this got angsty LOL but ends well. bakugou calls you 'woman' once.
not that it would make anything easier, but—katsuki almost hopes that you won't pick up.
his gut hurts, and he knows it's dread in its raw form. not something he's too accustomed to feeling, as all his battles are faced head-on, with a certainty and confidence that he's nurtured since he was a child.
he's faced death and come out on top; how could he stand to fear anything?
the district they've given him has been a nightmare. he and kirishima are more than capable of handling it, but it's still new enough that they're struggling to establish their presence in the back alleys and between the nightborhoods. most days, they're needed two places at once, for twice as long, and they're constantly finding holes that should have been patched long ago.
it's just not something that can be fixed overnight. you know that—because it's a truth he's used as a shield for months.
in the beginning of your relationship, it was so easy. not perfect, but fitting together had been so doable, for you both. and now—
katsuki is panicking.
"hellooooo!"
the wind scrapes by, and even though he's burning up from the trouble of the day, the sweat on the back of his neck runs cold. "hey," he murmurs.
"i am—i had to help my coworker close something out and i missed the train, so i'm just waiting for the next one!" your voice showcases all your excitement, and when katsuki squeezes his eyes shut, he can imagine you dancing back and forth on your feet. hopeful. "all i need to do is change, and it won't take me long! are you ready?"
"uh," he curls forward until his forehead is pressed against the brick of the agency, feeling the sting of broken skin. it gives him something to hold into. "no, i, uh—"
the line is deadly silent. hope squashed.
"i, uh, don't think i can make it tonight."
it's been like this for months.
all of his work comes home with him, keeps him either cramped into the office or on his phone one way or another. you're gone for work by the time his shift is over, in the mornings, or you're fast asleep by the time he comes in late. lunch two or three times a week is the most you've seen of each other, had the time to just talk. the few times he gets to touch you have been in the shower, and he's too exhausted to enjoy it, and he can tell you know what it is.
some kind of desperation, a feeble reach for the intimacy you've been without for too long.
it's panic. it's fear.
katsuki almost thinks you've hung up until the line crackles with your long inhale, and trembling exhale. in the beginning, you used to question it fifteen different ways; is there any way he can get away for just thirty minutes? fifteen? ten? can you get the food to-go and come to him? what time does he think he'll be done? no idea? not even a little bit?
but now, you just say, "okay," in that tense, quiet voice, that's swollen with all the tears you'll cry when the call is over. just thinking about it has him—
"'m'sorry," he offers, miserably, and he pushes against the brick until new scrapes open. if he wasn't so sure he'd crack his skull, he'd bash his head into it, but he's too—mad? annoyed? guilty? like a prey animal, wanting to gnaw himself out of this situation. "it's—i'm—"
"no, i know," you sniff and it makes his toes curl in his boots, his teeth grind. of course you know. "do—i can—just tell me where so i can cancel the reservation."
"no, y-you don't hafta' do that."
"no, i can. that way you don't have to."
"no, i'll—" he has to breathe in through his nose so his frustration isn't misdirected. "don't worry about it, alright? i'll handle it."
and you just say, "okay."
in the background, he can hear the incoming screech of breaks and the ruffle of wind, and he tries to imagine you standing there. frowning, face pinched. he doesn't even know what you wore today.
"i'll talk to you—"
"it ain't—it ain't always gonna be like this, y'know?"
and you say, "i know," because you do, because he's already said this to you before.
"it's just—this fuckin'—" he huffs and suddenly stands straight, throws his arm out while facing the wall, as if you could see him arguing over this, because he cares. "ei and i are gonna figure this shit out and—"
"i know, katsuki—"
"—i know you know!" he inhales sharply when you go quiet, and he's offended at his own tone. you would normally offer something soft to placate him, because you're so good at reading him—but you don't, this time. "'m gonna figure it out," he continues, "and it's...gonna be worth it, alright?"
the sounds of the station fade out slowly, like you're walking away from it now that he's ruined your night again. he wonders where you're going but suddenly doesn't feel like he has the right to ask.
when you speak again, your voice has gained enough of its sweet familiarity that he can finally take stock of his surroundings, that he can focus on something besides the break that's threatening inside his chest.
"what do you mean, worth it?"
kirishima is still standing off the sidewalk, far enough to give katsuki his little bit of privacy, back turned. the sidekick interning with them this month—another responsibility on his shoulders—turns away when he gets caught staring.
watching as katsuki looks as much of an asshole as he feels.
he doesn't know what to say to you, and you continue before he can think about it.
"you mean, like, you?"
yeah. he means like him. your relationship, the two of you. it's hard right now, but— "i'm gonna figure it out."
it's quiet for a while until you sigh, a little less shuddering. you don't sound on the verge of tears anymore and it's maybe selfish, but he feels something loosen in his chest. he can hear your keys jingling, the zipper and charms on your bag.
and he doesn't even know what you wore today—
"of course you're worth it, if that's what you're trying to say." you offer, softly, to placate. "it's just dinner, katsuki."
you're trying to let him off easy, like you always do, and maybe he should take it, but now it only riles him up further, because he's never just taken easy. he faces things head-on, his mistakes and all.
"no," he argues, because he cares. he does. "it ain't just dinner, it's—"
he bought the ring a year ago, now, picked it out with his dad's help. it's been sitting in a bag in a box at the bottom of his work bag so you wouldn't stumble upon it by accident.
at first, he needed to find the balls to ask, and now that he has, everything has gone to shit. and even though you have the patience of a fuckin' saint, he's not sure how many more chances he has, with you. how many more you'll give him.
"no, it ain't just dinner," he reaffirms, grumbling. there's a speech somewhere in his brain that he's practiced over and over again, but it's been so long since he figured out how to word everything that he can't remember the opening details. "i—there ain't anyone else for me 'sides you, y'know that?"
you're smiling, even if your eyes are wet; he can hear it in your voice. "well, i hope not." he doesn't laugh because he can't, with his heart in his throat like it is. "there's no one else for me, either."
"it—ain't just dinner, it's..." all the sweat that had cooled in the creases of his arms and knees fires up again, hot enough to make him feel dangerous. "forever. i don't want anyone else forever."
"yeah, i don't either, bighead."
"so if i asked you to—fuckin' marry me or whatever, you'd say yes?"
this isn't how he wanted to do this. not in a million different scenarios that he worked through did it happen like this: over the phone, as desperate as he's ever been, too tired to remember what he wanted to say. it's not a last ditch effort; he just can't stand to look at his fucking work bag sitting in the corner of his office any goddamn longer.
the line crackles with your long inhale, and trembling exhale. "is that what you're doing right now? asking me to marry you?"
katsuki huffs, rolls his eyes like you can see them. "'s'what i've been tryna' do for months, woman."
you laugh, like it's a yes.
for him, the sound might as well be.
"are you coming home tonight for sure?"
"that have anything to do with your answer?"
"no," you smile again, clear and small and shy. "answer is still the same, i just want to know."
katsuki almost doesn't realize he's smiling until he looks at kirishima again, face too numb and hot to feel anything else. eijirou grins back at him, big and bright, like he's the one that had been asked.
"yeah," katsuki murmurs, and as he answers, he pictures you like he's seen you every night for weeks: safe and warm, curled up in his bed. where you belong. "i'll be home."
"okay," you whisper, but it's not like before; it makes his chest hurt in a good way, like his heart is trying to beat its way out. "ask me when you get home."
"okay," he says—
and he does, finally digging the box that's in a bag at the bottom of his work bag, getting down on one bruised and creaky knee at your bedside. still covered in dirt and grime, though he's more awake than he's been in a long time.
thinking about kageyama, who's not necessarily inexperienced when it comes to sex and intimacy but is definitely a little bit obtuse about it. who's had a few partners in his adult life but they were all relatively long term, kind of boring affairs, and who suddenly finds himself single and a little tipsy and stumbling into your apartment with you after an event where the two of you met and felt a spark.
and you step out of your bathroom after cleaning yourself up once all is said and done, a satisfying little romp if ever you'd had one, ready to get some much needed rest. but much to your surprise, you find tobio fluffing up the pillow on your side of the bed, preparing to snuggle down and go to sleep.
"what are you doing?" you ask him, mildly alarmed and genuinely confused. you'd taken your time in the washroom, adding an entire extra step to your skincare routine and everything, assuming that the man who'd just spent the past few hours in that very bed with you would have used that as his opportunity to quietly see himself out–not make himself comfortable.
"your pillows are too fluffy," tobio complains a little, smushing the feathers down a bit more as he settles down atop it, wiggling his big big body under the blankets.
and you just... stare at him.
and with his head resting against your too fluffy pillow, kageyama blinks back.
"why are you looking at me like that?" he asks bluntly, and you don't even know how to reply to his question without making it sound like you're the weird one.
so, rather unbelievably, you just pad towards your bed slowly, slipping underneath the blankets that tobio holds up for you. you settle into bed next to him, even though it's the wrong side, and let him pull the comforter up to your chin. let him wiggle and squirm until he's comfortable, though you lay stiff as a board in contrast. let him throw an arm around your waist, and huff a little sound of relief like he's finally found a position that suits his particular needs, all while you stare up at your ceiling and wonder how the hell you got to this place.
and tobio falls asleep so quickly. his breathing slow and even. his arm still holding tight.
you risk a peek at his face only when you're certain he's no longer conscious. you contemplate how soft his features look in slumber. how peaceful he seems on your side of the bed. and for the first time you realize that maybe he's a little less used to things like this than you are. who might not have even realized he was supposed to take your lengthy trip to the washroom as his cue to leave. and you find something almost... cute in that. boyish maybe. sweet. in his sleep, tobio's grip tightens, tugging you a little bit closer to him. his cheek finding a place to rest against the top of your head.
your eyes flutter shut as a quiet laugh escapes you, you feel tobio's warm breath against your temple, and you fall asleep sharing your side of the bed.
BEG, BORROW, & STEAL - levi ackerman/f!reader (aot)
NSFW 18+ MINORS AND AGELESS BLOGS DO NOT INTERACT
wc: 13k
tags: enemies to lovers, neighbours to begrudging friends to lovers, food and wine writer!Levi, catsitter!Levi, Pancakes is the Real Star of this show, frequent and gratuitous descriptions of food and drink, frequent mention and consumption of alcohol, singular mention of loud domestic argument, smut, oral (f!receiving), fingering, sensory deprivation play, blindfolds, hair pulling, no mention of condoms, honestly i'm not sure if fire escapes are actually safe to hang out on so tw for that too
crossposted to ao3
Nestled in a quiet corner of Mitras’ budding east end, there’s a little five-storey building.
It’s stout, brick, and decorated with ivy that creeps up along the mortar and underneath its windows. Along the side of the building not facing the two lane street, running just above a narrow back alley, there’s a labyrinthine set of old metal fire escapes—rusted and weathered but still sturdy, a standing testament to bygone craftsmanship. It all comes together in stark juxtaposition to the design of the towering structures of concrete, steel, and glass that have been steadily cropping up in the neighbourhood as of late.
The architecture feels almost out of place among these new developments, understated and old among all the shiny and new, but it certainly has a lot of character.
The residents who inhabit the apartments inside are respectful, polite people, who mostly tend to keep to themselves—though they’re as a eclectic of a bunch as any, to be sure. Most have lived in their rent-controlled units for decades, made homes for themselves that they never plan to leave.
Since moving into the little brick building two years ago, you haven’t had any notable issues with any of your neighbours.
Well, except for one.
The miserable guy in apartment 304—one unit down and slightly to the left of your own, 405. He’d nearly chewed your god damn head off for using his trash can one time when you’d first moved in. His trash can of all things. It had been an honest mistake on your part, and you’d sincerely apologized for it when he all-but cornered you in the mail room off the lobby a few days after the fact. But after the unpleasant exchange, the curmudgeon bought himself a padlock for his trashcan and has sent withering glares your way ever since.
It’s been well over a year since then, but the chill has never quite broken between the two of you.
The dark haired man, who seems to be perpetually suit-clad—or at least he has been in all the times you’ve spotted him—is easy enough to avoid given the floor’s difference between your units. But sometimes ill-fated meetings are inevitable in such close quarters.
Your building (regrettably) only has one rickety old elevator. It’s an original feature from when the complex was first built, and it’s undergone minimal maintenance and sum total zero upgrades since it was installed decades prior.
All of which is to say: it merits nothing less than being called a complete and utter death trap.
And, as though the sluggardly descent from your apartment on the fourth floor down to the lobby isn’t harrowing enough, your ill-tempered neighbour standing less than a metre away from you in a tightly confined space surely makes it worse.
The elevator is old enough that it has two doors—an automatic door that opens on each floor, as well as a manual interior door that the passengers in the elevator are responsible for opening and closing themselves. Initially you’d found the antique system charming, quaint even, but after realizing that the interior door weighs about thirty pounds and only likes to open half of the time, it quickly lost its charm. You stare pointedly at the cursed iron grate of the aforementioned interior door as the elevator makes its slow downward journey to the lobby, cursing yourself for not just taking the fucking stairs.
The lights on the side panel tell you you’re only one single floor away from your destination. If you just hold your breath and pray hard enough maybe everything will be fi—
“If you and your boyfriend plan to continue going at it like animals until four in the morning without any consideration for your neighbours, you should at least have the basic human decency to close your bedroom window.”
The elevator makes it to the ground floor just as his eviscerating remark draws to a close, the car dipping slightly upon arrival and sending your stomach sinking with it. Without missing a beat, your sour-faced neighbour pulls the confounded metal door open like it weighs nothing. You, in contrast, are frozen stock-still in shock, reeling in the wake of his words with a singeing heat flooding your cheeks. He steps off in the lobby without so much as a momentary glance in your direction, and you watch his back (in a crisp navy blue suit jacket) as he walks away.
You’re so completely stunned that you almost forget to get out too.
Oh, you hate him.
You swear that you’ll forsake the cursed elevator entirely for the rest of your life, if only to avoid ever crossing paths with that bastard again.
Or, so you may have thought.
Weeks later, you find yourself on the fire escape outside your living room with tears drying on your cheeks. You sit quietly in the wake of a long, heated argument with your boyfriend. A loud argument. A relationship ending argument.
Things have been bad for a few months. Maybe even longer, if you’re being honest. He’s always been a bit mean, a little careless, a little wrong—and you knew he probably wasn’t the one. But that doesn’t make the sting of yet another relationship crumbling in your hands any more bearable.
