currently listening to: sticks and stones by the pierces
mani , 20 , currently in college for nursing
toji's actual wife + in love with suguru geto forever idc
☾ links: masterlist(s), rules , satoru gojo series
☼ recents: fratboy!gojo, gojo fic
☾ i mostly write smut, though of course, i add a plot and depending on how I'm feeling, fluff
☼ my requests, asks, and thirsts are always open. i just may not get to them quickly (or even often, I'm sorry) as i’m busy with college. but i always appreciate them!
do not copy, repost, plagiarize, edit, or translate any of my works.
description: A night already spiraling out of control only gets worse when your car is stolen, forcing you into an unexpected reunion with Satoru Gojo, your first love, whom you never truly healed from. Old wounds resurface as he insists on helping, reopening the distance between who you were, who he became, and everything left unsaid between you.
tags/warning: angst, reader has a reunion, sex work, crying, mentions of mild violence
The neighborhood you were in was seedy as hell. Worse than usual, even for this side of town. It was polluted with graffiti-tagged shutters, broken bottles glittering under the streetlights, guys posted up on corners who watched every car like they were pricing parts. You could practically taste your bad decisions in the air. That was the after-session glow, after all: regretting every single decision. Would you do anything for money? Even ruining your dignity and esteem? You answered that question an hour ago.
They’d promised you $2,000 cash for one video. One particularly extreme scene with two guys who already had decent followings, big enough that their names alone would pull views. You’d seen their pages before the fuck; they were rather professional despite how rough they were. Two grand could fix a lot. It could fill the fridge, pay the electric bill before they cut it again, and maybe even let you breathe for a week without panic.
Before you left home, you were staring into a freezer that was basically a graveyard: half a bag of freezer-burned chicken thighs you could not trust anymore, a single lonely ice pop, and that weird block of ground beef you swore you’d use three months ago. Pantry wasn’t much better. A couple of instant ramen bricks, those little seaweed snack packs Mari liked to pretend were chips, an almost-empty bag of rice, and the steel-cut oats you bought for what was supposed to be oatmeal cookies. Breakfast had been pathetic: plain rice with torn-up seaweed sheets on top, packed into the scratched-up bento box you’d had since high school. You’d kissed her forehead, told her it was “special sushi,” and sent her off to her grandma’s with a smile that felt like it might crack your face.
Jesus fucking Christ, you felt like the worst mother on the planet.
The guilt sat heavy, like wet concrete in your chest. For the last week, you’d been surviving on gas-station energy drinks and whatever was cheapest on the McDonald’s app. Mari’s dinners had been Happy Meals or ten-piece nuggets with fries almost every night, plus those little bags of pre-cut apples or baby carrots when you remembered to grab them so you could at least pretend there was “a vegetable.” You kept telling yourself it was temporary. You kept telling yourself the overnight bar shifts would end soon, that the scouting email would be the one, that you weren’t slowly poisoning your kid.
You were so goddamn tired. The kind of tired that made your bones ache, that turned simple shit like remembering to buy milk into an impossible task. You’d come home at dawn, reeking of spilled beer and cheap perfume, collapse for three hours, then drag yourself up to scroll through porn booking sites while Mari was at school. Grocery shopping kept getting pushed. Always tomorrow. Always after the next shift. Always after the check that was supposed to clear last Tuesday.
You needed that deposit to arrive. Two thousand dollars for one scene you finished in an hour. One night of letting two men use you in ways that left you here, sore and sticky afterward, cum drying uncomfortably between your thighs, sweat matting your hair to your forehead and neck, the faint metallic taste lingering in your mouth long after you’d rinsed. Now, perhaps, you could finally walk into the grocery store pushing a real cart instead of clutching a handbasket and mentally tallying every item against the pennies left in your account. Perhaps the slow, grinding feeling that every decision was costing pieces of you, and worse, pieces of Mari, might loosen its grip, even just a fraction.
You wished the money would come already.
