Hi all, I'm Marmie! Female, 30's, fic writer.
MDNI - I will block if you make it weird
NOT A SPOILER FREE BLOG - I'm a yapper
PFP by Ficel on Twitter - Feel free to AMA
synopsis: hinata shōyō convinces you to kick your cigarette habit over the summer he spends training in your sleepy beach town. the only side effect? you start to want things again. including him.
w/c: 8.7k (*screams in short fic lmao*)
what to expect: out-of-town athlete x local chef girly, my humble attempt at a slow burn, hinata flirts by telling the truth and y/n is not prepared, cigarette use, mentions of sex and parental absence
a/n: written for the lovely @blushinggray as part of @sodaneko's summer fic exchange! this is my first time participating in something like this, and it was even more fun than i imagined it would be. i hope you enjoy! ☀️
You first meet Hinata Shōyō in the alleyway next to your favorite club.
He's not that blessed in the height department, you think, which disqualifies him from the roster of tourists you keep in steady rotation on your phone. But skies, does he make up for it in other ways. The tips of his ginger hair are bleached from the island sun; the smell of sunscreen clings to his tanned skin. His knit shirt hangs off a frame of hard-won muscle, and a modest gold chain peeks out from underneath the collar.
Surprisingly, though, nothing about this man leaves a greater impression on you than his smile. Earnest, dimpled, and laced with a confidence you sorely lack, it tilts you off your axis the moment you receive it.
"It's pretty loud in there, isn't it?"
The base of the music thrums beneath your knee-high boots. You hum warmly in agreement.
"I wanted to leave thirty minutes ago," you say, cigarette smoke pooling from your glossy lips. "But my friend's a bit preoccupied."
"Really? What a coincidence!" He beams, shadows pooling into each of his dimples. You might as well have told him that you were from the same hometown — or had the same zodiac sign. "My friend is, too."
"Shut up," you laugh. "You're friends with Oikawa Tōru?"
"Ten years and counting. Though, we were more like rivals for the first three. We've been going on these beach volleyball retreats since we were teenagers. Been to Brazil, The Philippines...now here."
"Beach volleyball?" You raise your eyebrows. "Like, for fun?"
"For fun," he half-agrees, shrugging. "But also not."
At your confused stare, he grins. "I play professionally for a Division 1 indoor team back in Osaka."
"Oh, excuse me," you tease, positively tickled by this. "I didn't realize you were such a big-shot."
He shrugs. Not confirming. Not denying it, either.
"What about you?" he asks, brown eyes bright with curiosity. "Are you also visiting for the summer?"
"Would it surprise you to know that I grew up here?"
"Really?"
You nod. "My adoptive grandma owns the mahi-mahi joint down the street. I've been working there since high school."
"That's so cool!"
"It really isn't," you snort, taking another drag of your cigarette. "But I appreciate the enthusiasm."
A strong gust of ocean wind rips through the alleyway, bringing with it the smell of salt, alcohol, and garbage. You fish out a half-crushed box of Marlboro Reds from your purse and hold it out to him.
"Oh, no thanks," he says with a wave of his hand. "Those things are terrible for you."
At the amused glint in your eye, he blurts, "Not like I'm judging you or anything! It's just — "
"It's okay. I get it," you laugh, sliding one out of the box. The flame of your hot pink lighter unfurls with a crisp flick. "They are pretty terrible for you."
Something like confusion passes over his eyes, although his smile never breaks.
"Why do you do it, then?"
"Oh, I dunno..." you exhale. There's something comforting about the smell. "You know that saying? Here for a good time, not a long time?"
Before the athlete can open his mouth to respond, the sound of yelling reverberates down the alleyway. You recognize Mika's voice almost immediately.
"Fuck you!" she shouts at the bouncer escorting her out the main entrance by the elbow. "We weren't even doing anything!"
"Doesn't matter. Rules are rules — no more than one person in a bathroom stall at a time."
"Well, that's a silly rule," Oikawa retorts haughtily. "What if I was holding her hair back to puke?"
"Didn't seem like that to me," the bouncer deadpans.
You and your new smoke buddy eavesdrop the entire conversation from the shadows. You exchange half-amused, half-exasperated expressions like a blunt.
"Guess that's our cue." You flick the butt of your cigarette onto the concrete and stamp it out with your boot.
"Guess so," he murmurs back with a frown. "Can I get your name before we leave?"
"Y/N," you supply, extending your hand out for a shake. "Nice to meet you."
"Hinata Shōyō." His thousand-watt smile blinds you as he takes your hand and shakes it firmly. "Guess I'll see you around this summer?"
"From the way Mika was grinding up on your friend back there? I'd bet money on it."
Ever the gentleman, Hinata gestures for you to walk ahead of him. Your lips pull into a touched smile as you stalk off to fetch Mika — who, by the looks of it, is seconds away from tearing into the bouncer with her nails.
Hinata watches you go with a grin, glad to have made another friend in a new place. He starts following you out — that is, until he steps on a folded piece of paper. It must've fallen out of your purse.
Onigiri Miya Culinary Fellowship: Where Passion Meets the Plate, it reads when he unfolds it. Apply by August 9!
"Y/N, is this yours?" he asks, eyes widening in recognition. "I think you dropped it — !"
But you're already halfway down the street, bearing the weight of your lightweight friend and her inability to stay out of trouble. Hinata furrows his brow, wondering how on earth you managed to get there so fast.
He glances down at the flyer — it seems important, by the looks of it — and makes a mental note to return it to you sometime this week.
Just another reason to see you again, he supposes.
The Onigiri Miya fellowship is originally your grandma's idea. When she slides you the flyer across the bar during your lunch break, you stare at it like a body that’s surfaced to shore.
"Yeah. I'm not doing that," you say, burping. Your grandma's dirty bar towel smacks you upside the head. "Ow!"
"Watch yer manners." She tucks the towel back into her apron. Mumbles something about yer generation and ungrateful brats. "And at least read it!”
"I don't need to read it to know that it's expensive and a thousand miles away! Programs like that are just cash grabs to get more people to move to the city. They're a waste of time."
"Yeah? And ya don't think goin' to bars until two in the mornin' is a waste of yer time?"
At that, your nostrils flare. Your grandmother holds your stare. She may be frail and wrinkled from the sun, but her eyes are still sharp as a knife.
"Osamu's a good man,” she says. "Remember the summer he spent beggin' to help out in the kitchen? Sat in that very bar stool every day 'til I had no other choice."
"Oh, I remember." He was practically foaming at the mouth for the ceviche recipe. It was pathetic.
"I just...I'm not ambitious like that, okay?" you huff, scarfing down the last of your burger. "And I don't think I want to be."
Your words dampen the fire in your grandma's eyes. She looks at you like you’re young and don’t know any better. Which is probably true, but pisses you off anyway.
"Ambition doesn't make ya a bad person." Her towel is back out again, this time to wipe the mess you made on her bar. "Yer not yer parents."
For the rest of that shift, her words cling to you like seaweed. It's infuriating — how close your parents feel despite the thousands of miles and handful of years between you.
Even on this island, it isn't far enough.
"Junebug!" your grandma hollers at you from out front the next day. The deep-fryer bubbles with the crinkle-cut fries you just threw in. "There's someone here to see ya at table ten!"
You ask someone to watch your batch and grab your order pad on the way out. The ocean breeze smacks you in the face when you push past the kitchen door, and the dock is already teeming with families, drunk friend groups, and eager out-of-towners.
Hinata Shōyō is one of them. You blink back at his ridiculous smile — the way his sunscreen leaves a white sheen across his tan skin.
"I didn't know you knew Miya Osamu!" he says by way of greeting, holding up your flyer. "Are you applying for his fellowship in Osaka?"
"I — where did you get that?"
"You dropped it in the alleyway the other night." He tilts his head. "Did all that nicotine wipe your memory or something?"
You would glower at him, but he seems like he's genuinely asking. You instead reach across the table and pluck the flyer from his hand.
"Thanks for returning it," you say, tucking it into the back pocket of your shorts. "Is Oikawa joining you?"
"Nope! Just me. I'm meeting up with him afterwards to play beach volleyball, though. Wanna join?"
"I would, but..." You glance around at the tens of customers waiting to be fed. "I'm a little busy here."
"...right! Of course!" Hinata reels back, as if he's only just realized. "Maybe another time, then?"
You can't tell if Hinata has attention deficit issues or just a lack of normal work experience. Either way, it eases a soft chuckle from deep within your chest.
"What can I get for you, Hinata?"
"Please, call me Shōyō," he guffaws, eyes scanning his sticky laminated menu. "I'll take an Arnold Palmer and a mahi burger, please.”
"Funny." You purse your lips to one side and scribble his order on your pad. "That's my order, too."
"Really?" His eyes sparkle. You didn't know boys' eyes could sparkle. "Great minds think alike, then!"
Great minds is a bit of a stretch, but you hesitate to call him out on it. Instead, you dive head-first into preparing his plate — firing up the grill, blackening the mahi. Slathering tangy sauce onto the sourdough bun topped with fresh tomato, lettuce, and red onion.
There's an ebb and flow to cooking that carries you through each shift. Periods of speed. Periods of waiting. It reminds you of the waves on your favorite stretch of beach — stuck in a constant push and pull.
By the time you slide Hinata's plate across the table, his eyes bulge out of his head.
"This is huge!" he exclaims. "Are you sure I'll be able to finish all this?"
"I'm sure whatever you don't finish will go to the seagulls," you say with a shrug. "I should warn you, though, they're pretty aggressive."
You watch him as he takes his first bite. His shoulders slack, his eyes roll back. A deep, unabashed moan slips past his lips.
"My god," you balk. "Could you be any louder?"
"What?" There's sauce on his lips. "It’s good!"
The images that flood through your mind are filthy. You squash them down like mosquitos.
"You're totally getting that Onigiri Miya fellowship," he adds, yanking a napkin from its dispenser. "Have you submitted your application yet?"
You're thinking of using the flyer to wrap your chewing gum, actually. But something tells you Hinata won’t like that, and you don't feel like defending yourself.
"Anything else I can get for you, Shōyō?"
"Nope." His smile wraps around the straw of his Arnold Palmer. "Thanks, Junebug."
"I — " You blink. "Don't call me that."
The way his eyes glint already tells you that he won't listen.
Hinata starts coming over to your grandma's restaurant more. To eat. To talk. To make friends with the elders. They ruffle his hair and pinch his cheeks and promise to introduce him to their granddaughters, and you wonder how he has the energy to entertain them all.
"Want me to walk you home?" he offers one night. The sun has long since dipped past the horizon, and you're stuck behind the bar, polishing glasses. "There's this soft serve place down the street I've been wanting to try. We can go after your shift!"
"You sure?" You frown, inspecting a margarita glass beneath the orange patio lights. "We don't close for another thirty minutes."
"Don't worry! I can wait." His fingers drum atop the bar for all of five seconds. "Do you need any help, actually?"
Your grandma is quick to put him to work — stacking chairs, closing umbrellas. His back muscles flex beneath his cotton tank top as he hauls trash bag after trash bag into the dumpster, and you catch yourself staring longer than you need to.
"Thanks for the help, ya two!" your grandma hollers from the window of her pickup truck. Hinata waves as she speeds off onto the main road.
"You know," you say, lit cigarette already between your lips. The gravel crunches beneath your flip-flops as you walk. "If you keep showing up to the restaurant during my shift, people are going to think you're my boyfriend."
"Really?" Hinata blinks. "Why would they think that? They don't even know what kind of people I like.”
"Okay," you snort. "What kind of people do you like?"
"Oh, tons of people! Kind people, funny people..." An impish smile tugs at his lips. "I don't date people who smoke, though."
At your incredulous expression, he laughs. "What? Don't take it personally. What about you?"
"Oh, you know." A billow of smoke escapes your mouth, your nose. "Someone fun. Someone who doesn't take themselves too seriously."
Then, against your better judgement, "Someone tall."
"Excuse me?!”
"I'm being honest!"
"Tch. You shouldn't be so picky, Junebug!" Hinata scolds you. "You might miss out on someone great!"
"Yeah? Like who?"
The tips of his ears turn pink. “Like...Daniel Radcliffe. Sabrina Carpenter. Bruno Mars."
“Bruno Mars?” You’re cackling now. “Whatever planet you’re on, Shōyō, come home.”
There's a short line at the soft serve stand when you arrive. You and Hinata end up splitting a small scoop of strawberry — with rainbow sprinkles, per his request.
"I haven't had rainbow sprinkles since I was five," you snort, easing into a picnic table. Hinata slides in beside you. "How much was it?”
"Oh, don’t worry about it!" He hands you a napkin and spoon. “Money isn’t really an issue for me.”
The sound of cicadas fills your ears as you eat.
"Has anyone ever told you that you're too honest?"
"All the time," he laughs. "Has anyone ever told you that you like to dodge questions?"
When you don't answer, he adds, "You haven't answered a single one of my questions about Onigiri Miya. Is it because you don’t want to jinx it?”
"No. I just...don't think I'm going to apply."
"But why?" He's genuinely confused. "You're so talented!”
"I know how to make fish five ways. That's hardly talented," you retort. "Besides, I'm not really a big fan of Osaka. Or big cities in general."
"Because you've never been?"
"Because I don't know anyone!"
"Well, I'm from Osaka." He grins. "So you'd know me."
"Sure, but — "
"And I can introduce you to all my friends!"
Your shoulders sag. "It isn't that simple, Shō."
"Explain it to me, then," he says, leaning forward. His brown eyes press into yours. "Pretty please?”
You're not used to people looking at you like this. So intently. So directly. You feel like a contestant on a game show. I'll take vulnerability for 500, please.
"I don't have the personality for a place like that," you explain, hoping it's enough to satiate his curiosity. "My parents also job-hopped between cities all the time. It put a real strain on our relationship."
"Yeah? Were they always busy?"
"So busy. I'd sit alone in my classroom during family picnic days. It was miserable."
Your eyes avert to the pack of cigarettes in your purse. You really want another one, given the embarrassment now searing your stomach.
"I don't want my parents influencing my life like that," you finish quickly. "And an opportunity like this is just...it's too much. I won't do it."
Hinata, surprisingly, stays quiet. Simply leans back, folds his arms across his chest. Your nerves prickle at his contemplative expression.
"Well, that's kinda silly," he eventually blurts. "You don't even have kids."
He might as well have shanked you between the ribs.
"Gee. I had no idea, thanks."
"No! I didn't mean it like that! I just — " He tilts his head again. "By going against your parents' values, aren't you letting them influence your life anyway?"
"Skies," you mutter. "You really are too honest, Shō."
"Am I?” His smile is apologetic. "I just...I spent my whole life chasing after a volleyball career. So I don't really know what that's like."
"To be normal?"
"To not want things! Don't you want it? At least a little bit?"
There was a time in your life when you thought you did. A receptionist job. A studio apartment in the city. Someone to share it with, maybe.
But then came the grades. The required reading, the detention slips. The mind-numbing amounts of shutting up and sitting still. After barely graduating high school, you knew college wasn't for you. Your parents believe you don't amount to much without it.
So you keep things simple. Count your cigarettes. Burn off energy at the restaurant. Swim and lounge and fuck around to your heart's content. It's enough for you. Really.
"You don't have to answer that if you don't want to," Hinata says, pushing the cup toward you. "Just...think on it. And come by the beach tomorrow! Oikawa and I are playing with some friends around three."
You push your spoon into the last of the soft serve, grateful for the change in topic. "You're not gonna make me participate, are you?"
"Not unless you want to." He smiles. "I want you to watch me.”
Something about his words, the breezy confidence in which he says them, stirs something within you.
"Alright. I can swing by with some food. I have to leave by five, though. I've got a date."
"Deal," Hinata agrees, grinning ear-to-ear. "Who's the guy? Victor Wembanyama?"
You take your crumpled napkin and toss it at his face.
"Shut up, Shō."
He doesn't for the entire walk home.
You end up going a bit overboard on the food. Mahi tacos wrapped in foil. Fresh watermelon cut into cubes. A giant tub of homemade salsa you hope doesn't leak. You squeeze everything into your Yeti cooler alongside a twelve-pack of hard lemonade — it's so heavy, you make Mika carry it with you to the beach. Not that she minds.
"Wait. I remember you!" Oikawa Tōru exclaims the second he sees you. "You're that chick who picked up Mika from the club!”
You lay your blanket down on the sand and yank the cooler open. "Picked her up? I was there the entire time..."
"Would you have some manners, Oikawa?" Hinata glowers, hands on both hips. "Junebug isn't just some chick. She happens to be the best chef on the entire island!"
"Okay. I wouldn't go that far — "
"The entire island, huh?" Oikawa grins. He tosses an arm over Mika's shoulders. "That true?"
Your friend betrays you by nodding. "BuzzFeed Tasty did a video on her grandma's restaurant back in 2019. You were so cute in it, Junie."
Now Hinata looks betrayed. "I didn't know that! I wanna see!"
Against your will, you become the center of conversation for the next thirty minutes. Mika passes your YouTube video around like a bong. Oikawa deems your mahi tacos not bad. Hinata drinks your salsa straight out the tub, which makes you want to scream. By the time their friends pull up for the volleyball game, the cooler is nearly empty.
"Eyes on me! Okay, Junie?" Hinata calls from the baseline. He grins at you, spins the ball in his hands, and serves it clean over the net. Each side of the court bursts into motion as Mika shoots you a baffled look.
"Did I miss something?"
You slide your cheap sunglasses on and twist the cap off your lemonade. It fizzles as you lift it to your lips.
"Nope."
Now, you're not a total stranger to this sport. You're used to putting the game on the television behind your grandma's bar, sitting on this very sideline with Mika to cheer on different men. But none of them move quite as passionately as the one before you.
In fact, as Hinata dives into the sand to receive the ball — core tight, arm outstretched, eyes hungry in a way you’ve never seen before — you find yourself paying more attention. Sitting up a little straighter. Sucking in sharp breaths at his every move.
It's different. Exhilarating. It adds color to your conversation from the other night.
Don't you want it? At least a little bit?
"Skies," Mika breathes as Hinata spikes one of Oikawa's serves over the net. The ball shoots straight into an empty pocket, securing the point. "They really are professionals, aren't they?"
You watch Hinata as doubles over in triumph — fists clenched, shouts barreling down the beach. He turns to you and beams like he’s just won the lottery.
"Did you see that?!"
You suddenly understand where all of Hinata's energy goes — and why he just assumed you were applying for that fellowship.
You end up canceling your date over text, just to watch him play another game.
"What's Miya Osamu like?" you ask Hinata one afternoon.
You're splayed across your paddleboard — one arm thrown over your eyes, gentle waves lapping at the ankle you have dipped beneath the surface of the water. "You two know each other, right?"
The question has him sitting upright. Hair tousled. Eyes alert. He's practically a human exclamation point.
"Why? Are you finally working on your application?"
"Relax," you laugh, lifting your disposable vape to your lips. "I just want to know."
It's been a few weeks since you watched Hinata play at the beach. Since then, you've developed a steady rhythm of serving him food, stopping for soft serve, and waving him goodnight from the stoop of your grandma's old house. Renting paddleboards is a nice bonus. A consequence of your rare day off.
"I'm teammates with Osamu's brother, so I actually see him pretty often,” Hinata thinks. “He's cool. A little scary when he cooks. But cool."
You imagine a Japanese version of Carmy from The Bear. "Do you think I could handle criticism from a guy like that?”
"Oh, totally." Hinata frowns. "I mean, haven’t you two met?"
"Yeah, when we were teenagers…" You turn onto your side. The paddleboard rocks dangerously beneath you. "He has a whole Michelin Star restaurant now.”
"That doesn't make him unapproachable or anything. I actually think you'd get along really well!"
You hum amusedly. "Yeah?"
"Yeah! If you want, I can introduce you to him again."
The offer sits in your stomach like an overripe fruit.
"No, thanks. If I apply — "
"When you apply."
You roll your eyes. "If I apply, I'd want to get it because I deserved it. Not because I knew someone."
You ask him about life in Osaka — what restaurants he enjoys, if he has any pre-game rituals. His answers paint a rich, vibrant life full of friends, discipline, and purpose, and you slowly realize this town is but a small slice of his much larger world. Your summer with him here is temporary. An approaching expiration date.
The thought settles into you like an anchor.
"I know you don't think you have the personality for it," Hinata murmurs. Back against his board. Hands folded atop his chest. "But I think you'd really like Osaka. We could bar-hop. Go thrifting in Amemura."
Grinning, he adds, "You could come to all my games..."
"Please," you scoff. "You're just convincing me to move there so you can impress me with all your freak volleyball moves."
"Yeah..." Hinata laughs, rubbing the back of his neck. "Is it working?"
You feel your breath shallow, your face turn warm. Hinata's eyes glint in amusement when he notices. It's so overwhelming, you reach for your paddle and use it to push him off the other side of his board.
“I — hey!” he sputters, emerging from the water like a drenched orange cat. He flings his hair out of his eyes in disbelief. “What was that for?!”
“That’s for calling me by my childhood nickname all summer!” you call out over a shoulder, already paddling away. “And for drinking my salsa out the tub!”
You suddenly remember Hinata is a professional athlete as he swims toward you — breaths steady, form annoyingly precise. Before you know it, his calloused fingers wrap around your ankle, yanking you in.
You're a thrashing tangle of limbs for all of five seconds before you resurface.
"Shōyō!"
"Yes, Junie?" he says. Voice sweet. Hands splayed across each of your hips, keeping you afloat. His bright hair clings to his forehead, and his dimples are on full display.
You rip yourself from his grip and splash him vehemently in the face.
"I thought I told you to stop calling me that!"
"Why not?" he laughs, albeit while gasping for air. "It's cute!"
You submerge your entire face in the water to keep him from seeing how red you are.
Later that evening, you sit at the creaky wooden desk tucked into the corner of your childhood bedroom. A warm breeze rustles the frilly curtains you don't bother to change, and your laptop casts a ghastly white hue across the otherwise orange space. An empty application to Miya Osamu’s coveted culinary fellowship stares back at you, waiting to be filled.
You answer all the basic questions — your name, your pronouns. Your email address and phone number. It's the second half of the application that has you squirming.
Describe a dish that means something to you. Not what it is — why it is.
Where do you see yourself in five years? Be specific.
Why do you cook?
That last question has you slamming your laptop shut — not because it's hard, but because Osamu might as well have asked for your social security number. You go back to check that the rest of your application is saved before slamming it again.
It's a start.
Despite Mika's growing suspicion that you're catching feelings, you still go on dates with other people. You climb into the backs of fraternity boys' golf carts for a night on the town — push your tongue past their girlfriends' glossy lip filler after one too many tequila shots. It's fun. You're fun. You have been for years now.
You don’t consider Hinata to be part of your roster, though. Even when he’s the person you see the most.
“What do you mean you haven’t been out since?!”
He perks up from his second Arnold Palmer of the night. “It’s exactly as you said. The day we met is the last time I went to the club.”
“That’s criminal.” You blink at him from behind your grandma’s bar, hands stuck polishing an IPA glass. “We gotta change that.”
“Why?” He smirks. “So I can see how many numbers you get in one night?”
“No. Although the answer is five.”
You set your glass aside and lean over, smiling sweetly.
“I want you to teach me how to salsa and bachata like you did in Brazil!” You bat your eyelashes at him for good measure. “Please, Shōyō?”
Hinata is normally the one to make you blush. But as you stare up at him — lips pulled into a pout, bar-top lifting your chest like a push-up bra — he looks tense. Flustered, even. The payback sends a delicious thrill of satisfaction through you.
That night, you apply your mascara in the mirror of your old vanity — boobs shoved into a lacy top, thighs squeezed into your go-to skirt. You're just about done when the doorbell rings. Your grandma's the one to answer it.
"Hello, ma'am!" Hinata's bright, boyish voice echoes through the house. "I'm here to pick up your granddaughter!”
"Well, ain't that fresh?" Your grandma cackles as she lets him inside. "Normally, they don't even come to the door. Junebug! Yer regular's here!"
Hinata's footsteps creak up the staircase, and his sunny face pokes through your open bedroom door.
"Wow. You look beautiful!" he says, back to his usual, buoyant self. "You ready to go?"
"Almost." You reach for your lipgloss. "Gimme five?"
Hinata steps inside and looks around — at your floral wallpaper, the antique dolls lined up on your dresser.
“I can’t tell if you’re a girly girl or just a…really old lady.”
“Neither,” you snort, swiping the applicator across your lips. “I’ve outgrown most of this stuff.”
“Well, I like it.” He eases onto your queen-sized mattress with an abrasive squeak. “Oh! I also got you something!”
He pulls a crushed box from the back pocket of his jeans and hands it to you. Your face falls once you realize what it is.
“Nicotine patches? Are you serious, Shō?”
“What? They were on sale!”
“Whatever.” You shuck the box into your purse and toss it over a shoulder. “I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing one of those fugly things.”
Hinata frowns as he follows you back downstairs. “Well, with the amount you smoke, you might be caught dead anyways.”
The club is busy when you arrive. The line to get in wraps around the block, and the bass thrums beneath your faux leather boots. You grab Hinata by the elbow and drag him with you to the end of the line, the stress of that day’s shift already unfurling into the crisp ocean air.
“Y/N!” The bouncer high-fives you when you approach. “Who's the tiny tangerine?”
“Makoa, this is Hinata. Hinata, this is Makoa,” you supply brightly. “Makoa was the one who busted me for having a fake ID back in high school.”
“And she’s been a thorn in my side ever since…” he drawls, verifying both of your IDs. “Better treat her well, twerp. This girl’s royalty around here.”
Hinata watches with a smile on his face as you enter the club — greeting locals left-and-right, waving to the disc jockey like he’s your long-lost cousin. ("He DJ'ed my prom!") The bartender even offers you a free round of shots, and Hinata nearly gags after downing his. You grab a lime wedge from the cup on the counter and shove it between his lips.
“I like seeing you like this,” he murmurs after two more shots, pressed up against you on the dance floor.
“Drunk?” You wrap both arms around his neck, emboldened by the liquor now searing your stomach.
“Yourself.” He smiles at you lazily. “I can tell why you like this place.”
“Well…” You lean in close and smile right back. “Everyone I like has stepped foot in this place at least once. Yourself included.”
“Yeah?”
You nod like a broken bobble head.
“Yessir. Now dance with me, Shōyō! You promised!”
“So whiny,” Hinata tsks, wrapping an arm around your waist and pulling you close. You nearly yelp from the contact. The heat of his breath against yours.
The music vibrates in your bones as you dance — sweat clinging to your skin, Hinata's hands splayed across your hips. At one point, you actually turn around and grind your ass against him, which will definitely send you into cardiac arrest tomorrow. For now, you both just enjoy the music and each other. It's nice. The most fun you've ever had in here, you think.
Your night ends with Hinata walking you home — arms thrown around each other, drunk giggles echoing into the night. Your grandma is fast asleep when you return, and you’re lucky she sleeps like a log as you sneak Hinata up the stairs like a teenager.
“Will you put a patch on me, Shōyō?” You pout, shaking the box at him. “Pwetty pwease?”
“I thought that was my line.” He plops down on the carpet beside you and plucks the box from your hand. Fingers grazing your shoulder, he asks, “Here okay?”
You nod. “Thank you, Shō.”
He chuckles as he rips open the packaging. “You’re welcome, Junie.”
The room is quiet save for the sound of crickets outside, the occasional creak of the aging house. Hinata applies the nicotine patch gently to your deltoid — breath hitched, eyes weighted with concentration. He touches you like he's afraid of something. Of you. Of himself. Of making the wrong move.
By the way your breath shallows, though, you don't think that's possible.
He massages you, then, hands kneading the flesh of your bicep, your forearm. He lowers his lips to your skin, casting a welcome chill down your every nerve.
"Is it okay if I...?"
"Mhm..." You stare down at him — chest rising and falling, eyes heavy and half-lidded. They flutter shut as he drags his lips across your skin. Slowly, achingly. Skies.
He works his mouth into your shoulder, your collarbone. Up the column of your neck. You tilt your head back to give him more access, and the second he presses his lips against that spot behind your ear —
"Shōyō..." you whine, fingers curling into the carpet. Heat collecting in your lower belly. "Can I, too?"
He nods. "Yes. Please."
You're not kissing. Not exactly touching, either. Instead, you're doing this secret third thing. Mapping your lips across his jaw. Pressing your nose into his cheek. Grazing his earlobe with your teeth and grinning when he moans. God. You want him. You’ve never wanted anyone more.
"Do you want to move to the bed?" you ask breathlessly. "I've got condoms in the drawer."
"Are you sure?"
You nod, shifting into his lap. "We don't have to label it. We can just have fun. Enjoy each other before you go.”
Hinata stills at your words. The casualness in which you say them. He squeezes his eyes shut, lets his long hair fall into his eyes. He knocks his temple gently, frustratingly, against yours. As if that was the last thing he wanted to hear.
"Junie..." he breathes. His voice a mere croak. "You know I can't."
His refusal hits you like cold water, sobering you immediately.
"But why?" You blink back. Scan his face for any signs you may have missed. "We both want it, don't we?"
"No." He shakes his head, hands finding the flesh of your hips. "At least, not like this."
"I — " You blanch as he lifts you off of him. "Shōyō — "
"I can't just sleep with you and have that be the end of it, okay?" he breathes. "I refuse to treat you like that!"
"But I'm agreeing to it!"
"Why, though?" Anger flashes across his eyes. "Why would you want something like that? Why would I want you halfway?"
"I don't know! Because you don't live here?" Because I'm only here for a good time. Because I'm not the kind of person people stay for.
"Y/N." His expression falls. "I don't think that little of you."
"Nobody thinks that of me!"
You wrap your arms around yourself, then, red hot shame frying your every nerve. Your legs are cold. Your mascara's running. The lacy top you wore so confidently earlier now feels too tight. Too exposed. You feel stupider the longer you wear it.
Hinata finds your laundry basket and grabs the first shirt on top. Yanking it over your head, he says, "If I'm going to do this, Y/N, it can't just be casual. That's not me. And, frankly, I like you too much for that."
He drags both hands down his tired face and laughs miserably.
"Do you know how much I hate the fact that you spend time with other people?"
The question has you reeling. This is too much for you.
"I'm sorry I even suggested it," is all you can manage, shoving both arms into sleeves.
Your stomach growls. You hate that it does. Hinata offers to run and get you some food; you instead ask him to go home. Part of you doesn't actually want him to — part of you wants him to read your mind and push back. But this is Hinata you're talking about. He, annoyingly, listens to you when it counts.
The smell of his sunscreen lingers long after he retreats down the staircase and slips out your front door.
The next few weeks pass by in a haze. Hinata keeps his distance from you and the restaurant. Your application to the Onigiri Miya fellowship grows stale in a bookmarked tab. You blow through a brand new box of cigarettes, the patches Hinata gave you shoved deep into your vanity drawer.
The island sports festival is the first time you see him in weeks. You're so nervous, you start to dry heave.
"You okay, Junie?" Mika asks, brushing the hair out of your eyes. "You look ill."