And so, not for the first time, you find yourself drowning your sorrows in a bottle of cheap, overly saccharine white wine and hiccuping in breaths of the fresh air as you try to soothe the ache while the sting of alcohol sears down your throat.
“Your boyfriend sucks.”
You jump a little, looking down the stairs to your right only to see your most loathed neighbour on his own fire escape with a glass of red wine in his hand.
You’re not sure how long he’s been there, but you’re sure he heard most (if not all) of what had transpired in your living room if he had been home at the time. Your windows had been open, you realize too late to do anything about it.
“Yeah,” you scrub at your swollen eyes with the back of your knuckles, “he kinda does—”
You take a long, inelegant swig from the bottle of wine in your hand at the same time your neighbour lifts his own glass. This mouthful tastes more bitter than the last.
“—and he’s not my boyfriend anymore, in case it needs to be said.”
Your neighbour pauses with his glass at his lips. Based on the fact that your window had been open to the world at large, and your conversation with your now-ex had been less that even-toned, you doubt the point really stands to be highlighted.
“It doesn’t,” he replies, confirming your suspicions. “But sorry to hear that.”
You snort mirthlessly. “Are you really?”
The man tuts, a little click of his tongue behind his teeth. But it’s not a sound that implies that he cares, just one that says he’s been found out.
“No.”
You can’t help but laugh at his candour. It’s a nice reprieve from the tears.
And, strangely, things are almost… amicable after that.
Now in the evenings when both of you sit quietly on your fire escapes, where once you’d skitter back inside to avoid his cold glare and oppressive aura, neither of you moves to silently retreat.
Sometimes you even chat, as unlikely an occurrence as it once would have seemed to you. You talk about basically nothing—the weather, a new building that’s cropped up a few streets away, a noisy neighbour, the moon—and it’s usually just for a few minutes before you head to sleep. You tend to be early to bed and early to rise, but Apartment 304’s lights seem to be on at all hours.
Part of you wonders just how long he stays out on his balcony after you retire for the night. But, it’s sort of nice—this unlikely armistice you seem to have unspokenly signed.
You stick your head out the window one evening, a few months in to your ill-begotten amity, a little earlier than you normally would since you got home from work ahead of your usual return.
He’s already there.
“Hey—”
Your neighbour lifts his head to peer up from the pad of notebook paper he’s scribbling away on. He’s wearing glasses today. You’ve never seen those before.
“—what are you having for dinner?”
304 looks at you with a quirk of his brow.
“A 2001 Cabernet Sauvignon.”
You lean your elbows on the windowsill, angling yourself a little further out of it. “I just made a fuckload of food. If you split that red with me, I’ve got a plate for you.”
He eyes you, and seems to be considering your proposal.
“What is it?”
“Roast chicken, some vegetables. Nothing fancy.”
“This wine pairs better with red meat.”
“Yeah? Well my last bottle of wine cost me 8 dollars and a 2-day hangover. Do you want the food or not?” you ask him, rolling your eyes lightly at his comment.
There’s a long pause.
A sigh.
“Fine.”
You meet on the metal stairs halfway between your respective fire escape landings on the third and fourth floor; you're perched a few steps higher than your neighbour closer to your home, and he to his.
He pours you a serving of wine into a spotless glass that he must have retrieved while you were inside plating up the meal, having evidently tucked his eyeglasses away at the same time as they’re nowhere to be seen. He accepts the plate of food you offer him and hands you the drink in exchange. Your plates are mismatched, so is your cutlery, and they clash with the delicate wine glasses he’s brought to your unexpected soiree.
You watch cautiously as he takes his first bite, silently scrutinizing the way his brow furrows as he chews. After a moment the crease in his brow softens, and he seems content—or at the very least not repulsed. You almost laugh into the brim of your wine glass as you quietly read the expressions on his face.
You tip your glass back and take your first sip.
“Holy shit, this is great,” you say, the flavour of the wine lingering on your tongue even after you’ve swallowed it down. It’s neither too dry nor too sweet, evenly balanced, and it doesn’t have the lingering tannic bitterness of the reds that you’ve tried before. Theres something rich but not heavy in the notes that first touch your palate, fruity but on the right side of neutral. You reach a hand out for the bottle and he passes it to you—albeit hesitantly. Reading the label, all you’re able to surmise is that it’s french. “This must not be cheap.”
“It certainly cost more than eight dollars,” your third floor neighbour snorts. He catches the flat look you shoot him, and suddenly is very preoccupied with cutting into his next bite of chicken.
And so from that point on you continue your evening chats, and even eat dinner together on a semi-regular basis. Apartment 304 has yet to turn down your offer of a free meal—and he always supplies the wine.
You’re not friends per se, but you’re certainly no longer mortal nemeses either.
“Oi! 405!”
You hear your neighbour call to you late one afternoon, the sun rapidly slipping away along the city skyline outside, and rush towards your open window. You stick your head out onto the fire escape curiously.
Your neighbour is standing on his landing, staring up at you with a quirked brow.
“Did you lose something?”
That’s when you notice the bra dangling off his outstretched finger. Your eyes shoot to your laundry rack where that very bra had been previously pinned to dry, as though you really need to confirm where it had come from. There’s a clothespin resting on the grated metal deck of the fire escape beside the wire rack, having clearly blown off in the wind.
You swallow a mortified groan.
“How do you know that’s not Misses Miller’s from upstairs?” You sniff, unduly defensive. The argument is weak and you know it; Misses Miller occupies apartment 506, the unit at the top of the fire escape stairs connected to your own—she’s nearly 80 and likely requires a bit more support than what the dainty lace bra looped around your neighbour's index finger offers.
The dark-haired man’s lips quirk into something you might think vaguely reminiscent of a smirk if you believed him capable of it.
“I’m happy to go ask-“
“You’re a real jerk, y’know that, Third?” you cut him off before he can finish the thought, pulling yourself out through the window clumsily in your newfound haste.
He seems to be contemplating what you’ve said as you make your way down the fire escape stairs towards him, footfalls heavy with your indignation.
“Third?” he asks, peering up at you with his head titled inquisitively to the side.
“Third floor,” you explain, like it should be obvious.
“I don’t own the entire third floor.”
You lean down from your place on the stairs and snatch your bra from his hand. “Well you sure act like it.”
You turn and stomp your way back up the fire escape towards your own apartment, bra clutched in a tightly clenched fist.
“So, should I let Misses Miller know you’re returning that to her, or—“
You slam your window shut behind you before you can hear the end of his comment.
A few nights following The Bra Incident—or the deBRAcle as you’ve come to refer to it in your mortified inner monologue—you wake to the unpleasant sound of toppling aluminium in the back alley. Sleepily, you shuffle out into your living room and lift your window, peeking your head out into the cool night.
A quick glance to your right tells you that 304’s lights are off. It’s late, admittedly, and this should be normal—but you can’t recall a night you’ve peeked down towards his apartment and seen the window dark. It’s all a bit unusual.
What you hear next even more so.
“God fucking damn it—shit, fuck—mother of—“
“You alright down there?” You approach the railing of the fire escape and lean over the edge to peer down towards the ground.
Below you, beyond all odds or reasonable explanation, is your third floor neighbour. He’s dressed in a nice suit as usual, with his hair neatly slicked back, and he’s standing beside a knocked over garbage can with trash strewn about.
He blinks up at you owlishly.
It’s quiet for a moment as the two of you hold eye contact.
He speaks first.
“I forgot my house keys in my office.”
You raise a brow, propping your chin in your hand as you lean against the metal railing. “And so you picked a fight with an innocent trash can?”
304 narrows his eyes up at you, a resentful squint. The sharp line of his jaw becomes even more pronounced as he grits his teeth. “I’m trying to reach the fire escape.”
The ladder that connects the fire escape to the ground is retractable, and has to be pulled from the second floor. He’d clearly been trying to use the garbage cans as leverage to reach the lowest rung of the ladder and yank it down—a security measure that had clearly done its job.
You purse your lips, fighting back a laugh. “Are you drunk?”
Silence befalls the two of you once more, and your neighbours eyes only narrow further.
“A bit.” Reluctance weighs heavily in his monotonous words.
You push yourself off from the railing, heading back towards your window.
“Where are you going?” 304 calls indignantly after you, like now that you’ve spotted him you’re somehow obligated to come to his aid.
“I gotta grab something!” you chirp dismissively as you crawl back inside over the edge of the frame.
Something being your cellphone. Specifically to take a picture and commemorate the ordeal.
“You’re cruel,” your neighbour snarls from his place on the ground as you gleefully snap a few photos with flash, quickly turning his back to you in an attempt to preserve whatever remaining shred of pride he has left.
“And if you want me to drop this fire escape ladder then you’re at my mercy—so smile!” you cajole with a giggle as you lean precariously over the railing, pinching the screen of your cellphone to zoom in on his figure.
He flips you off over his suit-clad shoulder and it makes you laugh again.
Once you’ve had your fun, and taken (conservative estimate) 400 photos, you climb down the stairs all the way to the second floor balcony—creeping across the grated deck as to not startle your unsuspecting lower-level neighbours—and finally push down the fire escape ladder.
304 makes short work of clambering up the rungs, pulling himself onto the balcony with a heaving sigh. He stumbles slightly, and you grab him by the lapels of his suit to steady him.
“Take it easy, Third,” you say quietly, letting your hands unfurl from his suit jacket once you’re sure he’s regained his balance.
He rolls his eyes and pulls the creaky fire escape ladder up behind him once more. You both wait with bated breath, pulse spiking, to see if the lights inside the second floor apartment turn on. Mercifully the windows stay dark.
The two of you make your way back up to the third floor, and you’re just about to step onto the stairs towards your own apartment and return to the call of your bed as 304 move towards his window. He places both hands flat against the glass and pushes up.
Nothing happens.
It’s locked.
“Oh my god,” your neighbour groans miserably, letting his forehead rest against the fingerprint-smudged glass, his dark hair hanging around his eyes.
“Holy shit, did something just move in there?” You gasp in fright, spotting something streaking through the darkness of his apartment through the pane.
“Yes, the fucking beast that’s taken over my home.”
You tilt your head. “I’m lost.”
The man before you sighs, turning over so instead of resting with his forehead against the glass his shoulders are pressed to the brick just beside the window frame. He tilts his head back, and a strand of hair falls from his slicked back style and curls in front of his eyes. He breathes out frustratedly into the night. “I’m currently babysitting my acquaintance’s evil cat.”
“You have a cat?” you ask excitedly.
“No,”—he shoots you a pointed, irritated look—“it’s my acquaintance’s cat. And it’s the weirdest creature on earth. She can open windows and eats all of my bread.”
You press a hand to your mouth to try and hold back your giggles.
“Bread?” you ask him incredulously.
He nods solemnly.
“Well,”—you drag the toe of your fluffy slipper idly against the grating beneath your feet—“what’s her name?”
He stares at you blankly. Utterly unenthused. “Pancakes.”
And at that you have no choice but to openly and unreservedly laugh.
When you finally manage to get your giggles in check—exceedingly conscious of how the sound of your laughter seems to ricochet down the narrow, brick-lined alley you find yourself in—you manage to ask him a pertinent question.
“Does anyone have a spare key to your place?”
“My colleague, Erwin,” the man in front of you mumbles.
Acquaintance. Colleague. You’re starting to wonder if 304 has no friends, or just refuses to refer to them as such.
“Ok, so call him,” you encourage.
He shuts his eyes, his head still pressed back against the wall of brick behind him.
“…My phone is dead.”
You wince.
“Christ, third strike you’re out.”
Your neighbour looks ready to pitch himself clear off the edge of the fire escape.
“Get it? because you’re—“
“I got it.” 304 finally opens his eyes to shoot you a glare.
You do him the favour of not openly laughing in the face of his misfortune again, wracking your brain for something that may actually be helpful.
“Er, do you wanna come up to my place?” you ask. “I probably have a charger you can use for your phone, or you could just use mine to call. What kind do you have?”
The man in front of you rifles through the inside pocket of his suit jacket and hands you the dead device.
You survey it for a moment, turning the bottom of the phone up towards you to squint at the charging port in the dim night. It’s different from yours but all hope isn’t yet lost. “I think that ex of mine you liked so much had the same one, he left a charger up there. It’s all yours if you want it.”
It’s not like he really has any other choice.
As 304 follows you up the narrow fire-escape stairs towards your window on the fourth floor, you realize it’s the first time your neighbour has ever been to your apartment. Or even crossed the halfway point on the stairs, for that matter. You turn just before you get to the window, and suddenly realize how close you are on the narrow balcony outside of your home.
You pause.
“You know, I really shouldn’t be inviting a stranger into my apartment.”
Third tuts admonishingly. “We eat dinner together once or twice a week.”
“I don’t even know your na-“
“Levi.”
You’re a little taken aback in the wake of his offering, your eyes widening slightly.
“Levi,” you test the name over in your mouth like the wine the two of you so often share, and then you shrug. “Doesn’t quite have the same ring to it as Third, but I guess it’ll do.”
“You’re impossible, you know that?” he huffs.
You turn to crawl through your living room window when you feel a gentle touch on your hip calling for your attention. You look back, and Levi pulls his hand away quickly, like he’s realized what he’s done.
You can’t help but think he doesn’t need to seem so suddenly abashed.
He clears his throat a little as you look to him inquisitively.
“Your name?”
You smile a bit, your nose scrunching up at how shyly he poses the question, and you tell him.
He nods curtly, like he accepts it, and it almost makes you laugh.
You go about making two cups of tea while you wait for the phone to power back on once he’s plugged it into the charger—which you dug out of a box you keep shoved in the back of your coat closet full of things your various exes have left in your apartment over the years. Thankfully it is the right fit for the device.
A quick glance at the time on your stove clock as you’re boiling the kettle tells you it’s already well past two AM—far later than your usual bedtime, though you don’t feel particularly sleepy.
Once the tea has been prepared, you tote the steaming mugs into the living room where Levi is waiting. You sit curled in an armchair, while your unexpected guest rests perched on the very edge of your sofa closer to the outlet where his phone is plugged into the wall.
“So, what had you out so late tonight, Thir-Levi?” you ask, correcting yourself last minute from using the nickname you’re so used to. You blow over the surface of your very hot tea as you wait for his reply.
“Work thing,” he grunts dismissively, his knee jiggling impatiently while he cradles the still-dark cellphone in his hands. He picks up his own cup of tea and takes a sip. He seems pleasantly surprised by the taste.
“Okay,” you draw out the word, “and what exactly do you do for work?”
