. Suffocate him, why don’t you?
You peer down and catch his gaze. Leon’s pupils are blown, black swallows up blue until it’s a thin line just around, eyes half-lidded like he’s on downers and ready to nod off. You like Leon most when he’s just as lost as you are, makes you wonder why you stopped having sex in the first place.
“Uh-huh,” You cradle the back of his head and press him closer against you. “C’mon, kiss ‘em for me.” Your other hand tugs the cups of your breast down just a bit, enough to pop a tit out and offer it up for his pleasure.
You don’t have to tell Leon twice, he takes one into his mouth and teases your nipple between his teeth, biting down hard enough to make you shudder out a moan and shut your eyes. The pleasure-pain has your pussy clenching around him tighter than it has before.
“Fuck,” Leon hisses in between kisses, his hips jolt forward to chase his own pleasure now that your body’s reminded him exactly where his dicks at. Leon starts to steadily rut up into you like it’s your last day on earth.
And in a way he isn’t wrong, it surely feels like it is.
Any moment now a big rock will come flying down and wipe out humanity and you’ll die in his arms like you’re meant to. Vows always speak of for better or for worse, until death do us part. So what is he to do after this?
His palm slides down to grip onto the soft flesh of your ass, uses it as leverage and holds you just where he wants you. He’d take you hostage if he didn’t have morals.
You tip your head back and let out a low throaty moan, arch closer and plaster your tits further against his mouth. “Shit—” You whine, your hands plant themselves firmly against his shoulders, “Leon,”
Your mouth hangs open, half choked moans and words tumbling out in between gasps. Leon’s constantly adjusting his hold on you, starting to become uncertain with where to put his hands. Too pussy drunk to really care, each thrust sends a wave of heat through your core.
Your nails dug in as much as they could, praying they’ll rip through fabric and make contact with skin, score him to make certain he’s real and this isn’t some dream you’ll wake up from to find yourself sweat slicked and embarrassed to see you’ve rutted yourself against a pillow.
How long has it been since he’s last fucked you? A year? Two? Your cunt answers for you, too soaked for it to have been any less. No, it couldn’t have been that long. The last time you’re certain he had you like this was after he’d come back from the middle of nowhere, it doesn’t narrow it down but you know you’d been crying then too.
You always do.
Wait.
You’re crying?
You open your eyes and stare up at the roof, a snotty intake of air and a real sob is all Leon needs to hear to come to this realization too. Your chest expands and stutters half way. You’re crying?? The lump in your throat is confirmation.
“Why’re you crying?” Leon rasps out, your heart is being squeezed in a vice, he slows his thrust. His cock slides in and out in languid, syrupy strokes meant to let you get a grip, give him an answer that isn’t ’I don’t know.’ or a moan.
You force yourself to tilt your head down, sobbing softly against him. It’s not that you don’t know what you’re about to say, it’s that fucking Leon without saying it feels wrong. You love him. You do love him. Enough to let him go. Enough to not let your relationship deteriorate further. You still love him enough to be able to say it and mean it.
“I love you,” You whisper hoarsely, “God, I love you.” your own hips start to work themselves in tandem with his, taking him in deep and whimpering when the tip of his cock starts to shift from hammering against that little spot to grinding against it, wringing stars out from the sky’s above.
Leon groans like you’ve punched him in the gut, in a way you did, his head tips back and rests against the bench’s back rest. His eyes screw shut. You don’t mean that. You couldn’t mean that. Not while you’re drunk off pleasure and high off the tension, it isn’t real this way.
“I love you,” You repeat raggedly, dipping your head down to hide against the crook of his neck, your spines being lit ablaze, flames traveling up the base to melt your brain. You whine his name and curl further into him. He shifts just enough to press his forehead against yours again. His jaw clenches.
Your noses bump against each other unapologetically.
“I know,” He grunts, “I got you, fuck, baby I got you. Always do.”
The truth is, he doesn’t. He hardly ever had time for you those last few months. And you can’t stand feeling so alone anymore, missed birthdays, holidays, anniversaries...it all piled up. You’d rather die than end up one of those bitter bored housewives who stayed for the money.
You love Leon enough to know he deserves better. You know he feels guilty for not being home so often, it’s best to just rip the bandaid off now.
At least for now you can believe it, pretend everything’s alright. It feels like it is. It feels like you’re twenty six again, giggling under his bedsheets and finding out what makes him tick all over again. Pressing kisses against his face and teasing him for going redder than he already was.
You open your eyes to find he’s already staring at you. So close you can see the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and that his lashes have got greys too.
He's close. You can recognize that expression anywhere. His lips are pulled up in a pained snarl. His grunts turning to groans, slipping past his lips and reminding you how pretty he sounds when he’s about to cum.
“I love you too,” He parrots, catches your bottom lip between his teeth and presses his against yours again, swallows your words before either can dig the grave deeper. His arm bands around the small of your back, his fingers dig into the fat of your waist, hips smacking up against yours, that nasty squelch of slick flesh meeting again and again emanating louder between you two.
Your throat closes up, the knot that’s formed behind your navel starts to pull loose little by little, your half-bit keen comes in time with the pulsing of your inner muscle around him, if he’s delusional enough, he could believe you’re apologizing for breaking his heart in morse code.
Your hips twitched and jerked as you squirm and pull off, crying out that it’s too much, what hasn’t been emptied inside you spurted out and trickled down the length of his cock, both of your chests heaved in similar cadences, body’s going tense to jelly like in a matter of seconds, boneless and gone to the word.
Only when you met his gaze again and the afterglow started to fade, did you realize what exactly happened.
— x-x-x-x-x-x —
You stuff your compact mirror back into your purse.
For the last five minutes you’ve been scrubbing away the evidence off your face. Mascara trails down beneath your eyes, bits flake off and coat your cheeks like soot. Tirelessly, you’ve tried wiping away the flushed color from your cheeks, ignoring the way they burn.
While it’s easy to blame the rain for your dishevelment, it’s harder to ignore the jelly-like condition that’s suddenly rendered your legs useless.
Leon stands awkwardly behind you, he’s been adjusting his jacket for the past couple of minutes, tucking his collar up, slipping the extra in his waist band before pulling it back out, and sneaking glances he thinks you don’t notice.
God. The silence is worse this time around.
Your gut churns violently like waves crashing again and eroding a cliffslide. You’re stupid. You’re an idiot. An ingénue who let herself get carried away with the storm and scrabbled for land, solid and familiar. It’s still raining, it’s worse than before actually. You wonder if that’s the world trying to tell you something, maybe it’s berating you; for fucking him after divorcing him, for divorcing him in the first place, for telling him you loved him during, for not taking it back after.
Where would you two be if Leon had just tried? Would you have managed to find happiness again? Would he have found the time to come back to you as he was?
You didn’t mind having him jaded, drunk, mean, anything so long as he was there. You patched over those gaps, tucked them away out of sight, out of mind because at least he was there. Ugly and down in it, drowning in the currents right there with you.
And you know to some extent that these shadows and breaks were necessary, that he had to keep you in the dark and away from him as much as possible, it isn’t his fault. Leon couldn’t have known you’d grow this tired, he suspected it was a possibility, but he never let himself really acknowledge it. You’d vowed to each other, hadn’t that meant something?
Maybe it’s for the best things ended this way. There’s no real way to patch a fracture this wide, no way to bridge it when one party can’t compromise. Things are easier this way, they’ll have to be. What other choice do you have?
You already were indifferent to some degree towards the end, if you’d have ended up really hating him, wishing he’d just die in some corner of the world so you could collect…You scrub your hands against your face again. You’d rather this than that.
Your face is wet, breaths come out in puffs against your shaking hands and you wonder if it’s left over droplets from the rain or fresh tears. Does Leon regret this as much as you do? God, you could just take it all back, throw yourself at him and beg; ‘Please don’t let me divorce you, call the lawyers, it was a mistake, I'm so sorry hun’, i’m so stupid, I love you.’
You could try, you could get on your knees and grovel and Leon would hold you like he always did, he’d kiss the top of your head and cradle you like you’re something soft and small and in his arms you’d believe you were, he’d say you’re not stupid and he’d promise you things like he always has—
“That can’t happen again.” You blurt out. The rustle of fabric behind you stops. Your tongues gone numb between your teeth, bad habit.
You don’t want to turn around, your bloods both frozen in your veins and boiling hot bubbling beneath skin, the silence behind you is deafening, until you hear Leon exhale through his teeth.