"I feel ill," you groan, leaning out the window of the food truck that took you twenty-two minutes to park. "Who knew seeing the guy that rejected me would make me want to hurl?"
"Hinata didn't reject you, though," your friend reminds you gently. Teasingly. "Quite the opposite, actually."
You dig the heels of your palms into your eyes. “Do you think it’s stupid to take a Dramamine two hours before a full-day event?”
"Yes."
"Alright, ladies!" Your grandma throws open the side door and bounds inside, rocking the entire truck. "I need help firin' up the grill — "
She stops short once she sees your pallid face.
"Skies, Junie. Ya look like shit."
"She's lovesick." Mika pouts, patting you on the back like a dog. You smack her hand away while your grandma barks out in laughter.
"I had a feelin' you'd get like this once shorty's time here was up," she says, cracking open a Gatorade from the fridge. You yelp as she presses the cold bottle to your neck. "Just don't let it affect yer cookin’, alright?"
You're grateful the volleyball courts are on the other end of the beach as you fire up the grill, chop enough limes and cilantro and onion to make your eyes water. Mika handles the register once customers start lining up, and your grandma oversees the entire operation — buttering up tourists, yelling out orders. It's the same thing every year. Except this time, you're antsy.
"Good afternoon, gorgeous!" Oikawa's voice eventually floats over the roar of the exhaust fan. "I didn't know you'd be here today."
"Guess that's what happens when you don't text me back," Mika teases, although you can tell she doesn't really care. "What can I get for you?"
She slides his order onto the ticket rack a moment later. "Don't worry," she says before returning to the window. "Yours didn't show."
The anticipation in your chest deflates like a balloon. It leaves you exhausted. Disappointed, actually.
So much so, you end up making Hinata's order anyway once rush hour is over.
"Cover for me while I'm gone?" you ask your grandma, plastic bag swinging from your elbow as you push out the side door. "And don't let that saucepan sit out for too long! I'm trying something new — "
The words die on your lips the moment you turn, Hinata's tan, stupidly athletic build hovering in front of your grandma's food truck. His eyes widen. The door slams. You grieve the fact that your fifteen minutes of overthinking between here and the sand volleyball courts are now gone.
"Hi," Hinata says. His face is a warm shade of pink.
"Hi." Your eyes flit between him and the food. You hold it out to him like a biohazard bag. "I made you lunch."
"But I didn't pay for — "
"It's on the house." You shove it into his arms. He accepts it with a breathless oof. "I also made the fries a little crispier. You like them that way, right?"
"...I do. Thanks." Like the sun on a cloudy day, Hinata's dimpled smile breaks through the tension. He reaches into the bag and peeks inside the to-go box. "And here I thought you hated my guts."
I don't. The opposite, actually. But you can't bring yourself to say that. Instead, you watch him fold fry after fry into his cheeks like a little kid. Or a squirrel.
"So how has your — ?"
"I just wanted to — "
The messy overlap of your voices competes against the sharp ocean breeze.
"You first," Hinata insists.
Your eyes avert to your sneakers. "I just wanted to say that I owe you an apology. An actual one, this time."
His gaze softens. "You don't need to apologize to me."
"I do, though. I asked you for sex and got butthurt when you said no, and I couldn't even accept the fact that your reasons for doing so were...were..."
“Hey,” he murmurs when you grow visibly frustrated. He crosses the distance between you and draws you to his chest. "It's okay. We're okay.”
He has no idea how relieved you are to hear that.
You stay there for a moment. Breaths shallow, bodies holding back. The last time you were this close, you were drunk out of your collective mind. This time, you hold each other better. More carefully.
"How much longer are you here for?" you ask.
"About a week." Hinata pauses. "Have you given any more thought to your plans after the summer?"
Yes. "Not really."
"Okay." He nods, voice surprisingly free of judgement. "It's okay. I get it."
Your bottom lip wobbles as you pull back. "Do you hate me for it?"
"Hate you? No!" Hinata blurts, free hand cradling the back of your head. The contact shocks you just as much as it soothes you.
"At the end of the day, Junie, I just want you to be happy. And if being here makes you happy, then that’s enough for me." His small smile makes your chest ache. "Pinky swear!”
You smile back, although it doesn't reach your eyes.
"And the volleyball tournament? It’s going well?”
"Oh, right! Oikawa and I made it to the semi-finals. Some twelve-year-old in the other bracket is killing everyone, though."
"Yamamura's kid? Yeah, she's scary."
"So scary." You both start laughing. Hinata rubs the back of his neck. "Think you'll be able to watch me?”
"I would, but my grandma's got me chained to that stove." She already gave me an earful for wanting to bring you food. "Let's hang out before you leave, though! If you want to, that is.”
"Of course I want to!" It’s like he's been waiting for you to ask. "I'll text you after my last game, okay?"
You watch him jog back to the volleyball courts. Mahi burger tucked into an elbow. Hand outstretched in a sunny, boyish wave. He doesn’t turn around until the last possible second, and it takes every ounce of your self-restraint not to run after him.
You’ll see him later, you think, embarrassed by how childish you feel. There’s still time.
Unlike all the other tourists you’ve met this summer, though, it doesn’t feel like enough.
The rest of the festival passes painfully. Afternoon is slow; dinner rush almost kills you. The food truck feels more like an oven the longer you stay in it, and Mika dumps cups of ice down your bra every hour. By the time you pull into the parking lot of your grandma’s restaurant after midnight, you never want to see or smell or even think about another taco in your life.
"So did ya patch things up with shorty?" your grandma asks, unprompted, after you kill the engine. She smacks her gum in the passenger seat and blinks at your exhausted stare.
"What?" she cries. "Ya didn't think I noticed when he disappeared off the face of the earth? I thought ya broke the poor kid's heart!"
"No." You lean your temple against the window and sniff the ends of your hair. It smells like fish. "I didn't break his heart. I just...things got weird between us."
Your grandma snorts. "Things never get weird between you and tourists. Must be heaven-sent, if he's got ya all worked up like this."
You don't know what sets you off — the late hour, the smelly hair, or your grandma's unminced way of describing your love life — but your bottom lip starts to tremble. The tears spill soon after.
"Oh, Junebug..." Your grandma reaches over the console to wrap an arm around your shaking figure. You cry into her shirt while she runs her fingers through your hair. "It's alright. You're alright."
"I'm not, though!" you manage between sobs. When was the last time she held you like this? Eighth, ninth grade? "All I do is work and smoke and feel sad all the time, and the one tourist I actually give a shit about is leaving, and I...I..."
Skies. The ache you've tapped into feels bottomless. Like a faucet that won't shut off.
"...I want more, grandma. I want him." You sniffle, pressing the heels of your palms into your eyes. "Is that selfish of me?"
Your grandma's eyes soften. "No, Junie. It's not."
She hands you a wrinkled napkin from the glove compartment. "Ya know, I remember when yer parents first dropped ya off. Ya were so scrawny and rude. Ya wanted nothin' to do with 'em."
"Still don't," you mumble into your snotty napkin. Your grandma chortles.
"They thought they were washin' their hands of ya, but...I knew I was gettin' a good one." Her eyes crinkle as she smiles. "Any person, any city, any kitchen, Junie, would be lucky to have ya. Got that?"
You don't. In fact, the mere idea of claiming space anywhere but here makes you nauseous. But your grandma's words are enough. Enough to soften your sobs, fuel your short drive from the restaurant to the house — this time in your grandma's pickup. You kiss her on the cheek before heading upstairs, changing into pajamas, and cracking open your laptop. Your application greets you the moment you enter your password.
Okay, Junie. You frown at the three unfinished questions at the bottom of your screen. Time to lock the fuck in.
You don't exactly have a way with words — your high school teachers told you as much. Unsurprisingly, though, writing about food is a hell of a lot easier than writing about dead authors and their cryptic gibberish. You pull your hair up. You cry through some of your answers. When you feel antsy, you reach for your nicotine patches and slap one on your forehead. The process is fulfilling. Cathartic, almost.
At 6:53 AM, you reread your answers for a third time before clicking submit.
You slam your laptop shut, sit back in your chair. The sunrise filters through your curtains, and all you want is to wash your hair and crawl into bed. But there's still one more thing you need to do.
The ocean breeze rips your hair from its updo as you run — fueled by adrenaline, Vitamin D, and the urge to see Shōyō as much as possible before he leaves. As promised, he texted you after his last game, and you made plans to see each other later this week. But it isn't enough. No amount of Shōyō will ever be enough for you, you think.
The Airbnb that he splits with Oikawa appears the moment you divert from the beach and into the neighborhood. It's a dingy, unassuming thing — a coat of pink paint peels off the battered stucco, and vines snake up the side of it like mold on a shower wall. You've only been here once, after watching Shōyō play. He raised an eyebrow when you said you had time to stop by.
"Really? But what about your date with Wembanyama?"
"Eh." You shrugged your shoulders and smiled at him from your beach blanket. "I can climb a tree any day of the week."
You bound onto the front porch and sink your elbow into the doorbell. You stupidly realize that it's seven in the morning only after the sound echoes throughout the entire house. You freeze. Feel your face start to burn. You half-consider turning on your heel and bolting away before —
"Junie?" Hinata says, cracking open the door. His voice is husky. He's wearing an old t-shirt. You want to press your nose into the collar and inhale him like you did the other night. But you digress. "What are you — ?"
"I didn't know you liked My Hero." You blink at the design on his shirt.
"Oh, yeah." He glances down. "It's my favorite show."
"We should watch it together before you leave."
"Yeah! We should." He frowns. "Did you come all the way over here just to tell me that?"
"Oh! No, I — " You squeeze your eyes shut. The exhaustion is kicking in. "I finished my application to the Onigiri Miya fellowship."
"You did?" His eyes brighten. The door is fully open now. "That's great!"
"I don't know if I'm going to get it," you ramble on. "Hell, I probably won't. But I just thought you should know."
"Well, thank you for telling me." He smiles. "And at seven in the morning, too."
"I know. I'm sorry." You wince. "I just — I submitted the application and I couldn't wait to tell you, and I also realized that...even if I didn't get it, I'd still want to be with you. In Osaka, I mean."
His expression is stunned. "I — you do?" You nod. "As in...?" You nod again.
"I don't mind that you're short." The words are out before you know what to do with them. "Actually, it's one of my favorite things about you. I like that you're bright and funny without trying to be. I like that you get rainbow sprinkles on your soft serve and jump over every fire hydrant you see.”
Skies. Where the fuck are you going with this?
"What I mean to say is...I like you Shō. I want you more than anything. And I get it if you don't want me anymore after that stupid question I asked you the other night — "
He closes the distance and presses his lips to yours before you can even finish. And honestly, you're relieved. The whole confession thing was wearing you out.
Your and Shōyō's first kiss isn't perfect. Between his morning breath and your unwashed hair, it's actually pretty unglamorous. But as you explore each other gently — him squeezing the back of your neck, you pushing your tongue past his lips — all you can think of is more. More closeness. More warmth. More of the person you spent the entire summer learning to like. Learning to want.
"...is that a nicotine patch on your forehead?" He laughs as he grazes his fingers over it. "I don't think you're supposed to put one there."
"Just be happy it's there, Shōyō," you breathe. He hums amusedly.
"Did you sleep at all last night?"
"No."
"Junie..." That husky voice of his again. "That's not good."
"I know, I know." You purse your lips to one side innocently. "Can I maybe crash here with you for a bit? I’ll treat you to brunch afterwards."
The lazy tilt of his smile has you dizzy. "Was this all a part of your plan to get into bed with me today?"
You snort. "Bold of you to think I'm that smart."
"You are, though." He frowns. "It's one of my favorite things about you.”
You can't come up with a good argument for that — especially now that every blink feels heavier than the last. Instead, you set aside the thought for after you wake up. You'll likely refute it. Likely remember all the times you felt the opposite of how Shōyō describes you. Maybe one day, you'll learn to see yourself the way he does.
But for now, you let him pull you inside. Like the boats you grew up watching, you let him pull you out to sea.
when osamu tells his five-year-old daughter that the tooth fairy isn't real, he, you, and atsumu team up to do damage control.
part nine of the after school series, a friends-to-lovers AU featuring you, osamu, and the relationship you build solo-parenting two girls in the same kindergarten class.
Osamu was fixing Kina's hair when it happened.
"Daddy — look!" the five-year-old exclaimed from where she sat criss-cross atop the bathroom counter. She leaned forward, pulled her lip down, and wiggled her bottom left incisor with her tongue. "My tooph!"
"I see that, sweetheart," her father chuckled, running a brush through her disastrous bed-head. "It's about to fall out any day now, by the looks of it."
"I can't wait," Kina giggled. She continued to poke and prod at her tooth like Atsumu did bruises that didn't heal right away. "I'm gonna get so much money!"
"Yeah?" Osamu hummed. Half listening to her. Half concerned by the brush now stuck in her hair. "And why's that?"
"Because the tooth fairy will come visit me, silly." Kina rolled her eyes at her father's lack of wherewithal. "When Yui's tooth fell out, the tooth fairy gave her sixteen-thousand yen!"
"Yui's parents must be rich, then," Osamu snorted absentmindedly. Damn. The brush just wouldn't budge. "Sweet of 'em to pretend like the tooth fairy's actually real, though."
At that, Kina grew quiet. So quiet, she didn't even flinch when Osamu finally yanked the brush from her hair. He almost cried out in triumph — that is, until he saw his daughter's pale, horrified face.
"Why would you say that to her?!"
"I dunno!" Osamu panicked, the sound of the late bell ringing sharply overhead. It wasn't often you crossed paths with Osamu during drop-off. But the moment you heard his New Balance sneakers racing toward you in the school parking lot, you knew you were in for an interesting conversation.
"I didn't get much sleep last night, and I was too busy tryin' not to make her go bald — " Osamu ran both hands down his tired face and groaned. "Do ya think she'll even remember what I said?"
"Oh, she'll remember," you chuckled. "I still remember when my father told me Santa Claus wasn't real. I cried the entire Twelve Days of Christmas."
"How do I fix this? What do I need to do?"
"Easy. You do what every well-meaning parent has done in the history of the world," you told him, folding your arms across your business casual. "You lie."
Osamu looked like he would rather eat a spoiled fish. "Really?"
"Really! As much as I want Misa to be a sensible adult, I don't mind stretching the truth every now and again before she gets there."
"Yeah? Like for what?"
"Oh, tons of things — Santa Claus. The tooth fairy. How positively wonderful her father is."
A cocktail of shock, amusement, and retroactive anger flashed across Osamu's eyes.
"Too soon?" you laughed, scratching the back of your head with your manicure. "What I mean to say is...there's no harm in preserving the magic for Kina a little while longer. The world is already shitty as-is. But she doesn't need to know that now."
Osamu's shoulders sank as he considered your words. The fierce protectiveness behind them.
"...fine. I see yer point," he conceded. "How do ya suggest we make it up to her, then?"
"Leave that to me," you reassured him, squeezing his bicep like you did your favorite stress ball. "All I need is some cardstock, a glitter pen, and my good ribbon. None of that cheap shit. Oh! And a little jar to memorialize the tooth."
"Memorialize the tooth? We're not just gonna toss it?"
"Toss it?" You looked as if you'd been slapped. "You mean to tell me that your baby's first tooth doesn't mean anything to you?"
"...yes? No? What on earth am I gonna do with — ya know what? Nevermind." Osamu frowned, recognizing this was an argument he could not win.
Instead, he merely reached out, squeezed your shoulders twice, and said, "I appreciate ya tryin' so hard. I'll take care of the tiny jar."
"Thank you." You smiled at him sweetly, unlocking your car with two sharp beeps. "I'll text you the details later!"
"What on earth are you doing?" Kuroo asked on his way back from the copy room. He blinked back at your assortment of scrapbook paper and glitter pens — the way your posture curved over your desk like a prawn's.
"What does it look like I'm doing?" you retorted, trimming the edges of the fairy illustration you'd licensed off Adobe Stock Images. "I'm crafting."
"...as a stress response?"
You frowned. "I'm decorating a money envelope from the tooth fairy, but I don't want Misa to know it's me."
"Ah." Kuroo pulled over his desk chair and eased into it with a chuckle. "Kiddo finally losing her baby teeth?”
"...no." You busied yourself trying to find a recycling bin. "It's uh...it's Kina, actually."
At that, your co-worker raised his eyebrows.
"Osamu's kid?"
"Yeah.” You shrugged. Briefly explained to him the situation. "She was heartbroken when he told her. I'm just trying to help him out."
"You've been 'helping him out' a lot lately."
Kuroo hooked an ankle over one knee and frowned, although you couldn't take his accusation seriously with those ridiculous socks of his. (Today's pair had a flock of ducks on them. Or were they geese?)
"The bake sale. His kid's school project. A new sign for his restaurant..." When you rolled your eyes, he added, "Don't think I haven't noticed you working on it between meetings!”
"So? I get all my other work done on time!”
"Not the point." Kuroo grinned. "You like him."
"I like a lot of things. Strong coffee, cheap manicures..."
"You like cheap manicures? Romantically? Intimately?"
"Intimately?" you hissed, whipping your head around the office floor. Mercifully, most people were out to lunch. "Are you asking me to report you to HR?"
Kuroo hummed behind his warm stack of copies and leaned back in his chair. You half-wished the cylinder would snap into two.
"When did you realize?"
His question caught you off-guard. Your eyes retreated to your desk. This silly art project that had consumed your entire lunch break.
"...it was the day of Misa's violin recital. I think."
The words, far too vulnerable for your liking, lingered in the air like a bad smell. Your face turned a deep shade of red.
"Why?"
You blew a raspberry. What could you possibly say to that?
“He makes my daughter laugh,” you eventually decided on. "He's there, but he doesn't have to be. He takes every single shitty thing I've ever thought about fatherhood and just...refutes it."
You folded your arms across your chest and glowered. "There. Happy now?"
"...wow.” Kuroo pushed his bottom lip out. “I think that's the nicest thing you've ever said about a man."
You picked up your stack of scrapbook paper and smacked him with it.
"Will you let me craft in peace now?” you begged. “Save the invasive questions for happy hour. Please."
"Whatever you say, Miss Tooth Fairy," Kuroo cackled, easing himself out of his chair and flipping through his stack of papers. "Also, I believe this is yours. I saw it on the printer when I went to make copies."
You took the paper into your hands. Relaxed once you realized what it was.
"Thank you."
"No problem." He waggled his eyebrows before returning to his desk. "I'm holding you to that happy hour, by the way!"
The photo Osamu had taken of Misa at the sculpture garden was a new favorite of yours. It was by no means perfect — his thumb was in the bottom lefthand corner of the shot, and Misa had a bad habit of looking like a stiff Victorian child when photographed.
Regardless, a soft smile worked its way onto your face as you trimmed the photo to size, grabbed a thumbtack, and pinned it above your desk.
You found yourself staring at it the rest of the day.
The day after Kina lost her tooth, you stood outside Osamu's door. Misa on one hip. Pillow and blanket on the other. You'd packed your entire apartment into the overnight bag slung across your shoulders, and you briefly wondered if insurance would cover the chiropractor you now needed after hauling everything up three flights of stairs.
"Oh," you breathed at who answered the door. "I didn't realize you'd be here, too."
Atsumu's lips pulled into an offended frown.
"I know I'm not yer preferred twin, but ya don't need to sound so disappointed." He opened the door wider and hollered, "They're here!"
The smell of spices and freshly cooked rice filled your nose as you entered the apartment and kicked off your shoes. "You here to crash the girls' Tinker Bell marathon?"
"More like raid my fridge!" Osamu huffed from the kitchen. You snorted as Misa wiggled out of your grip and made a beeline for Kina's room. "Work treat ya well this week?"
Your conversation with Kuroo immediately flooded your memory. The tips of your ears turned pink as you found Osamu preparing dinner by the stove.
"Sure," you drawled as you approached. Took a peek at the potatoes, carrots, and chicken he stirred into the rich curry sauce. "Didn't get nearly as much done as I wanted to, though."
"Ya always say that," Osamu drawled. He met your gaze over his shoulder and smiled. "It's Friday. You've earned yer rest."
"I think I've earned three bowls of this delicious curry."
"That, too," he chuckled. His voice dipped beneath the roar of the exhaust hood. "Sorry about Tsumu, by the way. He heard I was makin' dinner and decided to crash."
"No, no! I don't mind. The more the merrier."
And, for a split-second, you meant it. The plan you'd pitched to Osamu was simple: have Misa over for a sleepover. Watch a couple nostalgic movies to set the tone. Swap out Kina's tooth for the money envelope you'd spent at least two hours of company time on, and voilà. Childhood magic restored.
You hadn't considered the fact that you'd basically invited yourself over. In fact, when Osamu texted you that the guest room was all set up and ready to go, you’d nearly evaporated from embarrassment.
Maybe it was better to have another adult in the room.
Across the apartment, the adult-in-question now frowned at the tooth Kina insisted on showing him. Osamu had given her a sample jam jar for her to put it in, and not a second passed without her brandishing it like a championship ring.
"Wow," Atsumu drawled, dark brows pulled into a concerned line. "That's...disgusting."
"Disgusting?" Kina squawked. She turned to your daughter for a second opinion. “Misa, do you think my tooth is disgusting?”
"I..." Your daughter's eyes locked onto yours in a blind panic.
You leaned over Osamu's kitchen counter and smiled. You can be honest.
"...maybe?"
"Maybe?!"
"It is!" Atsumu cried, gesturing to the tooth like it was a severed limb. "It's all bloody and shit!"
"Language!" Osamu ground out.
"You're just jealous the tooth fairy isn't coming to give you money," Kina told Atsumu, cradling the jar to her chest.
"And yer just lucky ya didn't swallow that damn tooth of yours in yer sleep,” her uncle retorted. He leaned in, a grin tugging on the corners of his lips. "Ya know what happens to kids who swallow their teeth in the night?"
Kina stumbled backwards a step, equal parts scared and defiant.
"What?"
"They turn into skeletaurs!" Atsumu cried. Kina's petrified shrieks rattled the apartment as he chased her around the living room, leaving a trail of discarded pillows and couch cushions in their wake.
"Alright, alright! Quit traumatizin' her," Osamu drawled after a while. He balanced a warm plate of food in one hand and yanked Atsumu back by the hood with the other. The athlete wheezed like a harmonica.
"If y'all want dinner and money from the tooth fairy," he warned — tone firm. Eyes sharp. "Then I suggest ya both clean up yer mess and sit the hell down."
They didn't need to be told twice.
Dinner proceeded just as chaotically — Kina demanding everyone apologize to her tooth. Atsumu asking your daughter one judgmental question after another ("Is this really who ya chose to be yer best friend?"). Misa stuffed her cheeks with a spoonful of curry and shrugged, as if she couldn't decide whether to be entertained or overstimulated.
"Is your family always this crazy?" she later asked Osamu during Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure.
Atsumu and Kina were curled up on the air mattress at the foot of the couch, debating whether he'd be a tinker fairy or a fast-flying one. Meanwhile, Misa was tucked between you and Osamu on the sectional, sharing the blanket he'd warmed up in the dryer.
"Unfortunately," Osamu grumbled. He tossed a handful of movie-butter popcorn into his mouth and asked, "Why? Are they bein' too loud?"
"No!" Misa pursed her lips to one side. "I mean, yes, but...it's just mommy and me at home, so I don't mind."
Your expression crumpled beneath the faint glow of the television. Osamu reached over the back of the couch and squeezed your shoulder with his free hand.
You found yourself reaching for it a moment later. Appreciating its warmth. Quietly asking him not to move.
He didn't.
"Okay team," you stage-whispered in the kitchen later that night. You pinched open the money envelope and held it out to the twins. "Pay up."
Osamu counted eight thousand yen from his worn leather wallet and slid it into the envelope. Atsumu, after some protest ("What? She ain't my kid.”), forked over eight thousand as well. You licked the envelope closed and secured it with a ribbon, the fairyland scenery you'd decoupaged on the front sticking slightly to your fingertips as you worked.
"Will we have to do this whole song-and-dance for the rest of Kina's teeth?" Atsumu grumbled.
"Oh, hush," you said. "Don't you remember how fun it was to lose a tooth as a kid?"
"Not really. All I remember was Samu chasin' me around with floss and the world's largest Nerf gun."
"Yeah..." Osamu rubbed the back of his neck with a sheepish grin. "That was pretty fun."
The sound of the girls' quiet snores filled the bedroom as you and the twins tiptoed inside — plastic toys scattered across the carpet. An orange nightlight plugged into its socket. Kina had already contorted herself into a position that couldn't have been comfortable, and Misa looked like she belonged in an ancient sarcophagus.
"Why does yer daughter sleep like a corpse?" Osamu murmured, frowning at her supine position.
"At least her foot isn't in anyone's face," you hissed, gesturing to the tiny heel pressed into Misa's cheek. "Can someone please move her?"
Atsumu slid both hands beneath his niece's sleeping frame and tried his best to roll her over. She wouldn't budge.
"I can't."
"You can."
"She's heavy."
"She's five!"
"Oh, for god's sake," Osamu grumbled, gathering his daughter into his arms and lifting her like a sack of flour. "We're fine. The girl sleeps like a goddamn log."
After you and Atsumu replaced Kina's tooth with the money envelope, Osamu practically swaddled her back into the blankets so she wouldn't move. The moment you all crept back outside and closed the door with a soft click, a collective sigh unfurled into the air.
"I never wanna do that again," Atsumu complained, handing Osamu the jar with a shudder. "The hell ya gonna do with a bloody tooth?"
"Dunno," his brother hummed, holding it up to the light. You swore a wistful shadow crossed his eyes in that moment. "Put it in a drawer somewhere?"
Atsumu shook his head before walking away. "Y'all are weird."
You exchanged soft, tired smiles with Osamu outside his daughter's bedroom door.
"Wanna watch a movie?" he suggested, tilting his head in the direction of the living room. "I'm logged in on all of Tsumu's accounts."
You blinked back at the question. "Are you sure? It's getting late."
"It's ten-thirty," Osamu huffed, gently nudging you in the ribs. "When's the last time you've watched a movie that wasn't rated PG?"
The pensive look on your face told him you couldn't remember. Osamu chuckled before padding back towards the couch in his socks.
"Come on," he teased, Atsumu already shoveling another handful of popcorn into his mouth. "The sleepover was yer idea, wasn't it?"
You'd become so fixated on preserving Kina's sense of childhood magic. But as you took in this apartment — the discarded toys on the floor, the leftover curry on the stove, the two grown men already bickering over which genre to watch — you realized her life was already full of it.
The thought made your chest flood with that same swell of emotion Kuroo had accused you of harboring just days before. But before you could fully succumb to it, you instead double-checked Kina's door, tucked your hair behind your ears, and went to go join the twins on the couch.
It would be another twenty minutes before you finally decided on a movie to watch.
I am so deep in the Twilight grip right now, I rewatched the movies with my husband and it brought back SO MANY memories. I'm 33 this year, so I was reading the series in high school. I'm talking MIDNIGHT RELEASES guys. So this is just a direct hit of nostalgia.
I desperately want a book LIKE Twilight that she chooses Jacob. When I was younger he annoyed me, but I thought he was cute, but not for Bella. Now, watching/reading as an adult I realized he deserved SO MUCH more. I just want a book with a Jacob Black coded character who is loved the way he deserves, and isn't dismissed as a plot point. He was complex and as a fellow angry teen, that hurt my heart to see how he was treated.
summary: the lads make john a hinge profile against his will, and to everyone’s surprise, he matches with you within ninety seconds
cw: mdni, fem!reader, age gap (30/43), idk how hinge actually works tbh, john price the feminist, alcohol, insecurities, fluff, smut, oral f rec, piv (14.4k)
John has been irritable for months and it's getting worse.
He knows it the way you know a tooth is starting to rot from the inside, tongue prodding at it every hour.
On Wednesday, he reamed Johnny out for being three minutes late to the briefing. It was the kind of reaming that had everyone's eyes turned down into their coffees and files while Johnny stood in front at attention, toes squared, ears hot.
John went on and on, red-faced, telling him that his 'admin's a disgrace', and that he'd better 'get a fuckin' grip before you're explaining your timings to your old CO'.
Somewhere in the middle of it — around ‘disgrace’ — John heard himself.
He finished the dress-down anyway. Ending on a firm threat of a year-long inventory assignment.
It was rough enough to watch that when the room cleared out, Simon hung back. He stayed in his seat, leaning back with his arms folded, eyes following John as he aggressively organized his paperwork at the front of the room,squaring stacks that were already square.
"You need somethin', Riley?" John asked, never looking up.
Simon's mouth was twisted beneath his balaclava as he weighed his options. He wasn't especially eager to be John's second victim of the day, but it'd been miserable for weeks with no stop in sight. In the end, he decided to be straight—
"Y'need'a get laid, boss."
John's hands immediately froze.
That unyielding anger came up his chest right on schedule — insubordinate, out of line — and then couldn't quite find his footing in it because the truth was a trapdoor just under him.
His eyes flicked up and across the room, ears warming up just like Johnny's had an hour ago.
"Bloody ornery, you are," Simon went on. "'ave been."
Simon wasn't wrong, John knew that.
The work winds them all too tight — adrenaline that can't be spent, images that don't erase, choices made under duress that keep them questioning at three in the morning. And everyone's got a valve that lets the steam out. Johnny shouts his out at the football. Kyle has somewhere to be lately that he's cagey about, and Simon has whatever Simon has, no one asks.
And John drives home, shuts the door, and the house is quiet, his walls holding all the built-up pressure.
Ten months since his usual I'm-Home-Hookup found herself a steady bloke and stopped answering his calls. He'd told himself the whole time it was casual right up until it ended, when he learned it had actually been load-bearing.
And was that affecting his mood? Maybe.
His eyes narrowed on Simon and his jaw ticked at the hinge. He threw his chin toward the open door.
"Fuck off out've my briefin' room, Lieutenant."
Simon's chair scraped across the linoleum when he stood, sighing through the cloth over his face.
"I jus' think—"
"OUT."
The door clicked shut behind him, and John stood in the silence for a moment.
Then he squared the stacks again.
——
Johnny never volunteers to bring the beer, yet here he is at half seven with a box of glass bottles rattling on his shoulder, grinning under the porch light. Behind him, the headcount runs long by one. Three men when John only agreed to two. Kyle with a canvas bag full of crisps. Simon at the back, hands sunk in his pockets.
"Thought it was just you and Garrick?"
"Aye, well." Johnny shoulders past him into the hall, close enough that their shirts drag. "Simon heard there was football."
"Simon doesn't care about football," John retorts as the rest of them push their way inside.
"I care 'bout football," Simon lies through a simper no one can see, wiping his boots on the mat.
Unfortunately for John, his team is undoubtedly adept at what they've trained in and he doesn’t always catch when there’s fuckery afoot.
Under his nose, in his very own home, Johnny distracts him with talk about the match while Kyle lifts his phone from the side table just beside his elbow. Simon waits an appropriate amount of time before slipping away to the kitchen to guess the passcode, which he manages in one go.