Levi looks at you over the brim of his mug, an almost skeptical expression on his face.
“I’m a writer.”
Your eyes widen. “No shit! Like a novelist?”
“Journalist,” he corrects you, his lips pursing forward like he’s contemplating whether or not to divulge any more. He decides to indulge you, evidently, when he further supplies: “I’m a food and wine writer.”
“Really?” You lean forward in your seat, suddenly very interested. “A critic?”
He looks like he wants to correct you, but doesn’t. “I write reviews among other things, yes.”
You slump back in your chair a little bit, kicking your legs up to loop over one armrest.
“Wow, a guy who writes about food and can’t even cook.”
“I can cook, I just choose not to,” Levi says defensively, his tone sharp.
“Sounds like something someone who can’t cook would say,” you say, punctuating the statement with a long sip of tea.
“I’ve eaten at some of the nicest restaurants in the world—there’s nothing I can make myself that could compare, so why try?”
“How fatalistic of you,” you say with a snuffle of a laugh against the edge of your mug. “You know, if I’d known you had such a refined palate I might have been a bit more self-conscious about serving you my cooking.”
Levi rolls his eyes. “You’re a decent cook.”
Your brows lift in surprise. A compliment?
“But you use too much salt.”
You bark out a defensive laugh. “I do not!”
You hear a subtle buzz of vibration and a soft chime as Levi’s phone, left momentarily forgotten on the arm rest of the couch, powers on. It seems to take you both by surprise.
“Well then, time to call your colleague in shining armour,” you say with an encouraging wave of your hand.
Levi leans forward to set his cup of tea down on the table in front of him.
“Coasters?” He pauses, looking around the room.
“I found this coffee table on the curb outside my dorm in college, I promise you it’s seen worse than a hot mug.”
Levi’s face pinches slightly before he sets the mug gently down atop the table’s edge.
You watch as he picks up his phone, tapping around the lit screen for a moment before holding the device up to his ear. He’s curved a little awkwardly towards the end of the sofa due to the power cord connecting the phone to the outlet, the material of his dress shirt pulling taught around his frame. His suit jacket hangs on the back of a chair at your kitchen counter, the knot of his tie is loosened at his throat.
It’s quiet for a moment, and then Levi pulls his phone away from his face and ends the call.
“He’s not answering,” he says with a frustrated huff, as though not answering a phone call in the dead of night is somehow unreasonable. He dials the number again.
“Well,” you say slowly, watching as the same series of events plays out once more, “it’s late. He’s probably asleep.”
“Oh, fuck,” he groans quietly, slumping back into your sofa.
“Do you think the building Super would be awake?” you ask. The Superintendent has keys to every unit, so he’s the next most viable option. He’s a nice, helpful man, and only lives down on the first floor, but you suspect a knock at the door in the dead of night would be worse than an impromptu phone call.
“No, but he’d probably wake up if I called him,” Levi mumbles. He clicks his tongue behind his teeth in irritation. “How humiliating.”
He looks miserable at the mere prospect, but still reaches for his phone.
And maybe it’s because of how late it is. Maybe it’s how warm and dozy and pliantly agreeable the tea that you’d prepared for the two of you has made you feel. Maybe it’s just because there’s something inexplicably comfortable about being around Levi that has your guard lowered.
“You could always crash on my couch,” you find yourself saying before you really think it through. He looks up at you, clearly taken aback by the offer. “Then you can call your coworker in the morning and get your spare key.”
Levi appears uncertain. “You’d let a stranger crash on your couch?”
“We eat dinner together once or twice a week, Levi,” you remind him with a little smirk, using his own words from earlier in your defence.
You bring out a pillow from your own bed covered in a fresh pillow case, and a blanket from your linen closet. You hand them to Levi, still seated in the same place on your sofa though a bit more at ease, and he dips his head in thanks while holding both items atop his lap.
“I have some clothes my ex left here that I would offer you, but he was a bit, uh…”—you make a vague gesture in roughly the same stature as your last boyfriend—“he had a different build than you.”
Levi looks at you flatly.
“You’ve already done enough,” he says, though not altogether unkindly.
“Alright, well… g’night,” you say with an awkward little wave, shuffling off in the direction of your bedroom.
Levi calls your name just as you step across the threshold, and you peek back through the doorway towards him. His face is illuminated only by the glow of the lamp atop the table next to the sofa, and he’s looking at you with an unexpectedly earnest expression as he undoes the top button of his dress shirt, his tie resting undone around his collar.
“Thank you.”
You smile, dipping your head in a little nod, and shut your bedroom door behind you.
When you wake the next morning, it takes a few languid blinks against the morning sunlight streaming in through the curtains and a couple moments more of proper consciousness to remember the events that had transpired the night before.
Well, that and the distant shuffling outside your bedroom door.
You pull on a sweatshirt, pat your hair down into something you think (hope) is a little less dishevelled, and amble sleepily out to your living room. It’s empty, but Levi’s suit jacket is still hanging on your counter stool, his tie neatly rolled up on the corner of your coffee table, and your window is open. You can see the edge of his back seated just beyond the open pane.
You poke your head out to see Levi on the fire escape. His button up shirt is undone to reveal the tight white t-shirt he wears underneath it, and his slacks are slightly creased from sleeping in them. His hair is messy—a hybrid between the loose hanging style you’re accustomed to, and the slicked back fashion he’d had it in the night before. He must hear you coming, because he turns to face you as you arrive. You look at him curiously as if to ask why he’s sitting outside.
“I didn’t want to bother you,” he explains without you even vocalizing the question on your mind. His voice is still a bit hoarse from sleep, deeper and rougher than its usual smooth tone.
You crawl through the window, yawning a little as you take a seat cross-legged on the little balcony behind him. Levi turns to face you properly, shifting his whole body in your direction where he sits at the top of the stairs leading down to his own apartment.
“Any word from your spare key courier?” You blink through the tears that sprang to your eyes in your yawn, rubbing them away with your fist.
“He’ll be here in half an hour,” Levi replies.
You nod, a little tug at the corner of your mouth. “Thank God. Pancakes must be so worried all alone in there.”
Levi’s lip curls in an unhappy sneer. “I watched her eat half a loaf of three-day-old brioche through the window this morning. I’m sure she’s having the time of her life.”
There’s no choice but to giggle at the image of a cat ransacking your excessively type-A neighbour’s home, even if he can’t see the humour in it.
“D’ya want some coffee?” you ask, pushing yourself up towards the window again.
“I’d take another cup of that tea from last night,” Levi replies, his tone almost hopeful, and you nod before pulling yourself back inside.
You return to your place on the fire escape a few minutes later, this time with two mugs in hand.
It’s quiet while you sip your drinks, listening to the building hum of the city waking up around you.
“You always up this early?” you finally shatter the stillness with a question, but it’s not intrusive—slipping easily into the comfortable air around you.
“Yeah, usually,” Levi says, peeking over at you. He holds his mug a little strangely, you can’t help put notice—fingertips gripping the brim rather than the handle. It seems unduly precarious. “You wake up early too, huh?”
You tilt your head, wondering how he might know that.
“You sing a lot in the morning,” he explains, looking away by turning his gaze back towards the alley. “You’ve got terrible pitch.”
“Hey!” You reach out and swat at his shoulder. He’s warm to the touch, and even though it’s so basically human it still feels almost unexpected.
He huffs a little, neither a laugh nor far enough from one to discredit it; the sound is smug and indulgent.
“Yeah well you stay up too late,” you counter his observation with one of your own.
This time it’s his turn to be curious, lifting a dark brow as he peeks back at you over his shoulder.
“Your light’s always on,”—you tilt your head in the direction of his apartment down the stairs he’s seated at the top of—“and I don’t really take you for the nightlight type.”
“I don’t sleep much,” he admits.
You scoff. “What do you to with all those extra hours in the day?”
“Writing, editing, researching, emailing my editor,” he explains with a shrug.
You roll your eyes a bit, taking a sip of your coffee. “So you’re a real workaholic, huh?”
Levi drains the last mouthful of his tea, setting the mug down with a little clink as the porcelain meets metal. “There are worse things to spend your time doing.”
“There are better things too,” you counter.
“Such as?”
“I don’t know, socializing? Relaxing? Going out on a date?” You gesticulate with the hand not holding your mug as though to say ‘so on and so forth.'
“You think dating in this day and age is a fun way to pass the time?” Levi remarks flatly.
“Fine,” you concede, a sudden memory of your last ex coming to mind unwelcomely. You can’t help but note he doesn’t make mention of any partners of his own. “Don’t you have hobbies?”
Levi purses his lips, and seems to be wracking his brain. It takes a while.
You stare at him, unimpressed. “When was the last time you went to a museum? An art gallery? A play? The movies? Anywhere that wasn’t work related?”
“I went to the National Gallery downtown a while ago,” he offers.
“Oh yeah?” you ask, disbelievingly. “When?”
“A class trip in ninth grade.”
Your laughter echoes through the alley as it spills from your lips.
“You know they’ve always got new exhibits on display,” you say, gathering your composure. You lean forward, knees pressing into your chest. “You should visit again, I’m sure something has changed in the past eighty years since you were there last.”
Levi watches you curiously, a little too intently to be considered casual.
His phone jingles.
He blinks, and there’s a brief delay before he looks down at the device in his hand.
“That’s my key,” he says quietly.
You nod, standing. Somewhere in the distance, a car horn blares. You hadn’t even noticed how noisy it’s gotten in the time the two of you have been sitting together, but the city is well and truly awake now.
One at a time, you both climb back in through the window—him letting you go first—and once you make it back into your living room you take Levi’s empty cup from his hand to take it to your kitchen sink and wash while he collects his belongings.
Levi steps towards your front door as you dry your hands off on a towel hanging from the handle of your oven. You watch as he buttons up his dress shirt—though he leaves it untucked from his wrinkled trousers.
“Thanks again for… y’know”—he stops buttoning once he gets about half-way up the row and gestures vaguely—“all of this.”
You lean your hip against your kitchen counter. “I’ll slip a bill under your door for room and board.”
He rolls his eyes, but there’s a soft sort of exasperation to his expression as he does it.
“You could just knock.”
You smile, and you feel a pinch in your cheeks from how wide it spreads. “Well, where’s the fun in that?”
You don’t see Levi again in the week that follows, as you’re stuck working late each night as you slog towards a project deadline.
You leave for the office in the morning when the sun has barely crested, and come home long after it’s set. You’ve been eating mainly takeout from restaurants near your work, and whatever happens to be hiding at the back of your pantry since you haven’t had the opportunity to grocery shop—all interspersed with whatever mediocre, half-stale baked goods your coworkers have brought in and left in the staff kitchen for everyone to share.
After one particularly brutal day, you shuffle in the door with nothing but a day-old donut and three coffees in your stomach, though the clock has ticked past eleven. You drop your belongings on your kitchen counter and wonder if you still have that old bag of microwave popcorn kicking around in the back of your cupboard. You ponder this question as you cross your living room to crack the window and let in a bit of fresh air.
Outside, perched unexpectedly just below the window frame on the fire escape, is a brown paper gift bag.
You glance to the right and see Levi’s lights are still on, as usual, but his window is closed.
Hm.
You pick up the bag and retreat inside, peeking at its contents as you go.
Inside you find a bottle of white wine—a nice bottle of white wine—along with a little piece of notebook paper, ripped along the edge and folded twice in half. You peel the edges of the page back to reveal neat scrawl in black ink.
This didn’t cost 8 dollars.
Thanks again for putting me up.
—3rd.
(Levi)
It’s been a while since you’ve seen him, what with all the late nights you’ve been pulling at the office, and you realize that your last encounter was the morning after he spent the night at your place.
You smile to yourself, shaking your head, and tuck the note back into the bag.
The next Saturday morning, mercifully freed from the project you've been slaving away at, you have every intention of sleeping in to makeup of the overtime you've been banking. Instead, you wake to a strange rustling sound.
It takes a moment for it to register to your hazy, barely conscious mind—a sound so gentle you hardly process that it’s unusual until it’s been going on for just a few minutes too long.
“Mrrrrphm!”
Your eyes shoot open.
Now that noise, you immediately know is out of the ordinary.
You creep out into your kitchen on your tiptoes, towards where the rustling seems to be originating from.
Perched atop your kitchen counter, you see the tail end of a four-legged, ginger-furred little creature—with its head tucked into the rumpled paper bag containing the croissant you’d been planning to eat for breakfast. Its long, bushy tail sways back and forth happily as it rustles around inside.
“Hey!”
The beast—soon revealed to be a cat once it pulls its head from the bag—has the remnants of your (now mostly-shredded) croissant hanging out of its little pink mouth. One of its ears is folded unnaturally, the fur around its neck is scruffy, and you realize upon closer inspection of your half-eaten breakfast that it has a snaggletooth.
The cat seems fairly sociable though, as it makes no move to run as you slowly approach.
“I’m guessing you’re the illustrious Pancakes, huh?” you say as you reach up to scratch gently behind her ears. “I’m a huge fan of your work.”
The cat lets out a cheerful little chirp, your ill-fated croissant still hanging from her maw, bumping her head against your wrist. You pluck the bit of bread from her mouth and quickly scoop her up in your arms, heading towards your door as she squirms unhappily—you don’t quite trust yourself to descend the fire escape with such precious cargo in-hand.
Down on the third floor, you rap sharply against a door.
It swings open moments later to reveal Levi’s perplexed face. Glasses on.
“Your demon cat ate my croissant,” you say, holding the offender out towards him.
She meows innocently.
“Not my cat,” he replies flatly, taking Pancakes from your hands and setting her down on the floor just behind him. She hits the ground on all fours with a little thump, and trots off happily into the apartment out of sight.
“But you two look so much alike.”
Levi responds only with a narrow-eyed glare.
Then he sighs.
“Sorry… she must have crawled out through the window when I wasn’t looking,”—Levi reaches up under the lenses of his glasses, pressing the tips of his fingers against his shut eyes as though they’re aching—“I’ll buy you another croissant.”
“It’s fine,” you assure him with a little laugh, and his fingers splay under the metal frames of his eyeglasses to peek at you through the gaps. You wave your hand dismissively. “It’s my own fault for leaving my window open last night.”
“That’s a good way to be home invaded,” the dark-haired man chides you sternly, a little furrow of disapproval making itself known between his brows. His hands drop from his face, only for his arms to cross over his t-shirt clad chest.
“Yeah, well they’d have to pass your window first—and it’s not like you wouldn’t spot them Mr. Sleep-When-I’m-Dead,” you say, shooting him a bemused look. “At least you’d have a description to give the cops.”