When he finally opens his mouth, he tries for a joke like always, “Was it that bad?”
It doesn’t take a genius to hear it’s lacking his usual bravado. ‘No hard feelings’, you could hear it clear as day in his tone.
“No, it’s just…” You keep your hands pressed against your face then they slap against your sides rather loudly. Don’t make me say it, you want to say. Won’t you please tell me? you could hear him say in return if he knew.
You force yourself to turn and take one look at him, a risk, and it tells you all you need to know. He came to the conclusion the moment you’d scrambled back inside, it’s in your eyes, in your pinched brows and pouted lips, in the tears you hide under the guise of rain droplets.
“No, I know. I shouldn’t have let it go that far.” Leon apologizes first and your heart splits in two to hear that dejected tone he’s trying to hide so hard beneath gruff timbre. Your Leon, always the one to take the blame.
Your vision blurs again, tears stinging like nettles. ‘I’m sorry, Leon.’ is all you should say, all you could say. You’d repeat it over and over again until you both believed it. But it’s exactly what you won’t say. Leon’s zipped his jacket up and settled against the doorframe, you need to pull the plug, he needs to pull it.
It’d be better if you took one for the team, let him be the one who leaves first for once.
“My rides almost here." You swipe at your eye and mumble. You’ve no idea where your friend is, forty minutes have long since passed. “I’ll um…I’ll see you Monday.”
Leon stays silent, stares at the floor, then at you. You think he’ll say something, fight you about it, force you to shake off this weird mood so it can be like before again. Instead he just hesitates and nods, always too good at taking orders.
“Yeah.” He mutters, patting his pockets for his phone and his keys before he reaches for the door handle. “See you.”
The door closes with a click shut behind him, and maybe you preferred the silence from before. You don’t know what’s worse. That look on his face, the flat sound of his voice, or being left behind to wait alone in this big empty house.
Watching Leon go still makes a lump form in your throat. Reminds you of the nights he’d wake you before he went off on some mission, leaving you behind with a soft kiss and a ‘Love you, be home soon.’
After a few minutes of mind numbing silence, you move towards the window on your own accord and lean against the window, just out of sight. Leon’s already sitting in his Porsche, head pressed against the steering wheel.
The rain trickles down the pane and obscures your vision. You think after today, you’ll come to hate it too.
AITA FOR POSING AS A RICH MAN TO PULL A RICH GIRL..?
sum. when toji falls for the hot lady that frequents his shifts at the local grocery store, can his frat brothers help him pose as a rich hot bachelor ? or will you discover his kid & true identity first ? [n]sfw
“brokie and a baby daddy but you wanna pull y/n? don’t even joke, lad.”
ΣΧ
toji zenin is pretending to stack boxes in the third aisle of the local loblaws.
well, not exactly. toji zenin has his biceps flexing under the weight of crates but his eyes don’t lift to the shelf he places them on. instead his pupils flit to the automatic entrance doors, thick & glass-heavy, before he glances at his watch & back to the door again. 12:30 PM sunday. toji knows you should be here by now.
but you’re not, so toji’s lip twitches as he stares at the box of freezies in his arms and sighs. it’s pathetic, really. he’s got five more boxes of who-knows-what to arrange before the end of his shift but he can’t fucking focus. his mind’s on your short skirt & pretty laugh & the way your voice goes sweet whenever he pretends to help you look for items while holding your hand between the aisles. toji grunts, shakes his head. focus focus focus.
“toji.. can you help me reach the olive oil? the cold-pressed one with the pretty label?”
toji’s head snaps up so fast he almost drops the box of freezies.
it’s you—oh god, it’s you, and you’re looking down at him with those pretty lashes & short skirt & your hands holding a basket behind your back. you’re in those cute kitten heels you had on the first time he saw you—did you get your nails done? so pretty. you’re so pretty, you’re always so pretty, and toji’s mouth dries.
he doesn’t say anything because he can’t, because your perfume smells like honey & has his lungs sticking to his throat—but he slowly stands up anyway. you’re humming to yourself as you pad closer, getting in his way, heel clicking against the tile as he traps you in the aisle.
he reaches up to the glass bottle, and he can see your lashes fluttering up at him. your chest presses against his, and his lip ticks upward.
“you want this, princess?” he mumbles.
you playfully swat his chest, but your palm doesn’t slide off. you’re caressing his pecs now, teasing. “toji, give it to me. i have a pasta to make tonight. i’m busy.”
toji chuckles, slipping the bottle into your basket and letting his palm sneak over your waist instead. your hands are still on his pecs, lightly squeezing as you laugh when he tugs you closer. he nuzzles your jaw, murmuring, “only if i get an invite, sweetheart.”
“we’ll see,” you tease as his tongue licks your earlobe. you’re running a thumb over the silver tag on his chest: TOJI. “if you’re good, maybe i’ll let you wash the dishes.”
he kisses your neck. “m’always good for you, baby.”
you’re giggling now, shoving him away with flushed cheeks & a laugh too bright. toji catches your hands, tugging you back with a smile on his face before squeezing your hips. your lips are so glossy. is that the new gloss you bought last week? can he kiss it off?
he’ll never know, because he’s holding your hips while you tug at his collar and whisper something he doesn’t care about in his ear. his manager calls his name.
fuck.
toji gives your hips one last squeeze. “go pay, princess. i’ll bag your stuff.”
“you better.” you huff, spoiled & sweet, and toji can only watch the sway of your hips as you make your way to the register.
you’re a pretty girl with a posh life who will never know lack. toji’s a 24-year-old who’s still in college, working odd jobs with a son waiting at home.
in the third aisle of the local loblaws, toji zenin has his hands on his hips and his eyes on the ground. toji zenin will never say it out loud, but he knows he will never, ever, get the girl.
ⵌ AT THE FRATHOUSE !
“you can’t pull someone like y/n, no offense.”
toji wishes suguru wouldn’t spell it out. he already knows, for christ’s sake.
in sigma chi’s living room, toji zenin is sprawled out on the center rug while suguru and sato eat on the floor beside him. sato is between geto’s legs with his back against geto’s chest & his toe tickling toji’s jaw through his socks. suguru is tilting his shawarma for sato to bite from before taking a bite of his own.
sato’s about to dish out an insult of his own when the door swings open. in comes ryomen sukuna, standing in the doorway with bags in his hands and his limbs stretched out like some sort of clown. he bellows, “therapy fucking sucked today. i still don’t think i need therapy, by the way. watching porn and jerking off is completely normal—fuck you, suguru.”
“maybe it is,” suguru’s lips are sticky with shawarma sauce, “but having your dick out in the same room as other people is not.”
“a young man can’t be an exhibitionist? suck my dick, man.”
“oh, i’m not hungry..”
sukuna trudges over toji’s legs, then plops on the ground opposite sato and suguru. sato throws him the middle finger with a grin. sukuna throws it back. “i brought drinks. toji, why’re you on the floor? ya need therapy too?”
sato snickers. “toji’s fallen for a rich girl.”
sukuna snorts, “don’t even joke, lad.” but suguru and toji aren’t laughing. his brows scrunch. “wait—“ he turns to toji, “you’re serious?”
toji eyes him. “mind your own business.”
sukuna doesn’t believe in complex schools of thought like ‘minding your business.’ so instead of picking a shawarma for himself and eating in silence, he joins sato and nudges his foot against toji’s cheek. “does she know you’re poor?”
“hey, hey,” geto bites his cheek, “not too much on him.”
but sukuna continues. “what about the kid? does she know you have a son?”
toji’s jaw only tightens.
sukuna looks at toji in disbelief. then at sato, then suguru—then shakes his head, laughing. “jesus christ of jollof rice,” he cracks open a beer, “you’re fucking cooked, bro.”
toji drags his hands over his face. his eyes are hot, for some reason.
suguru sighs, resting his chin on sato’s head as sato munches happily underneath him. “i hate to suggest this, but there’s a way you can get her to give you a chance.”
sukuna and toji both perk up.
“if she doesn’t know about meg—or your, uh, economics,” suguru clears his throat, “then you keep it that way. she thinks you’re some hot older uni student who works at loblaws for beer money. lean into it.”
sato frowns. “this sounds like something i’d suggest. so not good, i think.”
suguru pokes his cheek, making sato’s pout grow deeper. “i’m just spit-balling here. it’s obvious you really like her, toji. and megumi needs a mommy.”