"Gonna have to talk to him 'bout that…" Kyle mumbles as he swipes to the App Store.
"He textin' anyone?" Simon cranes his neck over Kyle's shoulder. "He used t’see tha’ one bird… wot was her name…?"
"Leah," Kyle answers flatly. "Laura?" he second-guesses as he thumbs in the passcode again to approve the install: Hinge Dating App. "M'not lookin' at his texts, mate. Be lucky he doesn't RTU us just for this. Plus, I think he said she started seeing some—"
"—y'know, Cap," Johnny's voice cuts through, a warning for the men in the kitchen. "I can get ye another beer, y'don't have…"
Simon and Kyle glance up from where they've leaned against the counter and freeze when John appears in the doorway, face screwed with suspicion. His eyes flick between the phone in Kyle's grasp and the faces lit behind it.
His initial thought is that the phone's got a nice, durable case, proper practical. His second thought is to start patting down his pockets with his free hand — which all turn up empty.
The room's gone still, a collective held breath to see which way the tension'll break.
"That's my phone."
"It is," Kyle agrees carefully.
Johnny appears at John's shoulder, squeezing past into the kitchen. "Cap, before you start—"
"When'd you nick it?" His eyes accurately settle on Kyle, the slickest of the bunch.
"Doesn't matter when, sir. We just—"
"It matters to me." John puts his empty beer bottle on the table and uses both hands now to pat down his pockets a second time, not quite believing his own team got the drop on him. "Professionally speakin',” he mumbles.
"Wot really needs addressin' is your passcode," Simon grumbles. "0-0-0-6?"
"Christ," Johnny snickers.
John chooses to ignore them and holds his hand out, palm up. But Kyle doesn't fork it over. Instead, he looks back at the screen and watches the progress ring around the icon close in on itself.
"What're we doin' right now?" John presses, stepping closer.
"Jus' take a seat, boss," Simon suggests, gesturing to the kitchen table just as Johnny yanks a chair out, beaming something mischievous.
John looks at the chair, then looks at Johnny.
"Think I'll stand."
"Suit yourself," Johnny spins the chair around and drops into it, arms folding over the back.
Kyle checks the screen one more time before turning it around. A new little white icon sits on John's home screen, Kyle points at it. John squints to read the little letters beneath it.
"What's Hinge?"
"It's a dating app," Kyle answers and places the phone on the table.
A dating app….
Grown adults sorting through each other like they're shopping. Swipe, tap, Add to Cart. He's heard the lads chat about it for years — the 'ghosting', the games — and always thought: thank god that's not me.
Under the simmering contempt, the idea of typing hello to a stranger who might simply never reply (left on read, whatever ungodly hour of the soul that phrase was invented in) shoots something cold through him.
There's a beat of hesitation before his eyes snap to Simon, the scowl on his face carrying the weight of Wednesday's interaction.
"This is you, then?"
"Team effort," Simon corrects without a flicker of shame.
"It's no' the dodgy kind of app, it's for relationships," Johnny explains. "Says so in their slogan: 'designed to be deleted'. You make a profile, upload a few pics, answer some—"
"I know how online dating works, MacTavish."
Johnny squints. "Do ye, though?"
"You've been rank for months, sir." Kyle tells it plainly. "Whole teams sayin' it."
John feels like he’s been put on a rinse cycle in the wash. His nostrils flare as he snuffs his irritation back down his chest lest he prove them right in his own kitchen.
"So that's what all this is? A Friday night welfare check?"
"It's no' a welfare check," Johnny defends poorly, voice cracking at a pitch too high.
"It's a bit of a welfare check," Kyle shrugs.
"Right." John reaches for his phone. "Well, thanks for the concern, lads. Truly. Warms the heart."
Kyle slides it just out of reach. "Just give it a shot, sir," he implores. "Try it for the weekend. If you still hate it, I'll delete it and we'll never bring it up again."
John's chin tucks to his chest and he glowers at him from under his deeply furrowed brow. "You'll delete it now," he orders, except these men have never listened to him off the field.
"I could," he agrees, wrestling a smirk. "And you can keep spending your Friday nights with us."
It's meant as a joke. It doesn't land as one.
Because John looks around at the three of them and knows in a few hours their engines will fade down the street and that hulking quiet will pour back in, the one he keeps calling peace.
So… he pulls out a chair.
Simon pushes off the counter and Johnny's grin pulls wider.
"Go on," John surrenders, falling into the seat with a sigh. He does not look at any of their faces because whatever's on them’s going to make him cross.
Chairs scrape and Kyle settles down at John’s arm, Simon looms over them from behind, all crowded around the one screen.
The basics go quick — name, age, pronouns. Kyle finds his rhythm working through the questions.
"Drinks? Socially. Smokes…?" Kyle seesaws his head a bit. "We'll say no."
"I smoke cigars," John protests.
"That's a personality trait, not a habit." Kyle scrolls. "Height?"
"Six-two," Johnny says immediately.
"He's six-foot," Simon corrects.
"Aye, and on the app he's six-two."
Kyle selects 6'. "Occupation?"
That one hangs in the air a bit longer than the rest, and John doesn't quite know why. His hands turn palm-up on the table with the question.
"Consultant," Simon offers.
"Civil servant," Kyle tries.
"Military," John answers irritably off the edge of a scoff.
Three sets of eyes come up off the phone — Johnny's eyebrows go high, Kyle's mouth opens to argue, Simon tilts his head just enough, as if to say: if you say so.
"It's not a state secret that I serve," John says, eyebrows pulling close with confusion.
Kyle types it despite whatever he's got hanging on the tip of his tongue. And in the little silence afterward, the obvious question finally comes to mind.
"What've you lot got on yours, then?"
The simple question sends a tidal wave of overlapping chatter and excuses over the table.
"Ah, well—" Johnny starts.
"I actually—" Kyle says, at the same time.
"Different app," Simon adds, under both of them.
"—see, it depends," Johnny goes on, trying to gain volume over the others, "I like to keep the profile fresh. Rotate the pics, the bio—"
"—don't have one," Kyle is saying over the top of him, "because me and Amara are— well, it's not official-official, but it's a thing, so—"
"Been usin' Feeld," Simon finishes.
When the wave recedes, the full picture comes into view: Johnny reinvents himself on a cycle, Kyle has Amara, mentioned now for the first time ever. And Simon—
"What's Feeld?" John asks.
"No," Kyle says before the question has its punctuation, quick and stern, head whipping back and forth. “Absolutely not. We'll talk about that another time."
"It's not for you," Simon adds.
"Right," he mumbles, taking a pull of his beer, settling back against the chair. He inhales and looks off at the window. "M'glad it's amateurs running my love life."
"Enthusiasts," Johnny corrects.
The rest goes quicker.
"What kind of connection?" Kyle reads. "Options are: Long-term. Short-term. Short-term, open to long. Long-term, open to short."
"Short, open to long," John answers without hesitation.
Johnny opens his mouth but Simon glares at him just as quickly through his ragged eyeholes, and he closes it without a word.
His profile photos have to come off the lads' phones since John's camera roll offers nothing but screenshots of maps, car parts, and three random pictures of the K9, Xena, from another unit on base (he’s been trying to snatch her for his own team for months).
He watches the photos of himself go by and it's a strange census, seeing a year of himself entirely through other people's eyes. Makes him queasy, so he takes another bitter gulp to wash the feeling out.
There's a short argument about the proper order the pictures should be presented, Johnny wins.
After, Kyle starts explaining what a good prompt does, how to choose one. He hardly gets any words out before John's holding his hand out the same way he did half an hour ago.
"I'll do these myself."
This time, Kyle hands the phone over.
The lads drift to the far end of the table to finally give John the space they've neglected to all night.
Fresh beers are cracked open and a bag of crisps demolished as they fold into their own conversations. The match they’ve been ignoring comes first, then Amara, whom Kyle spends five minutes refusing to elaborate on, and somewhere in there Simon mentions an oddities shop he’s been meaning to stop by.
John sits with his reading glasses on, typing slowly, brows low in concentration.
When he finally sets the phone down, all three of them quickly move behind him.
"So, their profile comes up on screen," Kyle reaches over to demonstrate. "Have a look, read the bio. If you wanna chat to her, tap the heart. If you don't, hit the X, and you'll never see her again. Simple."
The first woman is on a beach holding a cocktail the size of a fishbowl. X.
"Okaay," Kyle drawls, mouth pulling straight. "Sure. Was there a reason, or…"
"No."
The next woman is at a festival covered in glitter and feathers. X.
So is the one after. X.
A woman in her work scrubs. X.
A woman holding a child. X.
A woman in a bikini on a lake (his eyes linger). X.
It's not that they're not lovely. Some of them probably are. But every picture is a performance — arms out, teeth out, look how much fun I am. Advertisements.
"The fish," Johnny mourns as another goes down, a woman on a small boat holding a big trout up. "Cap, she was fishin'. You love fishin'!"
"Wasn't her fish," he grumbles under his breath.
"Whose fish d'you reckon, then?"
"Bloke she cropped out," Simon says, and John tips the neck of his beer toward him.
"Give me criteria," Kyle pleads, both hands on the back of John's chair, gripping with restraint. "I can work with criteria."
"He's calibratin'," Simon says. "Let 'im work it out."
Simon's giving him too much credit. He's not calibrating. He's not reading these women, he's not even really looking at them. Each X is just the whole premise being declined, proof accumulating that he was right about the app all along, and if the profiles run out, well, he tried. Right? The lads witnessed it. He can get back to his peace with a clear—
His thumb stops and hovers, then pulls back to the outer edge of the phone case.
Huh.
There you are.
Up a trail somewhere, hills of green grass rolling behind you, hood half-blown off, one hand trying to catch it. You're laughing at whoever's taking the picture, smile wide.
John's not sure he's ever seen eyes twinkle before, but that must be what yours are doing, shimmering even under overcast.
You're very pretty.
For the first time, John taps the profile open.
30. Executive Assistant. 4 Miles Away. Short-Term, Open to Long-Term.
Executive Assistant, so you likely work too much. That's familiar to him, something he understands inside-out.
There's a photo of you in office clothes at what looks like a retirement party, smile an edge more saccharine than the one on the hill.
Another of you criss-cross on the floor, a black and caramel cat stretched out and content in your lap, belly-up. Shirt low cut, cleavage to feast on. He is sixty percent gentleman about how long he looks at it.
And at the bottom:
The best way to ask me out is by: using words.
I recently discovered that: I'm better in person than I am on here.
John huffs an amusement through his nose. He spent more time on his profile than he thinks you spent on yours. Seems like you're tired of the same things he's already tired of, one night in.
Behind him, the lads have gone silent, holding their breath.
John taps the heart and his screen goes bright with a wash of confetti, both your photos ringed together:
IT'S A MATCH!
"Oh, shit, she already matched with you," Kyle cranes his neck closer to inspect.
"Gimme that." Johnny plucks the phone from John's hand. "No way," he scoffs. "Fuckin' fit. A bit young for you, Cap, aye?" He looks at John, then back at the screen like the two won't reconcile in his brain.
"Careful," John warns mildly.
Johnny hands the phone back, muttering something in Scots only Simon could translate.
John doesn't hear much of it anyway. He's already looking at your photo again.
Better in person.
Yeah. He'd bet you are.
"Right, sir," Kyle says. "Now we wait. Midday tomorrow the earliest. Message her any sooner and it reads keen."
"It'd be accurate," he deadpans.
"There's rules, Cap," Johnny says. "No messagin' straight away, no double-textin', keep a wee bit of mystery."
John turns in his chair with a scowl to look up at the three of them.
"So, you're tellin' me a woman says she's interested in you and you… make her wait?"
Silence.
"I mean, when you put it like that…"
"Yeah, s'a bit fuckin' rude, innit?" John derides, turning back around.
He's already typing, screen tipped away.
"Sir," Kyle pleads. "At least let us read it."
"This is a two person conversation, not a five piece."
He presses send and quickly pockets the phone.
——
Four miles away, a phone lights up…
——
Your windows are open to the last of a long evening, warm air breezing through the sheer curtains. You’re finally on the couch. Shower taken, its heat still damp in your skin. A glass of off-dry riesling teeters precariously on the arm, cold from the fridge and sweating through its stemless glass.
Twix is a puddled tortoiseshell furnace against your thigh, one paw twitching through a dream, her purr winding down as she drops deeper. And on the telly, Last Christmas is on. You've seen it a dozen times, that's why you leave it — it's mindless.
The second glass goes down easier than the first, tart on your tongue, blooming warm in your belly and over your cheeks.
Somewhere in the lull, your thumb opens Hinge, a reflex to being bored. You don't really expect anything from it anymore.
A man holding a fish, sunglasses on. X.
A man whose photos are all group shots. X.
A man who is 6'2" and it's his entire personality. X.
Your thumb knows the rhythm without you.
The next profile slides into view and you pause, thumb hovering.
He's handsome in that sort of rugged, classic way. His beard is salted at the edges, lines beside his eyes creased deep, cheeks faintly rosy. He's mid-laugh at what looks like a Christmas party, red and green tinsel drooping off the beams behind him; head slightly tipped, one heavy hand flat on the table. He's not cackling, you can tell it's more reserved, but it's probably still more than he usually offers.
John. 43. Military. Four miles away. Short-Term, Open to Long-Term.
The one thing you should know about me is: I'm gone a lot for work. But when I'm home, I'm home.
Most men bury the catch in the fine print, but he's leading with it.
You don't know yet whether that's honesty or efficiency. You suspect that with him they might be the same thing.
His second photo is of him on the tailgate of some enormous vehicle, fatigues taut over his thighs, thumbs hooked through his bulky khaki plate carrier, looking up from under the brim of his hat.
Two truths and a lie: I've never seen Star Wars. I have a lie-in every Sunday. I've had tea with a warlord.
The sky is pink with the morning in his third picture. He's thigh-deep in a lake, turned away from the camera entirely. (You're noticing it's a common theme that he does not look at the camera for any photo.) The sunlight catches the breadth of his back and shoulders, cotton molded around muscle.
Don't hate me if I: call instead of text. It's quicker.
You giggle just enough that Twix's ear rotates toward you in reproach.
It's kinda cute when older men put more effort into their profiles.
But the alarm is already going off somewhere in the back of your skull — too good, probably old photos, probably has a wife — it has never once failed to ring. But you're two glasses in, and the heart really costs nothing even if the conversation seems off.
You tap it, and put the phone facedown on your thigh.
On the telly, Emilia Clarke is busy falling for a man you happen to know has been dead the entire film. You mouth one of his lines along with him, not really invested, wine warm in your chest, Twix breathing slow against your leg.
Then your phone buzzes against you once, and you ignore it, because you have rules about lunging for male attention. But then it buzzes again, and, well, you just turn it over to have a look. Maybe it's your mum, you don't know!
HINGE: You and John matched!
HINGE: 1 New Message
You open it.
Evening. Not much good at using the app, but I really wanted to chat to you. How's your Friday night?
You hum to yourself curiously. Not an innuendo or emoji in sight.
i actually volunteer helping the elderly with technology, happy to walk you through it.
friday's been average. wine and a movie on the couch. how's yours?
You put the phone back down and focus on the film, but his reply comes within the minute.
Ouch. Friday's alright. The lads invited themselves round for the match. Still here, unfortunately.
you're messaging me with guests in the house? terrible host.
They invited themselves. Hosting rules don't apply.
What movie are you watching?
You glance at the telly where a dead man is mid-song and weigh lying about it.
You could be watching anything. You could pick something more interesting, something with a deep lesson, educational, historical, something niche to come off cool and worldly.
you're not allowed to judge me.
Judging is sort of my life's work, but I'll do my best.
You snort. Twix relocates to the far cushion in protest.
it's called 'last christmas'. i don't know why it's on in july, but i've probably seen it twelve times. it's good background noise.
The reply takes slightly longer this time. You picture him all big hands, small phone, and then stop picturing him, because that's how it starts.
Twelve times? Must be decent.
it's objectively not. the love interest is dead the entire film lol
Dead?
it's a twist. it's festive!
You and I have very different definitions for "festive". I've got a few questions. But I'll save them.
You smile.
so, your lake photo. did you catch anything that day?
Not a thing.
hours in freezing water for zero fish?!
The fish aren't the point.
do tell, what's the point?
The mist off the water. The quiet. The no one expecting anything from you.
It's the first real answer a man has given you on this app in, like, six months.
You feel oddly like you've been handed something and should keep your hands still so it doesn't spook.
that actually sounds really peaceful.
i've never been fishing, but i do love nature in the mornings. i have a trail by me that i like to trek early on weekends.
That the trail from your photo?
it is! my best friend actually made me go that day, i wasn't in the mood. complained the whole way.
Doesn't show.
Good photo of you.
Beautiful, actually.
You stare at the screen and feel warmth tickling your nape, sliding lower, molten and slow.
Every instinct you have reaches for deflection.
oh! thank you. the wind did most of the work lol
No it didn't.
— and he just takes the deflection off you, like being returned something you've dropped. You press the cool curve of the wine glass against your cheek and remind yourself, sternly, that this is a stranger on the internet.
well, for the record your photo's not bad either. handsome smile.
Somewhere past ten, you notice the conversation keeps not ending.
how long have you been on hinge?
It's my first night, actually.
first night???
Profile's about two hours old.
yikes, so i'm just the practice woman then, huh?
Practice implies I'm planning to do this again.
——
John's still at the kitchen table, reading glasses pushed up into his hair now, beer gone warm at his elbow. The lads have migrated to the living room doorway — close enough to monitor, far enough to pretend they aren't.
He knows they're watching, and he's been watched by better.
What he can't seem to manage is his fuckin' face — it keeps doing things beyond his control, and every time your reply comes he has to reel it back to neutral, and he can tell by the quality of the silence behind him that he's not reeling nearly fast enough.
"He's smilin' again," Johnny murmurs, elbowing Simon in the ribs.
"Shameless," John mumbles, without looking up. "All of you."
He's typing when the floor creaks jus to his left. When he glances up, Johnny has drifted to his shoulder under the pretense of collecting empties.
"Need another, Cap?"
"I need you three feet back, MacTavish," he replies, thumbs tapping away.
A minute later it's Kyle from the doorway, "If she asks about hobbies, don't lead with the cigars. They poll badly amongst females."
"'Females'?" John grimaces, face down, thumbs still at it. "Say it with me Garrick, 'women'."
Then Simon, who hasn't moved or spoken in twenty minutes, asks, "Wot's she sayin', then?"
John rolls his eyes and sets the phone face-down, pushing himself up out of the chair.
"Time to go, lads," he says with an obviously fake smile, gesturing his arm out towards his front door. "Goodnight."
"It's no' even eleven oclock!" Johnny complains.
"Then the night's still young. Go on, fuck off."
They go — bottles gathered, snacks cleaned up, Simon herding Johnny down the hall as he’s still negotiating.
Then their engines fade down the street, and the quiet pours back in, right on schedule. Except tonight it arrives and there's a phone lit on his kitchen table with your name on it, and the quiet — for the first time in a long while — has to wait.
He locks up, kills the TV, then drops into his armchair with the phone already unlocked.
did the football finish? who won?
He glances at the dead telly. Hasn't a clue.
Couldn't tell you.
omg lol you had ONE reason for guests tonight!
I got distracted.
by what? 😇
I think you know by what.
Nothing comes back for a minute. He pictures you on your couch, that cat beside you, deciding what to do with it — and it occurs to him, mildly horrifying, that he's enjoying this. The wait. The little emoji with the halo, transparently unrepentant. He finds himself smiling at the ceiling like there's something written on it.
anyway!
Anyway.
He'll allow it: retreat granted. There's no rush.
The cat in your photo. Yours?
yes! that’s twix. she's a menace.
Good name.
she prefers men that ignore her.
Then we'd get on fine. I'm very good at ignoring cats.
It goes on just like that: easy.
You ask if he's a morning person and learn he's up at five most days by choice; he learns you consider five the middle of the night.
He talks about the Brecon Beacons — the actual Beacons, the ones he loves, not the ones that nearly killed him at twenty-two. You tell him you've always wanted to go, and he catches himself already planning the route he'd take you. Then quickly chastises himself.
How's the average Friday held up?
certainly improved
Mine too.
He puts the phone on the arm of the chair and sits in his quiet house, and for once it doesn’t feel so desolate.
——
The following morning he's up at five. He starts drinking his coffee at the counter, looking out the window over the sink, the sorbet summer sky bleeding morning.
He thinks of you before he can stop himself. Asleep, presumably, five being the middle of the night and all. Then he takes the coffee out to his back step for some fresh air.
He wonders if he was any good with the messaging last night. It's the longest he's ever sat with his phone in his hand, period. Let alone chatting with someone. There's no debrief for it, that's the trouble. No one to tell him whether ‘I got distracted.’ read as charming or desperate.
He runs the entire two-hour exchange back over and over and finds no actionable errors, but remains unconvinced.
He goes for his run at six. The route climbs uphill around klick seven, and somewhere on the hill he thinks about your photo, your smile, your mouth. He wonders what you smell like, what you sound like when you're being sarcastic.
By noon he's under the Land Rover draining the old oil, and he catches himself pondering what you might do on a Saturday. Whether you slept in properly. Whether the cat allows it; he grew up with one himself and knows how demanding they can be when they're ready for a feeding.
He hasn't messaged yet and neither have you.
He couldn't say exactly why he's held off. Something the lads said about being keen, and rules, and mystery lodged somewhere he can't reach to dig it out. He's not normally a man that takes doctrine from Johnny MacTavish, and yet… here he is.
It's a stupid fuckin' rule.
The afternoon goes long and gets quiet in the old way.
The house at four o'clock has a particular acoustic he knows down to the plumbing, and today, for the first time, he notices himself noticing it. It never used to be so obvious. Years of Saturdays like this one and it took his phone going quiet for half a day to show him the loneliness so plainly.
By the evening he's got Chinese takeaway at the kitchen table, eating it straight from the carton, chopsticks shoveling fried noodles down his gullet while he does the crossword from the morning paper in his head.
That's when his phone lights up for the first time all day, buzzing three times in succession — he absolutely hates how quickly it's in his hand.
spent six hours wedding dress shopping with my best friend. i need a glass of wine and a lie down.
thought of you on the tube home
He reads the second message again.
Thought of you.
He’d been drafting the same admission since noon and something in his chest going catastrophically hot.
are you still up? i know sundown is bedtime for your generation.
And there's the sarcasm.
Outside the window, the sun is — he checks — still up. Barely. He's got that going for him, at least.
Just in time. Was about to take my dentures out.
Thought about you as well.
He types the second line fast before he can be a coward about it. If you can say it, he can say it. Fair's fair.
I do have a question now though. It's not your wedding we're shopping for, is it? That'd be proper inconvenient for me.
lol no! maid of honor. today was purely supervisory.
don't really see myself getting married anyway.
the dresses were stunning though!
He’s picking up on a pattern. Three messages arriving like one exhale — the vulnerable thing said flanked with distraction.
Nothing wrong with that.
Successful trip then? Or is there another six hours coming?
successful! she found it. there were tears and champagne.
what about you, how was your saturday?
He’s had a day spent purposefully not doing the one thing he wanted to do.
Quiet. Nothing worth typing.
hm. sounds like you should ring me then…
He looks at that one for a moment and blinks, the inside of his cheek finds itself between his teeth.
For all their blabbering, the lads did not warn him about this bit. Not that he can't speak on the phone, he prefers it. You're essentially quoting his profile back at him. But he's been thinking about something since roughly the fourth time you crossed his mind today, and a phone call isn't the ask he's been building up to.
Could do.
Truthfully, though. I was just working up the courage to ask you for a drink.
Courage. He's used that word in citations, for men who ran toward gunfire, heroes. Now he’s using it to describe the act of asking a woman on a date, and the genuinely undignified part is that it's regrettably accurate.
Your reply takes a minute. He watches the dots start and stop, and start again. God, he's been shot at with less suspense.
Then your message comes through and it's just a number. Ten digits. It buzzes in his hand once more.
for logistics.
He stares at it for a beat and then he's up out of his seat. Takeaway abandoned, at the fridge with his phone still in one hand, snapping the cap off a beer on the lip of the counter, and then he's out the back door into the garden where the evening's gone navy and the air’s still warm from the day.
He saves your number first. Then he stands there a moment, beer sweating in one hand, thumb over the call button in the other.
——
You’ve just tipped the bottle over your glass when the phone starts buzzing against the counter.
Unknown Number. Local.
“John?”
“Evenin’.”
Fuck.
His voice lands an octave lower than you were braced for. A honeyed gravel that seeps into your ear and slides thick over your spine, pooling somewhere behind your ribs.
You set the bottle down before you drop it.
“So you actually do ring,” you manage.
“Said so on the profile, I think.”
“I half thought it was a bit.”
“I don’t really do bits.”
“No,” you say through a grin, picking up your glass and drifting toward the couch. You drop your voice into a gravelly impression of him: “You’re a very serious man.”
The laugh that comes down the line is quiet — more breath than sound, warm at the bottom of it, like you’ve caught him somewhere he doesn’t usually go.
“That meant to be me?”
“It’s uncanny, I know.”
The line goes quiet a moment — the good kind, neither of you rushing to fill it — and in it you catch the sounds of his side: a whirl of breeze, the faint ring of a glass set down on iron. He’s outside. You picture a tidy yard with tall dark hedges, a big man pacing slowly with a beer.
“Am I interruptin’ the wine?”
“The wine and I are happy to share the time.”
“Good.” There's a pause that you can hear his smile in. “I have a beer out here. Seemed only fair we’re both suffering the same.”
“Are we having our drink right now? Is this it?”
“No,” he says immediately, unamused even — which is very amusing for you. “This one doesn’t count.”
The speed of his reply sends something fizzing under your sternum. You tuck your feet up under yourself and take a slow sip.
“No?” you tease.
“I had imagined I’d see your face.”
“Been imagining, have you?”
You are very glad he cannot see your face right now. Cheeks warm and strained, you press the cool of the wine glass briefly against them in turns
“Nothin’ mucky if that’s what you’re gettin’ at.”
“Mm, no, 'course not. You’ve been a proper gentleman. Haven’t even thrown me a cheeky pick-up line.”
“I could workshop somethin’ for you if you’d like.”
“No thanks,” you giggle into your glass. “It was a relief when I opened your first message and it wasn’t a riddles-three about your dick.”
You can hear his scoff and recoil on the other end.
“Is that what it’s come to?”
“Unfortunately.”
There’s a short silence you’d swear is him coming to terms with the modern world, and you bite down on a smile.
“Right,” he says, and there's a controlled shift in his voice. “My question...”
Your stomach does a free-fall, nauseating and fluttery, fifteen again on the Detonator at Thorpe Park.
“Mm?” you hum around a sip, deeply casual, a woman entirely unbothered, curled so tight around the phone that Twix doesn’t have a leg to lie on.
“There’s a pub about halfway between us, Lamb & Flag. I’d like to take you for that drink tomorrow. Will you come?”
Then you remember what tomorrow is and sigh, immediately irritated with your whole family.
“Ugh, I want to say yes,” you sulk. “But I’ve got Sunday dinner with my family tomorrow. My mum would hunt me for sport if I flaked.”
“Fair. Wouldn’t want that on my conscience.”
“I could do a weeknight? After work?”
There’s a pause on his end.
“I’d rather not promise you a weeknight,” he admits. “I rarely get away on time, and I’m not startin’ this by standin' you up.”
You go quiet for a beat, you were ready for the usual ‘ahh, well, we’ll figure something out’. But instead got a man mindful of your time; a unicorn, really.
“Also fair. And— and thoughtful.”
“Friday, then?” he tries hopefully, you catch the small lean in his voice.
“Friday’s perfect,” you agree. “It’s a date!”
“It is,” he agrees, smiling.
The conversation should end there but it doesn't.
You learn things no profile has a field for; that he talks slower than he types, that he hm's real low in his throat when he’s considering something, that when you make him laugh it rumbles, so rough at the bottom that you feel at the back of your knees.
Somewhere past the hour mark you stop scrutinizing the call for red flags and just talk, and you only notice you’ve stopped when Twix jumps onto the couch and you realize you’ve been lying down for a while, phone balanced on your ear like you’re seventeen.
Eventually, you yawn.
“Right,” he says, and you can hear him moving, standing up by the way he tries to muffle a stiff groan. “That’s my cue.”
“Aw, no! I’m fine, really.”
“It’s late, love. And you’ve got your family tomorrow.”
“True. And you’ve got… whatever it is old men do on Sundays.”
“Lie-in, according to my profile.”
“Ha!” you bark, vindicated alone in your living room, having forgot about his little 'two truths and a lie'. “That’s the lie, I bet. I don’t think you’ve ever had a lie-in in your life.”
A low sound of amusement rolls down the line. “Goodnight,” he says, declining to confirm.
“Night, John.”
You sit a minute in the amber shine of your lamp after the line goes dead, phone loose in your hand.
——
Sunday morning, you text him at 8:12 AM.
good morning. how was the lie-in?
Wouldn’t know. Been up since five.
the lie confirmed!
He doesn’t dignify it. You don’t expect him to. You grin at your phone while you wait for the kettle to boil.
Your mum will later describe you, over dinner, as ‘suspiciously cheerful’.
The day swallows you — the drive, the roast, your mum’s questions, your brother’s kids. It’s near ten when you’re finally home, shoes off, replying to the last thing he’d sent that morning.
survived. my mum sends her regards to whoever put me in a good mood. her words.
Regards received. Sleep well.
——
Monday morning, John’s at his desk with his coffee going cold because somewhere between the canteen and the walk to his office, his phone buzzed, and it was you and he hasn’t stopped looking at it.
good morning :) big meeting today. does this say “promote me” or “she tried”?
[ PHOTO ATTACHMENT ]
You, in your hallway mirror — chin tipped, black short-sleeve blouse with a wide collar exposing the smooth skin of your upper chest and collar, grey pencil skirt stretched over the curve of your hips and thighs, one knee bent like you’d just been lowering your foot from fitting on your heel.
His eyes are stuck on the soft-looking flesh just above and between your knees when a rap lands on his door and forces a cough from his throat.
Johnny eases it open with Kyle behind him holding a folder, Simon's behind them both, holding nothing, not even a pretense.
His phone goes face-down on the desk at a compromising speed, shifting to sit up straigher.
Simon’s eyes go to John’s hand over the phone, then to his face before he leans in the doorway with his arms folded.
“Mornin’, Cap. Good weekend?” Johnny asks, falling into the side chair in front of the desk with a theatrical groan.
“Fine.”
“Aye? Do anythin'?” He smiles, waggling his eyebrows. “Anyone?”
“You’ve got thirty seconds to develop a work reason for being in my office, Sergeant.”
It's an empty threat and everyone in the room knows it.
Kyle sets the (empty) folder down and steps back behind Johnny. “How’s it going, sir? Did you have any luck with Hinge?”
John could make them work for it. He’d planned to. But all three of them are standing in front of him trying so hard to look casual it’s a wonder none of them have pulled something.
"Have a date Friday. Drinks."