“All you care about is the killer being caught? Not avoiding being murdered in the first place?” Levi drawls.
“Well, at least I could end up on a true crime podcast, so long as you agree to be a good samaritan and assist the authorities in their investigation,” you joke. You peek over Levi’s shoulder to where his curtain is ruffling in the morning breeze. “Hey, do you mind if I just go out through the window?”
He shrugs, pulling his apartment door open a little wider to let you through. “Be my guest.”
Levi’s apartment is tidy and sparsely decorated, but it’s nearly identical to your own in terms of general construction. Your eyes can’t help flitter around the space as you shuffle through it towards the open window, your nosiness getting the best of you. There’s a steaming mug on the edge of his kitchen counter that he must have set aside when you came knocking at his door, a closed laptop resting on the edge of his coffee table next to a notebook, and there are bookcases lining the walls as you walk through the living room. You can’t resist pausing to take a closer look as you pass by one, and find a diverse variety of cookbooks and reference books on food, as well as beer, wine and spirits on the shelves.
Your fingertip traces the gold lettering adorning the thick spine of an immense tome—V I N.
“May I?” you ask, peeking over your shoulder as you pry the book from its place on the shelf.
“You already are,” Levi replies from the kitchen where he’s retrieved his mug, taking a sip. “But sure.”
You let out a little laugh, cracking open the inordinately heavy book.
“You speak french?” you ask, your tone lilting in surprise as your eyes trail over the language on the page in front of you—foreign, but distinguishable enough thanks to a few words you recognize from classes you took back in high school. The book seems old, antique possibly, and evidently well loved.
“Only a little,” Levi says noncommittally, but judging by the notes scribbled in the margins of the pages (in the same neat script scrawled on the scrap of notebook paper tucked into the gift bag on your kitchen counter) you suspect he’s underplaying his abilities.
You close the book and slot it back into its place on the shelf.
“Thanks for the wine by the way.”
“Did you enjoy it?” he asks.
“I haven’t cracked into it yet,” you admit, making the last few steps towards the open window. You tap your hand idly against the spotless frame, turning back to look at where Levi is leaning against his kitchen counter. “I had a big deadline this week at work so I’ve been staying late every day. By the time I got home it was all I could do to force myself to eat something before I’d pass out on my couch.”
Levi’s brows lift, though the rest of his body seems to untense a bit for reasons you can’t quite place.
“I’ll be sure to give you a full and comprehensive review of its bouquet—or whatever—once I finally get the chance to enjoy it,” you remark, half-teasing, and he rolls his eyes.
He takes another sip from his mug. He’s still holding it in that peculiar way he held your mug the morning after he slept on your couch. There’s something about it that you find almost endearing.
You lift your hand in a little wave, he nods in acknowledgement of the gesture, and then you crawl out through the window without another word.
You’re on the second step up the fire escape when Levi pokes his head out after you.
“Do you have breakfast plans?”
You pause, turning back to look at him.
You find him peeking up at you with an unexpectedly hopeful look on his face, if not a little guarded.
“Well, my plans are currently partially digested in your feline ward’s stomach, so... no.”
Levi blinks.
“Can I take you out for breakfast to make up for it, then?”
You tilt your head to the side, a flutter of something keen and eager tickling the pit of your empty stomach.
“Fine,” you concede, feigning as though you’re hard done by. “But I get to choose the place.”
Levi’s lips pull down in an unsubtle expression of his displeasure. “You know that it’s literally my job to—“
“I don’t care,” you interrupt him, waving your hand as though batting his interjection out of the very air into which he spoke it before it has the chance to reach your ears. “I don’t want some fancy micro-meal from whatever masters of gastronomy you write about. I want waffles. A lot of ‘em.”
Levi huffs, grumbling something unintelligible under his breath before replying a single, reluctant: “Fine.”
“Meet you in the lobby in 10 minutes?” you ask, your lips stretching in a grin.
His own lips purse, and you almost think it might be halfway to a smile. “Sure.”
The two of you wind up at an old greasy spoon diner two blocks away that you’ve been going to since college, where the staff always make sure to give you an extra perfectly golden-brown waffle. Levi sits across from you in a dark green knit sweater that looks incredibly cozy and, to your utter surprise, a pair of jeans. He looks more comfortable and casual than you’ve ever seen him.
“It’s good, huh?” you ask over the table as Levi bites into his own breakfast: 2 eggs, over easy, bacon and toast. You notice he’s carefully separated all three components of the meal on his plate so none of them are touching, and has liberally applied black pepper to the semi-firm yolks of his eggs.
He swallows the bite he has in his mouth, wiping the corners with his white paper napkin. “It’s food.”
You snort a little, shoving another piece of waffle into your mouth. “Are your reviews always so inspired?”
Levi shoots you an unamused look.
“C’mon, don’t tell me you only eat at fancy fine dining places?” you say, waving your fork around demonstrably. “This is what real food’s all about; little family run joints like this.”
Levi purses his lips.
“Have you ever even been to a fine dining restaurant?” he asks you skeptically.
“No,” you admit, drowning your plate in more of the cheap table syrup. Levi’s nose crinkles in disdain at the sight. The waffles are the same as always: just the right crispiness on the outside to not grow soggy too quickly under the river of syrup you douse them in, perfectly fluffy on the inside.
Fine dining, irrespective of being well outside your budget, has just never been your style.
“So who are you to judge?”
Now it’s your turn to purse your lips.
You stab your fork through a piece of waffle and syrup drips, slow and sticky, as you hold it up above your plate. You lift a brow challengingly as you stare him down across the table. “If you want to take me out to a fancy dinner so bad, all you have to do is ask.”
Levi’s expression doesn’t change.
“Fine.”
“Huh?” you nearly choke, though you haven’t yet put your next bite in your mouth.
“Go out to dinner with me,” he says.
“That’s not a question,” you remark, shoving your waiting forkful into your mouth just to give yourself something else to focus on.
Levi huffs exasperatedly. “Will you go out to dinner with me?”
You take your time to chew, the syrup making everything in your mouth indistinguishably cloying, and then swallow. “I’ll think about it.”
Levi’s jaw gapes, a look of betrayal flittering across his usually impassive features.
You laugh.
“Fine, fine. But only if we can go to the national gallery first,” you say, enjoying every moment of Levi’s palpable misery, setting your fork down and reaching for your mug and taking a sip of coffee. It’s tempered down to a drinkable heat, a little bitter and burnt tasting just like it always is, and there’s something nostalgic in that.
Levi fiddles with his fork, cutting into his egg so the sunny yellow yolk runs across his white ceramic plate. “…I already went.”
“Huh?” You place your cup back down atop the table, on the edge of your paper placemat.
“I went,” Levi repeats himself, though nothing is made clearer through the repetition.
“When?”
“A couple days after you mentioned it. I was reviewing a bistro down the road—terrible by the way—“ he interjects, though you didn’t ask, “and I had some time to kill afterwards.”
“So… what was your verdict?”
“Boring.”
“Oh, come on!” you say with a warm, pealing laugh, throwing yourself back in your seat. “You’re so uncultured! Didn’t you like their new installation on expressionism?”
“It was a mess.”
“That’s the point, it’s abstract!”
“If I wanted to see a disaster on canvas I’d look at those sneakers you’ve got on,” Levi says with a click of his tongue, but his eyes are bright and mirthful.
You peek under the table at your well-loved tennis shoes, gaping but still laughing. “You are so—!”
“Can I get you two some top-ups on those coffees?” The waitress who has been serving the two of you steps up to the table, coffee pot in hand, but she seems almost apologetic for interrupting.
It’s the first time you remember you’re in public, and you settle down a bit, covering your mouth to clear your throat bashfully.
“I’m alright, thank you,” Levi declines politely with a dip of his head.
“I’ll take a little extra please,” you say, and the waitress smiles and adds another bit of steaming, bitter coffee to your cup. It darkens the last few mouthfuls left from your already milk-and-sugared first drink; the deep brown of the fresh brew swirling into the tawny room-temperature remnants of the last.
Your eyes meet Levi’s over the table, and both of you quickly look away, fighting back your smiles.
The two of you walk back home once your meal has concluded and your bills have been paid—split at your insistence, though Levi seemed prepared to physically fight you on it.
Back at your building Levi gets out on the third floor after a brief goodbye, but before the door to the elevator can slide closed behind him, and you can close the steel grate of the interior door, his hand shoots out to keep them open.
You look up in surprise at the sudden gesture.
“I’m not kidding about dinner,” Levi says, standing just beyond the threshold to the ancient elevator, staring at you with an almost unnerving sincerity.
You blink, taken aback by how serious he is.
“What’s your cell number?” he asks when you can’t seem to find anything to reply.
You relay the digits to him and he scribbles them down into a little pocket sized, softcover notebook he produces from his jacket pocket. You’ve seen him scribbling in it before out on the fire escape, and realize he must take it with him everywhere he goes. Given the shape and size of it—only a little larger than the palm of his hand—you don’t doubt it’s the very book that the note he’d left with your bottle of wine had been torn from.
“I’ll send you a message and we can make a plan,” Levi says, tucking the notebook back into his pocket.
“Alright,” you agree and finally Levi lets his hand fall from where he’s keeping the doors open.
He steps away in the direction of his apartment.
“Be careful, Levi,” you say to his retreating back as you pull the grated metal door on the inside of the elevator car closed, “or I might think this is a date.”
He pauses, glancing at you over his shoulder. Your eyes meet through the gaps in the metal, and in spite of the distance you can see the mirth in his gaze. “That’s exactly what it is, and it’s what breakfast was too.”
And with that, the door slides shut between you.
One week to the day later, you find yourself sitting across from Levi in a restaurant that feels almost too nice for you to be patronizing. Levi is dressed in a nice suit, as ever, and you’re wearing in the only truly nice dress you own—one you’d bought for a friend’s wedding a few years prior and never had the occasion to wear again.
Until now.
It’s nothing like the meals you’ve shared on your fire escape, or the boisterous breakfast at the diner on that Saturday morning. There’s no bitter coffee or table syrup to be seen, no mismatched plates and cutlery. It’s quiet, ambient even. All hushed conversation and warm candle light.
But you still enjoy yourself all the same.
And the food is really fucking good.
“I’m devastated,” you breathe out miserably into the cool night air as the two of you walk side-by-side along the quiet sidewalk in the direction of your little brick building.
Levi had offered to flag the two of you down a cab, but the evening weather was actually quite nice and the restaurant wasn’t far from home so you’d instead suggested to walk. Your heels are starting to hurt your feet a little bit, a pinch in your toes and the early-makings of a blister forming at the back of your ankle where the strap of your shoe rubs against your skin, but you still can’t quite bring yourself to regret anything about the evening.
Not the walk, not the dinner, not the company.
“You didn’t like it?” Levi asks, a lilt of concern in his voice.
You shake your head emphatically, turning to look at him with a grave expression. “It was too good.”
“That’s a new complaint,” he muses, his mouth pulling at the corner in thinly-veiled triumph.
“How am I ever supposed to enjoy any food again now that I know it can taste like that?” you complain, tossing your head back to look up at the night sky and passing streetlights overhead. Your shoes click against the pavement with every step, but otherwise it’s refreshingly quiet.
Levi laughs into his closed fist. “Now you see my problem.”
“Hey,” you say suddenly, bringing your chin back down so you can look at him, “can you bring me home your leftovers when you go write your little reviews for places like that?”
“No,” Levi replies immediately, decisively shaking his head.
You pout, sucking in a sharp breath as you prepare to plead your case.
“But I’d like to take you out again, if you’ll let me.”
He’s not looking at you, his eyes fixed ahead on the pavement as the two of you walk side by side, but you can tell he’s anxiously awaiting your reply with the way his hand is flexing and unflexing at his side.
You feel heat climb in your cheeks.
“Well, if it’s the only way to keep access to that kind of food, I guess I’d be stupid to say no.”
Levi hums, his gaze sliding to meet yours from the corner of his eye.
“Yeah, I guess you would.”
The elevator ride up to the third floor is quiet but not uncomfortable, though you both seem to be keeping your distance in the confined space—relegated to opposite sides, not dissimilarly to so many months ago when he was calling you out for fucking your atrocious ex-boyfriend too loudly. You could almost laugh at how much things have changed since then.
He says goodnight as he pulls open the grated door, sending you a brief look as he steps out.
“Goodnight, Levi,” you return the sentiment, hesitating to close the inside door between the two of you once more. “Thank you for dinner.”
“You’re welcome,” he replies, and there’s an almost disappointing finality to his words, though you don’t dwell too long on it.
And then he’s gone.
Upstairs in your apartment, you kick off your heels as soon as you step through the door. You stretch your toes against the cool hardwood floor to let the blood flow back into them before padding into your kitchen. You drape your coat across the back of a barstool, and drop your purse on counter, pausing momentarily to eye the gift bag with the wine Levi had given you tucked away in the corner.
Maybe it’s time to crack it open—if for no other reason than to try and drown the niggling feeling of dissatisfaction you have squirming in your chest.
But first, you pad across your living room to open up your window.
At the very same time that Levi opens his, a floor away.
You pull yourself through without thinking, shivering a little bit against the cool breeze as it meets your exposed skin. Levi—his suit jacket shed, his tie loosened and collar unbuttoned—does the same.
You kneel at the top of the stairs, the metal of the fire-escape digging into your knees, and peer down at him.
“Y’know, I still haven’t opened that bottle of white wine.”
Your fingers fidget with the hem of your dress—it’s crept a bit further up your thighs thanks to the way you’re sitting. Levi’s eyes have caught the subtle rise, and through you see his gaze on your exposed skin, it soon flickers up to meet yours.
“It’s not really a nightcap,” he says quietly.
You huff, half frustrated and half amused, but the sound is entirely too fond.
“Are you coming up here or not?”
Levi climbs the stairs slowly towards where you’re seated at the top. That same feeling underneath your ribs that had once been dissatisfied blooms into something else entirely, crackling like a flame inside your chest as you catch his tie between your fingers.
You pull him down with your grip on the dark green silk—slowly, slowly, slowly—to press your mouths together.
The kiss is sweet. Unhurried. Decadent.
Levi cranes down a little further, his hands settling on the landing behind you, caging you underneath him. His proximity is more intoxicating than any of the wine you’ve ever shared. The feeling of his lips parting against yours and the gentle imploring sweep of his tongue is more satisfying than any food on earth could hope to be.