You stood on the corner with your phone and car keys in hand, thumb hovering uselessly over your bank app, refreshing it as it might magically change if you stared hard enough. The men allowed you to stay as long as you wanted, but if you spent another hour in that apartment, you would be considered to have committed serious self-harm. The fresh air was a necessity. You were too focused to notice anything else… the rush of wind, the shadow of a bird cutting across the pavement, the way the street felt suddenly too quiet.
Then it happened.
Rough hands slammed into yours without warning, fingers closing around your keys with brutal precision. A shocked gasp tore from your throat as your attention snapped violently away from the screen. Across the street, your car sat waiting, the shitty old minivan you’d bought after months of saving from your first job at eighteen. The car that smelled like fast food and baby wipes. The car that carried groceries, late-night drives, and your daughter’s laughter.
One man stood beside it, eyes wide and panicked, while the other sprinted past you with your keys.
“Hey—!” you screamed, but it was already too late.
The doors unlocked with a sharp click. He jumped inside. The engine roared to life.
For a moment, you were frozen, shock pinning you in place as the van peeled away from the curb. Then your body caught up with reality. You ran. You screamed. Your feet pounded against the pavement as tears streamed down your face, blurring everything.
“Get back here!” you sobbed. “You evil fucks! How dare you!”
Your voice broke apart with each step. That car held nearly as many memories as your home. You needed it to get Mari to school, to get to work, to survive. When the van disappeared down the street, moving too fast and too far to chase, your legs finally gave out beneath you. You collapsed to your knees on the concrete, shaking, gasping, wrecked, and you didn’t care who saw.
They might as well have run off with your fucking heart.
You stayed there on your knees, the pavement biting into soft flesh, uncaring. You were sure you looked like hell. Smelled like it too. You’d filmed one scene, multiple takes, too many props, too many hands. Now you felt like a disappointment to your entire bloodline. You folded forward and sobbed into your palms, the world around you fading into noise and movement you barely registered.
Barely.
“Ma’am?” a voice cut through the haze. “Ma’am, are you alright?”
A masculine hand settled on your shoulder, warm and steady, gripping gently but firmly, real enough to anchor you. After a moment, he helped pull you to your feet. You swayed, then lifted your hands from your face, eyes burning, vision blurred with tears.
He was staring at you with such warmth. Such openness and patience.
The silence stretched. His expression shifted, confusion giving way to something softer, something unsettled. His cheeks warmed, color rising as if he’d suddenly realized the intimacy of the moment.
“Can I help you?” he asked, concerned. “I don’t feel right leaving a crying woman on the ground like that.” He could swear he recognized you.
Your breath hitched painfully as your gaze traced him. He was taller, broader, and impossibly composed. White hair styled carefully now, instead of perpetually messy, catching the streetlight like it always had. Sterling-blue eyes, unchanged in color but sharpened by years of distance and experience. He was beautiful in a way that felt unreal, like the kind of man people stopped for. Not to mention the jawline that could slice bread on it, he was a God to mortal eyes. Even when he was a stupid sixteen-year-old boy, he was beautiful.
Satoru.
He looked at you like a stranger. Polite concern where familiarity should have been. That was what finally broke you. Not the car. Not the night. Him.
A sob tore out of you before you could stop it.
You hadn’t stalked his Instagram or watched his shows since you were twenty (you’d learned the hard way how much that hurt), but that didn’t mean the world had let him go. Coworkers talked about him. Friends pointed him out on screens. His name surfaced constantly, casually, like he wasn’t something that had once been yours.
And still… still, you could never forget those eyes.
They were the same oneswhot had once looked at you like you were everything. Intense and unyielding, but warm, protective, enveloping. The eyes that had memorized your face in childhood, that had promised you forever without hesitation.
Now they searched yours for answers he didn’t even know he was missing.
And you stood there, unraveling, staring at the man who used to be your home.
“Satoru,” your voice rasped, broken and unfamiliar even to you. “Fuck, of all nights, this could happen. Why? Why are you here?” The words tumbled out through tears as you dragged your sleeve across your face, smearing wetness you couldn’t keep up with.
He froze.