Johnny is ready to blast out of his seat, but Kyle shoves him back down by the shoulders, digging his fingers into the pressure points on either side of his neck until he relents with a hiss.
"That's great. Same woman or…?"
"The same."
“Good, good, good,” Johnny says, and means it — John can hear that he means it, he can also hear the restraint he's keeping from unloading shite advice.
“We'll stop buy Saturday for the debrief,” Simon says, already turning around, and Kyle picks the folder back up like it had a purpose all along, and they file out the way they came.
"I'm not debriefing you on my date. Don't come!" John calls to them half-heartedly, but the door's already shutting on top of his words.
He turns the phone back over.
Promote you, he types.
You look lovely.
Your reply comes before he’s picked his pen back up.
well now the meeting feels easy. thank you x
He gets on with his morning, but by noon he suspects he's looked at that damn photo a dozen times.
——
The rest of the week goes standard. Your Tuesday runs long and his Wednesday runs longer, and the messages carry throughout it all. His texts arrive before your morning alarm even sounds, your replies go mid-commute — nothing heavy, just remaining in each other's orbit of interest as Friday chugs slowly into view.
Thursday night, near nine, he rings you, having first texted to ask if he could, which you’re beginning to understand is just how he’s built. It’s a short call by your new standards with him. He only wanted to confirm you’re still on for the pub, but he had you grinning into your pillow until you fell asleep.
———
You leave work at five on the dot, and you’re in front of your open wardrobe by six.
The little black dress comes off the rail first. Goes back. Comes off again. Back. The floral one gets as far as your shoulders before you pull it off over your head and drop it on the bed, where Twix immediately sits on it.
The silky baby blue halter’s been hanging on the door since you bought it. You put it on like you hadn’t already decided and do the tie at the back of your neck twice before the bow sits flat and neat. You pull on some jeans and rummage the closet for your chunky heels.
You press some strawberry perfume to your throat in the mirror and try to comfort the nerve-ridden woman in the reflection.
“It’s just a pub,” you tell her.
She doesn’t seem convinced.
———
The pub is exactly the kind of place you imagine he'd frequent — quiet, all old mahogany and low brass lamps, no telly anywhere. You claim a stool, hook your heel over the rung, and decide not to order anything yet simply because it just feels polite to wait.
You're fifteen minutes early which means you're left alone with your anxieties.
The last of the sun lies across the bar top in warm stripes, and you trace one with a finger while you wait.
You’ve done this before, and it almost never goes how the phone promises. There was the guy whose photos were six years out of date. The one who spent both drinks talking about his ex and then sent a payment request for half the tab. The one who, two hours in, hadn’t asked you a single question about yourself. And John has been too good to be true for a week, and you know how that saying ends. Tonight is where you find out how, find out he really is just a man between deployments looking for entertainment and a shag.
It felt good, though. All week. Being excited about something. You’d forgotten the feeling.
You pick at the hangnail on your thumb until it stings.
You don’t have to wait much longer for him.
He casts a shadow when he comes through the door. Broad. Tall. Smart olive polo fighting for its stitching across his chest and where it grips into his biceps. He’s tidied his beard in comparison to his photos, hair less kempt in a purposeful way.
He scans the whole room before he finds you and stops looking anywhere else. He smiles tight and restrained, pleasant, but like he’s pacing himself, and by the time he crosses to you, your tongue has gone dry and whatever you’d planned to open with has shriveled away.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hi,” you smile.
He smells clean, a bit like pine and amber, and faintly like there’s tobacco somewhere on his collar.
“You’re early,” he adds, almost pleased.
“So are you.”
“I’m always early.” His eyes drop to the empty bar top in front of you, then come back. “You haven’t ordered?”
You shake your head once, legs shifting to cross. “I wanted— I was waiting for you.”
The lines beside his eyes deepen and he holds out his hand, says your name for the first time, and his hand swallows yours — big and dry and calloused across the palm where yours is soft — and you hold on a beat too long. He doesn’t mention it. You add that to the list of things you like about him, which is getting embarrassing for something four minutes old.
“What’ll you have?”
“Uhm, whatever you’re having,” you decide.
He signals the bartender with two fingers and opens his mouth — and there’s a brief second where he looks at you first, and you notice for the first time that his eyes are blue, and you get stuck, and it seems so does he. By the time he looks back, he’s lost the name of the beer he’s drunk here a dozen times.
“Two of the, uh— the local,” he manages.
You pretend not to notice. He knows you did.
He pulls out the stool beside you, and more of his cologne wafts around you as he sits, turned to face you, legs spread, one knee pointing between yours.
The pints arrive wet from the tap, and for a second neither of you says anything at all. You trace a bead of condensation down your glass.
“Funny, isn’t it,” you offer, sheepish. “We’ve talked every day for a week, and the second we’re actually in front of each other…” You trail off, cheeks warming, eyes fixed on the fizz jumping over the rim of your beer.
“You’re nervous?” he asks, a cheeky lilt on it.
“A bit, yeah. Aren’t you?”
“Not at all.”
You squint at him. “I don’t know if I buy that.”
“Hm.” He takes a sip that lasts a little too long, and the tips of his ears have gone pink.
Your cheeks are doing about the same. You drink your beer — cold, hop-bitter, helping — and let him have his lie. It’s a generous lie anyway. It’s a lie shaped like a man trying, and you’ve been handed far worse shapes.
“So,” you start. “I haven’t asked why you’re even on Hinge. You don’t seem the type.”
“I’m not,” he chuckles, and offers nothing beyond it.
You wait. He just sips his beer. You hike a brow.
“That’s it? That’s your answer?”
“Well, it wasn’t my idea. The lads put me on it.”
“The lads — your guys from work?”
“Yeah.”
“They what, talked you into it?”
“No.” He turns his glass a degree. “They nicked my phone and made the profile behind my back.”
“And what made them do that?”
He takes a moment with that one. He could give you a cover story — you can almost watch him weigh one — but then he doesn’t.
“Their assessment,” he laughs to himself, “was that I’d been… cranky. Needed gettin’ out of the house.”
“Cranky?” you repeat, delighted.
“Their exact words were a bit different.”
“Hm.” You look at him — at ease, half a smile living in his beard, one arm resting along the bar. “You don’t seem cranky to me.”
“Yeah, well. Guess they were right, then.”
Your neck goes hot and you have to look away from him. “Well,” you manage. “They do good work, your committee.”
He huffs into his pint, and lets you recover.
“Okay, next one, then. Military.” You tip your glass toward him. “What do you actually do?”
He sets his beer down and you can see him carefully choosing which door to open. “What d’you want to know?”
“I don’t know. What’s your day look like?”
“Depends on the day. Paperwork, mostly. Meetings.” A beat. “Sometimes we go away.”
“Away?”
“Away.”
“For how long?”
“As long as it takes.”
“Doing…?”
“Whatever they need me to,” he says easily. “S’not me being mysterious. I’d tell you if I could.”
“That must be so strange, though. Having this whole— like, most of your life you can’t talk about.”
“You get used to it.” Then, because you’re still looking at him expectantly, not filling the space the way people usually do: “There’s loads I can say. Ask me what six weeks of rain in a jungle smells like. Or what a month in the desert does to your skin.”
“What’s a month in the desert do to your skin?”
“Nothing good, love,” he answers, shifting to face you better. “The beard’s load-bearing.”
You laugh into your beer, and it makes the next one easier to ask.
“Do you like it? Like, the whole life of it?”
He goes quiet on that one. Longer than he’s gone quiet on anything else you’ve asked. You can see him thinking on it.
“It’s what I’m best at,” he says finally. And then, mostly to his glass: “It’s all I’ve known, really. Been doin’ it since sixteen.”
You turn that over. There’s a whole life folded up in that sentence and you notice you want to ask about all of it, which is not a thing you’ve wanted to do with a man in a very long time.
The second beers arrive, and the conversation stops keeping to lanes — his lads and your best friend, the wedding in October, the neighbor whose bins are apparently a whole saga. You’re midway through the story of your work feud when a birthday party arrives loud and glittering behind you, and John, without so much as glancing down, reaches down and hooks his hand under the edge of your stool, and pulls.
The whole thing drags six inches across the floor with you on it, your knee sliding neatly between his, close enough now that his voice drops to match the new distance. You’re looking up at him, pulse tapping somewhere that has your thighs pressing together.
“Go on,” he encourages. “She said what?”
It takes you a moment to find your place, but you go on.
The bar only gets louder from there, the birthday table multiplying, and when a booth opens up in the back corner, John tips his chin at it.
“Go grab that,” he says, turning back to the bar. “I’ll get another round. Want the same?”
“Actually—” and you hesitate out of nothing but habit, out of years of a man’s face going tight when you complicate an order, “—could I do a vodka cranberry this time? I could get the round—”
His brows furrow with something akin to bafflement, brief and genuine. “You can have whatever you’d like,” he says, and suddenly you feel silly, your hand crossing to grip your elbow.
“No—I know. I just—”
“Whatever you’d like,” he repeats, gentler. “And—” he grimaces, like what he’s about to say pains him deeply. “Don’t ever offer to pay on a date with me again. Properly wind me up, that will.”
“S-sorry,” you shake your head, like you can rattle the habit loose.
“None of that either,” his eyes have gone crinkled at the corners, warm all the way through, and he raps two knuckles soft on the bar top like the matter’s settled. “Vodka cranberry. Go, sit.”
“Actually— I’m gonna go freshen up quickly. Two minutes.”
And you go, biting down on a smile, ears hot — embarrassed and looked after all at once, which is apparently a combination that works on you.
The bathroom is cooler than the bar and a quiet that leaves your ears ringing. You reapply some lipgloss and wash your hands and look at yourself in the dirty mirror, buzzing warm at the collarbones, eyes shiny, mouth half-curved.
It’s going well.
It’s going suspiciously well.
And every time it’s gone well before, this is exactly when you started hunting for the catch. So you dry your hands on the rough paper towel and leave before you can start.
He’s in the booth when you come back, settled against the wall side, the last of the evening gone from the windows and the lamp above him glowing gold over the table. Your drink is waiting — pink, iced, a lime wedged on the rim — set neatly across the table at the seat opposite.
You look at the seat opposite.
Then you slide in beside him instead. Your thigh a heated inch from his, reaching across to relocate your drink.
You don’t look at him, but you can tell John’s a bit curious of the arrangement. His arm comes up and settles along the back of the booth behind you, and it oddly feels like it was always going to end up here, his thumb grazing the bare skin of your shoulder. He picks up his beer with the other hand.
“Comfortable?” he asks, low, and with entirely too much satisfaction.
“I am,” you say, and the first sip of the vodka cranberry is cold and tart and sweet all the way down, blooming behind your sternum right where his voice has been landing all night.
The booth is easier than the bar, somehow — closer, quieter, the birthday party more muted — and the talk drifts wherever it wants, his low laugh arriving against your shoulder through the arm behind you. At some point the lull comes; ice softening in your glass, his thumb resting an inch from your shoulder. And maybe it’s the vodka, or the arm, or the running list of things you like about him that you’d need both hands to count now—
“How long ago was your last relationship? Like a real one.”
He takes a deep breath before answering. “Honest answer?”
“Preferably,” you giggle softly, and he smiles — most of it lost in the beard, enough that you wonder if there are dimples under there.
“Longer than what sounds good out loud,” he admits through the pull of it.
“Say it out loud anyway.”
“I was thirty-two. So, almost ten years ago.”
“Ten.”
“Mm.”
“A whole decade.”
“You can stop countin’ the years to me at any time, love.”
“Sorry, sorry.” You’re grinning. He is too. “It’s just, quite the gap in romance.”
“It went quick,” he says, and it’s a joke, and it’s also not. “What about you?”
“Ended about a year ago, we were together four.”
“Mm.”
“It was fine. Amicable— mostly,” you shrug.
“Mostly,” he repeats — not pushing, just setting the word down where you can see he heard it.
“Mostly,” you confirm, and leave it there.
The ice ticks in your glass. And the next question’s been sitting in your chest, so you take it out while you’re brave.
“Can I ask something and you not be offended?”
“Startin’ well,” he says, nodding on for you to continue.
You settle further into the booth and your shoulders press against his warm arm behind you, his fingers brushing over your shoulder. You lean your head back, turned to his face.
“What’s changed? Between thirty-two and now that you’re trying dating?” You mean just to ask the question, but you find yourself rambling on. “Because if the honest answer is nothing, and this is just— a-a hookup with, like, really good manners, that’s fine. Genuinely. I’d just rather know now.”
“Fair,” he says. “Asked myself the same thing this week.”
“Yeah? And what was the answer?”
“I’m tired of the quiet,” he starts, pausing as his eyes drift away in thought. They come back to you just as quick. “Used to come home to it like a reward. Now it just feels… empty.”
Something in your chest slides sideways.
“So, no. Not a hookup,” he continues with a breath. “But I can’t promise you’d be happy with the alternative either. I can be gone longer than I’m home.” His thumb brushes along your shoulder, once, like an apology.
“Guess I wouldn’t know unless I gave it a go.”
You say it lightly, and the exhale he lets out has a smile riding on it — and something in his shoulders comes down, some held thing you didn’t notice until it let go.
“No,” he agrees, low. “You wouldn’t.”
You’re suddenly aware of the distance between you — or the lack of it. Somewhere between sitting down and the vodka you’ve ended up awfully close: near enough to count the grey threaded through his beard, to catch the beer on his breath, near enough that the light between you has stopped reaching the space. Near enough that you can feel the heat coming off him, and your heartrate has picked up on it before the rest of you has.
His eyes flick down to your mouth. Quick — half a second, there and back — but you catch it, and it lands low in your stomach and stays.
Neither of you leans back.
And the pub carries on behind you — glasses clinking, the birthday table shouting, a till drawer slamming — all of it arriving from somewhere far off and dreamlike.
You move closer. Barely. Imperceptible. Your pulse is in your ears now, drumming out the last of your sense—
“You know,” you say, quiet, pitched for the six inches between you and nobody else, “you can kiss me. If you’d like.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Mhm,” you grin.
“Well,” he says, matching your volume, low enough that it lands somewhere below hearing, “I was going to be a gentleman about it. Wait til I walked you out.” His gaze drops to your mouth again, slower this time, no secret. “But if you’d rather have it here in the booth, I won’t argue.”
“I suppose I could be patient.”
“Mm,” he says, and doesn’t move.
Somewhere in the world, presumably, time is passing.
His jaw shifts.
“I’ll go pay the tab,” he decides.
And you’re both up and out of the booth quick, and you watch him stand at the bar with his back to you, shoulders set, and you press one cool knuckle to your own cheek and find it burning.
You two make it out the door.
The night’s gone hazy and July-thick, and you get maybe four steps down the side of the pub with his hand a light at the small of your back before you glance up at him and he glances down.
Whatever was left of patient dies right there on the pavement.
He moves you.
One hand finding your hip, the other your jaw, and then your back meets brick, warm through the thin of your blouse and against your bare shoulders, and his mouth is on yours.
Whatever mindful version he’d planned for the end of his gentlemanly walk out must have been spent in the booth — this is the interest. The kiss opens on a low rumble out of his chest, one you feel travel through his ribs into yours, and his tongue slides against yours, all beer and him, and you grip the front of his shirt with both fists just incase the wall behind you vanishes.
He kisses you thoroughly, his beard catching along your chin, a chafe you know you’ll feel tomorrow. A thigh slots half between yours, not pushing, not touching, but it’s not any less inviting. You could bare down on it, get the friction your body is craving, he’d let you, but you restrain yourself. His thumb strokes a slow line along your jaw in obscene contrast to what his mouth is doing — and it blooms down through you, fervid, liquescent.
He pulls back just far enough to breathe — forehead near yours, both of you loud with catching your breath — and when you open your eyes his are dark.
“Very gentlemanly,” you croon.
“I walked you out first, yeah?” he says, unrepentant.
You giggle against his mouth, and he claims it for himself with one more gentle kiss, and then he steps back a seemly distance, hand smoothing once down over his beard, shoulders resetting, breath evening out, everything going back in its place except his eyes.
“Walk me home?” you ask.
“I drove. I’ll give you a lift.”
You look up at him, all vodka-warm and enjoying yourself. “Well, just so you know, I share my location with my best friend and she knows exactly what pub I’m at, and has your name and photo, so—”
“Good,” he replies, no hesitation. “Smart girl. Keep it that way.” He finds his keys, fishing them out of his pocket. “I’m taking you straight home. You have my word.”
He draws an X over his heart, your lipgloss shining at the corner of his crooked mouth.
——
The car smells like-new — clean upholstery and faintly of engine oil, everything squared away, nothing rolling around in the footwells.
The drive is short. The radio murmurs. His hand rests easy on the gearstick a few inches from your knee — close enough that you spend two full streets aware of nothing else — and the streetlights slide over him in slow bars, catching the grey at his temple and the small satisfied set of his mouth.
The kiss is still thrumming under your skin like a struck glass, low in your belly, at the back of your knees — and you catch yourself doing the thing you swore off doing: imagining forward. Him in your doorway. Him in your kitchen on the weekend. Him coming home from wherever away is and it being your door he—
You look out the window. Four miles has never taken so long.
He pulls up outside your building and sets the handbrake, and the engine idles, and neither of you move.
The dashboard glow makes everything blue.
You want to ask him up. That's not the question; that got settled somewhere around the second kiss in the alley, possibly earlier, possibly around the moment he walked into the pub, or whatever. But there's the other thing you can't evict from your head: do you really want to sleep with him on the first date?
"So," you say.
"So…”
You look at him — streetlight in the grey of his beard, arm along the wheel, he’s in absolutely no hurry to resolve you.
"Did you have a good time tonight?"
His head turns. There's a beat where he just looks at you, and you watch him physically decide not to make a joke of it.
"Yes. Best night I've had in a while," he says.
"Would you—" and god, you're thirty years old and your heart is doing this anyway, "—want to see me again? Like this?"
"Was already plannin' to ask you to dinner." A small crease starts at the corner of his eye. "Was workin' out whether to do it now or ring you tomorrow, so I didn't seem overly—"
"Keen?"
"Keen," he confirms, gravely, like the word's been a burden to him all week.
And that lands warm and the relief does something reckless to your mouth, which is that it stops guarding it.
"Okay. Then I'm going to say something, but you can't look at me while I say it."
“Right.” He scrubs a hand over his twitching lips and looks out the windshield, obedient.
"I want to ask you up."
"Mm."
"And I'm having a whole debate about it."
"I can hear it," he says. "Been losin' to the engine for about a minute now."
"Just—,” you sigh, “—shut up." But you're smiling at the dashboard. "It's just— I spent all week wondering if this was a hookup thing for you. And you answered that, and I believe you, I do. But there's this small, paranoid part of me that's like, well, that's exactly what a man would say at the pub, isn't it? And then there's this other, stupider part that thinks if you come up, you'll—" you take a deep breath, your fingers hooking into each other on your lap, and make yourself finish it, "—think less of me. First date and all."
He's quiet for a second, lips pursing.
“Can I look at you now?” he tries.
“Yeah.”
"You want to know where I'm actually at?"
"Truly just desperate for a man to be honest so I know what headspace to put myself in."
“Alright.” He shifts to face you, wrist still hanging over the wheel. “I want to come up. Badly, if you want some extra honesty.”
The badly goes straight between your thighs.
“Okay,” you manage. “Noted.”
“I haven’t lied to you once tonight. And I’m takin’ you to dinner whether I come up or not.”
“And, like— you wouldn’t think—”
“Think less of you?” He frowns, like the math’s not mathing. “For doin’ the same thing I’d be doing? Together?”
“When you put it like that…”
“For what it’s worth, I’m sat here havin’ a version of the same debate. Been out of this a long time. Didn’t want you thinkin’ that’s all I came for. So if you’d rather I kiss you at the door and drive home, I’ll do that and consider it a perfect evening.”
And maybe it’s the ease of him, the total absence of pressure you’re always braced for on nights like this, that settles it for you.
“Would you like to come up?”
——
The stairwell smells of somebody's late dinner and warm dust, the day's heat still trapped in it, and you take the stairs ahead of him to the second floor.
John is a gentleman.
John has been a gentleman all night.
John gives himself the length of one flight of stairs off the clock — the sway of you in those jeans, the shift and give of you with every step, the smooth line of your bare shoulders under the halter's little bow — and by the landing he's a gentleman again, and if you felt his eyes like a brand on you, and by the half-smirk you throw over your shoulder you did, neither of you says a word about it.
Your flat smells like you — the perfume he got to know at the pub, but underneath it, clean laundry, a candle burned down sometime this week — and a blur of black-and-caramel bolts across the living room and vanishes down the hall before he can so much as get a look at her.
"That was Twix," you say, her paws still pattering away. "She'll start her background check and circle back."
"Sensible."
And then the two of you are standing in your living room with the whole car’s worth of honesty sitting in the middle of the floor, and you look at him, and look at the kitchen, and say:
"Do you want a drink? I have wine. Or, um. Tea? I might have a beer from—"
"I'm alright," his mouth pulls at one side.
"Water? I'm gonna have water."
"Then I'll have water," he says like he’s surrendering.
He watches you go — and he could laugh, not at you, but because he knows exactly what he’s looking at. The two of you agreed in plain English on why he’s standing here, and now you’re in your kitchen filling glasses neither of you want, and wiping down a counter that, from where he’s stood, was already clean.
So he gives you room. Settles against the arm of the couch, takes a slow lap of your shelf with his eyes — you and a woman he guesses is the October bride, you on a hike somewhere sunny, you and Twix bravely on the balcony — and he wants you the whole time, low and patient, in his back teeth, but doesn’t move on it.
Your pace. Your move.
You come back with the waters, and hand him his, and hold your own in both hands like you might drop it. He takes a sip, looks at you over the rim of it.
“You’re nervous,” he says.
“Not at all.”
“Mm.” He nods slowly, deeply unconvinced and taking a page from your own book. “Don’t know if I buy that.”
He watches it land, watches the laugh come up out of you before you can stop it, head tipping back, throat bare, and half your nerves seem to leave with it.
He likes that.
He sets his glass down. Then, gently, he takes yours out of your mid-fidget hands and sets it down too — he tips your chin up with one knuckle, and kisses you.
Easy-like, cold from the water, cranberry still faint on your tongue, your breath catches once against his mouth and then lets go. Your hands slide flat up his chest and stop over his heart — which is going quicker than he’d care to admit, and he feels the exact moment you find it out, the little hum of discovery you make.
When you pull back to look at him, whatever nerves were left in you are gone from your eyes, and they’re twinkly a lot like the first photo he ever saw of you.
You take his hand off your waist, lace it through yours, and guide him backward toward the short hall.
In your bedroom he finds the tie of your halter at the back of your neck and pauses with the ends between his fingers, silk warm from your body. One pull and it gives, the fabric sighing loose, and he follows it slide down with his eyes first, then his mouth — the slope of your throat, over your shoulder, then the soft skin below your ear that tastes of strawberry perfume and salt. His beard drags over your neck and a shiver flows through you so he does it again, slower. You shiver harder, fingers curling into the front of his polo.
Good.
You tug the hem of his shirt up and he reaches back, pulls it off over his head one-handed, and drops it somewhere he’ll look for later. He unhooks your bra just as easily, and when your palms spread into the coarse hair over his bare chest and down his toned stomach, the muscle jumps under your fingertips, he hears his own breath go rough.
“Okay,” you say, a little wonder in it. “Wow, yeah, that’s….”
“Mm?”
“Nothing. Just— I knew military, just didn’t realize… this much military.”
“Lodging a complaint?” he askes, amused.
“Definitely not.”
The rest goes gradually — his belt, your jeans peeled down warm thighs with his calloused palms flat against your skin the whole way, a hop and a giggle when the denim catches your ankle and he steadies you by the elbow — and then you’re bare in front of him, lamplight pooling gold along your shoulder, your hip, the soft curve of your stomach. He stops with his hands at your waist and looks.
“Say something,” you murmur, half a laugh, shy at last under the attention. “You’re oggling.”
“I am.” His thumbs press slow arcs into your hips. “Give me a minute. Been picturin’ this since Tuesday and I did you no justice.”
You pull him down onto the bed by way of an answer, and the mattress sinks with a soft complaint, and then it’s just skin — so much warm skin, soft everywhere he’s hard, giving under his hands, smelling of perfume and the clean sweat July dampens into everyone.
He stretches out alongside you, one heavy thigh over yours, and takes his time. The curve of your waist. The full weight of your breast, thumb dragging over your nipple until it peaks and your breath stutters. The inside of your thigh, where the skin is finest and the heat pools. You move under his touch the whole time, restless and rising, fingers in his hair, at his shoulders, and the small sounds you make land somewhere at the base of his neck and prickle there.
Then he shifts down the bed, kisses the soft of your stomach, the plush crease of your hip, and looks up the length of you.
“Can I?”
“You— yes,” you breathe, trembling feebly. “Yes, obviously, you don’t have to a—”
His mouth is on you before the sentence ends.
You’re sweet and slick against his tongue, already so wet the first slow lick slides easy, and the sound you make is high and caught somewhere low, thigh twitching against his ear, one hand flying to his hair. He hums — feels you feel it — and settles in. No rush. Long soft strokes of his tongue until your hips learn the rhythm and rise to meet it, then his lips close warm around your clit, sucking gently, and your whole body pulls tight.
“Oh my god— okay— okay—”
“Mm.”
“Don’t be smug—” and your voice climbs off the end of the sentence as he slides two thick fingers into you, curling them, tongue still working, and whatever the rest of that scolding was, he never learns it.
“Could do this all night, sweetheart,” he murmurs against you, and feels the words land in a shudder. Your breathing changes. Your thighs start trembling, your hand fists in the sheets — and he keeps the pace exactly the same until you’re pulling at him. Hair, arm, anything you can reach.
“John— John— come— I want you. Now,” you whine, “Please.”
He comes up the length of you slow, mouth mapping stomach and sternum and throat on the way, and settles over you on one forearm—
"I should've said this in the car," he starts, eyes on yours. "I don't have a condom. Wasn't assuming tonight would end up here."
"I don't have any either. I actually checked the drawer before I left tonight." You push his dampening hair back off his forehead. "I'm on the pill, and I trust you. But I'd still feel better if you pull out. Is that okay?"
He nods assuredly. "Then I'll pull out," he says flat and plain. "You have my word."
"You and your word—" but you're smiling, and then you're not smiling, because he's already moved and taken himself in hand and dragged the head of his cock through your folds, coating himself in you, and notched against your entrance, and the smile falls open into something much, much better.
He pushes in slow, watches your face the entire way — he couldn't look elsewhere if a grenade went off — your brows drawing up, your lips parting around a breath that doesn't finish, your nails biting little crescents into his forearms — and fuck, the feel of you: scalding, soaked, tight enough that he has to stop twice, jaw clenched, sweat sliding at his temple, feeding you his cock an inch at a time and pulling back, then giving you more; the slick easy give of you around him unspooling something in his stomach.
"Talk to me," he murmurs, gravel-low. "Alright?"
"Yes." Your voice has gone breathless and small and blissed. "You're— god—"
"Christ, you’re snug," he exhales shakily, eyes finding yours. “Relax for me, baby. Breathe.”
"I am breath—oh. Oh—shhit—"
John’s seated all the way, hips flush to your backside, and both of you go quiet — a shared beat of stillness, you fluttering around him hot and full, his body coming down, forehead dropping to yours, ten months of silence pulling a sound up out of his chest that he couldn't have stopped if he knew it was coming.
Then you shift your hips, experimental, a slow grind up against him, and that stillness is over.
He moves slowly; long level strokes dragging all the way out so you both feel every hot stretch of the return, your breasts pressing soft against his hairy chest. Your heels slide up the back of his thighs and he budges his hips closer, holding deep and pressing the head of his cock into your furthest wall. Your hands squeeze the meat between his shoulders and his neck as he pushes a small squeal out of you.
"Right there—right there—right there, don't—"
"I won’t," he murmurs against your jaw. “I won’t move.”
"—okay maybe move a little—"
He breathes something restrained through a smile. "Make your mind up, darling," he grunts.
“It’s hard to— mmm—think like this,” you half-moan against his cheek.
“Don’t think, then.”
It’s all your talking that undoes him more than anything, he realizes distantly. He’d forgotten there was a version of this with laughing in it; a version with a woman eagerly gripping him and grinning against his cheek in the second before a moan carries her voice away — and every time you say his name, breathed and broken, something in his chest cinches another notch tighter.
He draws back and drives home again, and whatever you’d been about to answer with comes out as a punched huff.
You don’t think.
He feels the difference in you immediately — your body dropping the manners, hips rising to meet him harder than he’s giving it, heels dragging him in by the thighs on every stroke, a low frustrated sound building in your throat when he keeps the same controlled pace. You’re not asking for anything. You’re taking it in inches, greedy and unaware of yourself, nails dragging down the small of his back, pulling—
“Harder?” he asks against your ear.
"Yes, please."
He hooks your knee up over his hip and opens you wider—“So polite.”—and gives it to you deeper, his weight behind it, your headboard cracking against the wall. You go loud and lovely underneath him, clutching, slick heat and plush skin and your nails scoring lines down his back that he hopes, viciously, will last long enough to admire.
He works a hand between your bodies, thumb finding your clit, riding the motion you’ve bkth created.
"That's— John— You’re gonna make me come," you sob.
"I know. I feel you. Squeezin' me like— Christ. Go on—fuck."
He watches it arrive before you do, a shiver running ahead of the wave; your spine arches up off the bed, your cunt clenches around him in long pulsing, aching, waves — it takes you under, and you pull him with you.
He holds you, murmuring filth and praise in equal measure against your ear—
How good—
How gorgeous—
You’re mine now, you know that? Hm?—
It’s watching you eagerly nod along with his babbling that finishes him. He lasts maybe ten more strokes on borrowed time, heat gathering alacritous and irrevocable at the base of his groin — and he rears back onto his knees, pulling out of you with a growl that tumbles from his throat, fist working his cock over, soaked with you, spilling hot across your stomach and hip in thick ropes, head hanging, shoulders heaving, your thighs still bracketing his knees.
When he lifts his head, you’re already looking at him.
Glowing down to your chest, lips parted and kiss-swollen, wearing him low on your stomach — and neither of you says anything. Neither of you looks away either. His chest is still heaving. Your knee presses in against his side, and the corner of your mouth starts to curl, and his does too, helpless about it.
He comes down on his side, careful of the mess he’s made of you, one arm heavy across the pillow above your head. The curtain breathes at the window beside the bed and the night comes in and cools the sweat on his back, and he can see your heartbeat going hard at your throat, the rise and fall of your stomach not yet settled. He gently fits his thumb against your pulse, just to feel it going.
He kisses you, your mouth lazy under his, and then your temple, and the crown of your head, and you make a low, boneless sound and turn your face into his hot neck, and the two of you just lie there breathing each other in, tangled and settling, your finger drawing slow shapes on his forearm.
"John?" Small, against his throat.
"Mm?"
"Would you mind grabbing me a cloth? Bathroom's just across the hall."