One of his hands trails up along your thigh, across that same skin you’d caught him eyeing moments prior. His touch is cold but still it burns. He gives your flesh a firm squeeze.
“Inside now,” he murmurs insistently against your mouth, “unless you want the neighbourhood to hear this.”
You pull away, peeking up at him through your lashes innocently.
“And what if I do?”
He swallows visibly, his tongue darting out to lave across his rosy lips before it disappears once more to click behind his teeth.
“Knew you were an exhibitionist.”
There’s a graceless, frenetic climb back through the window—with Levi’s hand cradling the top of your head all the while so you don’t knock it against the frame—and then the two of you are toppling down onto the soft cushions of your couch.
Levi’s body weight presses into yours as he hovers over you, mouths rapacious, your hips flush and hands greedy. You’re grabbing anything and everything that falls within your reaches: his hands on your waist, your thighs, your heaving chest; your own hands in his hair, cupping his jaw, fisting the fine cotton of his dress shirt. Your dress has rucked up around your waist in the excitement, and after a few moments of exploration Levi slowly breaks your kiss.
He sinks to the floor on his knees, and your thighs part for him without thinking.
His eyes trace the dark spot on the centre of the delicate lace over your aching cunt, his thumb soon stroking against it with the exact same eagerness as his eyes.
“Levi,” you say his name pleadingly as your hips wriggle to get closer to his touch, squirming further down the couch cushion towards him. “Please… more.”
Levi huffs a little; not a laugh, but something a little more chiding—a little more mocking. He leans forward so you feel every hot breath break against your skin on his exhales, his eyes still fixed to that little patch of wetness that’s caught his attention, the spot only growing larger the longer he toys with you. “Let me savour this.”
“Like a nightcap?” you ask him, aiming for levity but toeing the wrong side of breathless as his fingers follow the lace trim of your panties up along the curve of your thigh.
“An aperitif,” he rasps as he snaps the elasticated band against your hip, a sharp crack as it hits your tender skin, and his eyes flicker up to meet yours when you hiss. He smirks. “It makes you hungrier.”
Not once in all the time you’ve known him would you have denied the truth that Levi’s tongue is quick and vicious, but never would you have imagined its sedulity between your legs.
The flimsy material of your panties tugged swiftly down and kicked away, it’s as though the meal the two of you had shared that evening has been forgotten, a thing of the past.
Levi devours you like he’s been starved.
“Fuck, oh—“
Your hips jump on the sofa but his strong forearm slings across your lower abdomen to pin them down and keep you at his mercy. Levi glances up at you from his position on his knees, his head bracketed by your thighs, his eyelids hanging low over his hungry gaze. The tip of his tongue flicks against your twitching entrance, laving back up to your clit. The cycle repeats. It’s filthy and fascinating to watch.
“—Levi, nggh—oh my god.”
You grab for anything, borderline delirious. Your nails on one hand dig into the throw pillow at the end of your sofa while the other knots itself through Levi’s dark hair. You grip both with an equal roughness, but Levi doesn’t seem to mind—suckling with a renewed insistence at the swollen bundle of nerves between his lips.
He reaches up and pries your hand away from the strands of his hair, twining your fingers with his own as he pins it down to the sofa beside your hip. Levi pulls away from your pussy with a string of saliva keeping you connected, slick smeared along his mouth catching in the light of the lamp.
“Be gentle, would you?” he rasps, “I’d like to keep my hair for the foreseeable future.”
“Sorry,” you murmur, your chest heaving from the way your breaths come ragged. “It feels good.”
“Yeah?” he asks, slipping two fingers into his mouth. They shine with his spit when he pulls them from between his swollen lips. He leans back down towards your cunt. “How good?”
“So good,” you whine, his two saliva-slicked fingers slipping inside of you at the same time.
“God,” you toss your head back and gasp, those two fingers inside of you crooking in a way that makes you feel so good.
“You’re close,” Levi hums, not a question but rather a factual observation, before dragging his tongue up towards your clit again. His fingers keep curling against your walls with an almost unfair degree of skill, leaving you shaking and breathless.
“Y-yeah, gonna cum,” you whimper.
“You’re gonna cum for me?” he mumbles against your clit, goading you as he carefully watches the expressions on your face.
It's not as though you have any other choice with the way he’s playing you like an instrument he’s long-mastered.
“Yes, fuck Levi, there.”
One last gasp and the lewd, pointed suck with his lips wrapped around your clit has you melting, your thighs clamping against his ears as your back bows up off the sofa. A strangled, desperate little sound tears out of the back of your throat, and your fingers tighten around his own—still entwined beside you on the sofa.
As you come down from your high, you drag his hand up with yours to your chest, pressing his palm flat against your sternum so he can feel how fast your heart is knocking against your ribs underneath the fabric of your dress.
Your heart rate has nowhere near returned to normal when Levi stands from his place on the ground, wiping at his wet mouth with the back of his hand as he takes in your spent, trembling state. In one fell—impossibly deft—swoop, he picks you up and carries you off towards your bedroom.
“How the fuck are you so strong?” you gasp as you wriggle in his hold—but his grip is tight and he doesn’t waver.
He drops you down onto your bed, and you bounce lightly as you come in contact with the springy surface. You fall back, staring up at him as he peers at you with affront.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
You giggle a little as he crawls over your splayed form, his body warm as his lips find their way back to yours.
He kisses you again. And again. And again.
Your pretty dress comes off, finally—left discarded in a hapless puddle on your bedroom floor to be dealt with later. It's an end unbefitting of the nicest garment you own, though you can’t begin to bring yourself to care.
Levi’s fingers trace along the delicate lace of your newly revealed bra and you feel his lips curl up into a smirk against your own. He inches away, peeking down at your chest.
He dips down to mouth along the swell of your breast, his eyes still impossibly trained on yours, and your fingers tangle into the soft strands at his crown as you moan lightly at the gentle touch.
He sucks against the soft flesh, before pulling off with a little pop!
“Does poor Misses Miller know you kept her bra?”
You laugh in response to his teasing words, a reference to the early days of what you’d now call a friendship (if not something else entirely), tugging him away from your chest by your grip on his hair.
He quirks a brow at you with his head tilted back in your hold.
You pout playfully, slackening your grip on his hair and letting your hand slip down along the front of his dress shirt, petting over his chest. “You know, I think I liked you better with your mouth full.”
Levi clicks his tongue behind his teeth, watching raptly at the flash of pink as your own tongue peeks out to moisten your swollen lips. Something shifts behind his gaze, and he leans back on his haunches beside you, reaching up and fingering the loosened knot of his tie.
“Do you trust me?”
The question is a little bit out of the blue, and relatively unwarranted considering only moments prior he’d been three knuckles deep inside of you, but you entertain it nonetheless.
Your head lolls to the side on your bedspread as you look at him curiously. “I let you spend the night on my couch when we barely knew each other.”
He rolls his eyes at your intentionally indirect response, leaning forward until your entire field of vision is filled with nothing but him once more.
“Do you,”—Levi pauses with his lips ghosting over yours, soft as they brush—“trust me?”
A beat of tense silence stretches between you.
“Yeah.” You swallow lightly after murmuring the word. “I do.”
Levi pulls back again, and reaches up and tugs on the knot of his tie until it comes completely undone, hanging in two separated halves against his chest. Slowly he draws it out from under the fold of his collar.
“There was a trend in food criticism years ago,” he says, his grey eyes tracking up, up, up along your exposed body while you wait like eager prey beneath his gaze, “where critics used to think that you could taste better in the dark. Like the dulling of one sense would somehow improve the others.”
You swallow hard as he leans forward, moving slowly up the mattress towards you.
His tie is still in his hand.
He dips down and kisses you.
Brief. Teasing.
“They thought you could taste more…”
Levi loops his tie around your eyes, and your breath hitches. You feel the soft slip of silk against your skin, the pressure tightening (though not unpleasantly) as he knots it at the crown of your head to keep it in place. You see only darkness.
“…hear more…” Levi’s lips are right next to your ear; just a ghost of warm breath and his rich, deep voice that seems a little more strained than it had before.
You’re breathing heavier now, or maybe you’re just more painfully aware of the rhythm of your own respiration.
“…feel more.”
Warm fingers dance up along your ribs and you gasp aloud, not expecting the sensation. But as quickly as it appears, that feeling of his skin on yours, it’s gone again. You swallow. His touch continues in much the same way, fingers disappearing and then reappearing somewhere else, leaving you guessing. Leaving you wanting.
You feel goosebumps prickle up along your skin.
“Is that true?” you whisper as you push yourself upright and reach out blindly in search of Levi, though you aren’t quite sure where to find him.
“I don’t know—” Levi admits airily from somewhere before you, both nearer and further than you expect him to be. He takes your outstretched hand in his, pressing it to his cheek. It’s warm to the touch, and he turns his face towards your palm, pressing a barely there kiss to it.
Unexpectedly your bra falls forward, cool air kissing heated skin as the straps fall down your shoulders, thanks to a talented hand that had slipped behind your back unnoticed. You feel Levi’s lips curl into a smirk against your palm.
“—but let’s find out.”
Next is an obscured, indecipherable blur of hot, open mouthed kisses; of gentle grazes and rougher gropes; of moans, and groans, and needy whines that you aren’t sure are even yours anymore. Your pussy’s left a wet patch on the thigh of Levi’s slacks that you can’t see but that you can feel as the sticky fabric ruts against your clit, your hips grinding desperately against it as he consumes you and whatever senses he’s left you.
It’s infuriating.
It’s immolating.
It’s divine.
“Are you ready for me?” Levi pants against your stinging lips, his hand cupping your chin to keep your face tilted towards his even if you can’t see him.
“Yes,” you mewl debauchedly, rolling your hips against that same crease in his pant leg that’s been tantalizing you for what feels like hours. You should be ashamed—of your words, of your tone, of your actions—but you aren’t.
You feel every second of the stretch as the head of his cock presses inside.
You wonder what it looks like, what he must look like right now, but you’re left only to feel.
“Oh,” he groans, the deep sound sodden and drunk with pleasure. “Amazing. Fuck, you’re taking me so well. You’re perfect.”
The first proper thrust—the in and the out—almost pulls you under like the currents of a tide. You’re fighting a losing battle to keep your head above water, to keep air in your lungs.
The springs of your mattress creak as Levi picks up the pace and mercilessly fucks you down into it, your breaths coming in pants broken by moans. You feel your sheets against your sticky skin, his hands twining with yours, his breath against your lips.
“Is it good?” he asks, mouthing clumsily along your jaw as his hips rail down against yours.
“So good,” you babble in agreement, nodding dumbly as much as you can with such little control over your own body. “Feels so good.”
“I love hearing you say that,” Levi rasps, tucking his face into the crook of your neck and letting his teeth graze over your racing pulse. “I don’t think I could ever get tired of it."
He groans as you clamp down on him involuntarily.
You’re close, and think he must be too when you feel the way his cock throbs inside of you.
“Please,” you murmur, voice breaking pathetically as you beg. It sounds like you’re near tears but with the silk still covering your eyes it’s impossible to tell whether or not it’s true. “I wanna see you.”
“Make a deal with me,” Levi grunts, his pace suddenly slowing to a torturous grind. You’re sure that you must be crying now with how devastating the change in pace is—still deep, but just languid enough that the cresting pleasure in the pit of your stomach threatens to recede.
“A deal?” you ask, gasping as your nails drag along the musculature of his back.
“I’ll take it off,”—Levi’s touch trails up to your face, the tips of his fingers ghosting over your spit-slicked chin and searing cheeks—“but only if you let me take you out to breakfast.”
You’re in no position to be making counter-demands, or returning repartee.
“Anything,” you sob, clinging to him desperately. Your hips tilt up in a fruitless search for friction, your nails scrabble along his skin. “I’ll do anything. Please, Levi.”
He tugs the tie down, and your bleary eyes sting as they adjust to the light.
Finally, you see him.
Levi is practically glowing, bathed in a sheen of perspiration that you can feel when your skin slips against his own. His dark hair is pushed back, away from the lines of his devastatingly handsome face; his strong cheekbones and the sharp line of his tensed jaw. His abs flex as he carves his way inside of you in that impossibly slow grind, a little trail of dark, coarse hair spanning from his navel to his cock, where you see a glossy ring around the base from you.
He’s a feast to behold. To taste. To feel.
“S-so?” he stutters, half-hissing from how viciously your core has tightened around him. His eyes search yours, avaricious and wild. “How does it compare?”
“Better,” you moan, a tear tracking back towards your hairline as you throwing your head back into your pillows, fighting as much as you can to keep your eyes open, “this is better.”
Levi laughs, breathy and wanton as the sound might be, and his hands grip behind your knees before peeling them away from their vice against his waist and pressing them back into your chest.
He kisses you again—your mouths meeting desperately though they haven't long been parted—first chaste but then sloppily, bullying his way into your mouth like he wants to taste how sweet the words you’ve just said are off your own tongue.
He pulls back, a string of saliva stitching from his mouth to yours.
The corner of his lip ticks up in a smirk as his hips draw back, not in punishment but in preparation.
“Good.”
You wake the next morning with an ache humming in your bones and an effervescence sizzling in your chest. It takes you a moment to rouse, properly anyway, but when you do you feel the unmistakable weight of an arm curled around your bare waist, and a warm pressure perched atop your feet.
You open your eyes, blinking against the light that streams in through the curtains over your bedroom window—billowing gently in the morning breeze. You peek down towards the end of your bed, and see a little fluff of ginger fur sprawled out across your ankles. When you listen closely you can hear the little rumble of a purr.
Finally, you glance over to your side, and find Levi blinking back at you.
He looks sleepy and dishevelled, a sort of pleasant exhaustion in the rings beneath his eyes that you’re sure is mirrored in the shadows of your own skin. His hair is sticking up unkemptly at his temple, and there’s a line imprinted into his cheek from where it's been resting against your pillow. It’s a version of himself that you suspect Levi rarely shows to anyone, and right now it’s all deliriously, deliciously yours.
“Good morning,” your voice is so quiet when you finally risk shattering the stillness of your bedroom with a greeting.
“Good morning,” Levi rasps with a commensurate tenderness, even through the hoarseness of his groggy morning voice.
The city is waking up outside your window, the steady build of noise that will crescendo to a dull hum once the world gets underway. But for now it’s still quiet. For now you can still hear Pancakes’ slightly-wheezy purr.