For a split second, he looked genuinely confused, eyes narrowing as he tried to place you. At first, you could see it: the assumption. A fan. Someone who recognized him in the wild. But then your words caught up to him, sharp and unkind in a way admiration never was.
His expression shifted.
He stepped back, instinctively, guarded. An awkward smirk tugged at his mouth, defensive rather than amused. “Look, ma’am,” he said carefully, a hint of irritation slipping through, “I was just trying to help. But if this is a problem, I can leave.”
You noticed it then, the details you hadn’t let yourself see before. The black hoodie was pulled low, barely hiding his white hair. The sunglasses perched uselessly on his head, like he’d forgotten them in a hurry. His eyes were wide, alert, darting too often down the street. He looked like someone who didn’t want to be recognized. Someone in a rush. Someone hiding.
And suddenly, you felt small.
You apologized almost immediately, the word tumbling out thin and useless. But the hurt lingered, heavy and sharp. He didn’t recognize you. Not your face. Not your voice. Nothing. He was everything you’d ever loved, everything you’d lost, and to him, you were just another stranger. Another mess on the sidewalk. A woman crying too loudly, too openly.
You didn’t explain or defend yourself. You only said one thing. Your name.
He didn’t react at first, just taking in the words he’d heard. He was hanging onto a different version of you for years. How could he have known? How could he recognize you? You were so mature now, skin tighter, eyes darker, stressed.
Your name hung between you, fragile and exposed, like you’d set something precious down in the dirt and were waiting to see if it would be crushed.
He blinked once and then again.
You watched it happen in real time, the way his brow furrowed, the faint crease forming between his eyes as something shifted behind them. His mouth parted slightly, like he meant to say something and couldn’t find the air for it. The irritation drained from his face, replaced by a strange, hollow stillness.
“…What?” he asked quietly.
–
At the police station, the fluorescent lights buzzed overhead like they were judging you. A kind-faced officer, older, with tired eyes that had probably seen worse, led you to a small bathroom in the back. They handed you a plastic bag of basics: travel-sized wipes, a cheap comb, a packet of tissues, even a spare hoodie from lost-and-found that smelled faintly of laundry detergent and someone else’s life. You told them a half-truth: the men who took your keys had gotten rough when you tried to grab them back, shoved you hard enough to leave you winded and shaken. You left out the rest, the dried sweat and cum still clinging to your skin, the ache between your legs from the afternoon’s work, the way your body still felt borrowed and returned in pieces. They didn’t need that part. No one ever did.
Satoru sat on the hard plastic chair beside you in the waiting area, elbows on his knees, hands clasped so tightly his knuckles blanched. He looked like he was fighting a war inside his own head. Every few minutes, his gaze slid toward you, quick, searching scans that lingered on your face, your hands, the way you kept tugging the borrowed hoodie sleeves over your wrists. You could almost name the emotions flashing across his features: guilt like a fresh bruise, fear that tightened his jaw, regret that made his shoulders curve inward, and something softer, deeper, that might still have been love if you let yourself believe it. He didn’t speak while you gave your statement, license plate number, make and model of the van, vague descriptions of the two men (one wiry, one stockier, both moving fast and practiced). He just listened, silent and coiled, like he was holding his breath until the room stopped spinning.
“Thank you, sir,” you murmured when the officer finished, voice small. He nodded, promised they’d run the plate, put out a BOLO, and do everything they could. You nodded back, numb. At least Mari was at her grandmother’s for the week. You could go home, lock the door, and fall apart without an audience. Cry until your eyes swelled shut, scream into a pillow, stare at the empty fridge,e and wonder how the hell you were going to fix this. One more curveball in a life that already felt like a bad joke.
Your phone buzzed in your pocket. You pulled it out, glanced at the screen, and let out a long, shaky breath. The deposit had finally cleared. Two thousand dollars, sitting there like it was mocking you. Relief hit first, sharp and stupid, then the groan followed right behind it. Great. Money for groceries and bills, but no car. You were already running the math in your head: how long it would take to save for another vehicle, how many more scenes you’d have to take, how many nights you’d spend walking home in the dark because rideshares were a luxury you couldn’t afford anymore.