He's up before the sentence finishes, annoyed at his own carcass the whole three steps to the door, ten months out of practice and it shows, he used to know this part, the part where he takes care of you before you have to ask.
You bathroom is small and smells of your shampoo, fruity, herbal. He runs a flannel under the warm tap, wrings it out, catches his own eyes in the mirror over the sink — wrecked hair, beard ruined and shiny with your lipgloss. He turns, craning his neck spotting a blooming red scratch coming up nicely at his shoulder.
He comes back and cleans you up properly, kneeling on the edge of the bed, one hand steady at your hip while the warm cloth moves over your stomach — thorough about it, frowning slightly the way he does when he’s concentrating — and you watch him do it propped up on your elbows with an expression he can't quite read and doesn't need to. It's warm, whatever it is. And it’s aimed at him, so.
"You're staring," he says, not looking up.
"You're tidying me."
"Should've done it before you asked." He folds the cloth, sets it on the nightstand, and stretches out beside you again, this time gathering you into his chest. "Out of practice."
"I'll allow it," you say, magnanimous, settling your cheek against his pec. "The rest was very in-practice."
He huffs into your hair.
Your fingers trail idle through the hair on his chest, down over old pinked scars, and you ask him about them — whether the jagged line at his shoulder hurt, what caused the puckered one under his ribs — and he answers more honestly than he means to, your weight settling heavier against him as the adrenaline drains.
There's a soft thump from the hallway, then, and a moment later a small shape appears in the doorway — sits, tail wrapping her feet, and surveys the wreckage: the trail of clothes, the stranger man in the bed, you draped over his ribs.
She stares at John.
John stares back.
"We have an audience," he says.
You look over him to see your cat, "Twix, John. John, Twix."
Twix holds his gaze a moment longer, supremely unimpressed, then steps delicately over his discarded shirt and exits the way she came and he feels you giggling before he hears it, the shake of it against his chest.
"That went well," you say, overly pleased.
“Yeah?”
“Mhm.”
"Well, consider me chuffed."
Some comfortable minutes later he feels you surface a little out of the drowse, feels your breathing change, going careful; feels your face arrange itself against his skin before you speak.
"You don't have to stay, by the way." Light. Smooth as eroded stone, polished by use, he imagines. "If you'd sleep better in your own bed. No pressure either way."
And there it is — the same maneuver from your texts, the honest thing dressed up so you can't be caught caring — except this time he can feel your heartbeat while you run it, quick against his ribs, betraying the whole performance from inside.
He keeps his hand moving on your arm, slow, so you know nothing's landed wrong.
"I'll head home," he says. "Not because I want to," he clarifies.
“No?” you ask.
"Believe me. This is about the last place I want to leave." His hand doesn't stop, slow up, slow down, steadying you through it. "I'd like at least one proper dinner between us before I go makin' a habit of your bed."
You lift your head off his chest and look at him — hair wrecked, eyes searching his face for the trick — and he lets you look as long as you need to because there's no trick to be found. He meant it.
“Alright," you agree.
“Yeah?”
“Yes. Dinner sounds nice.”
"Mm," he hums, contented. He presses a kiss into your hair and untangles himself, face scrunched with visible reluctance, and dresses while you watch from the bed with the sheet gathered loose around you.
At the door he stops.
"C'mere."
You come to him in the sheet, and he kisses you properly, one hand cupping your face, thumb at your cheek. You go languid against him. He takes his time. Long past politeness. Long enough that leaving starts to look renegotiable, and he breaks away before he starts.
"G’night," he says, low, still holding your face.
"Goodnight."
"I'll ring you about dinner tomorrow."
——
The flat is quiet. But it's a different quiet than the one you left this morning and you stand in the middle of it grinning.
Twix reappears at the edge of the counter and stares.
“I don’t need the lecture, I’m grown,” you tell her and start walking back to the bedroom, you hear her little jump to the floor and her feather steps catching up with you, “I can have sex. I deserve it, even.” You drop into your bed with a sigh. “You’d understand if you still had ovaries.”
pairing. clark kent x fem spidergirl reader
in sum. you stop producing webs and to your chagrin, superman has the tech to help you. you’re desperate enough to ask, and like all things, your mission goes a little (very) awry.
word count. 8.3k
tags/content. 18+ mdni, humping & rough fingering, the suits STAY ON, pheromones and hormones, Weird metahuman anatomy, sex in a clinical (fortress?) setting, unclarified rut dynamics, clark whimpers agenda, identity porn and silliness
— my singular contribution to kinktober is the vague idea of metahumans having weird sensitivities and okay maybe clark licks ur web shooter don't ask....
METROPOLIS — Industry magnate Lex Luthor announced Friday trials for what biomedical professionals are calling a new frontier in disease treatment. According to a follow-up press release by spokesperson Talia Head, the effort—a window into the wider, secretive “Project Cadmus”—involved the creation of a new transgenic and radiation-treated species equipped with deadly venom that, in the correct amounts, could prove to be groundbreaking.
—
THE DAWN OF DOOMSDAY DOESN’T START with a galactic conqueror or an asteroid. It doesn't even start with Lex Luthor.
It starts with Superman—dimpled, cheery, annoyingly kind Superman.
And of all travesties, it also starts with the sore spinneret that’s been bothering you for weeks.
Which is to say, when you’re swinging above the sidewalk of East Siegel Boulevard with the afternoon wind screaming into your ears, you probably shouldn’t ignore the pain in your wrist and aim at the next scaffold because you’ll probably eat shit on the pavement for the third time this month.
So here you are: frustrated, face itching from your healing factor, wrists sore with the ailment that’s befallen you. You’re tucked into a serene alcove of brick-walled apartments and bodegas, licking your wounded pride with a hot dog in hand—because Queensland Park hot dogs make everything better.
Oh, and there’s this group of guys across the street who won’t stop dogging on you for your series of accidents, which unfortunately always goes viral within the first thirty minutes of it happening.
They’re a picture-perfect fraternity. Fighting the November wind in Met U hoodies and selvedge denim, gathered around the hot dog stand on the cracked pavement of the curb. Your mask pushed up to your nose, feet dangling off a billboard plastered with Zatanna Zatara’s drop-dead gorgeous face and a bunny popping out of her top hat.
You swear that she winks at you sometimes.
“You’re that Spider-girl on Youtube, right?” shouts one of the guys. He’s got a smear of mustard on the corner of his mouth. Talks like he’s from Bakerline, which is a long way from Queensland, but the hot dogs are objectively better here, so. “Do the splat!”
“No!” Your flustered shout is pitched in mortification. Blood rushes to your cheeks, embarrassment nestling behind your ribs. You’re about ready to rip out your hair inch by painstaking square inch. “Come on, man, I’m trying to take a lunch break here.”
“What the hell’s even up with you, bro?” another one of them asks.
You work your jaw, temples tight. “It was an accident. God, am I not allowed to make mistakes when I’m stressed out?”
Which. Yeah, stressed out is the understatement of the fucking millennium.
Working at a daily paper does that to people. Turnarounds so tight you can hardly breathe before you’re meeting fresh dead ends in sources and opening a new document for an article that’ll only last a day in print. News cycles are fleeting, but the pressure isn’t.
“Man, if I were you, I’d get laid. That shit solves everything.”
Raucous laughs; the frat guy who said it gets a handful of slaps on the back. You shove the rest of your hot dog into your mouth—salt and sweet bread bursts on your tongue—and crumple the paper tray in your lycra-gloved hand.
Today’s wind is good for a day of swinging. It’s unfortunate that your earlier incident has made you wary of shooting webs anytime soon.
It smells like salt and—weirdly—Brylcreem when you come to your feet. The skyline stretches for what seems like miles, stalagmites of Art Deco and Mid-Century modernist buildings cut-and-pasted together.
Sun’s resting in the sky at one o’clock. It’s about time you head back to work and deal with the rash of red-penned edits on your article, but...
You’re a little hesitant to leave now.
Maybe it’s the way the city looks back at you, tall windows winking with sunlight and pigeons cooing from under the eaves. Maybe you want to stay on your little perch for a while, let your heart swell with how much you love the mundanity of home in Queensland with all her bumper-to-bumper streets and quintessential sunniness.
Or it could be the group of frat guys who’ve elected to stop ribbing you and enjoy their hot dogs. If I were you, I’d get laid and the whole works. They’re kind of right; between cramped articles, malfunctioning drip machines, and patrol, you haven’t found a way to make time for a little action that isn’t web-slinging some mugger to the wall.
Or…the skyline. Clear and true blue and dotted with clouds you’d only see in an edited sitcom. Cut out by buildings that spell out hope in your heart, the earnest promise of truth, justice, and a better tomorrow.
Truth, justice, and a better tomorrow.
The idea crests out of the fatigued and stressed waters of your mind, leaps to your mouth before you’re able to stop it.
“Superman.”
It’s quiet. Not in a whispering way. Not even in a way that suggests a secret.
Just—there. Slightly defeated by the nag of something building up in you, the itch of needing to do something but being powerless to act on it.
You say it like the solution has fallen into your lap by pure coincidence. Like you should trace your lip with trembling hands after speaking his name.
The air stills in a slightly odd way, making the hairs on the back of your neck prickle to attention. A shadow falls over you, blotting out the afternoon sun, and the sound of a cape snapping softly in the breeze prompts you to turn around, meeting the eyes of—
“Holy shit, it’s Superman!”
The frat guys start scrambling to cross the street, dripping mustard and ketchup onto the pavement, hollering about dude, you’re so fucking cool, can I get an autograph?
You try your best to frown at Superman, but the glare of the sun peeking out from behind the crown of his slicked-back head makes it hard. You’re pretty sure you just look like you’re squinting to save your life.
He just grins back at you, puppyish with that signature loose curl falling over his forehead. Stands cardboard-stiff on the billboard’s rusted grate, as if he’s got livewire twined around his bones.
As if he isn’t actively encroaching on your patrol territory. As if he’s Queensland’s friendly neighborhood hero, which is your title.
The thing about this is: Superman might have won the hearts of the rest of Metropolis and the world, but this little borough, this little slice of 75-cent hot dogs and bodegas with cloudy windows is yours.
He thinks it’s his too. Flies over you sometimes, red boots scuffed at the toes, cape rippling in the breeze, smelling slightly like ash and Brylcreem.
You yank the bottom half of your mask back over your mouth. "Superman.”
This one is steadier. Colder, like you’ve finally remembered to tighten up and keep your reputation consistent.
He pinkens a little. Just a faint blush blooming from cheek to cheek, stretching across the bridge of his nose. Darts his eyes down to his feet, then back up to meet yours.
“You...” Superman makes a face, brow wrinkled and glittering blue eyes squeezing shut as he chooses his next words very, very carefully. More likely than not, he probably remembers the time you shot a web onto his mouth for saying something that was meant to dig under your skin, no matter if he really meant it.
He decides, while still finding great interest in a painted section of Zatanna’s glossy billboard hair as he mumbles, “You called for me.”
A heat burns under your mask, smolders in your ribcage. You’re blunt, but it’s a lot better than being sharp enough to prick, “Can we go somewhere more private?”
You fix him with the best stony look you can muster with dinner-plate lenses. Superman is just watching you with slightly furrowed eyebrows and a tilted head, like he isn’t sure but still half expecting you to say sike or jump at him.
“Oh,” he says. One short syllable straining under a metric ton of confusion, because you’ve never called for him before and hell, you’ve never been this nice either. “Like, I’ll meet you on the roof of…the Daily Planet, or something?”
Bad idea. You’d probably keep him waiting for hours while you sort out the trains to keep your glitching spinnerets closed, and you can’t afford to wait that long.
“No.” You shift on your feet, lycra flexing around your ankles. “Where’s your fortress?”
“Why do you ask?”
Frustration bubbles in the hollow of your throat. Hisses beneath your sternum, corroding your chest. “Just—god, I need your tech, okay?”
The admission swings in the air for longer than you’d like.
He’s stunned, for one. Eyebrows lifting and mouth corners wilting, blinking a few times to make sure that you’re stone-cold serious.
Kneads his next words very carefully in the pocket of his dimpled cheek before deciding on, “Is this about your accident?”
You can’t tell if the flare in your stomach is because you’re miffed or mortified. Superman isn’t supposed to do social media, unless he’s going on the Daily Planet’s account to debunk something with a selfie of himself as proof of identity.
But he does. And he’s seen you in your most embarrassing, dream-about-shitting-your-pants-at-school, viral moment of stretching out your arm to shoot another web and breaking your nose on the curb.
Oh god.
“Well—maybe. Maybe not,” you stammer to the same rhythm of your leaping pulse.
Superman breaks into a blinding, thousand-watt smile. Shines like you should squint or just stop looking entirely for the fear of being bestowed with something so purely good.
“I can’t believe it, Spider-girl is asking me for help,” he says, dimples winking at you chumpishly. Does this thing with his hands, shrugging a little before letting them flop back to his sides, like someone’s cracked a joke so unbelievable that he has to react to it physically.
You make a note to maybe—alright, definitely—be a little less curt with him.
“Sure,” you mutter, turning to the billboard and slapping your palm onto the glossy surface. It sticks, to your (mild) surprise. Who knows, anything could be happening with your powers. “If you want it that way.”
“Of course.” He says it with unbridled excitement. It’s definitely cliché, but he’s reminiscent of a kid set loose in a candy store.
But that’s Superman, isn’t he? The all-American son who comes out every year to root for the Meteors and gets spotted by meta-battle chasers eating a fucking hamburger on the corner of Shuster and Reeve.
(It’s kind of endearing now that you consider it. Maybe he isn’t so different from you—after all, you sneak out of work to grab hot dogs from Mr. Kreuk’s stand every Monday.)
“Then I’ll see you in…” you let the wheels in your head grind the math for you, sticking a foot onto the billboard now “…four hours.”
His face falls as you start scaling the glossy surface. “We aren’t going now?”
You grunt as you hoist yourself higher, palms and soles peeling and resticking onto the vinyl print of Zatanna’s perfectly poreless face. The breeze whistles softly in your ears, the sound of gulls from the bay singing along with the ever present backdrop of traffic noise.
“Unlike you, I’ve got a nine-to-five instead of a secret fortress. Rent’s not cheap in Queens.”
“Ha,” he laughs, though it sounds like he’s just suppressed a snort. “Yeah, I get it.”
“Do you now?”
You drag yourself upright, precarious on the beams behind the display. Looking down, you find that he’s still watching you from the grate, cape swaying gently in the wind with the barest impression of his dimple reminding you that he finds all this amusing.
“Yeah,” Superman stammers. Smiles, a little stilted, like he’s not quite sure of what to do with himself now that you’re leaving. “Midtown.”
You think it’s a hallucination at first. Maybe it’s a side effect of your broken spinneret. Maybe it’s just the weather, or a bug flying past your ear, or even someone else saying it.
You’re harsher than you intend to be. “What?”
“I said Midtown.” He shrugs like he isn’t taking it too personally because he never does, looking almost like some sheepish bastard when he repeats himself. “I live in Midtown. Rent’s a lot more reasonable, but I’d like to live here someday. Just…the atmosphere and general opposition to gentrification, I guess.”
Your breath stills, if only for a moment. It’s stupid, really.
How that presses at something in your chest you didn’t expect to be exposed. How that just makes Sense—yes, with a capital ‘S’—and fits right into the neat puzzle of Superman.
You’re the one who feels like you don’t know what to do with yourself now.
“Cool,” is what you manage after a stagnant moment, embarrassment’s shadow painting your neck. You jab your thumb over your shoulder in the general direction of the bridge to New Troy. “I gotta—”
“—oh, yeah, of course—”
“—get back to work, you know—”
“I know,” he laughs, hanging his head to hide whatever stupid grin he’s wearing on his face now. “I have a job too, so—”
You hold your palm out to stop him. “Okay, a little too much information. Don’t go spoiling the movie just yet.”
“Right.” Superman flashes that oddly charming, upside-down grin, dark hair shining under the afternoon sun and broad palm pressed to his nape. “You know how to call for me in four hours.”
“Yeah.”
“In a while, crocodile.”
And like that, the billboard rattles with the force of his takeoff, wind billowing over you like a wave on the days the shoreline gets crowded. His red cape arcs over the blocks, cheers rising as he zooms across the borough and towards New Troy.
You let out a slow stream of air and ignore the ache rolling through your chest.
He’s such a cornball.
—
“So, Miss Genius,” Cat picks through her words as you plop into a chair and roll toward her without a hitch, “I have huge gossiiiii—oh my god, did the office casual police jump you when you took lunch?”
You make a pathetic little squeak, tilting your cracked phone screen into the light and catching a glimpse of yourself.
“Girl, you look like you needed a matcha latte yesterday,” she adds.
You know you’re feeling a little frazzled, nerves bitten through by your encounter with the weirdly endearing Superman who lives in Midtown and quips cliché phrases.
But you look the part too: the collar of your sweater bunched up, cuffs folded at odd angles, mascara smudged. It’s a miracle that Cat—sharp eye extraordinaire—didn’t catch on to the glaring edge of your costume’s lycra sleeve peeking out.
You tug yourself into shape as she waves it off and dives into her next spiel.
“—and like, they’re so different but I’m kind of starting to see the vision.”
You clear your throat a little, just to make sure you don’t slip up and say something stupid like ‘I think Superman might really like Spider-girl’ or whatever is on your mind.
Cat’s got this story on some popstar and her new man. Says it’s groundbreaking because Little Miss Singer has been keeping it secret for months, but she’s got an exclusive interview with said couple, and she’s going to break a love story so sweet and sexy and whatever that the Planet’s entertainment column will go down in history, right next to GQ and People.
“Right,” you say, tilting your chin up to offset the mild discomfort now settling below your throat.
It’s not every day you rush back to work with only your wall-climbing powers and shove your clothes back on without changing out of your costume first. You really need to find the time to tailor the lycra again.
“Oh, hun, are you alright?” Cat’s neatly shaped brows furrow and she smooths her cool fingers over your shoulder. “You look a little ill. Is it stress? I think it’s stress—the news’s been heavy lately, hasn’t it?”
“Yeah, lots of stuff going on this week,” you eke out. A tingling sensation needles at the apex of your wrists—spinnerets again.
You massage them over the soft cuff of your sweater. “Think I might be getting some carpal tunnel, too. All these edits.”
“Oh…” She leans a little closer, whisper conspiratorial, “Is it Clark again?”
Oh indeed.
Sweet, helpful, hapless Clark Kent. Who arrives late to work with the same Jitters cup in hand and never fails to smile despite having the misfortune of always catching the train that’s going to be delayed by an hour.
Smells like newsprint and ink toner and something country-like when he leans in close to point out problems in your proof prints. Writes his edits in the margins of your proofs in blue pen that smudges onto your thumb sometimes.
“No,” you keep it hushed, pushing down the image of your colleague’s tragically dorky grin, “it’s just stress, like you said.”
Cat’s look is pointed. “Really.”
You itch under her gaze, an exasperated frown pulling at your mouth. She always knows. “Alright, it’s Clark again.”
“Oh, hun…”
“He just—god, he’s so” —you groan— “ridiculous. He just can’t accept that Spider-girl sucks, so he’s taking it out on me because I’m the only one brave enough to say it.”
Which, of course, is probably the best cover you have ever thought of. No one would expect some lowly reporter to be Queensland Park’s honorary granddaughter, much less one that campaigns against Spider-girl as much as Lex Luthor does against Superman.
And alright, being the number one fan of every superhero, Clark Kent is probably less than pleased to have heard your opinions. For god’s sake, his hero tier list has everyone sharing the number one spot—excluding Booster Gold.
Last week, he said that he was ‘working on that.’
So. You’re about ninety-percent sure that he doesn’t like you. As in, vaguely displeased—not hate, because he just isn’t that type of man—with your guts.
He isn’t necessarily rude. But he does regard you with an air of faint I-don't-wanna-be-here, steels his eyes onto your forehead when he speaks to you and wipes the forever lingering smile off his face.
Cat’s jaw falls ajar, eyes zoning out to glance at something behind you.
You force a strained exhale through your nose, the inside of your cheek raw from how hard you’re restraining the urge to gnaw on it. Wheeling around in your chair, you meet the wide, curious eyes of Clark Kent.
“Hi, Clark.”
He flashes a sardonic type of smile, all bite and no bark. The kind that means to leave an annoying little papercut on your fingertips. The kind that makes something in your chest squeeze tight, like you’ve unwittingly become a stress ball.
“Hi.”
Doesn’t even say your name. Barely stands to make eye contact with you, opting to take the easy path and distract himself with Cat, asking about photo-ops and quotes and pretending you don’t exist.
So, yeah. You’re definitely sore, and beyond embarrassed at the fact that you are, considering you indirectly brought this upon yourself.
“Sorry, hun, you were saying?” Cat asks once Clark has cleared his too-large body from her desk, leaving only the faintest whiff of his cologne lingering.
Smells handsome, and that’s the only word you can muster to describe it. Makes you tilt your head slightly for more until you realize just how strange that is.
You’ve never chased a scent before. Hell, you make a habit of shutting them out, letting your sight and spider-sense to help you navigate during your vigilante hours.
But this is different. Addictive different. Dangerous different. Sets slow, dancing bells off in your head, a reckoning. Like you’re bating your breath and waiting for something to come to fruition.
“It’s nothing,” you tell Cat. She just gives you a polite, HR sort of tight smile.
When you settle back into your own chair and turn away from the slouched form of Clark’s back, you realize some familiarity to his cologne.
Brylcreem.
And when he says goodbye to Jimmy, and Lois, and even Steve, you work the inside of your cheek and stop holding your breath when he passes you without a word.
For the first time in your life, you’re going to be overjoyed to see Superman.
—
An arduous piggyback ride and several skin scrapes later, you’re shivering on the examination table, hard and painfully cold under your ass.
“It’s fucking freezing,” you chatter, lips now beyond chapped in the five minutes since you pushed up the bottom half of your mask to your nose. Lycra is far from an insulating material.
The Fortress of Solitude is a huge chunk of crystal stretching toward the clear sky like a stalagmite, every shard refracting with the light of the unforgiving Arctic sun.
It’s blue in here, the shade that reminds you of good days in Metropolis. When the clouds are sparse and everyone rushes to the verdant parks in droves, a sea of heads trying to find space on the grassy lawns. Or when you step out of the Planet with a freshly published article, which means you have approximately five hours to enjoy your freedom before you start another story.
A pale blue kind of feeling. Mellow. Peaceful.
The Superman Robots, as he so endearingly named them, are flitting around you while he fiddles with the workstation’s strange buttons and toggles.
Superman flicks a switch and a light buzzes on above you, warming the tender skin of your inner wrist.
Ouch—it’s pretty inflamed by the looks of it. Puffy, so much that you can hardly see the small slit where your web-silk is supposed to eject from.
A robot prods at it and you hiss.
“Sorry,” you hear Superman mutter from the console. He twists his mouth, brows furrowed in confusion. “No, that’s not right.”
Fingers fiddle around the knobs and switches. The pink tip of his tongue peeks out from the seam of his mouth as he dials one last control, and something comes buzzing to life.
“Oh, that’s it,” he breathes, a relieved smile rising to his face.
“What’s what?”
“I synthesized it,” Superman says. “The spider that bit you.”
You frown, panic skipping behind your ribs. Carefully, like you’re some wounded animal and not a metahuman vigilante, “How’d you know about that?”
He just tilts his head owlishly, says, “Well, it’s in your genome. Says here that your DNA was introduced to radiation via bite two years ago.”
“That’s a fucking secret, Superman,” you bristle, sliding your palm over your exposed wrist.
“It’s really not.” He frowns down at the displays lighting up the console, casually scanning the lines of alien language that leave your truth naked to him. “And you can call me Kal-El. Kal, for short.”
Is he fucking serious?
He blinks at you, twice. No change in expression.
He’s being fucking serious, you realize. And that sinks something heavy in you, the knowing and the guilt.
That you aren’t a born metahuman. That you, of all people and chances, were accidentally bitten by the radioactive spider that was supposed to save the world. The same spider that contracted some previous pathogen from your blood it hadn’t been exposed to in a sterile lab and according to insider reports, wiped out the entire test-tube-grown population.
You’re harboring the secret to superhealing that could cure cancer while Luthorcorp sweeps up the last of their failed experiment. And Superman knows and somehow, he can remake the spider.
You take a steadying breath, arms crossing. It’s a sign of nervousness, but people do it for a reason, and you really need that security when it feels like he can see right through your skin and bone, like he can see the unnatural spider venom fused with your platelets.
“Aren’t you scared that I’ll find you out with a name like that?” you ask, tone level. Another robot wraps a benign hand around yours, peels it back to expose your spinnerets to the air again.
You shiver at the cold pressing into the inflamed swells.
He hums. “It’s my Kryptonian name. Like you said, I’m not spoiling the movie yet.”
Kal—your brain stutters at the thought of calling him that—turns to face you fully, cape sweeping around his ankles in some way that mesmerizes you. Smiles, soft. Leans back against the console like this is just another Tuesday.
“Great,” you mumble, knowing he can hear it. “Now I have to come up with a fake fake name.”
An amused scoff leaves him. “Kryptonian,” he corrects.
“Right.”
Neither of you say anything for a while. Just let the silence breathe a little steadier than it’s been for years. Let the console trill between beats, something strange happening in a weird prism attached to the metal as Kal synthesizes the spider.
You remember it. A web-funnel, mutated. Thin legs that hardly grazed your skin before it sank its fangs into the back of your neck.
You still have the scar, raised and thick, a reminder of the great responsibility that comes with your power.
Kal forces an exhale through his nose. Tightens his fists and presses them against the metal.
“That’s weird,” he says, voice rumbling with frustration like a storm on the horizon. Clicks his tongue, dimples flashing as he bites the inside of his cheek. “I can’t print it.”
Your thoughts screech to a halt. “Print? As in, printing an organism from, what—a scab?”
“Well—it’s not really a carbon copy.” He tucks his chin in, almost bashful. “Krypton had rules against that kind of stuff. It’s more bits and pieces than a sentient body.”
“Still,” you say, sitting up straighter, “that’s sick.”
His eyebrow twitches. Mutters, “Why, thank you,” in a way that’s so stunningly earnest that it makes your chest kick.
You don’t know why the question comes to mind. You don’t even know why you decide to act on your curiosity.
“So, do you have any weird alien stuff going on with your body? Other than the flying, obviously.”
Kal pauses. The loose curl lazing on his forehead sways slightly.
Quiet, with his eyes fixed on his bright boots, “I…have glands. That secrete…”
He winces like it’s something to be afraid of. “Pheromones.”
Your face falls flat.
“Dude, humans have those too.”
“I know,” he says, quickly. A little too quickly. Pushes off the console to pad over, hands clutched behind his cape in a sheepish manner. Bastard. “It’s different, though. They’re sensitive to touch and swell up every few months, like yours.”
Juts his chin out briefly, signaling the undersides of your swollen wrists still turned up to the bleak ceiling. You suddenly feel too exposed, and not exposed enough.
Kal continues, thumbing the underside of his jaw, where the hinge meets the soft lobe of his ear. “It’s around here.”
“So,” your start trails off for a moment. “How’d you fix it?”
You don’t expect him to tell you. You surely didn’t think he would blush scarlet. Almost scandalized, as if you were spreading hearsay on the streets of Gotham, that damn cesspool of rumors.
And it’s strange, how that sight of his ears and whole face blooming with a pretty color throws your stomach for a loop.
It’s now that a Superman Robot decides to butt into a conversation it was supposed to be a background in: “Why, it’s relieved due to his cycle.”
“Five,” he warns, low.
You swear Five shrugs in exasperation, like a teenager sick of their mom nagging them to clean their room.
“Cycle?” Your face morphs into one of curious surprise. How interesting, that metahumans have such strange anatomy. “Do tell. Do Kryptonians menstruate?”
Five creaks. “No, they—”
“I don’t,” Kal butts in, blush darkening. He averts his eyes, avoidance heavy in his already broad frame. “It’s...” Flicks his eyes to the ceiling like he’s waiting for an asteroid to strike him down. “...sort of like a rut.”
You blink once.
Twice.
“Okay.” You don’t miss the way your own voice squeaks. Like you’re trying to keep it cool. Like you aren’t actively shooting down any thoughts about what Superman in rut looks like. “So, do you secrete fluids or anything?”
He groans, burying his face into his palms. Almost whines when he laments, “Jesus, no, but I don’t ask if you shoot web fluid from anywhere else, do I?”
You burn bright. Eyebrows shooting up to a high angle. Yank your hands out of the light and fist them in your lap. “Well, it’s not like I’ve tried.”
He considers you for a moment. Works the inside of his cheek. Steals a look at the console, which blinks in error-code red.
Kal sighs, motioning for you to scoot your legs over. You comply, and he perches on the edge of the table, broad hand held out like a white flag.
“Gimme your hand.” It’s accompanied by the slightest wiggle of his fingers. “Superman Robots, you’re dismissed.”
You frown, but you’re already reaching for him. Tentatively, of course. You still need to retain some semblance of nonchalance. “Why?”
His skin is warm. Comforting in a way you didn’t expect it to be. He smooths his thumbs over the delicate skin of your wrist, careful to not press too hard.
You shiver nonetheless.
“The synthesizer doesn’t print radioactive material,” Kal explains, under-breath. Just on this side of loud enough for only the both of you as the robots march away. “But if I know one thing about swollen glands, it’s that they’re in need of release.”
A thrill of frisson races down your spine when he gently, ever-so-slightly brushes over your spinneret. There’s a difference to being touched by another, you learn, instead of yourself or a robot.
Feels like connection. Like your nerves want to shoot themselves out of the tiny little organs in your wrist and wrap around Kal’s careful fingers.
“See, when mine get inflamed, I soften the outer edges and progress inwards,” he continues, voice a lull in this too-bright, too-clean room. “That way, everything has somewhere to go.”
You hum, eyelids fluttering at the sight of his thick fingers soothing small circles on your skin. “You never told me whatever else happens during a Kryptonian rut.”
He pauses for a split second. Sits a little stiff, but keeps going even though his flush is returning. “I…can take care of myself, Spider-girl. There’s no need to wonder.”
The double entrende is so obvious that you fear Lex Luthor would outright call him dumb and not some pretentious, poetic word that would otherwise further emphasize naivete.
A soft laugh escapes you, bitten off at the end because he’s rolling over the tiny opening of your spinneret and god, stars burst in your head. Heat flickers in your cheeks, an unexpected wash of breathlessness sparking against your diaphragm.
“Funny,” you strain, trying to ignore the slow creep of something now curling in your belly. It’s quiet, and Kal tilts his body toward you just so to hear. And since when did Brylcreem and whole-milk smell like needing to shift your hips?
You mean for it to be a joke. Just something that had floated to the surface at the last second, and already, it was too late to stop yourself:
“Y’know, those fanboys were all about getting laid to destress.”
Kal pauses in his kneading of your wrist. The swelling has decreased, but your skin is still hot—less from the inflammation though, and more from the neck prickling, stomach somersaulting, would-Kal-be-good-at-kissing wrecking havoc on your body.