Levi’s arm around your waist tightens, shifting you a little bit closer to him under the soft cover of your blankets. The gesture is hesitant. Half-committed. Like he’s still leaving himself open to be rebuked.
You smile, and close the rest of the distance yourself like crossing that final step along the fire escape. Traversing that halfway point. You curl into him and tuck your head underneath his chin as you rest your cheek against his chest.
Levi seems to soften slightly. To ease. To welcome your intrusion.
Katsuki liked the quiet. Not always — invigorated by the bone rattling bass of explosive palms, trying not to grin when surrounded by his friends rambunctious laughter or enduring his mothers sharp nagging — but sometimes.
The apartment is still, and he is at ease. You watch him knowing there is tenderness written into your expression, because when he meets your gaze over the top of his book his eyes become narrow, framed by his reading glasses. It isn’t an accusation, more of a question. More of a what did you see that made you look at me like that?
He turns a page without a glance to the paper. It’s loud in the otherwise silent living room. You sit opposite him on the couch with knees tucked to the side, cheek leant against the back cushion with idle fingers tracing the seams. Katsuki is supported by the far arm, sitting upright with one foot left on the carpet and the other by your thigh. With it, he kicks you softly.
“Stop starin’ at me,” he mutters. You loved him so much, and he loved you too, but sometimes he wasn’t sure what to do with it. It lined his stomach heavily like a meal eaten too hastily, uncomfortable to carry as if his body ran out of space.
Your lips thin as you fight a laugh, settling back and directing your attention to the phone in your lap. Your lockscreen is a picture of the two of you, a candid taken during a recent get together. Katsuki has his arm around your lower back, having cradled you against his front where your hands came to rest, and your foreheads were pressed together in what was a fleeting moment of solace. Denki had caught it on camera with the intention of teasing — mainly Katsuki for being so publicly sweet on you — but claimed it was too romantic to make fun of.
“What now?”
His voice is a little rough and warm, like he hadn’t used it in a while. You hum questioningly, and look back up at him.
“You’re smiling at your phone”.
“So nosey,” you say, smile widening as he glares. Reaching down between your hip and the cushion, you wrap your fingers around his ankle. “Maybe it’s a secret”.
At that, his mouth purses into a pout, lower lip jutted out in thought. Then he huffs and returns to the book in his hands, the beginnings of a frown pinched between his brows. “Fine. Tell me when you’re ready then”.
He’s consciously patient, always is. Plenty of people might disagree and you wouldn’t blame them for assuming that being headstrong translated to being impatient; but the Katsuki you knew did things methodically and with the intent to see it through. Good, long lasting results took time, that's what he believed. And that belief bled into all corners of his life, including his relationship with you.
But in this case, he knows that it’ll pluck at your heart string a bit. Twist them like spun sugar. You're willing to bet that he isn't even reading the chapter, just leering at the words until the edges start to blur, waiting for you to crack.
And you do. Fingers squeezing his calf decisively, you fold both legs beneath your body to crawl towards him. The distance isn't far and he's already lifting his arms to accommodate you, lowering them again once you've settle onto his chest. You can feel his wrists where they rest against your back, between them the spine of the book.
You peer up at him, nose brushing the line of his jaw. It's slightly rough where his stubble has grown in overnight. He leans into you, but continues to scrutinise the pages.
“Your handsome face”.
His eyes flicker towards you from behind the frames, light from the window pooling bright in his irises, “hah?”
“That was the secret. I was smiling at your handsome face on my phone. Couldn't keep it in any longer”.
His expression softens, but he still makes a show of clicking his tongue behind his teeth. “Dumbass,” he murmurs, readjusting his thighs to fit snug either side of your hips, holding you closer. “You just wanted some attention”.
No, you think amusedly, you did. “Maybe I missed you. You've been reading that book for ages”.
“Like hell. It's been one hour,” he knocks his chin into your temple in retaliation, “if you're so fuckin' deprived I guess I can read it to you”.
Warmth floods your chest. This, you hadn't expected. “Really?” you ask, your voice partially breathless. Your delight at the suggestion rings clear, and the bridge of his nose wrinkles.
Katsuki turns into your crown, hiding the embarrassment in your hair. “Whatever. It’ll keep you quiet,” and happy. He means happy. “I’m not starting from the beginning though. Tough luck”.
Leaning upwards, you peck the corner of his cheek in appreciation, which he tilts into with dissatisfaction. “Kiss me properly,” he says, and then he kisses you again, gently seizing your mouth for a few short seconds before nipping your bottom lip with his teeth. “There. Now hurry up and get comfortable”.
You hum in contentment as you return to your place on his chest, resting below his collar with the beat of his pulse by your ear. He begins to read aloud, stilted at first, the insecurity slowly stripped away until his tone is warm, low and soothing, as if it were rocking you to sleep.
You’re reminded again that all things needed respite. Even the loud, even the brash.
tags: GN reader, angst (sorry), references to eating / love as consumption, heavily implied break up, gojo isn’t a dick ok he can’t help that his heart was already eaten
wc: 1k
The window panes are dappled with rain. Your eyes single out a droplet in the ever growing silence and follows as it races to the sill, gathering into a small puddle. Orange and red embers dance on the shallow waters surface as the sun dips. You shiver as a breeze whistles against your bicep, the damp chill seeping through and expanding the cracks.
“What are you doing here?”
He had entered without a sound, but you could feel him anywhere. There was an intensity that followed him into every room, static perforating the air. His footfalls are unsettlingly light. The crinkling of thin paper. Lingering in your periphery, he weighs the little white bag between each hand, idly ironing out the creases with his thumbs.
There is a sense of accomplishment that comes with leaving a man like Gojo Satoru uncertain.
Wordlessly, he hands it to you. It’s hot, soft under the pressure of your fingers. Opening the top of the paper bag, you discover a golden brown crust and the sweet scent of chocolate. A pastry. One of your favourites.
Spoken so plainly, as if three honest words were all the explanation he needed to offer, “I miss you”.
You settle back in your chair with a deflating exhale. The small victories bleed from your body, and fatigue sets in. Swallowing a retort, you slide the pasty out gently.
I miss you, he said. The surface breaks under your fingertips and you feel it echo in your chest, jagged pieces flaking off into your lap. Covetous, you pull it apart to get to the syrupy centre where it is warmest. If you were to pull Satoru apart, what would you find?
A well crafted illusion, carefully orchestrated to keep you contented and none the wiser. Over and over again he would proffer little puzzle pieces to sate your impatience — you comforted yourself with the thought that the rest of him would surely come to you with time.
It never did.
The silence is punctuated by a soft pitter patter as the afternoon sinks into the beginnings of a dewy evening. Satoru moves to grab another chair from the far end of the classroom, and you bring the pastry to your mouth while you wait, tearing the morsel with your teeth. It’s smooth and buttery, slowly melting on your tongue.
With the twist of his wrist, the chair is spun mid air as he returns. He saddles it backwards, folding both arms atop the cresting rail with his long legs folded beneath and tapping the toe of his shoes. You know by now this means ‘I’m not going anywhere until you talk to me’.
Accepting his presence, you surrender the second half of the pastry to him. When he takes it you deftly avoid his touch. “Are you mad at me?” he murmurs, tearing the dough into two quarters without fanfare, and again giving you a square of it back before eating his own whole. Muffled between full cheeks, happily humming at the taste.
“How many times are we going to do this to each other?” you frown, measuring the little square between your thumb and forefinger. “Why can’t you just leave it be?”
Satoru licks the crumbs from the corner of his mouth and retains his faux air of nonchalance. It’s far easier to do with his mask tied firmly around his eyes. You might see his true feelings there, if he’d let you. He lets out an exaggerated, satisfied breath upon finishing, and his head lifts with a small smile.
“You’re too important to me. I don’t want to lose you over a petty argument,” he simpered, leaning forward to sway the chair onto its back legs. He tilts his chin with the intention of meeting your gaze. It is as one sided as it has always been.
You split the square again, savouring it. You chew and chew until it is ground into mush, all for the sake of holding your tongue. He means it. To him, the argument was inconsequential — something you’d fought about more than once, always seeing the other side of it. Part of you thought Satoru might enjoy conflict, if it meant proving you would choose him again and again.
This time he had dubbed you greedy for wanting more from him. Gojo Satoru, the man who eats and eats and eats to occlude the widening cavity in his chest. You, his sole source of selfishness, the one person in his world that expected nothing and accepted the slivers of his self without seeking more.
“It wasn’t petty to me,” you reply, your voice barely a whisper. The last little square of pastry has flattened under your idle fiddling. “Either I am a part of your life or I’m not. I wont be someone for you to play house with anymore. I want more than this for us”.
The shadows shift with the passing clouds and the classroom darkens. He stalls. You think you can see the moment that your words register. The realisation that this cannot be resolved through gift giving and some lighthearted banter. Though an infinitesimal second in time, you bear witness to the brief loss of bravado.
It brings a choking air of finality, and your throat swells with it. Satoru remains teetering on the back of his chair, held in suspension. You silently beseech him to reach for you, for the entirety of his weight to fall forward into your embrace. Let me swallow what’s left of you. I swear can stomach it.
A backwards rock. All four legs meet the floor with a mournful thud. You can barely make out the shake in his shoulders, or the way his quivering hand curls into a fist. Then, with a drawn out exhale, the tension dissipates. Satoru drapes forward over the chair like a stringless doll, releasing an empty laugh.
“I’ll… let you think about it for a bit,” he says, forcing some vigour into his voice as he stands, brushing the crumbs from his shirt. “Maybe we both need… more time to think”.
When he leaves he does so while dragging his feet. Sluggish footfalls, the soles of his shoes purposefully scuffing the ground. The last bit of pastry is now cold between your fingers. Insipid on your tongue, as most things are in his absence.
You’re struck by the thought that this might be the last piece of him you’ll ever get. Satoru did love you. He would give you anything and everything, you knew that to be true.
(kageyama, after drunkenly hooking up with you, struggles to understand what he's feeling in the days that follow. he sits with hinata in a busy cafe one afternoon, hands clasped pensively under his chin as his coffee goes cold.)
tobio, unprovoked: what does it mean when the thought of someone you've known for years and who has only ever annoyed you suddenly makes your dick hard?
shoyo, visibly trembling, all the colour draining from his face: what the fuck did you just say
you and bakugou are in public somewhere, at a friendly gathering or group dinner, and everyone is kind of poking fun at each other. remember when you— and i can't believe so-and-so did— type of chatter, just good ol' days stuff. and of course everyone has a lot to say about katsuki LOL everyone has something to say about a time when he was fifteen, everyone has a story to tell about how he scared the wits out of them or threatened to put them six feet under or how they lost count of all the times he told someone to die !!!
no, he doesn't think it's funny, isn't laughing. not at all. but all the memories still make you crack up, and when he pouts, you just pat his thigh or squeeze his hand a little tighter, try to keep your smile contained as he narrows his eyes at you. izuku is the one who has the most to say — but is somehow the person who says the least, as if he knows how much bakugou hates this topic — and the few things he does bring up are all stories from a long time ago, when they were just little tikes.
and at one point, off-handedly, you say, "oh god, i bet our kids will be just like him," and you smile wide and poke at his ribs until he grumbles and slaps your hand away.
the two of you have been dating for a few years now, past the point of losing it all to an ill-tempered break up, deep and far into a relationship neither of you would give up without a fight.
katsuki already plans to spend the rest of his life with you, doesn't see any other way. doesn't want to. only reason he hasn't married you yet is because — it's been a learning curve. this, you, all of it. throughout his teenage years, he never pictured himself as someone that would ever need anyone, and he sure didn't think he'd want to get shacked up. meeting you: there have been a lot of feelings he never planned for, never got to explore until just now. good feelings, happy feelings. love.
but with that has come the deep and growing fear of also losing you. to have had to hold and to have lost. he's far from perfect and still learning how to do all this, and he's — on the edge, because this is one thing he can't control. just because he puts a ring on your finger, it doesn't mean he'll have you forever; it just means it will hurt all the more, if you ever leave.
and kids — jesus christ.
he doesn't bring it up until the car is parked, inside dimly lit from the low lights in the garage. when he turns the key, he just sits. and stares. out the window, down at the leather of the steering wheel, picking at a stray thread of his jeans.
"katsuki?" you murmur, slowly drawing your hand from the door handle to set back in your lap. "y'okay?"
bakugou is learning that in moments like these, he just has to get the words out. if he ruminates on them too long, he'll never voice them and you'll just be waiting with bated breath for him to say something and he'll just sit there like an asshole.
"the hell would i do with a kid?"
and you're learning, too, that just because it comes out one way, doesn't mean that's really how he feels. that that's the only way he feels.
you shuffle around in the seat to face him better, watching the line of his jaw sharpen as he grits his teeth. "i don't know, raise it, i guess." you mean to be funny — lighthearted, at the very least — but he just shakes his head and shrugs, like he doesn't even know what that means. "i'm sorry, i know we've never really, like, discussed that, but the idea of grouchy baby katsuki was too cute at the time."
that makes his stomach lurch, but he can't decipher the reason yet; a childish offense flares within him at thought of being called a grouchy baby, but then he imagines you, holding some little shit that looks too much like him.
coming home to a brat that likes to chew on the tags of his blankets and reaches with chubby fingers for katsuki's keys, because he likes the sound they make when he shakes them. a snot-nosed thing that will run when he's supposed to walk and will whine about getting water instead of juice after six in the evening.
some kid that will look like you, too. that will grab katsuki's fingers and tug on his hair and look at him — at his dad — like he carries the world on his back, hung the fucking sun in the sky.
putting a ring on your finger won't stop you from leaving one day, if that's what you want, and sharing a child won't, either. but it will be a lifetime commitment, whatever little thing you two manage to create — and you want that.
the realization that you want that with him is —
"we can talk about it later, if you're tired," you whisper, as if you're afraid of your voice further spooking him, "or not at all, not right now."
he blows out a long sigh and shakes his head, chest light and warm and happy and — "we'll be so fuckin' lucky, for the little brats to turn out like me."
Everyone else heads to dinner, but you and Denki linger. The night is crisp enough that every breath stings, marked with a fogged exhale, but Denki sucks it in like he craves it. His sponsor said that fresh air made them feel clearer and more focused- but it really made Denki feel sick.
You bounce from foot to foot, hands jammed in your pockets as you shiver about.
“If I smoke, are you going to tattle on me?” you ask. You wouldn’t-- you’re too serious about recovering to cheat-- but Denki can’t find it in him to share your humor right nkw.now
“Absolutely.” His voice is brittle.