“i don’t like her because i want her to play housewife.”
“we know,” suguru’s smile is affectionate. “that’s why we’ll help you.”
sukuna grunts in agreement. “sounds scummy but it makes sense. if she finds out you’re a baby daddy with no money, she’ll just run back to her range rover.” he takes another swig of his beer. “we’ll help you hide your true identity. you just get her hooked enough that when she eventually does find out, she won’t leave.”
sato nods. “we’ll babysit. lend you money. heck—you can drive my porsche to your dates.”
on the floor, toji zenin is staring towards the ceiling. it’s a stupid plan, his frat brothers are even stupider, and there is no way in hell whoever is up there will actually let things work out in his favor.
but toji’s desperate. he has been for a long time. so before he can let himself think about it, his lips part to respond.
“alright,” he grunts. “let’s fucking do it.”
SIGMA CHI’S REMARK : DON’T WORRY BRO, WE GOTCHU !
BROKE BOY TACTICS #2: WHO’S YOUR DADDY ?
taught by: sato, sukuna, suguru
“babysitting a five year old brat. how hard could that be?”
ΣΧ
megumi zenin is tufts of black hair, sleepy blue eyes & a tiny fist in a jar full of gummy worms. he’s slumped against his dad’s thick leg, shoving fistfuls of gummies in his mouth with candy-smeared cheeks & a bored expression on his face.
sato, sukuna and suguru are side-by-side on a straight line.
hands tucked behind their backs & chests puffed out like soldiers. toji clears his throat. “listen up. i’m going to be gone for exactly two hours. if i come back and the kid has a single scratch on him, i’m throwing all of you into a pond.“
suguru shakes his head, stepping forward to crouch down to megumi’s height. he wipes megumi’s cheeks with a smile. “don't worry, toji. we've got him. right, little man?”
“hi, uncle sugu,” megumi’s voice is flat but he leans into geto’s palm on his cheek. “are we going to draw today?”
“of course, kiddo. i bought some new crayons just for you.”
toji scoops his son up in his arms, ignoring the way his tiny body writhes towards the gummy worms abandoned on the floor. suguru lifts the jar back to megumi with a smile. sukuna, however, is frowning. “why is his face like that.”
“sukuna, do not fight my kid.”
megumi points towards him. “my daddy calls you a pervert.”
sato bursts out in laughter. suguru’s snickering too, though he’s doing a better job of hiding it. toji drops his son to the ground and crouches to his height. megumi offers him a soggy, wet gummy worm. toji eats it off his palm & pokes his belly.
he rises to his feet. “suguru is in charge. rest of you, keep your hands off him. i’m leaving.”
megumi waves a sticky hand. “bye, daddy. bring me a cookie.”
“will do, brat.” and the door shuts with a thud.
——
“we should go to wonderland. you like amusement parks, ‘gumi?”
megumi zenin has a crayon in his hands, scribbling furiously with a focused expression on his face. he’s seated in geto’s lap, occasionally having suguru hand him a crayon as he perfects his artistic masterpiece. to his right, sato gojo is leaning over the table and talking a mile-a-minute.
megumi answers, scribbling a drawing of what looks like him and his father—DADDY AND ME. “i’ve never been to an amusement park.”
“what?” sato slams his palm on the table, distraught. “what kind of kid has never been to an amusement park?!”
“my father is poor.”
“oh,” sato shrinks. “fairs.”
suguru lets out a fond huff, burying his nose in megumi’s hair to hide the fact that he’s shaking from laughter. sato looks crushed by guilt. “i can’t take this anymore, suguru.” he clutches his chest. “we’re going to the apple store and getting him an ipad pro right now.”
suguru raises a brow. “toji said no screens. and either way, i won’t let you turn him into an ipad kid.”
megumi slumps against geto’s chest. “i want a blue gatorade.”
“i’ll get it for you, buddy,” suguru smiles before kissing his cheek, easing him off his lap. “don’t let sato teach you about investment and stocks while i’m gone, okay?”
sato has his chin on the table, defeated. and just as suguru’s back turns into the kitchen, sukuna saunters in, steps heavy, palm curled around a blue bottle of—is that the last gatorade?!
sukuna cracks the plastic seal, taking a slow, heavy swig of the drink while staring right at the five year old. megumi’s tiny brows furrow. “that’s mine. uncle sugu said i could have it.”
“well,” sukuna licks his lips, slow. “uncle sugu’s not the king of this house.” he takes another gulp, throwing his head back with a refreshed ahhhhhh. megumi frowns, lips tight.
and then he screams.
“uncle sugu! mister pervert’s being mean again!”
sukuna chokes on his gatorade. “who the hell are you calling mister pervert, you little brat—“
sato jumps over the table to hold back sukuna before he can strangle the five-year-old. suguru runs out of the kitchen in alarm, quickly scrambling to hold back sukuna’s wrath alongside sato.
megumi only blinks at the display. three grown men bickering and shoving over gatorade. hell, he’s not so sure he even wants it anymore.
he sighs, reaching across the table to pick up sato’s iphone. he dials his dad’s number, palm smushed into his cheek as he watches suguru smack sukuna for his bad behavior.
ⵌ AT THE DATE !
in the local coffee shop, your lashes are fluttering & the sunlight kisses your skin as you stare out the window.
toji zenin has his heart in his throat. his hands are in his pockets but his ribs are cracked against his chest, and the sight of you pouting out the window has his mouth drying with want. he strolls over regardless, posture lazy, steps cool, because toji zenin is a man who can only have pride when he pretends.
“hi, princess,” he slides into the booth seat—next to you, not across, because he’s been thinking about the feel of your waist in his hands since last thursday—and his ankle hooks around yours on autopilot.
“hi,” you smile, leaning into his side as he kisses your hair. toji takes your palm in his. your fingers are so dainty. fuck.
“you look nice today,” you hum. “who are you trying to impress?”
your lashes are batting up at him, but toji manages to keep his cool. his smirk is lazy & gorgeous. “you, obviously.”
toji wonders how you can let him touch you so casually. even now he’s nibbling your ear as you talk about something from class—a lazy professor or something else, it’s hard to listen when your thumb brushes his jaw while you speak—and toji’s mind wanders. he’s kissing your neck now, thumbs rubbing circles on your thighs as your breath hitches between words, and toji wonders why you haven’t yet flinched in disgust.
he doesn’t dwell on it too long, though. he knows the topic will only get him down.
so he kisses your neck as you laugh and swat him away, telling him he’s distracting you from your story. you never push him off, though, and your thigh’s on his lap now.
but all good things must come to an end.
toji’s phone buzzes.
loud & obnoxious. SATO, his screen reads. he quickly swipes it away. “sorry…just spam.”
“spam?” you poke his bicep, grinning. “or is your little side piece getting impatient?”
“don’t have a side piece, baby,” he murmurs into your cheek. “only want you.”
1 NEW FACETIME AUDIO CALL : SATO 🤡
his phone has been buzzing for ages now. you sigh, crossing your arms & clearly annoyed. “toji, just answer it. what if it’s an emergency?”
you’re right, he should answer it, because if anything happened to megumi, he’d fucking flip. he bites his lip, “one second, princess.”
he presses his phone to his ear, but megumi’s voice greets him instead.
“daddy! uncle kuna’s trying to kill me because of blue gatorade!”
toji’s eyes widen. from the corner of his eye, he can see you inching closer, brows furrowed in concentration as you try to listen in.
in the background of the call he can hear sato shrieking. “suguru—! use the spatula! use the spatula! sukuna stop—“
you’re blinking at him, inching closer to his bicep on the table. “daddy? who’s calling you daddy?”
toji’s soul leaves his body.
“daddy, are you coming home soon? uncle sugu’s spanking him now. it’s very loud—“
he ends the call before you can hear any more.
“do you have a son?”
toji’s breathing stutters. you’ve inched away from him now, lips bent in a frown, brows furrowed, expression curious—or cautious, toji can’t really tell. and it pains him to lie to you, but what else can he say when you’ve already shifted your thigh off his lap?
“nah,” he answers too fast. “it’s my nephew.”
toji reaches out to thumb your cheek, but you don’t relax into his palm. “think he meant to call my brother, not me.”
he tugs your bottom lip as you speak. “i didn’t know you had a brother…”
“there’s a lot you don’t know about me, princess,” he leans in to kiss the corner of your lips, because he knows he doesn’t deserve any more than that. your pout deepens.