He studies you with a look that is just this side of hesitant. Parts his mouth a few times, not sure of what to say.
It’s now, with a maybe hanging in his shoulders, this slow breath he takes as he weighs his options, that you remember something Jimmy had shown you last week.
It was Kal, slamming into a metahuman at full-throttle. Jimmy quipped something about taking a punch and Superman unbarring the holds. Despite the gross underestimate you’re mentally trying to calculate, you think you could take it. You could keep up, if he’d let you.
He might be thinking the same, because he shifts his hold on you and guides your limp, unexpecting hand toward the underside of his jaw. Your fingertips brush against the soft, warm spot he showed you earlier, and he shivers.
It isn’t one that comes from the cold—it rips down his whole body in such a visceral way that you can’t help but hold your breath. It comes out in a shaky exhale and fluttering eyelids. The gland pulses under your touch, and you can feel how his blood is rushing faster beneath the skin, how the air ripens with a sweet, slightly earthy scent.
Like cinnamon in oatmeal on a chilly morning. Like an old, threadbare shirt that’s just small enough to be criminal, freshly dragged out of the dryer and warm on your skin. He smells unbelievably good, in a way that sets off a bloom of warmth over the knob of your neck, just beneath your bite scar.
Hypothesis: you think his pheromones are inadvertently doing something weird to your hormones.
What’s worse, you think that the seat of your panties might officially be damp.
“I read,” he starts quietly, voice laced with a rasp. You feel high-octane, an anticipating thrill running circles behind your ribs. “That spider mating season is happening right now.”
“Oh, yeah?” It comes out shakier than you want it to be. Your foundation’s crumbling, embarrassingly fast. “So you think my problem’s gotta do with not being horny enough?”
“Maybe,” he rumbles, voice almost a groan. “God, I might have that problem too.”
Your stomach coils tight, the end of your rope fraying and sparking with electricity. You want to drown in his heavy, homely scent forever. Kal presses down on your spinneret to remind you to respond, and all you can manage is a restrained, “Gonna do something about that, Kal-El?”
It’s less a snap under tension than a thunderclap of desperation. Kal is bearing down on you in seconds, forcing your back to press into the exam table’s hard surface, and his nose is buried so brutally against the crook of your neck that you’re sure something might bruise.
You gasp, heart thundering in anticipation. He’s heavy on you, two hundred something of superpowered muscle and sinew. And that wave of pheromones crests over your head, crashes down like vengeance.
“You smell so good,” he rasps. That sets you off, and you start to shift your hips up slightly, just enough to brush against the quickly growing tent in his trunks. To believe they were silly—now all you want is to peel them off with your teeth.
He glances up at you, and his eyes are blown so fucking wide that your heartbeat ratchets up at the sight. Barely a touch and you’re both already wrecked, and you’re reaching up to knot your hand in the short strands of soft hair at the back of his head. Kal makes a weak little sound.
“Sorry,” you mumble, pulling him closer to trace the top of your nose over the swollen gland just under the love of his ear. It’s like something’s taken hold of your body and helping your hormones stage a mutiny. Satiation coils low in your belly, and an uncontrollably coy smile rises to your mouth. “Can’t help myself.”
Bottom lip tempting, eyes glimmering with alien stars, he asks with a plea woven into his voice, “Can I kiss you?”
It’s strange.
One moment you’re half-ready to use your adhesion abilities to make him stick as closely as possible to your body, and the next, you’re being splashed with the reminder that he’s only ever seen your mouth and he’s asking for that.
Which is arguably the most intimate thing two people could do. The thing meant for people in love. You don’t love Superman. Hell, before today you hardly tolerated him—but that was before you found out he lives like you, and he’s secretly softer than you ever imagined, and he trusts more than he should.
And the request lances through the tenderest part of your chest. He’s asking. Not demanding. Not just crashing his lips over yours like the movies, where the dramatic irony is present that these two people really want each other and don’t need words.
Kal is…hesitant. Gentleness chemically bonded to the calcium in his bones. Consideration glueing together every thought that crosses his mind.
You hum, the thought of him treating you like a lover settling next to the desire piling in your stomach with uncharacteristic quietness.
“Wouldn’t that be improper?” you deflect. You betray yourself, though, sneaking a glance at his parted, pinkened mouth.
He cranes his neck to find a sweet spot you didn’t know you had—just beneath the swell of your throat—and you suppress the choked sound begging to escape from you.
“Is it?”
Wry, “You tell me. Kissing on the mouth is meant to be somewhat affectionate. Elicits chemical response, nerve endings, blah-blah-blah, et. al.”
He smothers an amused huff into your skin, broad, warm hands kneading slow circles over your hips. Smiles against the slope of your neck. Breathes deep, voice hoarse, “‘S there something wrong with that?”
“You hardly know me.”
“I know.” Kal pauses to crack a smile. It’s real. Genuine. Makes your heart leap to heights it hasn’t before. “But I admire you. I want to know you.”
And fuck, if that doesn’t land. He wants to know you. For the first time, the suggestion doesn’t sound half bad.
Still, you decide to blame it on pheromonal-slash-hormonal mutiny when you tug him closer by the curls to kiss him.
Kal’s sigh is full-bodied. Tension evaporates from his bones. The sound he makes is less a moan than quiet acceptance of pleasure.
Sparks fly in your brain, ricochet down to your core. Feeling his plush lips sliding over yours in such a cradling, gentle way does something to you. Placates the storm boiling in your lungs, calms the thundering of your heart.
Feels almost right, in a way.
You let your instincts take over. Let one of your hands trail down to find his, guide it to wiggle between the waist seam of your costume. Need pulls at you, sharp and incessant.
The soft, whispery sounds leaving his mouth between increasingly hungry kisses are getting a little louder, a little more desperate. Wanton. Needy.
They finally reach a peak when he dips his hand beneath your waistband, nudges aside the thin panties you wear under the lycra. When his fingertips prod at the wet spot in the gusset. When you feel something go pop, or release, or just float away from your skin, and suddenly you can smell something sweeter and familiar mingling with Kal’s scent, and he just grinds his hardness into your thigh without warning or shame.
“You have glands?” he manages, dipping down to lap at your exposed neck. You shiver when he moves to another spot, his spit drying to the frigid air of the fortress. “No wonder you smelled like heaven.”
You’re just this side of lucid, but you can tell it won’t be long before you’re lost to delirium. Already your head is cottony, hardly tethered to gravity.
Another experimental grind into your thigh sends you into near frenzy, nerves going haywire as Kal breathes sweet nothings in your ear, broad fingertips slowly stroking over your cotton-covered cunt.
Waiting. Biding his time with pupils dilated so wide that they make you feel small. Frisson shoots up your spine when he presses a little hard, toeing the boundary.
Then it happens. It shouldn’t have been so significant, but here he is, responding to your half-cracked moan with one of his own, punctuated by a rock of his clothed cock.
You burn. But the desperation is getting to you. Like spinning-vision, chest-kicked-in desperation. The kind that makes you abandon all sense and plead, softly, “Please?”
Kal hiccups into your shoulder, hips rutting faster onto your thigh as he scoops your panties to the side. He blazes his fingertips through the wetness gathered at your seam—you shiver. Works his index finger in with hardly restrained enthusiasm, and you tighten your legs at the raw stretch.
He falls into line fairly quickly. Puts his superhuman adaptability to the test, taking only a few rocks and a crook of his finger to find a spot that makes you keen into his soft curls. Fireworks whistle in your core, and you’re helpless to the grind that takes over and makes you jerk your hips to meet the moment he sinks another into your cunt, down to the hilt.
You feel like a fucking teenager with him at your neck and you buried in his hair. Him throwing his weight behind the dry, wanting thrusts he’s pushing against you and you squirming as he finger-fucks you like a means to an end.
He rolls his thumb over your clit.
To clarify: he rolls his thumb over your clit. Fuck.
Kal responds to your gasp with a whimper of his own, breaths coming short and fast. Teases you again—and then another again, and over and over until the soft sounds leaving your mouth are the only thing you can hear over his low moans—the rough pad of his fingerprint catching on your nerves like a spark lit too bright, burning up too fast.
You’re at the edge of your wits.
Then he does the unthinkable. Well, as unthinkable as having his fingers in you, which was unthinkable an hour ago.
But this is somehow worse, and simultaneously the best thing that’s ever happened to you.
Kal takes your wrist. It’s terribly unfair, the way his hands are so skillful, gently smoothing his thumb over your still-swollen spinneret while the other does the same to your equally sensitive clit.
And he brings it to his mouth, scrapes his tongue hot over the tiny slit in your skin. You think you feel a vibration of something—a choked-out moan. Maybe your name, whined quiet like a question.
You can’t tell. You’re already cresting, mumbles pitched into his sweet-smelling skin, “Kal, Kal—fuck, that’s—”
He fucks you through your orgasm, even when you’re letting out an embarrassed whine at how the euphoria takes you, how control slips from your grasp for just a second. How he moans loud and searing into the skin of your wrist as a little spurt of web fluid escapes your spinneret.
And he fucking swallows it. This goddamn freak.
Your breaths shiver as you float down from your high. Between this moment and the next, Kal has stopped rutting your thigh, and a tacky heat blooms just above your skin.
Did he...?
“Shucks,” he gasps, unlatching his mouth from your skin. The sight of your spinneret, clear of any inflammation, greets you like a guilty accomplice. A spidery string of web fluid trails from the corner of his mouth. Repeats himself, a little clearer, “Aw, shucks.”
“What?” you croak, blinking a few times to readjust your vision. The pale ceiling swims above you.
“Nothing,” he stammers, shifting his hips guiltily. Slowly works his fingers out of you, coated to the knuckle with your arousal. You long for the ache, even after the sharp pull in your gut has subsided.
“Come in your trunks like a virgin?”
“Spider-girl!” He rushes to sit up, facing himself away with his ears tinged in a mortified scarlet. “That’s improper.”
Hypocrite.
You wiggle the waist of your costume back over your hips and prop yourself up on your elbows. “So, putting your fingers in your mouth isn’t?”
Kal freezes, caught. Angles his head slightly to glance at you from his peripheral, and there those skillful digits are, resting on the plush of his slick bottom lip. And if that doesn’t send a sharp sting of need through your chest, you’d be a traitor to human nature.
“You win,” he mutters, eyes flicking up in a manner so petulant you’re almost endeared by it. “You do taste good. I should collect a sample next time.”
You’ve half the urge to preen at that. Or smile. Or duck your head down and let the flush come to your cheeks, because Superman is pretty sweet for a guy who doesn’t know how to mind his own fucking business and leave you alone in Queensland Park.
“Next week, then?” you ask, pulling down your mask. Just to tease. Prod. See if he blushes on command.
He leaps into some semblance of properness, spine straining like he’s been drawn, quartered, and trying to keep himself together. His blush is blotchy, sitting somewhere between souring from panic and unfurled flustering.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” he stammers. Some shy bastard he is. Real slick.
You’re wry when you counter with, “Well, I did. Your glands are still swollen.”
Kal considers you for a moment. Really looks at you, like he’s trying to figure out your inner workings. “So you’re suggesting we continue collaborating to offset our unfortunate biological responses.”
Well, said like that, you’ll admit that you would be floundering for your words too.
A sudden flare of meekness smokes between your lungs. “Sure.”
He tucks his tongue into his cheek, a secretive grin blooming at the corners of his mouth. That shouldn’t make something uncurl in your chest. Shouldn’t make your stomach leap like it does.
“Then next week, Spider-girl.”
—
You’re still thinking about Superman when you clock into work the day after.
How he smiled like you were the only person in the world. How he clutched you so gently when he flew you back to that billboard in Queensland, did a flip in the air when you asked.
Or how he stopped halfway into the trick, hovering upside-down in the air, cape fluttering right-side-up in the rippling wind. Grinned at you all coyly. Kissed the junction of your neck, right over the same spot he had moaned into an hour earlier.
Said goodnight, Spidey with a silly little wave and dimples winking at you, as if he was oblivious to the heat starting to simmer in your core again. Maybe he was. You like to think that he wasn’t.
“Woah,” Cat says, the click of her Louboutins grinding to a full halt. The ice in her matcha latte—oat milk, jasmine syrup, 60% sweetness, and it's already beading with condensation—shifts by a hair before falling still. “Well, Miss Genius, I’d say you have a glow about you.”
You flash a nervous grin, trying not to reveal too much. God knows how bad the gossip bug infects Cat Grant when she notices someone is just a sliver off from yesterday. “Is that so?”
“Yes,” she ponders. Nods slowly, hair bobbing along with her. Purses her lips in that hint-hint, nudge-nudge way she does, trying to be inconspicuous about her interrogating. “Did you and Clark manage to sort things out somehow?”
A flash of cold sears down your spine. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, hun, he’s positively bioluminescent.” Cat tilts her head like a—well, a cat, as she is so aptly named. You’ve half the mind to quip something about curiosity killing, but you follow the angle of her head and oh.
Clark is positively bioluminescent. As in, the sun is filtering in from one of the high windows, and he’s bobbing his head to a song only he knows like a metronome, and are his feet fucking swinging under the desk?
What the fuck’s got him so cheery?
“So how was it?”
Cat’s wearing her Cheshire grin like a vintage fur coat found in new condition, eyes wide and imploring behind her huge glasses. You stuff down the panic gripping your heart and turn back to your article, fraught with annotations from the layout editor—because of course your shit doesn’t fit in the page without needing to fuck with the VA.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you breathe, propping your elbow against your desk so you can tuck your mouth behind your hand. “I’m a little too busy to be sorting anything out, especially with Clark Kent.”
“I’m talking about sex. And I’m gonna find out who the hell it was that’s got you badly hiding a lovesick grin—yes, I can see it—behind your hand.”
“Jesus, Cat, can’t I come to work with a little pep in my step?”
“No, you can’t.” She throws her head back with a mini cackle, heels resuming their usual chic click against the bullpen floors as she struts back to her desk. “I’m onto you, genius!”
“Good to know!” you call after her, heart still racing. Fucking hell.
Someone lets out a soft snort from across the room. You zoom in with your hearing, the hairs at the back of your neck prickling—it's Clark. A barebones grin rests on his lips as he shakes his head in slight amusement.
Whatever. It’s not your business, especially with a guy who seems to dislike you so much for a simple opinion.
It doesn’t matter that Cat thinks he’s wearing the same post-sex glow you’re wearing. Really. It doesn’t.
And it doesn’t matter that you can smell the faintest thread of Brylcreem either. Or that his hair is strangely familiar now that you’ve seen Kal’s curls in wrecked disarray. Or that the bow of his lip weirdly, uncannily known to you.
You grumble and wretch your screen to obscure your view of him.
Right. You have work to do, articles to finish, layout editors to argue with. And you have another date with Superman in one week.
So whatever Clark is up doesn’t matter.
Seriously.
note: hiii just a disclaimer that i do not have a part 2 in the books.... "but june what if u do have a part 2 eventually!!" i mean this as kindly as possible but eventually = an eternity, so please do not ask me about any continuations because you will Know if i am writing a continuation :))
“It's not fair.” The little ghost kicks impotently at the chalk lines around her feet. “I ain't done nothing.”
I nod, setting down my chalk and spellbook. “It does sound like there might have been a bit of a misunderstanding.”
“She took against me, that's what happened,” the dead girl says with a scowl. She looks about fourteen, round faced and spotty, with whisps of brown hair peaking out from under her mob-cap. Her face and her crossed arms have a tell-tale bluish tinge to them. A cholera death.
“I been here for don't know how long and never gave any trouble. Nobody ever complained about me 'till her.”
…well, that's not strictly true.
Number 12, Barclay Street has been attracting rumours of haunting since the mid nineteenth century.
Sounds of faint singing and crying in the corridors at night. Cold spots. Doors that open and close by themselves. Animals acting strangely. Harmless, mid to low-level stuff, typical for a bored teenage poltergeist.
Still, pointing that out isn't likely to achieve much, and certainly the most recent complaints of blood running down the walls, screams in the dark and paralysing night terrors seem distinctly out of character.
The ghost toes the chalk again, more tentatively this time. It stays resolutely unbroken.
She could get out if she wanted to. I'm not one of those assholes who brings out their full arsenal of wards and sigils for a first meeting with a level 2 spectre. The summoning circle will keep her in one place for as long as I need her to talk, but it wouldn't hold for a moment if she really fought against it.
I take it as a good sign that she's still here. Pouting or not, she's clearly willing to work with me.
“None of the others could do this,” she says. “None of 'em even saw me.” She looks up. “Are you here to exise me?”
“Exorcise,” I say instinctively, and curse myself when she flinches. “Sorry, no, no! I don't exorcise people from their homes without good reason, not if they're happy where they are.”
“I was happy. Till she started calling in all them ghost hunters.”
Mrs Delaney had been quite persistent in her attempts to 'fix' her haunted house. Most of the people she found were charlatans, of course, but I'd still arranged an appointment as fast as I could once word reached me. It wouldn't have been long before she happened upon somebody with Talent, and unfortunately not everybody in this field knows how to behave like a professional.
“I think we might be able to help each other,” I say, careful to keep my voice calm and level.
“Don't see how. Not unless you can exorcise Her.”
“Not quite what I had in mind.” I pull out my phone and scroll through my photos. “You say that you're not the cause of the most recent incidents of paranormal activity?”
A pause. The ghost gnaws on her lip. I wait, patiently, keeping my body language open and nonthreatening. “I… I knocked her coffee cup over,” she admits at last. “She was being mean and talking on her telephone, saying I done all these things when I never did! So I decided to show her what I could do if I wanted.”
“Hmm.” The ghost eyes me nervously, as if expecting me to pull out a book, bell and candle and banish her on the spot.
“I only tipped it,” she adds. “I didn't break it or nothing!”
“You shouldn't have touched it at all,” I say sternly. “But… I can appreciate that you were frustrated, so let's say no more about it.”
The ghost looks relieved.
“My point is,” I continue, “if you weren't the one making blood rain from the ceiling or tormenting people in their sleep, then what was? There's no other ghosts on the property.” I find the picture I was looking for. “You can get anywhere around the house, right? Including behind the furniture and in the backs of cupboards?”
“Yes'm.”
I hold the phone up so that she can see the picture on the screen. “I'm going to let you go free in a moment, and I need you to see if you can find anything that looks like this.”
The ghost wrinkles her forehead. “What's that when it's at home?”
“Black mould,” I say, reaching out a foot to break the binding circle. “And I'm pretty sure it's the cause of this haunting.”
summary: when your ex-boyfriend makes a surprise visit to ptmc, your boyfriend and the rest of your co-workers realise you might have a type…
pairing: jack abbot x fem!reader & ex bf!mark sloan x fem!reader
warnings/tags: established relationship, implied age gap between abbot & reader and mark & reader, flirting, fluff, swearing, mark don’t give a fuck that the reader is in a relationship, but reader is respectful of boundaries, defs a bit of jealous and insecure Jack if you squint
notes: hot hot hot hot hot give them both to me now thanks!! also massive shoutout to the anon that requested this 🙂↕️
likes, reblogs, comments are very much appreciated!
Enjoy my work? Tip me! 🤍
masterlist
“Ew.”
The word left you before you could stop it as you sunk your teeth into a granola bar.
You grimaced as you turned over the wrapper, examining it like it might explain why you felt like you were currently eating a stick of glue.
“Are these expired?” You asked through the mouthful.
McKay barely glanced up from where she had half her body buried in the fridge, rummaging past several abandoned containers and a suspiciously wet paper bag.
“Nope, they’re just a by product of the drywall factory down the road.” She answered.
You stared at the bar for another second, trying to muster up enough willpower to finish it given you hadn’t eaten lunch.
After abandoning that mission in under 10 seconds, you leant over the bin and spat out the mouthful with as much decorum as you could before unceremoniously dumping the rest of the bar after it.
“Those things aren’t that bad.” Whitaker mused as he wandered into the breakroom with Santos hot on his heels.
“That’s because you were raised on hay.” Santos remarked dryly.
“They’re raspberry flavoured.”
“That’s not helping you Huckleberry.”
You huffed a laugh as the two of them started bickering just as your phone buzzed in your pocket. You leant against the wall, only half listening as you pulled it out of your scrubs and saw a notification from Jack.
He must have just woken up from his pre-shift nap. The corner of your mouth lifted as you read his reply.
You: Are you coming in early today?
JA ❤️: Always.
You quickly typed out another message.
You: any chance u could bring in a protein bar for me? the ones at work are inedible
The reply came almost instantly.
JA ❤️: I know. I’ve told Robby they are a serious health hazard.
You smiled at that as you watched the three dots blink back at you.
JA ❤️: I’ll be in soon. I already have some in my bag for you.
You: are you psychic?
JA ❤️: Just good at pattern recognition.
Your smile widened as his reply came through.
You: thank u 🩷
JA ❤️: 👍
“What are you smiling at?”
You looked up to find McKay watching you over the fridge door.
“What?”
“That.” She pointed vaguely at your face. “Whatever that was.”
“Nothing.”
Santos and Whitaker paused their arguing to focus on you.
Santos studied you, her face contorting into a grimace. “Gross.”
“What?”
“I just can’t get over the fact that Abott reduces you to…” She trailed off, waving vaguely at you.
“That?” Whitaker supplied.
“Yeah.” Santos nodded gravely. “That.”
You rolled your eyes, sliding your phone back into your scrub pocket.
“I think the two of you are starting to fuse into one brain cell.”
Santos’ expression went still. “….that was genuinely hurtful.”
You turned to Whitaker. “There’s your new button to press.”
Whitaker’s grin widened as he crossed his arms over his chest and turned to Santos. “Oh I cannot wait to bring this up multiple times a day.”
Santos glared at you. "You're a traitor."
You pushed off the wall, shaking your head as you made your way towards the door.
“Never give your triggers away Santos.”
“You’re still a traitor!” She called out.
You waved her off without looking back, escaping before she could start another argument.
You barely made it two steps before nearly colliding with Samira.
“Oh sorry.” She came to an abrupt halt, the usual frazzled expression etched onto her features as she looked up at you.
“You all good?”
“Yeah um- have you seen Joy?”
“Not for a little while.”
“No worries, if you see her can you tell her I need her in Room 3?”
“Sure.” You nodded, tilting your head slightly as you studied her. “Are you sure you’re ok?”
“Yeah fine.” She brushed you off as she tucked a loose curl behind her ear. “Haven’t had lunch so I’m a bit cranky.”
You nodded in understanding. “Word of warning, don’t eat the protein bars.”
Samira’s nose wrinkled as she stepped around you. “Why on earth would I do that?”
You threw your arms up dramatically. “Am I the only one who didn’t know they were inedible?”
“Apparently so.”
You huffed, pulling your hair out from under your collar as you made your way over to the status board which was currently glowing above the chaos that was the ED like a cruel little scoreboard.
Your hands settled on your stethoscope as you scanned the board. Less than an hour till your shift was over, at least officially. Which given your track record of overtime, meant close to nothing.
“Hey.”
You glanced over to see Perlah leaning against one of the desks.
“What?” You asked warily.
Her smirk widened. “Have you seen the hot visitor?”
“The what?”
Princess appeared beside her, equally delighted.
“Absolute smoke show.”
Princess nodded towards the far end of the station. “Follow the sounds of Joy giggling.”
Your brows knitted together.
“Joy? As in our intern, Joy? As in the complete antithesis of her name, Joy?” You queried.
“See for yourself.” Perlah grinned.
You followed their line of sight to the other end of the nurses station where a tall figure stood, leaning an arm on one of the benches.
At first, all you saw was the back of a leather jacket, familiar in a way that made your stomach drop before your brain had fully caught up. The man shifted slightly, turning just enough for a familiar profile to come into view. The same hair coifed to perfection, the same self-satisfied slant of his mouth.
And sure enough standing beside him, blushing furiously as she giggled, actually giggled, at whatever he had just said, was Joy.
“I didn’t even know she was capable of laughter.” Princess remarked.
You closed your eyes for one brief, pained second. “You have got to be kidding me.” You grumbled.
Before either Princess or Perlah could ask what was wrong, you were already moving, making a beeline towards them.
Princess and Perlah exchanged a look behind your back. “What just happened?” Princess asked in Tagalog.
“I don’t know." Perlah muttered. "But I think it’s going to be good.”
By the time you were close enough to hear the familiar deep drawl of his voice, Mark Sloan had inched in just enough to make Joy look like she might pass out.
“So, is that the only piercing you have or...?”
You rolled your eyes.
“Still shamelessly hitting on interns I see.”
Mark turned at the sound of your voice. For half a second, there was nothing but surprise. And then his eyes lit up in recognition.
“Well I’ll be.”
That familiar grin spread slowly across his face as his eyes travelled down your body with the same shameless appreciation he’d had years ago, like he was undressing you from memory.
“Cupid.” He said the nickname lowly, like he’d never stopped saying it. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.”
You shot him a fake smile. “Wish I could say the same.”
Joy looked between the two of you, blinking rapidly, as if she was trying to decipher a complex math problem. You turned your attention to her, offering her a polite smile.
“Dr Mohan's looking for you, something to do with your patient in room 3.”
“Oh right.” Joy nodded, adjusting her glasses as she glanced at Mark. “On it.”
“Bye Joy.” Mark called out lazily, watching her blush as she scurried away, nearly walking into a wall in the process.
He turned to you, looking pleased with himself as he leant forward. “Why do you always have to ruin my fun?” He pouted once she was out of earshot.
"Someone has to."
Meanwhile, McKay, Whitaker and Santos had exited the breakroom, not even bothering to conceal their ogling as they clustered around a monitor.
“Ok who on earth is that?” Santos queried.
"And why does he look like he just walked off a photoshoot?" McKay muttered.
“And how do they know eachother?” Whitaker added.
“He called her Cupid.” Joy casually commented as she walked past them.
Whitaker’s brow furrowed. "....Cupid?"
Santos froze. The faint amusement dropped away, replaced by the sharp, dawning horror of someone remembering a detail they were never supposed to need.
“Oh my god.”
“What?” McKay and Whitaker asked simultaneously.
"Do you guys remember that time at karaoke?"
"....the one where she sang No Scrubs at Abbot?"
"No. The one when she accidentally admitted she had an ex at Seattle Grace that used to call her Cupid."
McKay and Whitaker both slowly turned to stare at Mark, then at you, then back at Mark.
Back at the nurses’ station, you folded your arms, ignoring Mark's attempts at getting under your skin.
“What are you doing here?”
“Oh some conference.” He waived his hand dismissively. “Thought I’d take the opportunity to come see Robinavitch.”
You blinked. “You know Dr Robby.” You said slowly.
“Since med school.” He answered smoothly. “Why? Hoping I was here to see you?”
You snorted. “Please.”
“Oh c’mon Cupid don’t act like you don’t miss me.” He smirked as he stepped closer. “You wouldn’t have moved across the other side of the country to forget about me if you didn’t.”
You leant in slightly, shooting him a dry smile. “I wouldn’t touch you again even if my life depended on it Sloan.”
He let out a genuine chuckle. “I’ve missed this.” He gestured between the two of you. “Us."
He placed his chin in the palm of his hand, leaning even closer. "Why did it ever end?”
You pretended to think for a moment. "Maybe because you’re physiologically incapable of staying monogamous?”
“Oh yeah right that.” He nodded. “Speaking of monogamous..."
"No."
"... I’ve heard you’ve got a new boy toy right here at PTMC.”
Your eyes narrowed. “Jesus Christ Meredith needs to learn to keep her mouth shut.”
“Well in her defence she told Derek who then told me so….” Mark trailed off, turning his body around to survey the room. “Which one is he?”
"I'm not playing this game." You answered, folding your arms over your chest.
“Wait let me guess.”
Before you could stop him, Mark placed both hands on your shoulders and gently turned you so you were both facing the floor of the pitt.
His eyes landed on Frank first. “Too pretty boy.”
He guided your shoulders slightly towards Whitaker. “Too scrawny.”
From across the room, Whitaker stiffened. “…Why is he looking at me?”
Santos didn’t look away. “Don’t wave.” She murmured.
“I wasn’t going to.”
“You were thinking about it.”
Then the ambulance bay doors opened. Jack walked in with a thermos in one hand, his bicep bulging as he shifted the backpack slung over his other shoulder on full display under his dark fitted shirt.
Your stomach dropped as his eyes scanned the room, no doubt looking for you. It didn't take long for his eyes to find yours. You watched as they shifted to Mark, then dropped to Mark's hands resting on your shoulders.
For a moment, his expression barely changed, only the faintest tightening around his jaw gave him away. Then he kept walking.
Mark smiled slowly. “….bingo.”
Your body stiffened as Mark glanced sideways at you.
“I’m right."
You didn't answer.
"I am."
“I’m not talking about my love life with you of all people.”
“Cupid, don’t be like that.” He nudged your shoulder. "Come on, what’s he like?”
“Well for starters, he volunteers as a medic for the SWAT team.” You said sweetly. “So he’s got at least one gun on him at all times.”
Mark nodded slowly, dropping his hands from your shoulders. "Noted."
"He also has excellent aim."
"Message received." Mark held his hands up. "I'll behave."
And then, for the first time since he had appeared, the teasing faded.
"But seriously..." His face softened slightly as his eyes settled on your face properly, no longer performing for the room.
“You’re happy?”
You exhaled slowly, your defences lowering slightly by the unexpected tone of his voice.
“I am.”
“He good to you?"
You smiled softly despite yourself. “He is.”
Something flickered across Mark’s face then, softening the usual sharp lines of his smirk, scarily close to being something sincere. “Good.”
For a moment, the years between you settled there. It didn’t feel painful or bitter or even sad. In fact, it seemed absurd to think that you'd cried over him once upon a time. Now he was just a story you told after one too many drinks, something you reflected on and shook your head, chalking it up to the foolishness of youth.
You cleared your throat, looking away first. “How’s work?”
“Busy, chaotic, dramatic.” Mark shrugged.
"So the usual then?"
“The usual.”
He glanced around the emergency department, frowing slightly as he took in the noise, the movement, the organised disaster of it all. “How’s the ED?”
“Busy, chaotic.” You echoed. “Somehow still much less dramatic than Seattle Grace."
Mark barked out a laugh. “Yeah that checks out.”
“Sloan.”
The two of you turned to see Robby making his way towards you, Jack beside him.
Mark's grin returned instantly.
“Robinavitch.” He broke away from you and pulled Robby into a hug with the force of someone who had never respected personal space in his life.
"A lot less hair since I last saw you."
Robby snorted, clapping him on the back. "The Pitt will do that to you.”
Jack caught your eye over Robby’s shoulder, his expression running a fine line between faint amusement and annoyance.
Robby stepped back, shaking his head before gesturing to Jack.
“This is Jack Abbot, night attending.”
“Nice to meet you. Mark Sloan.” Mark stuck his hand out. “Head of Plastic Surgery at Seattle Grace.”
“Plastic surgery?” Jack's brow lifted slightly as he shook Mark’s hand. “Explains the soft hands.”
Mark laughed loudly enough that several people looked over.