“Wow, fake friend.” you gasp, throwing hand over your heart in fake aghast. When he doesn’t laugh, you drop the act immediately. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m good, don’t worry,” he replies too quickly.
You snort, rolling your eyes in good humor. “We’re at rehab. None of us are really good.”
He’s too exhausted to laugh, so he just offers you a weak smile. He hates that you mentioned smoking because now his brain buzzes with desire. With all his strength, he swallows the urge to scream and instead nibbles on his fingernails.
“The doctor wants to put me on meds. Like, a couple of them.”
“That’s good," you reply.
“No, it’s not, it’s-- I don’t feel like i deserve to be this messed up." he huffs despite himself, dropping down to crouch. He hugs his knees to his chest like a child, trying to self soothe and failing, just like always, “My friend Bakugo literally died and he’s okay, yet I need a chemical cocktail to live.”
He's afraid to look up to you and see the disappointment in your eyes. He's seen it before, on his family's faces, on his friends-- his fans. Failure is a heavy weight to carry and he feels himself crumbling under it-
A warm hand finds his shoulder. You're crouching too now, right next to him.
“Listen, I’ve never met Bakugo, but I’ve seen him in the news,” you whisper, “That dude? Not okay. He's a huge freak.”
Surprise makes Denki sputter, the laugh bubbling up too quickly.
“I don't think any of those proheroes are normal. Like, Deku? I dunno, he looks dead behind the eyes.” you nudge him with an elbow, “Does he have weird sex? Stay silent if he does. Don't say anything.”
Kaminari’s shoulders bounce with laughter, but he snakes a hand over his own mouth to muddle the noise.
“I knew it! Deku: confirmed freak!" You pump a fist with a woop. It echoes across the empty courtyard, bouncing against the stupid Adirondack chairs. Kaminari copies you, just more quietly, voice barely carrying past the two of you. When you both settle out of the humor, reality settling in once again.
"Hey," you say, "You're my favorite hero."
Kaminari peeks up through his bangs, brow scrunched in confusion. "Even though I'm fucked up?"
You squeeze his shoulder again and Kaminari suddenly doesn't feel cold at all, warmed by understanding. "Because you have the courage to admit you're fucked up."
he can't help himself, really. he keeps thinking he's found the right one, but then he'll spot another one—an even better one—in the window of a jewelry store while he's on patrol, and it's not like he can just walk away from the perfect ring. the one he can picture so clearly on your finger.
but it's not like he can just return the other ones either, because what if he changes his mind? what if you don't like the one that he picks? he wants it to be perfect for you in every possible way—just like the way you are for him.
so. six rings.
and as it turns out, it's all for nothing, because zero of the six rings are present when—on a completely unremarkable walk home from the market one overcast afternoon, grocery bags looped over his shoulder that he refused to let you help carry—he inelegantly, borderline frantically, and completely unexpectedly blurts out:
"marry me?"
and you freeze. hunched over to take a picture of the flowers you'd made shouto stop so you could admire, their petals still wet with the rain the two of you had only narrowly avoided getting caught in. you're the one whose crouched down—not quite on one knee but sure as hell closer to it than he is as he towers above you.
and neither of you say anything.
him, stunned by the betrayal of his own tongue. and you, trying to figure out what the hell just happened.
"okay."
that's what you settle on for a response, but you're smiling as he helps you up to your feet instinctively when he sees you begin to rise. he keeps your hands clasped in his even when you've safely returned to your normal height.
"if you really mean it," you add after a moment, just in case.
"i do," he replies immediately. unfalteringly.
the skies overhead are still grey as the storm clouds retreat, the air heavy with humidity and the smell of rain clinging to everything green in the little park two blocks away from your apartment, but there might still be some hope of sun that breaks through before it has the chance to set for the day.
"it's a bit early for that isn't it?" you tease him with a little laugh, your fingers squeezing around his own.
shouto squeezes back twice, and his eyes crinkle in the corner as he smiles.
so no. as it turns out he didn't need six rings. didn't even need one.
when you step through the door at the end of the day, your apartment is almost exactly the way you left it that morning.
two mugs sit in the dish drying rack next to the sink. one is plain, on the larger side to hold the amount of coffee a 5AM alarm necessitates. that one's hajime's. the other is slightly smaller, with a design faded from years of love and dish soap. it's monogrammed with your name on it--something that you would never buy for yourself, but rather an awkward, earnestly-given gift from the early days of a relationship that has lasted longer than the ceramic glaze.
the curtains that hang over the balcony door across the room ruffle in the breeze, though the sky beyond them is dusky where it had been bright when you'd departed for work earlier in the day. the air outdoors is still warm from the sunny day, but as the sun rapidly sinks on the horizon you know a chill will soon creep in, so you cross the expanse of the living room to gently slide the balcony door shut to preserve the lingering warmth of your home.
you pause when you hear a voice. a laugh. a sound that kindles inside of you as well as any late-summer breeze ever could.
you follow it.
"--your delts if you're not training your traps just as hard--"
then a tinny, murmured reply you can't quite make out even as you get closer to the sound.
you turn the corner to the home office.
"yeah? well don't come crying to me when you're walking around with a hunchback shittykawa! it's a miracle you can even hold up that big fucking head of yours with those underdeveloped--"
hajime spots you hovering in the doorway with a smile on your face, and the pinch between his furrowed brows immediately softens, unfurling like a knot shaken loose.
"ohhhh, is someone home?" you unmistakably hear your boyfriend's best friend tease from the other end of the call. from the other end of the world.
"i'm hanging up," hajime grunts, reaching to end the video call he's taking on his open laptop.
"wait! wait!" tooru's voice cries frantically, and hajime's hand pauses where he's about to sever the connection with a swift click. the man in front of you stares down the screen impatiently.
there's a beat of silence.
"love you!" tooru chirps. "you have to say it back!"
"fuck off." hajime shakes his head but he's hiding a smile, and he grumbles something that sounds suspiciously like "love you too" before slamming his hand down on the end button.
he slumps back in his seat after ending the call, looking to you expectantly. his face is bathed by the evening sun that streams through the window on one side of his office, gilding him in light. he blinks slowly as his cheeks pull in a lazy, welcoming grin.
"you're home," he says, opening his arms.
you nod, stepping through the doorway towards him.
hajime watches every step you take as you draw nearer, his arms still outstretched, though they reach for you when you come within their span--circling your waist and pulling you down into his lap.
"did you have a nice day?" he asks, nosing at your cheek, his grip tight but not overbearing around you. you tilt your face towards his and brush a kiss across his mouth, chaste and sweet and teeming with affection.
"i did," you say, pecking his lips again. "need to change out of my work clothes, though."
you move to stand and he lets you, knowing that you're sure to return to your rightful place later on.
you peer down at him as you hesitate beside him in his desk chair, reaching out to brush your fingers through the hair at his temple. the sun catches in the brown and makes it look warmer, a little more red.
"how was your day, pretty boy?"
hajime blinks up at you in confusion.
"pretty boy?" he asks, laughing almost a little awkwardly at the unfamiliar term of endearment, "kawa's not on the phone anymore, baby."
"i know that," you reply, letting your nails scratch gently against his scalp. "but you're my pretty boy."
the red that the sun paints in his hair is rapidly mirrored in the blush that blooms across the high planes of his cheeks. the kind of flush that makes the green in his eyes stand out so starkly. a rosiness that only furthers your belief in the man before you's prettiness.
he leans into your touch, and the heat of his cheek brushes against the inside of your wrist. he stares up at you in a way that can be described as nothing short of adoring. as much a home as the one you've built with him. as familiar as the monogrammed mug in the rack beside your sink.
"yeah," he says quietly before pressing a kiss to your pulse point. "i'm yours."
Todoroki would hear from the grapevine that you’re a single mom and genuinely think it’s not the biggest deal? He would never mind that you didn’t want him to meet your child right away, respecting boundaries effortlessly. He would be SO NERVOUS to meet them though. Buys the most ridiculous gift after getting advice from Denki and Sero. Since they know kids SO WELL(sarcasm) and would genuinely handle everything with such ease. Shoto would be blind to any stigma and be THRILLED to be a step parent. Plus. MILFs you know. Or PILFs? What is the gender neutral term.
A continuation of my previous post. Unsure of how many parts there’ll end up being but! Here we go! Okay so more swearing, still a female reader. the works. also? Not expecting to gain any traction but thank you guys for the attention.
Word Count: 1811
Deku, Izuku, you corrected yourself idly, did a fantastic job with trying to help bring some sort of order to the mini implosion that was taking place. He rambled anxiously about any and everything as you stared at him stupidly. It could be the pain, or the fact that you could feel the searing glare coming from your left as Izuku tried to ease the tension. You said little more than your name as the green haired man kindly led you to the ambulance, seeing as he wasn’t entirely sure of what injuries you might have.
Even the ambulance ride to the hospital was eerily quiet. The two bulky heroes looked comically out of place stuffed into the narrow space with an EMT who looked as if he might faint on the spot. Whether it was from him being a fan or the unwittingly intimidating air Izuku let off as he muttered quietly to himself, you weren’t sure. Your arm, having been dressed hastily with the promise of stitches, throbbed in time with your frantic heartbeat. Bakugo, Izuku said it was fine to know his surname considering the situation, rubbed at his arm as if there was something dirty there. Right where your fingertips had rested previously. You tried to ignore all of them in favor of sending your supervisor an apologetic message.
To the man’s credit he had been genuinely worried upon hearing that your favorite coffee shop had been attack by a villain around the time you had been there to visit. It didn’t stop him from inquiring about your potential soul mate. You pressed your lips into a thin line as you typed out a brief response, eyes wandering over to Bakugo. You tried chalking it up to adrenaline. You had been frightened, and couldn’t that make people see things?
You were left to ponder as you were unloaded in the ambulance bay. Doctors and nurses alike didn’t mention the situation. They all treated you with immense kindness, which you basked in. Izuku and Bakugo had thankfully been whisked away by a police officer, for statements no doubt. It allowed you peace as your minor wounds were evaluated. There were a few scrapes on your face that were cleaned with a crisp smelling antiseptic, but the one that gave you trouble was your arm. It wasn’t that you were the most squeamish person, but the thought of someone seeing your skin shut made your stomach flip.
“You won’t even feel it, I’ll numb you up!” The nurse gave your leg a reassuring little pat as he readied his tray of instruments. The needled he brandished made your mouth go dry.
“Is it okay if I come in?” Izuku, his heart melting smile having returned to brighten his features, poked his head in the door. The nurse gave you a little smile before giving Izuku the go ahead, but you were too intent on the needle for anything else.
“You might need to squeeze her hand. She looks like she might pass out.” Izuku had the nerve to look sheepish as he held out a large hand, seemingly patched together with scars. You hesitated at first, but the nurse giving another warning of the impending procedure had you gripping Izuku’s hand and staring directly into his mossy green eyes to distract yourself.
“It’s okay. This place only has the best. They’re the ones who put me back together all the time. You’re in good hands.” He placed his other hand over yours, trying to appear comforting.
Where was Bakugo?
You knew you shouldn’t feel any sort of connection. You two had barely spoken, and he had shown open hostility at the idea of you being his soul mate.
“Alright, all done! We’ll get your discharge paperwork started and you’ll be out of here soon, okay? Sit tight for a little longer.” Silence befell the room as the nurse packed up and moved along, neither of you really knowing what to say. You stared at the blood under your fingernails so you wouldn’t have to look at Izuku.
“I didn’t ask for this,” you whispered thickly, adrenaline slugging its way from your system. Without the threat of a needle, your heart had startled to settle down a bit. The reality of the entire morning finally sunk into your mind, and that brought the impending warmth of tears pricking your eyes.
You aren’t a hero, nor someone overly courageous. What had possessed you to even assault Clammy earlier was beyond you.
“What was that?” The weight of Izuku’s stare made you uncomfortable, but you still couldn’t bring yourself to look at him.
“It’s not like I expect anything to happen, you know. This whole soulmate business. All I wanted was a fucking cup of coffee! Now my-my face is going to be on the news all because genetics-“ you hiccuped harshly ignoring the way your voice had become shrill, tears finally making their descent. He scrambled, trying to push the box of tissues on the table beside your bed into your hand. You took a shuddering breath, swiping furiously at your eyes.
“Hey- hey no one knows for sure! They might not have gotten a clean look!” You wailed, emotions roiling violently beneath the surface of your mind.
Maybe it was the instinctual hurt of being rejected by the person who was suppose to accept you no matter what.
Izuku placed a rough hand on your uninjured arm carefully, face earnest as he managed to press a wad of tissue into your hand.
“It’s all gonna work out, okay? Tabloids never stay on one subject for long, you know? They’ll forget about it soon.” He gave your arm a little squeeze.
“Thank you for sitting with me, Izuku.”
You had expected him to leave shortly after making sure you weren’t going to run to any press, but he lingered. Chatting idly when you were willing, asking about entirely mundane things. You tried to hide your surprise when he would share anecdotes from his own childhood. Though you were less shocked to see the tasteful sprinkling of Bakugo into each story. A little story giving you an insight into the blond. You did your best to ignore your heart would give a pathetic little flutter whenever Izuku would laugh over some haughty things Bakugo had done as a child.
You, by comparison, felt much more mundane than either of them. There were no heroics that inspired your, or any sort of overtly tragic story to spur you into the life of heroism. You were just a simple person who wanted to live a peaceful, uneventful life. You were going to be really sad when Izuku realized that Bakugo wanted nothing to do with you.
Which is just fine, you told yourself petulantly.
It wasn’t until you had been cleared to leave that you saw a glimpse of Bakugo again. Still standing in his running clothes, looking entirely unhappy to be in a hospital.
“I thought you would have come a lot sooner, Kacchan!” Izuku steered you towards Bakugo, still unbothered by the hostility all but radiating off of him. You tried to be subtle with sneaking looks at him, but ever time you dared a glance you would find he had already affixed you with a burning gaze.
“How are you getting home?” Bakugo had completely cut Izuku off, who had been recounting some heroic tale from America. You nearly jumped out of your skin once you realized he was talking to you.
“I’ll probably end up on the train,” came your sullen reply. Already you encoded droves of people accosting you to ask about the pro hero who had been subject to your soul marks. Even if he was still a complete mystery to you as well.
“The fuck? You’re an adult but you don’t have a car?” Irritation flashed hot across your body as you shot him a withering glare of your own.