“we can change that though,” he lies, smiling. “wanna get dessert?”
SATO’S REMARK : NICE SAVE, TOJI ! AND MY BAD—HAHA !
BROKE BOY TACTICS #3: BLEACH !
taught by: geto suguru, toru gojo
“inviting her over already? we’ve gotta scrub this place clean, then.“
ΣΧ
toji zenin has one hour to make it seem like megumi doesn’t exist.
geto suguru is scrubbing the bathrooms. toru gojo has somehow been roped into this predicament and is scrubbing away in the kitchen. in the living room, toji zenin is picking up cheerios from the rug, phone in his ear with sukuna on the line.
“hi daddy,”megumi’s voice is flat through the speaker. “uncle kuna’s being nice to me today.”
“that’s great, kiddo. can you put him back on the phone?”
“yo,” sukuna’s voice crackles through.
“if anything happens to my son, i will spread your ass cheeks and sprinkle paprika in the hole.”
“oh.”
“yeah,” toji shifts the phone in his neck. “make sure he has a good time at that amusement park. and don’t let sato spoil him too much.”
“heyyy toji!” sato’s voice crackles through the speaker. toji sighs before grunting back a hello. “keep megumi safe, got it?”
“yes, sir!” / “we got it, boss.” / “bye, daddy!”
toji says his goodbyes. just as he clicks the end button, toru gojo pads into the living room, glasses tilting off his face & slipping rubber gloves off his hands. “all done in the kitchen. remind me why we’re deceiving this poor lady again?”
toji picks up a gummy worm tucked under the rug and cringes. “because she wouldn’t look twice at a broke guy with a kid.”
toru softens, adjusting his glasses. “you don’t know that. have you tried telling her?”
“no.”
“why not?”
"because,” he picks up another gummy worm hidden under the couch, glaring at it before throwing it away. "because every time someone finds out about megumi, they look at me different. like i'm a burden. like he's a burden."
toru purses his lip. he’s watching as toji ducks under the couch, picking out stray bits of cereal and snacks and other things that make toji’s nose scrunch up in disgust.
toru shakes his head, taking off his glasses to set them on the counter. “but you don’t know if she’s like that.”
“i know i can’t lose her before i even have her.”
toru purses his lip. toji’s voice came out too tight.
ⵌ SHOW TIME !
when toji opens his front door, you’re in a too-short dress and there’s moët & chandon in your hands.
god, you’re gorgeous. and toji really needs to stop thinking that. needs to stop saying it in his head before he slips up and says it out loud with a tone he can’t take back.
“hi,” you tilt your head, batting your lashes in that way that makes him stupid. “you gonna keep standing there? or are you gonna take this bottle off my hands?”
ah, right. toji reaches for the bottle but you pull it back. he raises a brow.
“say ‘please pretty girl, may i have the wine?’”
you’re still peering up at him, hugging the bottle of wine to your chest, teasing smile on your glossy lips. toji leans against the doorframe. arms crossed, dark eyes raking over your hips, plush thighs, pretty waist. fuck.
his lips twitch, “i’m not saying that.”
“aww,” you pout, glossy and spoiled. “guess i have to turn back home and drink this expensive wine all by myself.” you turn, and toji bites his cheek because your dress has ridden up to give him the perfect view of your ass. so soft. he can’t wait to squeeze it.
“i’m gonna be so lonely…” your back is still turned to him, voice wistful. “and i came all the way over here, too. i’m so upset.”
toji doesn’t let you take another step.
you squeal as he scoops you up with a grunt, arms snaking over your waist & under your thighs to lift you bridal style. you squeeze the bottle of wine in your arms, eyes shut tight as you giggle while he kicks the door shut. “toji! put me down!”
careful what you wish for.
toji drops you to his couch with a thud. you land with a breathless laugh, dress bunched up to your hips & he can see the print of your panties. your hair is fanned out, and the bottle of wine is pressed to your stomach. you’re giggling, eyes bright, and god. you look so fucking gorgeous all laid out for him. toji’s jaw ticks.
he climbs over you, pressing his warm body down until the wine digs into your stomach. his eyes are dark. hungry.
“please, pretty girl,” he murmurs, breath hot, lips teasing your neck. “may i have the wine?”
oh.
your breath hitches. you stare up at him, cheeks hot, eyes wide, thighs squeezing together in anticipation. but you’re a bad girl, so you don’t give toji zenin what he wants just yet.
your smile falters, but you tilt your head. “thought you weren’t gonna say it?”
he grins, pressing a hot kiss underneath your ear. “and i thought you were leavin’.”
you let out a shaky gasp as toji licks a hot stripe up your neck. he’s filthy—big hands gripping your hips to keep you pinned to the couch, squeezing you hard each time you moan and buck yourself into him. his breath is hot against your neck, sucking and kissing and teasing, the occasional nip when you whimper just the way he likes.
his weight presses the wine harder into your stomach. you gasp, “toji, the wine—“
“hold it, baby.”
your eyes squeeze shut as his kisses trail further down your neck, tummy fluttering as heat pools between your thighs. his thumb on your hip sinks under the silk of your panties, and you whine his name before he shushes you with a sweet kiss to your cheek.
toji doesn’t kiss you on the lips. the lips are too honest, and toji is not.
you’re still clutching the bottle, chest heaving as toji presses your hips deeper, deeper—
“ow!”
toji freezes.
in truth, toji zenin has never been a gentle man. his body is too big and his hands are too rough, and life itself has never treated him gently, nor given him much reason to be gentle towards others. but as toji hovers over you, limbs frozen in alarm, his stomach can’t help but twist with disgust. said body and rough hands have crushed something soft yet again.
“did i hurt you?” his voice comes out weird. “doll—look at me. you okay?”
“i’m fine,” you wince, cheeks flushed as you try to steady your breathing. you twist your leg slightly, sliding your fingers down into the sofa cushion where something sharp poked at you. “something... something poked my leg.”
you pull out a tiny, red brick.
you blink. “a lego?”
for the second time this evening, toji freezes.
he takes it from your hand, flicking it away. he lifts your arms to wrap them around his neck, and lowers himself back to your chest. “that what you stopped me for, princess?” he mutters coolly, like his heart isn’t beating in his throat. “had me so worried, baby.”
“toji, why do you have a lego?”
he kisses your jaw, “my nephew’s.”
ah, that makes sense. you hug his neck tighter, giggling as he slips the wine off your belly & onto the floor. he presses yet another kiss to your neck, warm & sweet, and you let your chin rest on his shoulder as he loves you with gentler hands.
but then you see it.
on the metal door of the kitchen fridge, past a jar of gummy worms and a poorly placed broom, a banana-shaped magnet is there.
and right under it, a scribbled drawing. the messy figure of a man with spiky hair, and a smaller, more spiky-haired boy.
DADDY AND ME.
your body goes still.
toji’s hands are on your hips, thighs, waist—but his touch suddenly itches. the warmth has gone cold.
“toji,” you whisper. “who drew that?”
toji doesn't move. his eyes slowly follow your gaze to the fridge, and the panic in his eyes is unmistakable. the lie slips out of his mouth before his brain can even catch up to it.
“sociology project,” he breathes. “developmental regression. drew it with my left hand.”
“your left hand…”
your voice trails off as toji sinks his lips back to your neck.
toji zenin does not study sociology.
TORU’S REMARK : YOU CAN’T FOOL HER FOREVER.
BROKE BOY TACTICS #4: LEAN INTO THE LARP !
taught by: sato gojo
“you can’t pull up to a date in an uber. take my porsche—you’re a rich guy now.”
ΣΧ
it’s late, and three floors down, toji zenin has his hands on his hips, staring at sato’s sleek black porsche in disbelief while his tie itches at his neck. three floors up, in toji’s crappy apartment, the gang’s all there.
megumi has a blanket pulled up to his chin, seated on the couch next to suguru. sukuna is lounging on the floor with his back against said couch. sato is flipping through TV stations. the light in the room is dim, and sato snickers at something sukuna says before tossing him the remote.
“why does everyone always leave me?”
the trio freeze.
megumi’s expression is flat. he’s staring into the tv’s glow, but his eyes are soulless and empty. suguru hesitates—but then he rests a hand on megumi’s hair. “what do you mean, kiddo?”