“Oh my god.” Whitaker mumbled as he watched Jack and Mark shake hands. “It’s like I’m seeing double.”
Santos shook her head. “She’s got some serious issues.”
McKay folded her arms over her chest as she studied the two men. “Or just good taste.”
“I second the good taste thing.” Princess murmured as she appeared beside McKay.
Perlah took a sip of her drink and nodded. “I third that.”
The handshake lasted just a fraction longer than necessary as Mark glanced over at you. “I get it."
Robby’s eyes narrowed as he gestured between you and Mark.
“You two know eachother?”
“I was an intern at Seattle Grace." You supplied quickly.
“Oh yes, Cupid and I go wayyy back.” Mark smirked.
Robby's confusion only deepened. “Cupid…?”
You shot Mark a warning glare, which he very intentionally ignored.
“Yeah Cupid.” He answered smoothly. “'cause you know she’s got these little angel wings tattooed right above her-“
“Okayyy you know what.” Robby clapped his hands letting out a bark of awkward laughter. “I think a hospital tour sounds like a great idea right about now."
Mark's eyes gleamed as he shoved his hands into his pockets. "I was going to say shoulder blade."
“You are going to walk with me." Robby said, already steering him away, “And tell me absolutely none of the rest of that story.”
Mark let himself be guided down the hall, still grinning smugly as he glanced back over his shoulder at you and winked, making you roll your eyes once more.
You dragged your eyes away from him to look at Jack who was yet to move. He watched Mark disappear down the corridor, then looked back at you.
He slowly stepped forward, eyes scanning your figure as he placed his hands casually behind his back.
"Ex?"
You sighed. "...Ex."
Jack nodded curtly. “Got it.”
“Abbot.” You looked over to see Dana studying both of you. “Dr King needs an attending in Room 8.”
Jack's eyes never left you. You watched him intently, waiting to see if he would say anything further. Instead he simply reached into his pocket and produced a protein bar.
You swallowed as he slid it into the front pocket of your scrub top, his fingers lightly against your side subtly.
“Eat.” Was all he said, unable to hide the affection in his voice.
Your throat tightened around a smile as you nodded. He held your gaze for one more second, then turned and headed in the direction of Room 8.
You watched him go, your hand subconsciously brushing over the side that he’d just touched.
When you looked back, Dana was still standing there, one hand on her hip as she watched you over her glasses with an expression far too knowing for your liking.
“Don’t you dare say a word.”
She raised her hands up in mock surrender. “Wasn’t gonna.”
You huffed as you turned, suddenly desperate to busy yourself in order to keep your mind off the cluster fuck that was your two worlds colliding.
For the next twenty minutes, you threw yourself back into work. Every few minutes though, your gaze betrayed you, either drifting towards the corridor where Robby had taken Mark or towards Room 8, where Jack had disappeared. The protein bar sat heavily in your pocket, your appetite now completely non-existent.
By the time you ended up at a computer to finish off your charting, your shift was close enough to ending that you had started to believe you might actually survive it.
“Oh damn, the patient in room 7 died.”
You glanced up to see Whitaker staring at a chart from the workstation beside you.
“The old lady with the chest pain?”
“Yeah.” Whitaker sighed.
You frowned. "That sucks."
“She had a husband right?” Santos chimed in from across from you, not bothering to look up from her own computer.
“Yeah she did, married nearly fifty years."
Without missing a beat, Santos glanced up at you. “Abbot better watch out.”
Your eyes narrowed.
"Nice. Very respectful." Whitaker shook his head, although you could see he was trying not to laugh.
"What?" Santos shrugged. "Our girl clearly has a type."
"Silver foxes?" McKay suggested as she walked past grinning like a cheshire cat.
"I hate all of you."
Whitaker looked over at you like he was genuinely offended. "What did I do?!"
Across the hallway, Jack had just emerged from Room 8. Your eyes met his. He didn’t react beyond the faintest lift of one eyebrow, but you could tell he'd heard every word.
You tipped your head slightly towards the supply closet. Jack looked at you for half a beat, then gave the smallest nod.
You waited a couple minutes before moving.
The supply closet was narrow, overstocked, and smelled faintly of antiseptic and cardboard. You shut the door behind you and leaned against a shelf, exhaling slowly for what felt like the first time in an hour.
A few minutes later, the handle turned. Jack stepped inside and closed the door quietly behind him. He leaned back against the opposite shelf, folding his arms loosely across his chest as the two of you studied eachother.
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
“So… that’s your ex.”
“That’s my ex.”
He nodded. "You left out a few details."
"Such as?"
His gaze dropped briefly, then returned to your face.
“Well first of all I wasn’t expecting Mark Sloan.”
Your brows lifted in surprise. “You know who he is?”
“I’ve heard of him.”
“Of course you have.” You paused for a moment before your voice dropped slightly, unable to hide the insecurity in your tone. "Do you think less of me because I dated someone like him?"
Jack's brows knitted together. "Absolutely not." He said immediately. "It's just that I wasn't expecting your ex to be..."
Your brow furrowed. “Be what?”
“…old.” Was what Jack settled on.
You let out a disbelieving laugh. “He’s not old, he’s like your age.”
“Exactly.” Jack nodded. “I'm practically from the stone age compared to you.”
“You’re not.” You insisted.
Jack’s mouth twitched, but the smile didn’t quite hold as he looked down at the floor.
You studied him for a moment, admiring the lines etched deep into his face that you’d had memorised for as long as you’d known him. “Does it bother you that he’s older?”
“No it doesn’t bother me it’s just...” He sighed. “I thought I was the exception.” He confessed.
Your face softened instantly as you pushed off the wall and took a step towards him.
"Jack."
"I know it’s irrational.” He said, giving a small, self-deprecating shrug. “I just thought I was the first older doctor you’d made questionable life choices over.”
You huffed a small laugh as you closed the gap between the two of you, reaching up to cradle his jaw.
“Hey.” You said gently, guiding his eyes up to meet yours.
“When I met Mark I was young and overwhelmed and had just moved to a new city and he was…” You trailed off, glancing at the door like Mark might somehow materialise on cue.
“…well you’ve seen what he’s like.”
You brushed a thumb over his stubble that lined his jaw. “It barely even qualified as a relationship. And then it ended and we worked together for months. And then I moved.”
Jack leant into your touch slightly, his eyes never leaving your face as you spoke, attentive in the way that always made your heart ache a little.
“And then on my first day here I met a grumpy doctor up on the roof while I was mid meltdown.”
His brows drew together in feigned disbelief. “I don’t think he was grumpy.”
“He told me if I was thinking of jumping I shouldn’t because it’d be a shame to ruin a face like mine.”
The frown that had a hold on his face loosened just a fraction. “Why on earth would he think that line would work.”
“In his defence, I think he was a little out of practice.”
His hands settled at your waist, warm and steady through the thin fabric of your scrubs. “Or his brain short circuited when he saw you.”
Your smile widened as you slid your arms around the back of his neck, entwining your fingers absentmindedly around the silver curls at the nape of his neck.
“Well, lucky for him it worked.”
The reluctant smile finally reached his eyes. “Very lucky.” He corrected.
He glanced down, playing with the tie of your scrub pants.
“I just can’t believe you dated a plastic surgeon.”
You snorted softly. “Is that seriously what’s bothering you the most?”
“Yes.” He answered plainly.
You shook your head, a wry smile on your lips. “Not the stupid nickname?”
Jack glanced down at you, his grip on your hips tightening ever so slightly.
“If he calls you that again I may have no choice but to punch him.” He conceded casually as he brushed a strand of hair behind your ear.
His head tilted slightly as he studied you for a moment. “But at least he can fix his own nose up after.”
You let out a laugh, running a hand over his chest. “Don’t worry.” You soothed. “I already told him you volunteer with the SWAT team.”
Jack smirked down at you proudly. “Atta girl.”
Then he leant down and finally pressed his lips to yours in a slow, reverent kiss. When he pulled back, his eyes narrowed immediately.
“Did you eat?”
You winced slightly. “Not yet.” You patted the pocket that contained the protein bar. “I’ll eat this and then go.”
Jack frowned, clearly unsatisfied with your solution. “Go home and eat something more substantial.”
“I will.”
“There’s pasta in the fridge for you, all you have to do is chuck it in the microwave.”
Your interest piqued immediately. “The pesto one I love?”
“Of course.”
You grinned, pressing your forehead against his. “You’re very good to me Dr Abbot.”
His smile softened into something private, something reserved just for you. “Anything for my girl.”
You kissed him again, deeper this time, enjoying the feeling of his warmth seeping into you.
“Alright.” He muttered reluctantly against your lips as he pulled away. “Get going before I end up locking you in here.”
You smirked. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
He shot you a warning glare with absolutely no bite to it.
You huffed dramatically, “alright alright.”
You reached for the door, then paused, glancing back at him.
“And for the record, if you’re worried about feeling old…”
Jack raised a brow.
“You should meet my other ex, he checked into the nursing home down the road last week.”
“Very funny.” He muttered, trying but failing to look unamused.
“I know I am.”
“Go.” He urged as he tapped your backside affectionately.
You raised your hands in mock defeat, slipping back into the pitt without another word.
Jack shook his head as the door shut softly behind you, a lovesick smile spreading across his face.
As always always always, feedback is always appreciated because I thrive off praise. Please give it back here and consider tipping me! 🤍
hiiii omgg ik ur prolly so done w this series but id love to see a toman version of the fuck it list 🥹🥹🙏 feel free to decline ofcc!!
sigh…since you asked so nicely, I’ll do it for you, anon 🫶🏾🥹
black dragons ver.
synopsis: there’s a list going around consisting of hot guys on campus that are deemed “fuckable” with theories as to what they’d be like in bed. it’s all fun and games until somehow your boyfriend ends up on this list.
When you told MIKEY about the list, he found it interesting. Some virgin is sitting around analyzing randoms on campus, fantasizing about how they’d fuck? Priceless.
“Mm. Takemichi’s on here.” He angled his phone to you, a mirthful gaze watching for your reaction. When your nose scrunched in mild discomfort, he snorted. “Yeah, my thoughts exactly. Seven out of ten, my ass.”
You gently slapped his shoulder. “Don’t be mean, I wasn’t thinking that. He might be great in bed.”
Mikey rolled his eyes, nuzzling into your midriff whilst still scrolling through his feed. “Tsk, no shot in hell. I practically grew up with the guy. He has absolutely no play.”
“He bagged Hina, didn’t he?” You carded through his hair, gently taking out any tangles.
“I’m just as shocked as you are.”
You chortled, despite reprimanding just moments ago. There’s no denying his friend wasn’t the smoothest, but didn’t mean he was completely helpless. You shrugged, “Well, clearly some people think he’s a great fuck. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been posted.”
The blonde paused for a millisecond. Then, with a swiftness that caught you slightly off guard, his head shot up to look you dead in the face. “What about me?”
You blinked. “What about you?”
“I’m not posted on it. What does that make me?” He spoke with a tone that borderlined vulnerable. After a moment, you shook your head, then gently knocked the side of his with your knuckle.
“Don’t be an idiot.”
“You don’t think I’m fuckable?"
“Oh my god.” You groaned, trying to turn your body to face away from his ridiculousness, but he refused to relent. His grip tightened around you, keeping you locked against him. “Mikey-”
“Tell me.” He all but whined, gently rocking you.
“Okay, yes,” you replied. He obviously wasn’t convinced judging on his displeased frown.
“Liar! Then I’d be on the list!”
With a groan, you held both sides of his face. “Mikey, baby, sweet boy, the list is based solely on looks.”
His brows scrunched, “What, you don’t think I look fuckable?”
“That’s not it. How do you look majority of the time?”
“…Handsome.”
“Bummy.” You deadpanned, reaching down to tug on the stretched out collar of his tank top. Mikey squinted. “At least Takemichi cleans up nice once in a while. And not always wearing fuck-ass flip flops.”
“You like my fuck-ass flip flops.”
“Well, seems the public ain’t rocking with them.”
He kisses his teeth. “Whatever. t’s a dumb list anyway, I don’t care...”
You chuckled as he flopped into the crook of your neck, his ears turning pink. The topic pretty much dropped from there and wasn’t revisited until later that evening, when Mikey sent you a link to the updated forum with a message attached.
from : michelangelo ♡
9:07pm
“ my fuck-ass flip flops - 1.
[_____] - 0. ”
'Manjiro “Mikey” Sano. 5’4ft blonde menace with attachment issues. And by that we mean if he was given the chance, he would live in your skin. Certified clinger. Velcro baby. No matter the label, just know he’ll be shameless about it. The same could be said for the bedroom. We all know he’s forever smacking and snacking on something—Chips, candy, dorayaki—who’s to say you aren’t on the menu? Hands down the munchiest MUNCH on the planet. A giver and a taker. Greedy, greedy, G R E E D Y. If you so much as give an inch, he’ll take a nautical mile. However, he is L A Z Y. A dom-leaning switch for sure, who’ll end up a pillow prince if he’s tired enough. You’ll get minimum aftercare outta him before he’s out cold. It doesn’t matter if he’s still between your thighs, it’s a wrap. You’re stuck there for a couple hours, tops. At least once he wakes up, there’s a nice motorcycle ride and a big meal in your future to make up for the leg cramps. 9/10.'
You could only shake your head. Then, replied with a simple:
to : michelangelo ♡
9:10pm
“ congrats, munch. ”
He gave it a thumbs down.
“What do you mean you didn’t post it?”
The confusion in the air was palpable, one could taste the question marks. DRAKEN knew of the list, but not by much. He figured it was just some anonymous forum where people could express their feelings about another person without repercussion. At least, that was his understanding. So, when he asked you not to air out your sex life to the world, thinking you had something to do with it, safe to say he soon realized he truly had no idea of its purpose.
'Ken “Draken” Ryuguji. 6’1ft of HOUSE REAL BIG. CAR REAL BIG. DICK REAL BIG. DICK REAL BIG. DICK REAL BI—You get the idea. Knowing his background and how he was raised, there’s no doubt he wouldn’t treat you with the utmost respect. The bar is in hell, but he’s carrying it on his shoulders like a champ. Despite him being dense with romance, he makes up for it with sincerity and earnestness. He’s reliable in many ways—Hungry? He’s already ordering. Sleepy? His lap’s ready and waiting. Horny? He’s blowing your back out then tucking you in before clocking in for work. Very much a Dom, no questions asked. Whether he’s gonna be hard or soft depends on the type of energy you’re bringing to the table. So…might wanna tread lightly. Or don’t. It’ll be your organs getting rearranged at the end of the day. 10/10.'
“Yeah, that isn’t exactly how it works. Only one person runs the account as far as I know. They take submissions and whatnot, but normally they randomly pick who they want to post . I’ll say though, I’m not surprised you thought it was me. This is freaky accurate.”
Draken raised a brow. “You sayin’ I’m dense?”
You gave a lofty shrug. “Just…impressed with how they were able to get some things right. Only some. You aren’t exactly fluent in romance.”
He kissed his teeth, crossing his arms. “Right. Why do I get the feeling you’re enjoying this right now?”
“I’m not!” You said, immediately struggling to fight a grin.
“Uh-huh.”
“C’mon, you gotta admit it’s a little funny. You’ve clearly got admirers, Kenny. And I can’t say I disagree with their analysis. You definitely raise the standard for how men should act, in and out of the bedroom.”
Draken flicked your forehead. He grinned at your whined protest, already trying to soothe the small ache with his thumb as you pouted at him. “I take it back, you suck.”
“Yeah? Just like that, huh.” He winded his long arms around you, hauling you into his lap with ease. You gave little resistance, but made it a show of acting indifferent as you upturned your nose at him. The twin dragon smirked, reaching up to take your chin, forcing you to look at him. “I can live with that. As long as you still want me.”
You eyed him, lips pursed. After a brief moment of feigned contemplation, you relented. Leaning down to nuzzle your nose against his, you sighed. “Fine. Only because you have a huge dick.”
Nearly choking on air, Draken looked at you incredulously. Then, once he noticed the teasing glint in your gaze, he glared before gently pinching your thigh in retaliation. “Brat.”
BAJI didn’t really keep up with the trends. Safe to say he knew absolutely nothing about the list that’s been sending the campus into a frenzy. Even when you inevitably caught wind of it and tried to convince him to discuss it with you, you’d have had better luck convincing a brick wall.
“Kei, aren’t you a little curious about what it means?” You fiddled with his glasses, much to his dismay as he tried to focus on reading this difficult paragraph. “Hellooo? Are you listening to me?”
“I’m trynna focus, knock it off.” He lazily shook you off, holding the book closer to his face.
You huffed. “You’ve been stuck on that page for ten minutes. Not like you’re making much progress.”
He glared at you from over the book. “Shuddup. You buggin’ about shit I don’t care about isn’t gonna make me go faster. I don’t get why you wanna talk about it so bad in the first place.”
“Unbelievable. You really weren’t listening to a single thing I said.” He shrugged in response. With a shake of your head, you explained once more. “Because, Keisuke, you got posted on it earlier today.”
“…What.”
You nodded. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
“Why the hell am I on it?”
You crossed your arms, smug. “Oh, now you’re interested. What happened to not giving a shit?”
“I don’t, until it involves me.” Baji sets down the book, scooting his chair closer to yours until he’s fully invaded your space. Before you could hit him with another smart remark, he shot you a small glare. "Don't start. Show me."
"Tsk."
'Keisuke Baji. 5’9ft walking Pantene commercial, with a short fuse ready to blow at any time, so proceed with caution. This isn’t to say he’s a danger to you, far from it, but he will be a ginormous headache. Can’t keep his hands to HIMSELF. He’s touchy, no matter where you are or who is present, his hands are somewhere they shouldn’t be. Sure, he’s rough around the edges, but there’s a hopeless romantic deep, deep, DEEP down. If you squint. Please squint. The collective agrees he’s definitely a hard dom. Once he puts his signature ponytail in, he’s fucking you like he hates you—Light choking, hair pulling, biting. Then, several rounds later, he’s cuddling you close whilst whispering small reassurances into your ear. Nothing flowery, just purely him. That’s as much aftercare you’ll get out of him before he passes out. 8/10.'
He stared hard at the screen. If you listened closely, you could hear the gears turning in his head, contemplating his next words…or his next move. One pregnant pause later, Baji kissed his teeth in annoyance, gesturing vaguely at the phone. “Man. Had me thinking it was a call out post by some punk wanting to fight. Not some horny bullshit. Knew it was stupid.”
“It’s not stupid! It’s entertaining.” You defended, earning a disbelieved stare from the ravenette. With that, you scoffed, kicking at his chair. “Oh, what do you know? You think knocking someone unconscious is considered fun.”
“More fun than reading that. It’s not even true. I don’t cuddle.”
You snorted, arms crossed. “You saying that’s the only part you have an issue with? Out of everything else, cuddling’s where you drew the line?”
By now, Baji had lifted the book back up to his face, but you could tell he was growing flustered based on how tightly he gripped the edges. “...Shuddup.”
Irritated couldn’t begin to describe how you felt at this very moment. The bubbling pit of pure jealousy that simmered in your stomach as you were forced to watch your boyfriend politely interact with his new fanclub wasn't ideal. MITSUYA was a favorite amongst the students, if not the it-boy on campus alongside his taller friend, Hakkai Shiba. Renowned designer in the making with his aspiring modeling companion, of course they’d draw in attention.
Unfortunately, compared to Hakkai, your man was nothing short of a social butterfly, willing to indulge and with the patience of a saint. He was an energy that people just naturally gravitated to.
And it only worsened after a particular post was made.
'Takashi Mitsuya. 5’7ft green flag that was written by a woman. A bit of a headscratcher, to be honest. On one hand, he’s an old fashioned gentleman with a sense of style, who takes care of those around him—The nurturing type. On the other hand, he’s a roughhouser with a mean left and right, and won’t hesitate to put you in your place if you wanna get buck with him—The strict type. He’s not a monolith, baby’s got range. So that’s why he’s ABSOLUTELY a switch. Growing up being the man of the household, it wouldn’t be too far-fetched to think he craved being taken care of; pampered, if you will. It would be somewhat equal in the bedroom, but he’s inclined to give you more than he takes. And don’t even get us started on aftercare. Rose petal bath, oil massage, home cooked meal hot and ready…12/10.'
To think his popularity couldn’t get any worse, now instead of just his club members fawning over him, damn near anyone with a pulse approached him in hopes of catching a crumb of his attention.
Although it was subtle, you could clearly see the exhaustion on his face. He had been working a lot lately, dealing with home life on top of school, keeping up with his former gang members and trying to balance a relationship–It can get to be a bit much. And now, anywhere and everywhere he went, felt like a spectacle.
After a while, you loudly cleared your throat to interrupt the little meet-and-greet. All eyes instantly drifted over to you, some curious whilst the majority weren’t so thrilled to see you standing there. You made a show of smiling and giving a small wave, unperturbed by their snark.
Mitusya, thankful for the interruption, spoke, “Alright, guys, it’s been nice chatting with you all, but I really should be going now. [____] and I have plans. Can’t keep ‘em waiting for too long.”
Collective groans and grumbles were heard amongst the crowd, some even commenting on how you ruined their good time. Of which, he didn’t take too kindly. “Hey. None of that. I’ve given you more than enough of my time. Show them the same respect you show me, and nothing less. We clear?”
The group snapped to attention at his disapproving tone before shrinking within themselves, meekly apologizing. One would think they’d feel shame for the childish behavior, but judging on their flustered and dazed grins, safe to say they were totally into being reprimanded. Especially from their favorite golden boy. No doubt they’d use this to fuel whatever fantasy they’ve conjured in their head about him. You fought back the urge to throw up in your mouth.
Later on, during your walk back to his apartment, you couldn’t help but chuckle thinking back on the whole thing. Mitsuya, with his arm wrapped around your shoulder, gave you an affectionate squeeze. “What’s so funny, hm?”
“You.”
“Me?”
“Yeah,” you gave a squeeze back, looking up at him. “Everything was sunshine and rainbows until you felt a line was crossed. You aren’t beating the ‘switch’ allegations any time soon.”
Mitsuya chortled. "It’s basic human decency.”
“Yeah, well, you make it look hot. Like everything else you do. It’s annoying.”
He shook his head, giving you another squeeze before kissing your temple. "I'm grateful you put up with me and my annoyingly hot self. Please continue doing so."
Just like Baji, KAZUTORA knew very little about the list, if anything at all. He didn’t understand the point, nor did he care to find out. That is until he’s being clowned left and right by his friends in the groupchat. Now he’s got no choice but to do some investigating. And what he found was utterly mortifying.
'Kazutora Hanemiya. 5’9ft red flag that was written by a man with both mommy and daddy issues, who’s never been touched by a woman. With that being said, he’s a textbook sub-leaning switch. He’s an overthinker, so you’ll be the one most likely calling the shots/taking the lead. And he’ll be an avid follower. Maybe even a worshiper. His anxiousness will fuel his inferiority complex, which then will fuel his need to overcompensate and overly please—You say jump, he’ll say “fuck off” while already going as high as he can. He’s also very much a voyeur. Loves to watch, those big eyes need to see every micro expression, soak in just how good he’s working your body for his spank-bank later. Also a bit of a masochist, glutton for punishment if it means you stepping on him then tonguing him down after. Deductions for being a felon. Kinda hot, but besides the point. 8/10.'
How does one even respond to something like this? His entire body felt like it was on fire, face flushed something terrible as he read the paragraph over, and over, and over. This couldn’t be happening. There was no way this was happening. Somebody took time out of their day to plaster this all over the internet, and had the nerve to be anonymous.
Just his luck.
What was there even to gain from this? Humiliation? Revenge? What kind of sick fuck would just say these things as if they were gospel, like they had insider information that needed to be shared. Kazutora racked his brain for a lead, a small clue to point him in the right direction of any potential suspects responsible. That included you.
“You can’t seriously think I had anything to do with that.”
“If not you, then who else?”
“Literally anyone else. The hell I look like posting about how you fuck me to strangers on the internet. Porn is free, they don’t need my help to feed their gooning addictions.” You replied with a scoff, continuing to flip through one of his mangakas you borrowed.
He huffed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Okay, guess I can’t argue with that. How am I supposed to narrow down my search from just ‘anyone’.”
“You don’t. No one knows who they are, and probably never will. It’s nothing but drama, and it’ll all blow over with time, so don’t stress.”
“Easy for you to say. You aren’t getting sent links for ball clamps and vibrating butt-plugs from your friends.”
You paused from reading, slowly peering at him from over the book. A small glint twinkles in your eye, sending an uneasy chill down his spine. “What’s that look for? Quit it. It’s creepy…”
“Do you…still have those links?”
Kazutora glared. “Fuck no. Even if I did, you ain’t getting ‘em.”
You glared back. Then, shortly after, a wicked grin spread on your face. “That’s fine. I’ll just ask Mikey to send them to me.”
He stiffened. "You will not."
“Try me."
“I’ll kill you both.”
“See you in hell, I guess.” You easily replied, already tapping away to a certain blonde gremlin.
Compared to the others, PAH would be like a clean slate. Didn’t matter how many times you brought it up, explained it, broke it down—He was going to forget every time. It wasn’t rocket science, but it was complicated enough to where he just couldn’t grasp the concept. That is, until you summarized it perfectly.
“It’s like when you’d look at nudey magazines all the time back in middle school. You didn’t know the girls on the pages, but you fantasized about what they would be like if you slept with them. Y’know, because they’re so attractive. Except instead of supermodels, it’s your fellow students. Makes it more obtainable, more real.”
He hummed along, stroking his chin. “Yeahhh, yeah, I’m following, that makes total sense when you put it like that. You’re really smart, [_____]. How’d you come up with that?”
Endeared, you merely shrugged. “Guess I’m just that good.”
“Damn right. Wait, so if you’re on the list, does that mean someone sees you as jerk-off material?”
“Er…that’s definitely one way to put it. Sure.”
Pah sat there in contemplative silence. His mouth was slightly agape, his stare blank and resembling that of an old computer rebooting. You tilted your head, “You good? Did I lose you?”
“...I think…someone’s out there jerking it to my face.”
You eyes widened to the size of plates. “O-Oh?”
He slowly nodded. “Yeah. I didn’t think much of it when Peh showed it to me. Frankly forgot about it until now.”
Pah whipped out his phone, and after scrolling for the exact text his aforementioned friend had sent to him a while back, he handed it over. “See, look.”
After taking the phone and briefly reading the message, you clicked on the link.
'Haruki “Pah” Hayashida. 5’4ft yakuza in the making. If you judged him off looks, you wouldn’t dare cross his path on the street let alone roll around in the sheets with him. However, don’t let his harsh exterior fool you, he’s a real softy through and through. Although he’s dense as a rock, maybe even more, he’s insanely loyal. Not to mention an eater. Another certified MUNCH. Going down on you would be the highlight of his week, you’d become part of his daily nutrition. He gives soft dom, wouldn’t have the heart to be mean to you or degrade you, but would love to take care of everything for you. Forgets about his own pleasure because he’s so invested in yours, and even if you insist on returning the favor, nine times out of ten it’ll end with you being the focus. 7/10 because he definitely shares way too many details with his best friend, Peh.'
You read through it a couple times, lips curled inward to suppress the giggle you so desperately wanted to let out, especially with how earnestly he watched you for any sign of discomfort. “W-Wow. This is…I’m speechless. They really nailed you down to a science, can’t say I have any complaints. Except for maybe the last part. Not sure how accurate that is. Care to elaborate?”
His brows scrunched in confusion. Leaning closer to see what you were referring to, Pah could only give you a sheepish look. “...I don’t actually share that many details with Peh. Mainly surface level stuff, y’know, just to brag a little. But nothing personal. Honest.”
A snort had slipped out, reaching up you gently pinched his chubby cheek. “I believe you. But, maybe we keep those things behind closed doors moving forward, hm?”
Pah leaned into your touch, hearts practically swirling above his head as he nodded. “Whatever you want, ma.”
— meet kenji bakugou yln!! the baby of yn yln and bakugou katsuki. no, they’re not married… or in a relationship… yeah, you know they’ve never dated! it was just a one night stand and she still had the baby. i heard he’s a good father too… wait look, are you sure like they’re not dating?
Virgin bkg who’s so painfully stupid but acts so arrogant. And when it’s getting heated and you’re making out and want to see his dick… he gets all shy and embarrassed because he doesn’t know if it looks normal or as good as the other ones you’ve seen. When you ask what’s wrong he tells you it’s curved and you think it’s like BENT then he lets you see and it’s the prettiest most orgasm inducing upward curve you’ve ever seen on a dick.
bakugou katsuki knows why he is a virgin. it’s pretty simple really despite the fact he is surrounded by beautiful women often. socialites, the new buzzing influencers, actors and pro heroes like.
it’s because he’s obsessed with his job. always has been. since he was a child who was dreaming of becoming a hero, to his teenage years fighting wars to now in his twenties, working towards becoming number one.
women and mostly importantly, getting his dick wet, has never been number one on his list of priorities. sure when he’d go to film premiers for that hero franchise he loves, occasionally a gorgeous woman would talk to him.
but the thing about growing up uninterested in sex and the only women around him being his friends that share the same heroic goals… well bakugou has never been very good at flirting. which again, was mostly okay since he would just walk away when a woman was about to talk to him.
until he met you that is. the first woman to make him dream of more, that made him unable to get through a shower without tugging one out to the thought of you. that during patrols, he’d think about texting you. what are you up to? where are you? when the hell can he kiss you next?
anyone is experienced compared to bakugou. he’s kissed a girl once in his third year of ua. he’s made out with two in his early twenties.
but now at twenty six this is first time having a woman in his apartment, on his bed, on his lap. he feels like a rabid animal. unsure where to put his hands with the desperate need to touch everywhere so he leaves them on the globes of your ass, squeezing every few seconds when all the feelings inside of him gets intense.
he knows he’s flushed red. he knows his dick is hard and you can feel it through your leggings. but you’re so perfect, leading the moment, letting him react however the hell he wants.
bakugou releases a loud moan when you stick your tongue down his throat, breasts pressed against his chest like you want to live in his skin. he’s never felt a woman like this before, he feels as if the word virgin is in capital letters printed onto his forehead.
he hasn’t told you directly he is but he thinks you know.
“you’re so… fuck. this is so fucked up,” he breathes into your mouth and your fingers rake up into the hair on his nape.
your grin makes his heart skip a beat, falter slightly and he swears he gets winded.
you’re out of breath, chest heaving and your pussy is a centimetre away from sitting on his cock.
“why’s it fucked up? you okay?” you brush your nose against his softly, smoothing out his eyebrow with your thumb. “you look hot, do you want to take your top off?”
you’re being so sweet to him and he appreciates it, he does. but as soon as he knows what he’s doing he’s gonna treat you right. properly.
for now, he’s just worried he doesn’t have what it takes.
“oh, err, fuck. sorry, yeah i will,” he mumbles to you, yanking off his white tee from the neckline.
bakugou enjoys how your eyes glow, scanning his half naked body like it’s something you can eat. your hands immediately flatten against his chest. down his toned abdomen. up to his fat squishy pectorals. he’s never had someone touch him like this. he couldn’t be harder.