“Listen here, Mr.Pro, not all of us see the point in owning a car when a bus pass is less than what you’d spend in gas. And my building has shit parking.” With any luck it wouldn’t be evident that you had been blubbering to Izuku. It was easier to ignore the meager whimpers coming from your heart with Bakugo being as infuriating as he was.
“You can just say you’re worried, you know? You don’t have to be a dick, Kacchan.” Bakugo’s ears burned red as he flickered a look full of murderous intent Izuku’s way.
“I’ll get you a taxi.” He didn’t leave you any room to argue. It was strange, the way you found yourself going along quietly. You blamed the exhaustion that was weighing you down, making it damn near impossible to feed off of the anger that radiated from Bakugo.
Izuku gave you a sheepish smile, presenting what was probably his number scribbled down on a piece of scrap paper. You stuffed it into your purse, discovering with disdain that there was blood on it. You’d hoped that you would be able to wipe it off when you got home.
Bakugo all but pushed you into a taxi he had managed to hail, jaw working as if he found the entire process distasteful. You were loathsome to discover that now not only did his touch leave a blossom of color in its wake, but there were unmistakable zaps of electricity pulsing down you arm. It wasn’t unpleasant exactly, and you almost found yourself trying to brush against him a little bit more to chase the sensation, but you had more pressing matters.
When the cab door was shut with a finality, Izuku chiding Bakugo, you felt yourself go cold. It was as if you had taken a chunk from yourself and misplaced it. An ache was building in your chest, and it only grew in intensity as you were driven away. You dared a quick look back, wanting to cement it in your head that this had all really happened.
Bakugo was still standing there on the sidewalk, hands stuffed into his pockets. A surprisingly relaxed posture for someone who had been accosted a few hours prior, but he was probably pretty use to it. You, however, would never forget the almost sad look in his eyes. As if this were the last time you would ever see him.
You had to resist the urge to have the cab stopped, desperate for the feeling of loss and abandonment to stop. You had to remind yourself that even if someone were your soul mate, it didn’t always turn out in the way you would hope. Not everyone is suitable for each other from a personality standpoint, and you couldn’t fathom someone as crass as Bakugo being meant for you. Though it very much felt like saying goodbye to a piece of yourself.
This is the first installment on what could end up being a multi part series! Female reader. Swearing. I’m unsure if it’ll get explicit or not honestly.
All you wanted was a simple cup of coffee. Well, maybe your order wasn’t actually all that simple, but you could blame that on your ‘beloved’ best friend. In any case, you just wanted to get your cup of morning coffee, and maybe a pastry if you felt so daring, and be on your merry way to your unassuming office job. Nothing exciting, nothing remarkable. Just a quiet, easy life that you were content to live. Nothing out of the ordinary for you. It was at the forefront of your mind as you braved the coffee shop frequented by those of your office, something as equally quiet and unassuming as the clientele who ghosted along the interior.
Being welcomed by the familiar rich scent of the beans and hissing of the machines instantly lifted your mood. Even if you hadn’t been able to procure your drink, just feeling the warmth of the cozy space decorated to look like Gramas living room. Tattered furniture that almost looked like they were crumbling.a wide collection of different pieces, only having their eclectic color scheme in common. Books scattered along tables, free for patrons to browse. With an atmosphere like this, it was easy to justify forking out a bit more than you’d love to pay for a cup of coffee.
Somehow it didn’t really register that something was wrong until there was a knife,wickedly curved and glinting dangerously waving through the air in the hand of a slender woman. Her hair was unkempt and matted down her back, skin drawn too tight over her waspish features. Despite the animated way she gestured with her knife, her eyes were rather vacant and void of light as they all but protruded from her pale face. Your mind conjured up the image of some petty criminal, one pushing illegal quirk enhancing drugs on the streets to other criminals that had been on the news as you readied for work. You sighed, still hoping to manage a relatively calm morning. It could still be savaged. This was nothing more than some hopeless person, strung out on whatever stimulants she peddled to other addicts. And you could fib to the gossips in your office, claiming the tardiness was an oversight and not at all connected to the childish display before you.
Maybe if you didn’t make eye contact and tried to blend in she wouldn’t even realize you were there. You took cautious steps back, slow enough to not alert whatever flight or fight instinct had this woman going off of the deep end on a Friday morning. In a coffee shop that has average coffee, doing well enough to sustain but never quite making a name in the bustling city. It had to be some cry for help. You dared to tuck yourself ever so slightly behind a man in a pretty charcoal grey suit. It looked to be pressed professionally.
“This fucking blow. Why don’t you get a grip, you stupid wanna be?” You nearly jumped out of your skin at the brash voice from behind you. The tension that had been building steadily came to its peak as the woman wheeled in your direction. Thankfully, she didn’t seem to even register that you existed. Glassy eyes staring straight past you to whoever had decided to speak up. As if on strings, you felt yourself turning after letting curiosity get the best of you.
Pro hero Dynamite was standing with a little plastic to go cup in his hand, looking entirely unamused in running clothes. With distant horror, you wondered if the green sludge visible through the plastic was something even meant for human consumption. Would it be rude to ask him what his skin care routine is? There was a scar marring the skin of his face, and it made you almost feel sorry. Even so early he looked effortlessly handsome, if not even more intimidating in his shirt and shorts. Plain enough to not draw attention if you weren’t specifically looking at him.
“Wha-“ The woman looked just as surprised as anyone else in the increasingly claustrophobic space. You took another brave half step backwards, wanting to put distance between yourself and the commotion. With a roll of his eyes, Dynamite put his cup down on the counter and flexed his hands menacingly.
“I didn’t stutter you dumbass wanna be.” Those closest to the front entrance began to pour out of the door, having seen their chance at freedom. Others whipped out smart phones to record the spectacle as he advanced on her. You tried to take another half step, trying to get out of his direct path towards her, but you miscalculated the speed he could move the broad expanse of his body.
Bumping into him felt reminiscent of walking face first into a wall. Not the flimsy drywall disasters in a cheap apartment. But an honest to god wooden wall. Maybe brick. Was there going to be a bruise on your forehead later?
You felt your mind churning slowly, trying to process who it was you should be more afraid of at this point. The half deranged woman who was now gesturing with more fervor, voice reaching its fever pitch in her crazed ramblings. Or Dynamite, who was glowering at you as if you had taken his drink and upended it over his head. Here you were, an office worker, wondering if it were possible to shrink in on yourself, when you finally noticed that out of pure instinct you had grabbed his forearm. It wasn’t as if it were intentional but you had just gotten the slacks you had on, and even your blouse was one of the nicer ones. You didn’t want to end up on the ground.
You jerked your hand back and felt your face go pale. The skin where your fingers had dug in was noticeably different. Blooming splotches the color of red wine smudged across his skin, highlighting the light latticework of scars from previous villain fights. His jaw tensed, brows furrowing further as he dared a glance over your shoulder. Already, there were murmurings throughout the remnants of the crowd. Phones pointed in your direction, eyes as wide as your own blinking owlishly at you. Even the deranged woman had fallen silent for a moment, chewing the new information over slowly. Even Dynamite, who you knew was a bit of a PR nightmare, was silent. Still glaring at you, sparing the markings on his arms not so much as a glance.
You swallowed thickly, heart deciding to spasm in your chest and settle somewhere near your stomach with a frantic flutter. Like quirks, the soul mate phenomenon had appeared subtly at first. People inclined to find a suitable mate with a DNA sequence that would produce offspring with a better survival rate. As generations passed, and people were finding it harder to find their complimentary part, so did this phenomena gain strength. Now, the touch of your soul mate produced a physical response. Capillaries dilating and reacting to the genetically perfect match to your own cells. There was a frantic way your brain sorted through the onslaught of logical information, while there was still a part of you that sighed contentedly.
I’ve finally found you, it sighed dreamily as you peered up at him through your lashes.
Unfortunately for you, the woman decided her best course of action was going to be to take a hostage. And what better hostage than the loud mouth pro hero Dynamite’s soul mate? So the momentary lapse in judgment on everyone’s part lead to what was the final nail in your coffin. Not that finding your soulmate would allow your day to be normal, anyways. But the frigid hands that yanked you back against what felt like a frail body certainly helped cement the idea in your head.
“I’ll cut her up, I swear I will! You’re gonna let me get away!” There was a tremble in not only her hands, but her voice as well. You sighed for what felt like the millionth time that morning, and tried to ignore the glint of steel from your peripheral.
“Why the fuck should I care if you cut her up? It’s not like I know who this extra is anyways.” You tried not to flinch, tried not to take it personally. There were plenty of cases where soulmates never amounted to anything at all. Some people resented having their fate mapped out for them, and maybe Dynamite was one of those people. You had never really pondered the idea you could ever meet yours. There were so many case studies done, people who went their entire life without knowing their soulmate.
It still stung to hear his complete disregard for your well being.
You didn’t want to look at his stupid, handsome face anymore, but you couldn’t help yourself. You wanted to get away and then pretend that none of this ever happened. You couldn’t really envision anything with the serrated edge of the knife dangling near your jugular. Dynamite was smiling. Smiling! His grin was all teeth and a wild fire burning in the depths of his eyes as he took a step forward. The woman, clammy you decided because of her hands on your neck, shuffled backwards pulling you with her. She smelled like unwashed bodies.
Dynamite finally heaved an exasperated sigh, daring a look at the shocked faces. When he fixed you with a look that could wither plants, you decided to formulate a plan. You didn’t know if he was serious about you getting cut up or not, but you weren’t willing to wait around. There were two outcomes here. One and you would be cut with what was probably a dirty knife. Two, you ended up being blasted away with this woman clinging to your back. With your heart still Jackhammering it’s way around your intestines, you took a resolving breath.
Then you threw the entirety of your weight into the elbow you jammed into her stomach. You didn’t let up, you knew you couldn’t give her time to recover if you wanted to get away. But you weren’t trained, you didn’t know what to do. And she managed to grab a fist full of your hair, which really pissed you off. Twisting painfully you brought the heel of your shoe down on her toes, using your hands to try and free your hair. Everything else felt muffled as you grappled with her. Even her movements seemed to slow, your brain trying to keep track of the knife she had somehow kept her grip on.
There it was, you thought belatedly as it traced a line of searing pain across your forearm.
You tried to reel back, hissing in pain as you tried to catch up with what was happening. Clammy, having seen her shot at victory let you go without a care in the world. She scampered away as you stumbled back, tears pricking your eyes as time caught up with you. Blood welled along the laceration on your arm, and it stung as you tried to clamp a hand down over it. Distantly, sirens could be heard and you knew that a paramedic would help.
“Let me see it.” Dynamite, entirely unphased by the now writhing crowd, had grabbed a towel off of the counter next to his drink. His eyes darted up to your face as you let out a pained sound, his rough hands leaving smudges of color where he touched.
“Kacchan, why did I get the feeling that you were somehow involved?” You couldn’t pull your eyes away from the blood slipping down your arm, or the way the wine colored marks began to fade around the edges as time passed. It wasn’t like you didn’t know who Deku was, enough interviews played in the background of your office setting that you could recognize his voice even if he had had a cold. He must’ve been back for a visit from the states.
“S’not my fault that people are fucking stupid this early in the morning. I just came here for a drink. I didn’t ask to be assaulted,” he scoffed. Deku chuckled, a surprisingly boyish sound.
“Are you okay?” A hand came to rest on your shoulder before Deku gasped, having seen your arm. Though, with his track record, you had doubt that he was so shocked at the sight of blood. No, his impossibly green eyes were trained just a little further up than the cut you would probably need to get stitches for, where Dynamite’s fingers were dug into the delicate skin. Where the evidence you had been hoping to have hallucinated cemented the fact you knew.
Pro hero Dynamite was your soul mate and if the murderous look he was giving Deku was any indicator, he was not the least bit pleased about it.
And what that meant for you, exactly, you couldn't be sure.
Gross gross mind rotting sweetness. I know Bakugo is a sucker for the love of his life mkay.
Just a sweet little Drabble I used to scratch an itch
Katsuki could recall the exact moment he decided he would spend the rest of his life with you, in perfect detail. It was late, just before he had drifted off to sleep, fingers hot as they traced the careful curve of your spine. It was a surprisingly tender moment considering your skin was still tacky from the exertion of having your way with him. Smile satiated as you pressed gentle, open mouthed kisses to the available skin of his chest. He was known to be loud, abrasive, but in the calm of your shared space, he didn’t feel the need for it.
There was something soft, soothing even, when it came to the way you would carefully arrange yourself around him. Nails dragging lightly over his forearm, your smile coy when he turned with a glare. Always an air of mischief as you sidled up to him, but nothing that he didn’t welcome.
Yet there he lay, senses bathed in you. The taste of you lingering on his tongue, something cloying and addicting. The plush of your skin as it gave way under his grasp. Your soft exhale as he turned to kiss you outright.
It was your soft smile, eyes dripping with nothing but love and affection. Something so sweet it left an ache in his chest that he decided to smother with careful ministrations to your receptive body. When you exhaled his name against his temple, fingers ghosting across the broad expanse of his shoulders, he felt something pull taut inside of himself.
“Shit. I think I might really love you.” It was hushed, barely there against your collarbone, punctuated with a soft bite. He tried to ignore the lopsided beat of his heart as you stilled. Gone was the squirming you had begun as he allowed his fingers to wander. Absent was the restless way you began to get greedy for more of him, despite how apparent it was that you always had all of him. Tucked carefully into your coat pocket to take with you no matter how far you may go.
“You aren’t just saying that because of the very fantastic sex, are you?” You tried to sound breezy, unbothered as you tugged carefully on his blond locks. He pulled back, trying to ignore the way you immediately tried to pull him back down. He wanted to be able to study your face carefully, the way your lips were still kiss swollen and eager for him. He watched your expression fall, which always left him aching. He had to stop himself from leaning down to taste you again.
“I’m going to spend the rest of my life with you.” He watched your throat move, transfixed with the slight action of you swallowing thickly. Always enraptured by you, and all of your glory. He pressed his mouth to the crease between your brows to drive his point home.
“Katsuki-“ He dipped back down, teeth nipping at your jawline. The arch of your back made the corner of his mouth quirk.
It didn’t matter that outside the sky had opened up, pouring itself upon the earth below. He was too immersed in drinking down the sweet sounds spilling from your mouth as he punctuated his statement. Though he may have been moments from sleep not a few moments prior, he was suddenly consumed by the need to be closer to you. To devour every inch available to him and still dare ask for more. To let you dive beneath his own skin and make your home there in his chest.