“daddy’s always leaving now,” megumi closes his eyes, rigid against the couch cushions. “he never spends time with me anymore. he’s acting like my mommy did.”
the three boys’ hearts crack right down the middle.
they’re staring at each other now, the weight of megumi’s words on their shoulders. how do they tell a little boy that the reason his father has been less present—and is also not present tonight—is because he’s currently trying to hide his child’s existence to impress a woman? and that they’re all helping him?
sato speaks first. too quick, too fast.
“he’s just been busy,” he croaks out. “he’s been picking up new shifts. he’s working really hard.”
“yeah,” sukuna agrees. “he’s working hard. to take care of you, meg.”
megumi stares into the tv screen. geto’s hand is still heavy on his head, and his body is limp and his eyes are heavy.
“i know.” megumi mutters. “he’s my hero.”
suguru bites his lip. “you know what, meg? why don’t we draw something? a new picture for your dad?”
megumi’s eyes flit to the kitchen fridge. DADDY AND ME. the picture is still there, but the paper is crinkled and damp now. as if someone threw it away with heavy eyes, then somehow thought better of it.
megumi nods, “yeah.”
“okay, buddy. i’ll go get the crayons.”
“i’ll get the paper!”
“and i’ll… uh. you want a gatorade, kid?”
the three adults go after the various items. megumi takes one last look at his drawing on the fridge, and then he slips off the couch and pads away.
ⵌ SHOW TIME !
toji zenin is a man who can only have pride when he pretends.
so today, he pretends the sleek black porsche parked outside your house is his. he pretends he’s not wearing sato’s luxury cologne, that his tie isn’t secondhand, that the cuff of his suit isn’t too tight on his wrist and that the guilt in his mouth doesn’t taste like his blood.
he’s gripping the wheel so hard his knuckles turn white.
when you open the car door, you look like a dream.
your lips are glossy, always glossy, but it’s a different shade of shimmer tonight. your hair is loose all over your shoulders, heels clicky, dress black and matching the shade of sato’s car. toji stares, jaw slack as you slide into the passenger’s seat. the words in his throat have turned into bile.
“Hi.” you blink at him.
“Hi.”
he can’t say much else, and he really ought to but he can’t, so instead he only watches as you huff and click your seatbelt in place. toji licks his lips, turns back to the wheel. says a quick prayer to a god he doesn’t believe in. “you look gorgeous.”
you don’t respond.
the car starts with an expensive growl. it makes toji wince, and he hopes you don’t notice. he’s practiced starting the car three times so he can pretend he’s used to it. he isn’t, and he’ll never be.
he pulls onto the streets, eyes frantically scanning the road as his pulse drums in his teeth.
“toji?” you say, eyes trained ahead of you, voice flat.
“yeah, baby?”
“where are we going?”
toji’s fingers drum on the steering wheel. he turns right at the fork. “somewhere nice,” his voice is strained. “somewhere you deserve to be.”
he lets his right hand shift to the center console, trying to bridge the gap. his hand is sweating, maybe. you glance at it. glance away.
you peer out the window, head against the edge, watching the lights blur through the glass. “i feel like i’m sitting in a museum,” you murmur, quiet. “everything feels curated. including you.”
he swallows. “i’m trying to make tonight special.”
“special…” you trail off, lashes fluttering as you stare out the window.
“i don’t know who you are, zenin.”
toji’s head aches. and so does his chest, violent and sharp and stabbing. he’s a liar, a con artist, a selfish man with rough hands and a son waiting at home. oh—megumi. his phone’s been buzzing in his pocket for a while now. how’s megumi?
“i’m just a guy,” he chooses to say. “a guy who likes you.”
“do you? or is that just part of the exhibit?”
maybe there really is a god watching, because before toji can respond something makes a sound.
he’s not sure what, honestly, but he’s quick to capitalize on it. he needs the air. toji turns into an empty street to park. he unbuckles his seat belt, leans over a bit. “stay in the car, okay?”
you only nod, and toji’s throat curls with guilt.
the night air is cool on his skin. he opens the car bonnet—careful, as careful as a man like him can be—pretending to scan the engines for a possible source of the noise. he doesn’t find anything wrong, and he knew he wouldn’t, but he holds up the bonnet and pretends to check anyways.
three minutes pass before he returns to the car.
three minutes of toji zenin teaching himself how to breathe. the same way he does when megumi shuts down even though he thinks the steps are corny. having a kid really changes you, doesn’t it?
megumi. he looks at his watch, 9PM. his boy should be in bed by now.
the buzzing from his phone has stopped. he should check it now, but you’re still waiting. still beautiful. still hurt.
so toji slams the hood shut. sucks in a breath and slides back into the driver’s seat. you’re staring at him as he buckles his seatbelt.
“toji,” your voice is careful. “do you have anything you want to tell me?”
yes. i work three jobs and i’m drowning in student loans. i got a girl pregnant when i was eighteen, and she left me when i turned twenty-one. i have a boy who’s five-and-a-half and he’s the only good thing i have left. and i’m sorry i lied, but i didn’t want you to leave me before i could love you and i’m sorry, and i’m sorry again, and you deserve better, and i’m sorry.
“no,” toji lies.
you purse your lips. “okay.”
the engine roars back to life. and toji is sweating, and the date feels over before it’s even started, and his pulse is too loud and—
“daddy?”
toji’s blood runs cold.
in the backseat of sato’s porsche, megumi zenin is there, body tucked under a blanket and rubbing his eyes. he slips off the seat and stumbles towards the console, still rubbing at his face. “hi, daddy.”
toji zenin can only stay frozen as megumi wraps his smaller arms around his neck.
he tries to speak, fingers twitching as they hover over his son’s back. “megumi—hey, buddy—what’re you doing here?”
megumi buries his nose into his father’s neck. “i didn’t want to be alone again.”
toji bites his lip. he can feel your eyes boring into him, and he nervously scrambles. “hey—you’re never alone, buddy. where are your uncles? come here.”
he lifts megumi into his lap, avoiding your gaze.
“is this your son?”
toji’s mouth dries.
he could say it’s his nephew, make up some lie about him referring to both him and his ‘brother’ as dad, but god. you’re already looking at him with something he doesn’t have the vocabulary to name, and toji’s jaw aches.
“yes,” he sucks in a breath. “this is my son, megumi.”
he brushes megumi’s hair back, taking his little fist away from his face so he stops rubbing at his eyes. “meg, say hi to the pretty lady.”
“hi, pretty lady.”
megumi waves a small hand, then collapses against his father’s stomach.
you force a smile and flick your eyes back up to toji.
“i think you should take me home.”
???’s REMARK : YOU CAN’T LARP YOUR WAY INTO BEING LOVED !
BROKE BOY TACTICS #5: EMBRACE YOUR ECONOMICS !
taught by: nanami kento, megumi zenin.
“maybe she doesn’t hate you. maybe she hates that you thought so little of her you felt the need to live a lie.”
ΣΧ
it’s a new day, and toji zenin is laden with old burdens.
he’s slumped against his bedroom wall, phone pressed to his ear with megumi on his stretched out legs. megumi has a red & green colored hand in another jar full of gummy worms. toji makes a mental note to hide it better next time.
“you didn’t just lose the date,” nanami’s voice cuts through the speaker, flat and professional as always. “you insulted her intelligence. made her out to be a shallow woman who’d only care about you if you had money in your bank account.”
toji stares at the ceiling. then at megumi, who’s about to eat a gummy worm off the floor. he flicks it away. “she looked at me like i was trash, nanami.”
“she looked at you like you were a liar,” nanami corrects. “which you are.”
nanami sighs, breath sending a crackle through the speaker. all he wanted to do was spend his afternoon reading his new favorite BL, doukyuusei, but once again the shenanigans of his friends have interrupted his peace.
“toji, you’re a smart man. and she sounds like a smart woman. i doubt she’d lose interest because you have a son—i believe she hates that you lied to her.”
megumi takes a worm and makes it crawl through toji’s lips. it’s cold, but toji chews and swallows anyways. “i need to apologize.”
“yes,” toji can hear a page flip. “and quickly. i have to attend to other matters now, but say hi to megumi for me.”
the line goes dead, and toji drops his hand to the floor.
megumi chews a gummy worm. then he takes it out of his mouth, frowns at it, then eats it again. “daddy, are you mad at me?”
toji frowns. “for what?”