“you don’t have to apologise, you know. this is new for us both.”
“you’re not the fuckin’ virgin here.” he bites, “i’ve never even had a woman in my room.”
he can tell you like that idea. you inch closer to him on his lap, your hands are back on his shoulders. you brush your lips over his.
“i don’t know how. look at you.”
and you’re back to making out with him. slower this time. tasting all the flavour from his tongue.
you softly bite down on his bottom lip and like a ring of the doorbell, bakugou opens up to let you in. it’s wet peck after wet peck, tilting your head to taste more of him. he’s eager, too eager ducking closer to you, as to not waste any time with your lips off his. you can only think that if he kisses with this much passion, you’re dying to know how he’d fuck.
bakugou tightly grips your ass and without meaning to, he shoves you directly onto his cock.
you mewl like a cat, hips grinding down onto him like you can’t help it. “you feel so good, ‘tsuki.”
you feel good because of him. him.
your tongue sneaks into his mouth, twirls and brushes against his. he learns quickly, you’ll give him that. his tongue dances against yours, licking up everything you offer. you feel his body vibrate, his dick twitch. you begin sucking on his tongue and that’s when he releases a harsh grunt. you’re soaked.
“let me see it.” you palm his cock through his shorts, “let me see.”
bakugou opens his eyes, pulls away from your mouth for a moment.
“i… fuck.” he’s back to mumbling. then stupidly, he looks down at the lump in his fabric.
“you… you don’t have to?” you offer, unsure about his wide eyes, “we can keep kissing?”
“it’s just that… it’s just….,” bakugou looks up to the ceiling.
he’d love for you to touch him, do anything to him but nobodies seen his dick before. sure he’s seen some porn videos but he’s never seen a dick like his in them. he’s googled and nothing said there’s anything particularly wrong about his.
but what if you find it weird, what if it puts you off him completely?
“talk to me, baby,” you push, laying a kiss on his jaw. then making a line down his neck. “wanna make you feel good.”
he’d like that.
“listen. seriously.”
you pull off him at that, sitting up on his lap, your hands at his waist. he is stupidly gorgeous. puffy pink lips because of you. his long straight eyelashes. his beautiful cheekbones and that eyebrow slit.
“i’m listening. tell me anything.” you soften your tone, trying to get the horny out your eyes. your tits are basically spilling out your vest top and you don’t miss bakugou’s pupils darting to and from them every few seconds.
“i think…. i…”
you don’t speak.
katsuki takes a deep breath. he almost shouts without meaning to. “nobody has seen my dick before but me. right?”
you nod with a frown, unsure where this is going. “okay. nothing’s wrong with that.”
bakugou winces. he isn’t built for this. he’s always been attractive physically. his body works better than the average. can run at speed, stealthy, built for hero work. his quirk is best of the best and is only getting stronger by the day. but using his body for sex? that’s something he has no clue about.
“it might not be normal lookin’? like it works fine, i’ve never had any problems with it? but it might be odd for you.”
you’re immediately imagining the worst. it’s not small. you felt it a second ago between your legs. heck, you’ve seen it when he walks around in those stupid grey joggers. oddly coloured, oddly shaped? is it too big?
“what’s wrong?” you tilt your head.
his whole face is flushed. a beautiful pink to the apples of his cheeks. you would kiss them if he wasn’t so serious right now.
he closes his eyes, leans his head back on his headboard. his hands stay on your thighs. you tap his chest.
“c’mon tell me.”
he exhales sharply.
“my dick is fuckin’ curved. to the left. i don’t know why.” he blurts, embarrassment written all over him, “it’s always been like that.”
for him to be this stressed about it, it must be abnormal. is it like a hook? you’ve seen one like that on one of those medical reality shows. would it be able to go inside if you? you so badly want him inside of you.
you shrug. you can’t imagine anything about this man being less than perfect. “it can’t be that bad, baby.”
you rub his chest soothingly but his face doesn’t soothe you one bit.
“i’m fuckin’ sorry. i brought you here and we’re goin’ so well and—,”
“let me see. let me see your dick, c’mon,” you smile softly.
you sink your hand to touch his crotch again.
“you sure? i don’t want you to be put off me like i’m a freak—,”
“katsuki. come on.”
it’s in slow motion. your mouth immediately start salivating, his hands grip the elastic waistband of his shorts. he pulls it down in one go with his underwear.
“oh katsuki. baby…. honey.”
this man has nothing to worry about. bakugou katsuki has on him a cock that can rival your favourite dildos. it curves to the left, a smooth pleasing curve that you already know will hit your softest spots. you swallow your spit, your hands inching up his thighs. it’s darker at the base, twitching under your attention with two round balls (one a little larger than the other) at the bottom.
he is hefty. heavy. thick like a tree trunk with veins darting up the sides. you imagine the weight of it in your mouth. the deep pinkish purplish head on your tongue. most of all, you imagine it curved inside, pushing a sweet orgasm out of you.
of course, this big idiot didn’t know what he had on him. part of you wants to lie, never let him know how good he has it so he doesn’t go around sharing his goods. but you need to, it’s written all over your face.
“you must be joking, katsuki,” you hum, delighted. you run your finger down his shaft.
his hips jolt, eyes lazing slightly from your attention. he’s so hard it’s getting painful.
“what? what? spit it out.”
“you need to fuck me. doesn’t have to be now but someday. you have to.” you whine, “you don’t get it at all.”
“what? it’s not a problem? this okay with you?” he stutters, unable to keep a steady head as you sink down the bed to rest your chest on his legs. now you’ve got your face right in front of his dick, as if you’re measuring the curve by degrees.
you want to lick him.
“you’ve got a pornstar dick. a dick they base dildos off,” you breathe. the look in your eye is wild, untamed. “you’d feel amazing. even if you don’t know how to use it. you need let me bounce on it.”
bakugou blinks down at you. he doesn’t quite believe what he’s hearing, fuck, he doesn’t know what to do about you. not one bit did he think you’d even have this reaction.
“w-what… i know how to use my own dick.” is all he can manage but you shake your head.
you flick your eyes up to him, “we’re gonna learn together, okay? can i… can i…” you flatten your tongue against his shaft and give him one lick up.
bakugou’s sure he’s about to come any second now.
“y-yes but be fuckin’ careful. i don’t wanna nut on your face.”
osamu sighed at your answer, his head dropping backwards while he closed his eyes. the poor man’s been sitting in an uncomfortable chair for the past twenty minutes. all the while your fingers were tracing his hair. osamu had just went to get his hair done — which was very much needed considering how much time it had been since his last appointment. however what you did not expect was for your boyfriend to come home with his hair natural again. and saying that seeing him with dark brown hair for the first time didn't have any effect on you would be lying. for as long as osamu's been sitting here, you've been tracing and touching his hair, your nails scratching lightly at his undercut while you admired his new hair.
"i take it ya like my hair like this ?" he couldn't help the smirk growing on his lips, his eyes fixated on your face as he scans your reaction. "mhm" you tilted his head back as you hummed, nails grazing at the nape of his neck and his upper back. “you look so good ‘samu. . .”
and with that, you lightly bit his cheek, making him yelp in surprise.
Synopsis: A series of one-shots, in which your lover finds supreme pleasure under the benediction your erotic praise.
[X Fem Reader, featuring Gen Narumi, Kento Nanami, Soshiro Hoshina and Shota Aizawa.]
Contents: Explicit sexual content, romance, humour.
(Based on a smut challenge I've taken on ❤)
Gen Narumi
He was insufferable at the best of times, and today you were strongly reminded of why you loved him for it.
Since the first time he'd caught you appreciating the sight of him completely nude while gaming, Gen had latched onto his advantage like a starving wolf on a fresh kill in winter.
Today, he was reclining on the couch in his quarters, shirtless, watching your exasperated expression as he ran his fingers through his hair, flipping it back off his forehead, the roll of biceps beneath skin clearly visible.
"Enjoying the view?"
"You're a walking cliché right now."
"And you like it."
Damn it all, but he was right.
Not that you'd surrender so easily.
Arms folded, your gaze dropped to his belt buckle.
"Fine. Then give me something else to appreciate."
His grin widened, a certain wilful pride that tugged at something tender inside you, even as arousal warred with sentiment.
"Oho. So you're after the bayonet, huh?"
"Please don't call it that."
He was laughing, and you took in the rare moment of unguarded joy as he undid the fastening with a completely unnecessary flourish and tugged his pants and underwear down to his ankles.
"Well?"
It was just as much a challenge as it was an invitation.
In spite of his brash confidence, you were aware of exactly how he sought your approval, every word of appreciation and affirmation, always ready to drink from the fountain of your praise.
Recalling this gave you an inkling of how you intended to approach him tonight.
Lowering your voice to a purr, you sank to your knees before him, watching with satisfaction as his eyes widened momentarily. He'd obviously been expecting you climb onto his lap.
"Already so hard, Captain?"
This was new to him too. You'd never referred to him by his title during intimacy.
Judging by the slight flush at the tips of his ears, he seemed to like it.
"Oi, are you sure you - "
"Yes."
Meeting his gaze, holding it, you palmed the heavy, silky weight of him in your palm, already curving past the constraints of half-mast.
Leaning forward, you teased him with a soft, experimental lick, watching the flex of his hip as he jerked slightly.
"Fuck. Wait, you're - "
He was already slightly breathless, one hand hovering half-consciously near you.
"Gen."
Your breath washed over hardened flesh, and the set of his jaw grew slack.
"What?"
"Let me make you feel good, please."
"What's gotten into you all of a - ah."
His head fell back against the sofa as your lips closed over the head, slick and hot, earthy on your tongue.
You worked over him, bobbing langorously, before releasing with a soft, wet noise.
"You're always so big. Love how heavy you are."
He uttered a soft grunt of shock as you let the length of him drop against your face, nuzzling against him, allowing the musky scent to transport you.
Within a few seconds, the reigns had slipped from him, and judging from his chagrin and arousal, he wasn't displeased.
"Hold on - you're - "
"Is that an order, Captain? You want me to stop?"
Allowing your hand to drift downwards, you cupped him, rolling the sac in your palm.
Gen hissed, mouthing silent curses, before glaring down at you.
"No."
"No, what?"
"Don't stop."
Squeezing him lightly earned a tight groan.
Heat was growing between your own legs as you watched him, lowering your lips until they were just an inch above the taut, slick skin of his cock.
"You don't sound convincing, sir."
"Fuck, please, just - put your mouth on me - I - "
Without warning, you engulfed him again, and this time, he yelped, hips bucking right off the sofa.
How good he felt, so pliant beneath you, struggling under the heel of your whim.
Your palms spread flat against his abdomen, taking in the sheer strength of him, rippling like a landslide under your touch.
Here he was, the strongest, a soldier through and through, moaning, writhing, a litany of filthy praise on his tongue.
The teasing had driven him close to the edge, but you released him suddenly, earning a choked cry, his grip tightening in your hair.
"Why did you - "
"But you look so good like this, sir."
"Huh?"
Sweat was now glistening on his brow and chest, the strain in his voice audible.
"Want to see you like this a little longer."
"But I - "
He bit his lip hard, and your smile grew wicked.
"Would the Captain like to give me another order?"
"Please."
"Please, what?"
"Suck me."
The words were a throaty growl, something desperate hidden within.
He was shifting underneath you, lifting himself into your grasp.
How needy.
You laved him with your tongue, pausing again, voice breathy with want.
"You're so hard, Gen. You taste so good. Want your cock in me all night."
He was now almost incoherent, raspy panting loud in the intimate hush of the room.
"I - oh, fuck, I need you, please. I'll give you my cock, I'll fuck you however you want, just please - "
"However I want?"
You were stroking him again, slow and measured.
"Put that pretty mouth on - ahh shit. Fuck, I need - need you so bad - "
He was all but begging you now, hitched breathing, face scarlet with humiliation and desire, erection leaking between your fingers.
Taking mercy on him, you slid him right back in, his groans louder, his demands more explicit.
You took him as far as he would go, sliding back down the slick length, wrist working as you released him to take a shuddering breath.
"Gen, come for me."
"Ah, yeah, I'm - don't stop, I'm - "
You could tell he was already at the brink.
"Come in my mouth, want you all over my tongue."
Picking up the pace of your fist around him, you held his gaze, mouth open, ready to receive everything he gave.
This proved too much for him, and his entire body stiffened, tendons standing out in his neck as his back arched.
A loud, desperate roar escaped him, cut off midway as he came, hot and viscous, the excess of him escaping down your chin.
You slid a finger beneath your lip, catching the stray drop, tasting more thoroughly.
He was now slumped boneless over the sofa, arms spreadeagled, the rise and fall of his chest ragged and uneven.
Placing your hands on his thighs, you clambered up to perch on him.
Gen raised his head slowly, eyes flashing and accusatory even as he basked in a considerable afterglow.
"You're gonna pay for that."
Kento Nanami
He had a slight spring in his step today, one that was barely perceptible to those who didn't know him well.
The brown paper bag tucked under one arm signaled that he'd had time to stop by the bakery.
Turning away from your laptop, you smiled as he removed his shoes in the genkan, stepping with slow deliberation into his house slippers.
"Canceled mission?"
"Not canceled. They just handed it over to someone closer to the site."
Kento was observing the 'ritual of return', as you'd teasingly named it.
First, the tinted glasses came off, polished briefly and stored in their case. Off came the coat, the tie loosened and removed, sleeves rolled up as he prepared to wash his hands at the kitchen sink.
Something about the smooth shift of powerful shoulders under the dark blue screen of formal wear always caught your eye.
Today, he seemed less tired than usual.
You considered him as he dried off his hands, reaching up to run fingers through the carefully set hair, loosening strands to frame the strong lines of his face.
Today, you'd have your way with him.
There was no doubt about it.
Before he had a chance to enter the bedroom to prepare for his evening bath, you slipped in yourself, hurriedly rummaging through the drawers for your secret weapon.
By the time he'd arrived, you had already prepared an ambush. Kento raised an eyebrow at the sight of you, perched on the bed, still in your robe.
"Did you want to use the bathroom first?"
"Hmm. Not exactly."
"Then - "
You let the robe slip to the side, raising one leg to fold over the other.
There it was, that subtle shift in his expression, from gentle propriety to charged tension, anticipation lacing the slow drop of his gaze.
These were the stockings you knew he liked an awful lot, sheer, black, the lace edges gripping the flesh of your thigh where they ended halfway up.
He glanced down, slowly laying aside the towel he still held, a smile growing on his lips.
"You're misbehaving today, I see."
"I wouldn't call it that. Come here."
Kento looked a little taken aback by how pro-active you were being. Normally, you allowed him to take the lead in bedroom matters, always secure in the knowledge that he would satisfy you, but tonight, you wanted to shake that status quo, to give him something to remember.
He was already unbuttoning his shirt, ready to set it aside neatly, as he always did, but this time you foiled him by pushing his hands away, unfastening and removing his pants instead.
His breathing hitched, ever so slightly, as you brushed against his growing erection.
You leaned back on your elbows and he protested in consternation.
"Hold on, let me get the condom on - "
"You won't be needing it for this."
While he was regaining his bearings, you shuffled forward, reached between your bodies and grasped him, watching his eyes fly open.
"What are you - "
As answer, you brought your thighs together, pushing his cock between them. The rapidly hardening tip slid out the other side between soft skin, and he uttered a small sound of helpless surprise.
Up went your legs, ankles crossed, propped against his shoulder. The angle tightened the vice you had on him.
Kento was now looking down at you, posture tense and uncertain. This didn't disguise the curiosity and spark of desire you'd inspired, a slow flush stealing across the firm bridge of his nose.
He looked almost ... bashful, slightly at a loss.
The fact that he allowed you to see this particular facet of his nature did not escape you.
A privilege, indeed.
"You can move."
He remained still for a moment, as if holding some internal debate.
Then, he did as he was bid, shifting back, pushing himself forward, once, twice, experimental and slow.
Kento was quite broad, the heft and width of him always making prior preparation necessary.
You hadn't expected him to feel like this, not inside you, but so close, every ridge and heated twitch making itself known to your flesh, that intoxicating duality of steel encased in velvet, passing through the clench of your thighs.
Just from this, his breathing had grown audibly shallow, Adam's apple bobbing as those large, warm hands slid around to grip you where the stockings ended.
The gentility of his touch was at odds with the act itself, eroticism bordering on debauchery, the pearly translucence sliding from his tip beginning to coat each measured thrust.
You'd never really listened to the sounds your bodies made when joining before, but this time, the slick press of him was unmistakable, causing you to arch back against the bed, eyelids lowering in sultry invitation.
"Kento ... feels so good. Harder, please."
He was growing more confident, a quick study, as always.
The earlier hesitance had given way to something more instinctual, primal, even.
His fingers hooked in the tops of your stockings for leverage, leaving you gasping as he dragged your body with intent against his, driving with greater impact.
His strength was not always so evident in the bedroom, leaving space for gentler, more passionate pursuits, but now he let you have it.
You clutched at the sheets beneath you, whispering urgent appeals, soft and electric, the sweet promise of the night unfurling around you both.
"Yes, please, use me like that. Want you ... so much. You're always so warm, I - ah. Yes, yes, keep going. Fuck me, fuck me like that - "
He was unraveling as he watched you come apart beneath him, blonde strands falling across his flushed face, eyes misted over with pleasure, sweat building on his skin, his grip on your thighs tightening enough to leave bruises.
The pace he'd set was now punishing, driven by your pleas and praise, the sheets rumpled, your breasts swaying with every firm slap of his body against yours.
One final push, and you cried out as he came, a hoarse, guttural groan of ecstasy escaping him.
There was a loud rip as your stockings finally gave way under his powerful grip, heat spurting out onto your abdomen.
Panting, you lay sprawled beneath him, both legs slowly swinging down from their position on his shoulders, almost disbeliving that you'd managed to push him to this.
Kento's head was thrown back, throat extended, chest rising and falling rapidly as he leaned his weight against the bed.
When he finally spoke, breathless and uncharacteristically shaky, it wasn't to reprimand you for your boldness.
That was not his way.
"Let me ... help you get ... cleaned up."
Dutiful, devoted, never wavering.
You nodded wordlessly, and his palm passed over your ankle, squeezing momentarily before he made his way to the bathroom.
He returned with a warm washcloth to remove the traces he'd left on you, but the look he wore, the way he gripped and savoured the softness of you, spoke of further, unleashed desires.
This was Kento's way, not a rebuke, but a reward, and the night was far from over.
Soshiro Hoshina
There was little that escaped Soshiro's observant eye.
He always knew, for example, which of his officers had slacked off during training.
Perhaps this was why he invariably caught you staring.
Granted, you had never been subtle about it. Soshiro was incredible to watch in motion when he trained, darting across the floor, blades swinging like a contained whirlwind, every muscle outlined in glorious definition beneath the black compression shirts he favoured.
Sometimes, like present, he'd emerge from the shower in a fragrant cloud of steam, towel slung criminally low on his waist, strolling past you on his way to the fridge.
How could you not look?
An unreasonable demand.
And now he was -
Starkly outlined by the light emitting from within the fridge, he took his time bending over, the taut outline of his backside clearly visible through the towel.
One of his sweetened coffee-milk drinks was selected with a completely unnecessary show of attention.
What a tease.
Swinging the fridge door shut, he straightened, taking a swig from the bottle. A small drop of the rich brown liquid escaped the rim, trailing lovingly down his chest.
He swiped it off and licked his finger, catching your eye.
"Oh, did I distract you, sweetheart?"
"Stop that."
"Stop what?"
"That."
He had the grace to grin knowingly.
"Can't a man get a drink in his own house?"
"He could, if he were fully clothed."
"Now, don't be like that."
He approached, waving the coffee-milk beneath your nose.
"I'll share, if you ask nicely."
Sighing, you wrenched your eyes away from his enviable abs, fingers flexing around the pen you held.
"Maybe a little. I've got one more requisition to fill out."
He offered you the bottle obligingly.
As he leaned one elbow on the counter beside you, the towel around his waist somehow gave up its precarious perch and slid to the floor.
You nearly choked on the sip you'd taken as Soshiro glanced down at himself with a distinctly cheerful lack of regret.
"Oh no. Now I'm naked in front of my sweet gal. What'll she think of me?"
"You - "
Rising slowly with narrowed eyes, you wiped off your mouth and propped a hand on your hip.
"All right. I'll play your game, Soshiro."
This had evidently been what he was after, because his smile was now anything but innocent, the gleam of his still-damp hair as tantalizing as the expanse of bare skin he had graced you with.
"Oh? And how're ya gonna do that?"
In reply, you stepped past him, pausing in the doorway to the bedroom.
Shadows played over the bunch and slide of muscle in his thighs as he pushed off the counter and sauntered towards you.
Determined not to let his distractions progress further, you turned away, aware of the soft pad of his footsteps across the floor.
As carelessly as he had, you pulled off your own shirt and pajama shorts, dropping them to one side.
He raised an eyebrow as he entered the room.
"Puttin' on a show for me already?"
You glanced coyly over one shoulder at him.
"Just returning the favour."
The evident switch in your mood had thrown him slightly, and you could see it.
Settling on the bed, you crooked a finger.
"Here."
Graciously playing along for now, he climbed up, braced on hands and knees, and crawled towards you, those powerful shoulders rolling beneath scarred skin, a predator at play.
Maintaining an upper hand with this man was near impossible, but you'd be damned if you didn't try your best.
Placing one hand on his chest, you exerted gentle pressure, and he complied, violet eyes carving the sight of you into some part of his mind as he lay back.
Silky dark hair fanned out in a halo around his head, and you allowed your gaze to drag across his body, every sculpted dip and ridge, the delicious trail of hair that meandered down to the tuft between his spread legs, the casual bounce of his half-hard cock as he shifted to get more comfortable.
For all of his teasing, your Soshiro really was a work of art, forged and tempered by battle and a lifetime of hard training.
In that moment, an idea solidified.
Tapping his hip with one hand, you gestured to him to move more towards the right.
He cocked his head quizzically, but followed your direction, bemused.
He was now situated in the correct position for what you intended.
Fingers trailing across his chest, you followed their passage with light presses of your lips, listening to his soft exhalation.
He reached up and tucked your hair behind one ear, the sharp snaggle tooth projecting as he smiled down at you.
Unable to help yourself, you kissed the corner of his mouth, then, slower, the softness of his cheek, his chin, down the length of his throat, across the strong, supple curve of his pectorals.
Soshiro's breathing had sped up a little, warm anticipation in his eyes as he watched you take a nipple into your mouth, biting his lip as you applied gentle suction, tracing its contour with your tongue.
You knew he was more sensitive here, lapping and gently sinking your teeth into the yield of him as he let out a hiss, one warm, calloused hand sliding along your waist.
You gave both sides equal attention, alternating until they were rosy, perked, begging for further attention. His erection was now rock hard against your thigh, and your lips curved against his skin as he moved, as if to create more friction.
Sitting up, you paused in your worship, arching your back, rocking against him.
He was now panting slightly, his grip on your hip tightening, eyes traveling over you with undisguised hunger.
You took his hand, watching his eyes widen slightly as you extended his middle and forefinger, taking them into your mouth before your whisper sounded, soft against his palm.
"Feel how wet you make me."
Soshiro was spellbound as you allowed his fingers, dampened with your saliva, to trace a glistening path down, between your breasts, across your stomach, down, down, to the growing heat between your thighs.
You uttered a soft cry as you felt the firm press of his hand against you, the breach of your entrance and the slow circle of the sensitised bud outside.
"Fuck."
Soshiro seldom cursed, and the raw edge to his arousal never failed to set your nerves ablaze.
In spite of the growing haze of desire in your own mind, you placed a finger over his lips, directing his attention once more.
"Watch."
He raised himself on his elbows, the pieces of the puzzle slotting into place as you moved your torso to the side, your abdomen lowering against his.
Behind you, directly in his line of sight, was the mirror across the top of the dresser. You'd shifted your position to the right edge of the bed, where he could now claim a clear view of the both of you.
There was a fierce intensity to how he focused on that reflection as you raised yourself slightly, your folds clearly visible to him, even in the dimmer lighting of the bedroom.
In your current position over him, your mouth was beside his ear, hands braced on his shoulders. He groaned softly as you slid against his cock, all wet heat and petal-soft promise.
"Soshiro."
He nodded, strain visible in the taut lines of his neck.
"Watch how you stretch me."
His mouth fell open, a rare display of complete surrender to pleasure as you sank down onto him, inch by inch, clutching at him like a lifeline.
All the while, his eyes never left the mirror, exactly as you'd instructed, watching himself push past your labia, deeper and deeper into you.
Keeping the angle, breathing hard, you began a rocking motion with your hips, legs spread wide on either side of him, ensuring that his view was never obscured.
Over and over, you slicked him with the unspoken praise of your own arousal, letting him see exactly what he did to you.
His arms had now closed around your waist with an almost convulsive grasp, biceps pressing into your sides as he whispered endless encouragement to you, to keep going, keep riding, keep taking his cock just like that -
Before long, you'd both lost complete track of whichever game he'd decided on before this had all started, lost in a maze of passion, delineated only by the slap of his flesh against yours, the endless, hard press of him inside you, the damp, open heat of his mouth against your shoulder as he took control, filling the bedroom with broken gasps and cries.
When the surge of heat inside you, finally tipping you into the molten embrace of a pulsing, heavy climax, shook you both from head to toe, you collapsed against him, nails digging into his back.
The tremors subsiding, you raised yourself off him, breathless laughter fanning out against his lips.
"Do I win this round?"
His grin was as charming as ever, boyish and lop-sided from all of your exertions.
"Only if you let me settle the score."
Shota Aizawa
As chronically sleep-deprived as he appears, there's a dichotomy to Shota that becomes more evident over time.
He is always alert, every sense finely attuned to his surroundings, even when he's asleep.
Since you've started spending time at his place, he's also made other concessions, starting with the habit of actually sleeping in his bed at night, as opposed to the familiar yellow sleeping bag.
The moment you join him, he rolls over, arm draping across your form, heavy and warm. It's testament to how far this unspoken trust extends, for a man who so studiously avoided physical contact with others.
Tonight, however, you can tell that he's awake, mulling over something.
He's lying on his back, one arm draped across his forehead, the blankets pushed down.
"Shota?"
"Hmm."
It's a partial answer, giving away none of his thoughts, but still indicating that he's present, and listening.
You turned over to find him watching you, intent and fully aware.
"Can't sleep?"
"I will. Eventually."
Reaching for him, you traced along his bare chest, fingers catching slightly on the dense tangle of dark hair, the solid planes of him beneath.
"What are you thinking about?"
"You."
The blunt honesty of his answer was typical, and you shifted, propping up your head with an elbow.
"Why?"
"Just thinking."
Electing to remain silent, you waited. He always required a little more time to gather and articulate his thoughts.
Shota never said anything he didn't mean, especially not to you.
His eyes were on you again.
"Are you happy?"
"You mean ... with us? Yes, of course I am."
"You sure?"
His meaning wasn't lost on you. Shota had never seen himself indulging in softer emotions, his life Spartan, making room only for that which he was familiar with.
You were an anomaly, a bright splash of uncertainty and vulnerability he was still grappling with.
"I wouldn't be here if I wasn't."
Somehow, you knew that a simple answer was not enough. He didn't expect anything more, though, and that was precisely why you would act.
Reaching over, you ran a hand down his cheek, the rough edge of stubble a contrast to the softer overgrowth along his jaw.
He responded to you immediately, an unspoken desire for something, anything you could give him.
Instead of allowing him to cover your body with his, you pushed back against his shoulder, your leg drifting sideways across his body.
Hooking your ankle against his knee, you lifted yourself on one elbow, sliding over him.
The blanket formed a partial cocoon around you both as you straddled him, leaning down to capture his lips with yours.
For the most part, Shota let you initiate, but the quiet, passionate urgency of his response never failed to set you alight.
His fingers were already threading through your hair, pulling you closer.
You let him taste you, thorough and deliberate, before leaning back, watching him chase after you with slow delight.
Beneath you, he was already hard, and you slid a hand past the waistband of his underwear, a moan escaping the tight set of his lips as you found the hot weight of him beneath the wiry thatch of dark hair.
You could tell that he was trying his best not to buck wantonly into your palm.
Ever a master of restraint, was Shota.
Throwing all caution to the wind, you decided on something you'd never tried with him before.
Familiarity be damned, he'd asked you if you were happy, and you fully intended to show him just how much.
Relinquishing your grasp on him, your reached up, tugging off the shift you wore to bed, now completely nude from the waist up.
The faint furrow of confusion between his brows was especially amusing to you as you lowered yourself between his thighs.
He only figured out what you intended moments after you lifted both breasts, settling them on either side of his cock.
"What - "
For once, Shota was at a loss, stiff with disbelief.
"Keep your eyes on me."
You gave one playful upward stroke, and the groan that exploded from him was almost unrecognizable.
He was watching all right, that hooded, drowsy gaze now drinking in the sight of you and what you were doing to him.
Within the snug, velvety channel, he was long, firm and pulsing, the slight upward cant of his hips meeting the lowering of your breasts each time.
You hadn't been expecting the sensations that he'd give to you, the prickle of his hair catching on your nipples, dewy pearls of pre-cum sliding down his length with every lift and drop.
Soon, the dampness had spread across your skin, gleaming with a soft, obscene sheen in the dim light.
Adding fuel to fire, you gently licked the tip each time it raised, humming in satisfaction at the taste of him, earning short, desperate growls, his fingers scrabbling for purchase on the bedspread.
How you loved seeing him like this, entirely focused, lost in the pleasure you gave so freely, taking and taking until he was completely spent.
Opening wider, you held him in your mouth on the next thrust, engulfing, tracing the small opening at the tip with your tongue.
He jerked spasmodically, a harsh, hoarse protest on his lips.
"If you ... if you keep ... ah, fuck, if you - "
Watching this man come undone would never grow tiresome.
Abandoning your earlier exploits, you focused on the building climax you could sense in the coil of muscle in his abdomen, the flex and tensing of his thighs.
He was so close.
Taking him fully into your mouth, you sucked and stroked with relish, picking up the pace as he threw back his head and lifted himself into you without restraint.
Hips snapping up one final time, he let out a long, low, guttural groan as viscous heat spurted over your breasts and tongue. It was slightly bitter, the distinctive taste of him.
Panting hard, even amidst the white hot bliss you'd brought him, Shota's hand was tracing your lower lip, wiping away the excess that had spilled down to your chest.
His touch was shockingly tender, considering what you'd both just done together.
Mote than that, it was an answer, one he'd finally grasped acceptance of.
Smiling up at him, you stretched, arms raised high above your head.
"You wonder if I'm happy when I get to feast like this?"
His laughter was low and rich, a trifle rough from disuse.
"Fine. Made your point."
When you made to get off him, his grasp on your hip halted you, the slow curve of his smile matching yours.
Everything I read about recovering from burnout is like “it takes months or even years to fully recover” and it’s like okay…. I have a weekend before I gotta clock in on Monday