“i ruined your date,” megumi looks into the jar of worms, frowning, then back at his dad. “with auntie.”
toji looks at his son. at his candy smeared cheeks, sticky hands, black spikes of hair and sugar in his teeth. megumi looks just like him. he’s always known it, but he’s growing to look more and more like his father every day.
“you didn’t ruin anything,” he murmurs, pulling his son into his chest. “you’ve never ruined anything in your life.”
he pats megumi’s hair, head thrown back. “i’m sorry, meg.”
five-year-old megumi zenin has already lost interest. he’s more focused on getting the red and blue gummy in the sea of yellow-green ones, small hand grabbing fistfuls of worms before dropping them back. he doesn’t know his father is sorry, sorry for everything, for trying to erase his existence to impress a woman and for bringing him into this world knowing he will never be able to give him the future he deserves.
megumi retrieves the red and blue gummy worm. his favorite flavor. he blinks at it once, twice.
then he turns to his dad. lifts the gummy worm on his palm to his face.
toji zenin eats it right off.
ⵌ SHOW TIME !
megumi zenin is in his best clothes: baby blue button-up from suguru. a white top with a red race car that sukuna had got him for his birthday. light up skechers from uncle sato. toji had tried to get him to wear normal shoes, but megumi shut that down quickly. he wanted to be seen.
you no longer frequent the local loblaws.
and it breaks toji’s heart, actually. you haven’t blocked him just yet, thank god, so toji thinks you might not yet hate him completely. that he might still have a chance.
call him a weirdo, but he’s been to almost every grocery store nearby.
no frills, sobeys, you name it. and now, at 12:30PM sunday, toji zenin is in his car with his son, watching you load groceries into the backseat with a pout on your lips. like you’re above this. like you need a big, strong man to offer his help. and toji’s chest aches. because he could be that man, you know. if you’d let him.
toji slips out of the car. megumi hops out too.
he stops just a few feet behind you, watching you mutter curses as you haul a carton of juice. toji’s lip twitches. then he pulls megumi along.
“let me help.”
you blink as toji comes out of seemingly nowhere to save the day. he lifts everything out of your cart and into your car, never breaking a sweat. truthfully, your groceries aren’t even that heavy. he’s not sure why you were struggling, but he thinks it’s so fucking cute.
he lets you click your remote to close the boot shut. then he turns to you: “i owe you an apology.”
you tilt your head. “do you?”
he squeezes megumi’s hand in his own to ground himself. “i lied because i was scared,” he admits, and you never thought you’d hear toji and ‘scared’ in the same sentence. “you’re a pretty girl from a nice family who spends my rent money on groceries,” he breathes. “and i want you, bad. and i thought if you saw me—the me who lived paycheck to paycheck and has nothing except this little brat,” he raises megumi’s hand, “you’d leave before i even got a chance.”
he shifts his hand to megumi’s head. “it’s fucking stupid, i know. but this is my son,” he ruffles megumi’s hair. “say hi, kid.”
“hi, auntie.”
your gaze shifts away from toji, and drops to the little boy beside him. megumi is apple cheeks, dark, messy hair and nervous feet shifting on the pavement. he looks like his dad, and the sight makes your heart melt.
“hi, baby boy.” you crouch down to his height. “i love your shirt. do you wanna come here?”
megumi nods. he abandons his father’s side to let you scoop him up in your arms.
toji frowns.
megumi’s a shy kid. or not shy—awkward. he can’t make eye contact with kids his age, his tone is too flat, and his eyes are always bored. he doesn’t like to be touched by people he isn’t familiar with, and he’s very quick to say no to what he doesn’t like or want. so toji can only watch, brows knit in confusion, as megumi’s fist curls over your necklace and he lets you press a kiss to his cheek.
“hi, auntie,” megumi collapses into your shoulder, fist still gripping your necklace. “i did a very good job.”
“so good, baby,” you kiss his hair, grinning. “i’m gonna buy you all the gummies in the world.”
megumi blushes from the affection. he shifts his head over your shoulder so all you can see is his pink chubby cheek.
“what the hell is happening?”
“daddy’s a big dummy,” megumi mutters into your shoulder. “the biggest,” you agree.
toji’s frown deepens, and you laugh. “i’ve already met megumi, silly.”
toji blinks. he’s about to ask how, but you beat him to it: “remember when you got out of the car? megumi woke up in the backseat,” you kiss his ear softly, and megumi’s blush deepens. “we had a long chat about you, toji. and i asked him to pretend we’ve never met, and go back to sleep in the car.”
you watch megumi, fond. his fingers curling deeper into your necklace, his eyes shy and staring behind you. “i can’t believe you’ve been keeping this little angel from me. you’re a monster, toji.”
“dummy monster…” megumi mutters. you kiss his cheek again and he hides.
toji thinks about it. to megumi referring to you as auntie back in the apartment. fuck. he didn’t think too much of it, but perhaps he should’ve.
“so? you two were testing me, or some shit?”
you shift a hand from megumi’s back to your hip. “no attitude, mister. i’m still mad at you,” your frown, and then your shoulders drop. “did you really think you had to fake having money to impress me? picking me up in a porsche when i’ve already seen your crappy apartment?”
you stroke megumi’s hair. “and lying about meg,” your expression goes soft, sad. “have you apologized to him?”
“yeah,” megumi tugs your necklace. “he told me sorry.”
you smile at him, then kiss his little fist. “that’s great, baby. you deserve an apology. and i’m sorry as well, for taking away your time with your father.”
megumi pats your face, voice flat. “i forgive you.”
you giggle, pinching his cheek, and toji can only stare in disbelief.
megumi’s cheeks are pink from your kisses, little fingers curled tight around your necklace while you sway him absentmindedly against your chest. his light-up skechers blink every time his feet kick against your thighs. you’re smiling at him like he’s heaven as a boy, and megumi—quiet, awkward, megumi—is hiding his face in your shoulder because he’s shy.
how greedy.
how greedy of toji zenin to pick out cheerios from between couch cushions like trying to erase evidence of a crime scene. how greedy of him to scrub crayon off his walls, peel gummies off his floors and hide away his son with other people he can’t truly call family. how greedy of him to rip his son’s drawing off the fridge, only to put it back again later because he can’t even be greedy right.
how greedy of toji zenin to hide the only good thing in his life away; all because he wanted yet another good thing: you.
he wanted your pretty laugh in his apartment. wanted your heels by the front door, wanted your perfume in his sheets and your voice mixed with megumi’s cartoons on saturday mornings. toji zenin wanted everything.
now his everything was shoving his chubby hand in the face of his other everything to keep from getting attacked by kisses. but he was smiling. megumi zenin was smiling, and blushing, and laughing—and toji thinks about how he hasn’t seen megumi this childish in a while.
his heart aches.
“i’m sorry.”
sorry for what? he knows what he’s sorry for, but the words have failed him again, so he can only watch. watch as you tilt your head the way you always do, before megumi glances at you and tilts his head back at him the same way. oh god.
“‘gumi, do we forgive daddy?”
“yeah,” megumi’s feet kick. his shoes light up, red and blue. “if he stops hiding my gummies.”
toji won’t hide his gummies anymore. hell, he’ll never hide anything again in his life.
and maybe megumi senses the guilt on his father’s shoulders, because he squirms his tiny body for you to set him down and dashes so hard into his father’s legs that he knocks his forehead against his knee. “ow…”
toji snorts, crouching. “what are you doing, kid.” but he’s scooping megumi into his arms anyways. you pad closer, grin cheeky, and poke megumi on his side.
“how about we go shop for some gummy worms?”
BONUS — Y/N AND MEG’S FIRST MEET !
“who are you?”
the voice makes you jolt. you’re staring at your hands in the passenger’s seat of toji’s rented—no, probably borrowed—porsche, blinking away tears in your eyes when a tiny voice speaks behind you.
you whip your head around so fast your neck aches.
and standing there is a little boy, tiny, maybe four or five, rubbing away sleep from his eyes. his hair comes in tufts of black, and his eyes are blue, and oh my god he looks just like his father.
toji.
megumi is rubbing his eyes harder now. your heart melts.
“hi, baby,” you coo, patting away your own tears on your lashes. “i’m friends with your daddy. what’s your name?”
“i’m megumi,” he sniffles, yawns. “my friends call me meg. but i don’t have any friends.”
oh. “hi, meg. what’re you doing here? did your dad leave you home alone?”
you hope he says no, because you know toji’s been hiding something—someone from you, but he wouldn’t go that far. at least, you hope he wouldn’t.
“no, my uncles are at home,” he says sleepily. and you hover your hands over his face in silent permission. he blinks at your hands, sniffles again, before nodding to let you brush his hair back from his face. “i wanted to see daddy. he left for work.”
work? no he didn’t. toji zenin is outside, lifting the bonnet of a car he knows is too good to call his. “did he tell you he was going to work, meg?”
“no, but i know he is. he works for us. he wears the tie and he goes away.”
“oh, baby…”
toji zenin is a liar. a liar with a handsome face, and warm touch, and words that make your head dizzy. and you should be mad, really. you are, but the sight of this little boy with a face like his father’s only makes your heart ache.
you want to ask questions: who are your uncles? where were you when i came over? is your mother still in the picture?
but megumi zenin is blinking sleepily as you caress his cheek, leaning into your touch with a sigh.
“megumi, do you wanna make a deal?”
“what kind of deal?” megumi tries to rub his eyes, but you ease his fist away.
“a super simple one. your daddy’s been acting really strange, right? to you and me,” you pat his cheek. “all you have to do is act like we’ve never met, and i’ll give you anything you want.”
megumi thinks very hard. then he asks, “are you the lady daddy wants to impress?”
you blink. “what do you mean?”
“i heard him on the phone with uncle sugu,” megumi rests his head against your leather car seat. “he said he likes a nice lady. said he wants to be a better man for her.” he rubs his eye. “then he started leaving me. where’s daddy? i wanna talk to daddy.”
“oh, meg,” your heart breaks. “come here, baby.”
megumi hesitates, but then he lets you pull him into a hug. his hands are limp by his sides, but he pats your back once before his tiny hand slips away. “auntie, why are you crying?”
your shoulders shake over him. you sniffle, “don’t worry about it, meg. and your daddy’s gonna come back soon, okay? and he won’t leave you alone anymore. i’ll make sure of it.”
megumi pulls back. “you promise?”
you cup his cheeks. “i promise. go back to sleep, okay?”
EPILOGUE !
on the couch of toji’s crappy apartment, megumi zenin is curled into his father’s side, gummy worms in his mouth as he presses his sticky hands to the screen of his brand new ipad pro. a shiny gift from his loving uncle sato, who bought him the device despite suguru and toji’s wishes.
megumi offers his father a gummy worm. “when is auntie coming?”
toji eats it off his palm. “soon, kid,” he clicks his tongue. “swear you like her more than me now.”
megumi picks out five gummy worms from the jar, then lines them up on his ipad screen for convenience. “nah, i like daddy the most.”
toji softens.
all toji can see right now is the top of his little boy’s head, his tiny nose poking out and his chubby little cheeks. the ipad screen is sticky and candy smeared—much like megumi’s hands—and on the screen is a video of a teacup in a ballet dress—ballerina cappucina?—getting married to a little espresso man wearing a ninja bandana. toji frowns. the video gives him flashbacks to his days of working as skai jackson’s personal AI prompt writer. he shivers.
toji shakes his head. “meg, you know i’m never leaving, right?”
“i know,” megumi groans. “you told me a billion times yesterday!”
“quit whining,” toji murmurs, pulling his son into his lap. megumi reaches for his jar of gummy worms, and toji tugs it closer. “just wanted to remind you.” he mumbles.
megumi slumps against his father’s chest. soft, distracted, satisfied. “you don’t need to say sorry anymore. i forgive you.”
toji kisses his hair, burying his face in the dark strands. he sighs, “thanks, kiddo.”
———
when the doorbell rings, toji zenin is already half-asleep.
the sound—and megumi’s accidental jab of his elbow against his stomach—wakes him right up. toji smooths his hair, rubs the sleep from his eyes. then he turns to tell megumi to go wash his sticky hands, then decides not to.
he sucks in a breath and opens the door.
“hi, pretty.”
“move. i’m not here for you.”
you shove at his chest and push your way into the apartment, and on the couch to the right megumi zenin is there, ipad in hands and cheeks sticky and looking up at you with big, blue eyes.
“auntie?”
“oh, my baby!”
you scoop him off the couch and into your arms, and megumi clutches your shoulders tight as you attack him with kisses on his forehead, cheeks, everywhere. toji’s eye twitches in disbelief. “are we serious?”
“oh, you’re still here,” you glance over at him, bored. “meg and i are gonna make cookies today. mind being a doll and fetching the ingredients from the car?” you toss him your car keys.
toji looks at the keys in his hands. then you, who is cooing silly things that make megumi blush and bury his head in your neck.
toji pads over to you, slow. “i wanted to see you.”
you ignore his hands snaking around your hips. you turn your nose up at him, “and now, you have.”
“you still mad at me?”
of course you’re still mad. maybe not as mad as you were a week ago, but still upset. that he lied. that he thought so little of you that he went out of his way to sculpt a whole other life and hide away the little angel in your arms. but toji’s hands are still heavy on your hips. his voice is warm in your ear. and he apologized, you know. in the parking lot that day. at your house on monday, holding a bouquet of half-dead flowers and wearing a rented suit that went to waste because you refused to go out with him anyway. he sent you an hour long voicemail apologizing. you listened to it all on the way here.
toji zenin is such a sap.
he acts like he isn’t, though. but he is, and you feel it in how he presses his lips to your neck, over and over and over again. i’m sorry i’m sorry i’m sorry.
megumi shoves his father’s lips away. “daddy stop.”
you laugh, nuzzling megumi’s cheek. “he’s such a dummy, isn’t he meg? do you think i should forgive him?”
“yeah,” megumi mutters, collapsing into your neck. “he said sorry a billion times to me yesterday. daddy’s really sorry for everything.”
“aww. daddy’s so cute when he’s sorry, isn’t he?”
toji is glaring at you. you can only giggle and press a kiss to his jaw, and his eyes widen a bit in surprise. you cup his jaw and press another one to his cheek. just one more, because you’d be lying if you said you hadn’t missed him as well.
“i forgive you, mister. now go get those groceries—shoo!”
toji nuzzles your neck before leaving the apartment.
megumi is still on your hip, clutching your shoulders for balance as you pick out pans and trays from the cupboard. he grips your hair in a tiny fist. “auntie?”
“hm, gummy?”
megumi hides in your neck—shy, nervous. “are you gonna be my new mommy?”
you freeze.
megumi clutches you tighter. his face is buried in your throat, and he’s gripping so tightly his little nails bite into your skin, but you soften. toji had already confessed everything in his voicemail. his mom isn’t in the picture anymore. how a mother can let go of a little angel like meg, you don’t know, but who are you to judge and conclude?
“i don’t know, meg, it’s too soon,” you hum softly, setting a pan on the tabletop. “but i know i’ll be here, baby. for you.”
“will you be at my school, too?” he peers up at you, big eyes glimmering with hope. “all the other kids have mommies except for me.”
“oh, megumi—of course i’ll be there!”
it’s taking everything in you not to carry this boy and run! you attack his face with kisses, and megumi squirms in your arms but he’s giggling. his hands are sticky on your face, neck, everywhere, but you kiss him over and over again, because you’ve only known him for a little over a week but you’re already ready to give him the world. “auntie, stop!” but he’s laughing. “there’s lip gloss all over me!”
when toji walks in, he can’t believe his eyes.
there are too many shopping bags in his hands, because everything about you is too much, even down to your shopping, and toji is staring in disbelief. the woman of his dreams in his kitchen, holding his son, and his son is laughing. laughing the way he used to before his mother left him two years ago.
and he doesn’t really deserve the warmth curling in his chest, or the strange feeling coursing through his veins, but who is toji zenin if not greedy?
so he drops the bags to his feet (gently, because you’d curse him if the eggs broke), and pads over to the kitchen where you’re showering megumi with affection, and he snakes his arms around your waist and drops his head into your neck. you turn, grinning, and you don’t push him away when he presses a quick kiss to your lips. the lips are honest, and now toji is too.
“aww, look at you getting all sappy.”
“auntie made my face all sticky..”
toji squeezes you both tight. a little greed never killed a man.
requesting angst? Maybe something along the plot of "reader pursuing sukuna, him going on dates with her, them hooking up just for sukuna to say this was nothing serious" but reader's clear about what they want, and moves on yada yada :)
okayyy hear me out this is my first angst sooo it might be a little buns and it’s a bit short but lmk if i should do a part two!!
[Heian!Sukuna x Fem!Reader // Major angst, character death // short drabble-ish]
Author's note: I love vengeful Sukuna
Thanks for reading! likes, reblogs & comments are all appreciated𑣲⋆
You had always believed a lifetime with Sukuna meant eternity. Perhaps, you had been acutely aware that one day you might grow grey and frail. But Sukuna easily pushed the thoughts from your mind with lavish gifts and goddess-like treatment.
You wondered though, if he thought about you in that manner. Not often, but in the quiet spaces of your life as you reflected on the time you spent together. You wondered if the thought that you might become less of a partner and more of a liability to him over time had ever crossed his mind. That one day, you might become someone who needed to be cared for rather than someone who could stand next to him as an equal. If he had ever considered it, he never made it apparent.
The thought used to make your stomach turn, admittedly, but now as you laid in bed the thought could only bring a gentle smile to your face. You felt stupid. The fruitlessness of those thoughts left a bitter taste in your mouth as you laid bedridden and dying in your marital bad, only in your thirties. You had barely a grey hair, and yet your body was already failing you. Your mouth felt heavy with irony, so much so that you struggled to speak.
You were cut off before you could even think to share your thoughts with your husband.
"We will find the perpetrator, Lord Ryomen, they cannot be far-"
"Leave us," Sukuna's voice held a deep vibrato that seemed to rumble through the surrounding walls. You had heard it before, threatening and etched with malice. It shook you more now though. having never heard him sound so callous toward Uraume of all temple-goers.
"My Lord..."
"Leave us. Now."
His order came in a serpentine hiss as his hand clutched yours, punctuated only by the shuffling of robes as Uraume retreated. His hand tightened around yours at your fidgeting and if you didn't know him better, you might've thought your bones would snap under the pressure.
To weak to open your eyes you sunk deeper into cold, velvet sheets and hummed, "Don't take it out on Uraume, S'kuna..."
He huffed at your order and rebutled it with his own, "Quiet. Conserve your strength. And stop shuffling. The more you exert yourself the fast your heart will pump that filth around your body."
That filth.
The poison supposedly slipped into your evening meal, strategically tainted on the night of Sukuna's absence as he visited a Western province. He had raced home on horseback at the news of your collapse and it made you feel almost guilty. You were sure you had interrupted some important political meet that you had no previous interest in.
You thought about the servants downstairs, clumsily searching for anything that might aid your condition. You supposed it didn't matter, though. Your breaths were already laboured and something ugly was brewing behind Sukuna's eyes.
"What are you thinking about, dove?" He muttered, bringing you limp hand to his lips. His body dwarfed yours as he planted soft kisses unto your palm and up your wrist. It felt like a goodbye. It made you feel ill.
"Us," you admitted, voice tinged with guilt. "I'm sorry, Sukuna."
He shook his head with an amused chuff, though you could register the pain behind it, "Stupid woman. Apologise for nothing. You are a queen," he pressed one last, devastatingly soft kiss to the weakening pulse-point on your wrist. "My Queen."
It was early in the morning when you exhaled your last breath. A painless death-rattle that Sukuna couldn't help but be thankful for in a way that made him nauseous. The idea that the only reprieve he had was that you had gone comfortably curdled in the bottom of his stomach. Perhaps that was some sick mercy from the Gods above?
It didn't feel like it. In fact, it felt as though the beings above him were mocking his very being. Ripping his beloved from him as if she wasn't the only thing he would protest to have stolen.
The thoughts made clouds form behind his eyes as a punishing silence suffocated him, engrossed in the stillness of your body. It felt so unnatural, so wrong and perverse to see you like this.
Slow patters of rain splattered from the heavens and off the engawa outside, providing a soft song as he held you close; still warm and clinging to his kariginu. Somewhere in his twisted mind, the act felt wretched and intentional. As if the God's themselves has accompanied your loss with their own laughter in the form of the soft rain-pellets, a melody you used to comfortably sleep to now tainted by their mockery of the cursed being below them.
"Uraume?"
They appeared as if they had never left, "Yes, my Lord?"
SMAU: in which the men talk to their friends after an argument with you
Warnings: a little angst but mostly fluff/crack, a little suggestive language, established relationship, intended to see how they talk about you to others, not proofread
Featuring: Gojo, Geto, Choso, Toji, Nanami, Sukuna
[Heian!Sukuna x Fem!Reader // Major angst, character death // short drabble-ish]
Author's note: I love vengeful Sukuna
Thanks for reading! likes, reblogs & comments are all appreciated𑣲⋆
You had always believed a lifetime with Sukuna meant eternity. Perhaps, you had been acutely aware that one day you might grow grey and frail. But Sukuna easily pushed the thoughts from your mind with lavish gifts and goddess-like treatment.
You wondered though, if he thought about you in that manner. Not often, but in the quiet spaces of your life as you reflected on the time you spent together. You wondered if the thought that you might become less of a partner and more of a liability to him over time had ever crossed his mind. That one day, you might become someone who needed to be cared for rather than someone who could stand next to him as an equal. If he had ever considered it, he never made it apparent.
The thought used to make your stomach turn, admittedly, but now as you laid in bed the thought could only bring a gentle smile to your face. You felt stupid. The fruitlessness of those thoughts left a bitter taste in your mouth as you laid bedridden and dying in your marital bad, only in your thirties. You had barely a grey hair, and yet your body was already failing you. Your mouth felt heavy with irony, so much so that you struggled to speak.
You were cut off before you could even think to share your thoughts with your husband.
"We will find the perpetrator, Lord Ryomen, they cannot be far-"
"Leave us," Sukuna's voice held a deep vibrato that seemed to rumble through the surrounding walls. You had heard it before, threatening and etched with malice. It shook you more now though. having never heard him sound so callous toward Uraume of all temple-goers.
"My Lord..."
"Leave us. Now."
His order came in a serpentine hiss as his hand clutched yours, punctuated only by the shuffling of robes as Uraume retreated. His hand tightened around yours at your fidgeting and if you didn't know him better, you might've thought your bones would snap under the pressure.
To weak to open your eyes you sunk deeper into cold, velvet sheets and hummed, "Don't take it out on Uraume, S'kuna..."
He huffed at your order and rebutled it with his own, "Quiet. Conserve your strength. And stop shuffling. The more you exert yourself the fast your heart will pump that filth around your body."
That filth.
The poison supposedly slipped into your evening meal, strategically tainted on the night of Sukuna's absence as he visited a Western province. He had raced home on horseback at the news of your collapse and it made you feel almost guilty. You were sure you had interrupted some important political meet that you had no previous interest in.
You thought about the servants downstairs, clumsily searching for anything that might aid your condition. You supposed it didn't matter, though. Your breaths were already laboured and something ugly was brewing behind Sukuna's eyes.
"What are you thinking about, dove?" He muttered, bringing you limp hand to his lips. His body dwarfed yours as he planted soft kisses unto your palm and up your wrist. It felt like a goodbye. It made you feel ill.
"Us," you admitted, voice tinged with guilt. "I'm sorry, Sukuna."
He shook his head with an amused chuff, though you could register the pain behind it, "Stupid woman. Apologise for nothing. You are a queen," he pressed one last, devastatingly soft kiss to the weakening pulse-point on your wrist. "My Queen."
It was early in the morning when you exhaled your last breath. A painless death-rattle that Sukuna couldn't help but be thankful for in a way that made him nauseous. The idea that the only reprieve he had was that you had gone comfortably curdled in the bottom of his stomach. Perhaps that was some sick mercy from the Gods above?
It didn't feel like it. In fact, it felt as though the beings above him were mocking his very being. Ripping his beloved from him as if she wasn't the only thing he would protest to have stolen.
The thoughts made clouds form behind his eyes as a punishing silence suffocated him, engrossed in the stillness of your body. It felt so unnatural, so wrong and perverse to see you like this.
Slow patters of rain splattered from the heavens and off the engawa outside, providing a soft song as he held you close; still warm and clinging to his kariginu. Somewhere in his twisted mind, the act felt wretched and intentional. As if the God's themselves has accompanied your loss with their own laughter in the form of the soft rain-pellets, a melody you used to comfortably sleep to now tainted by their mockery of the cursed being below them.
"Uraume?"
They appeared as if they had never left, "Yes, my Lord?"