Satoru’s eyes flicked to the phone, then to your face. He stayed quiet for a long beat, the silence stretching thin between you. When he finally spoke, his voice was low, careful, like he was afraid the wrong word might shatter something.
“How’s your life been?”
The question landed softly, almost hesitantly. Not demanding answers. Not accusing. Just… asking. Like he was testing the water after years of drought, unsure if it would burn or soothe. His eyes held yours, those same piercing blue that used to make everything else disappear, and for the first time since the sidewalk, you saw the boy you used to know buried somewhere beneath the man he’d become. Waiting. Maybe even hoping.
You let out a dry, humorless chuckle, holding his gaze longer than felt safe. The fluorescent lights caught the exhaustion in your eyes, the faint smudges of yesterday’s makeup that the wipes hadn’t fully erased. “Look at me, Satoru,” you said, voice low, careful not to let the bitterness crack through too hard. “I’m pretty sure you can guess how my life’s been.”
He was sitting there in that black hoodie, hair still somehow perfect despite the late hour, skin clear, shoulders relaxed in the way only someone who hadn’t spent years scraping by could be. Clean. Polished. Untouched by the kind of dirt that stuck to you, no matter how hard you scrubbed. The contrast burned, quiet and vicious, right under your ribs.
The ghost of a smile touched his lips, small, almost sad. “Right,” he murmured, running a hand through that white hair, pushing it back only for it to fall forward again in that careless way it always had. “What did they say about the car?”
You exhaled through your nose. “What they always say. They’ll do what they can. Run the plate, check for cameras, and put out alerts. But until something turns up… until someone sees it or they catch a break, there’s nothing.” Your fingers tightened around your phone. You opened the messaging app, thumbs moving automatically to text your mother: Car got stolen. Can Mari stay a few extra days? I’ll explain later. You hit send before the guilt could fully settle. At least your daughter was safe, warm, and probably eating real food instead of whatever sad scraps you’d been cobbling together.
Satoru shifted beside you, restless. You could feel how badly he wanted to fill the silence, how desperately he was grasping for any thread of conversation that wasn’t this cold, sterile waiting room. Like if he could just keep talking, the years might fold back on themselves.
“How’s your mom?” he asked quietly. Then he stopped, eyes dropping to the scuffed linoleum between his sneakers. “Last time I…” He swallowed. “Fuck. I’m so sorry.”
You waved it off with a quick, sharp motion of your hand. Last time he’d seen her had been after he slipped that thin promise ring onto your finger, a glistening diamond that felt like everything. She’d pulled him into a hug, told him she trusted him with your life, her voice thick with the kind of hope mothers carry for their daughters. You didn’t want to revisit it. Not here. Not now.
“Look,” you said, sharper than you meant to, stomach twisting from sitting so close to the only person who’d ever made you feel like the center of the universe. “I don’t want to talk about anything that isn’t a car that can get me home tonight.”
He went still for a second. Then he stood, his frame unfolding until he loomed over you, lanky and tall in a way that still made your pulse skip even after all this time. The hoodie did nothing to hide the familiar lines of him: the long limbs, the easy grace that used to make every room feel smaller when he walked into it.
“Then let me give you a ride,” he said, voice more pitched, but careful. His eyes bore into yours, awaiting an answer. And it’s not like you had a car of your own at that moment…
–
The entire ride was suffocating. The kind of quiet that pressed in from all sides, thick and uncomfortable, broken only by the low purr of the engine and the occasional soft click of the turn signal. Satoru kept trying to talk. Small things at first, like he was dipping a toe in hot water to see if it would burn.
"You still live in the same city?" he asked after a few blocks, voice careful. He immediately felt like such a question was tone-deaf, because, unlike him, you had no reason to leave that shitty city. No reason, no desire, no funds to do so.
You stared out the passenger window at the passing streetlights. "Yeah."
He nodded once, like that answered everything. A minute later: "Your mom still working overnights?" Fuck, another tone-deaf question.
"She's retired now." You didn't elaborate.
"Right. That's... good." He swallowed audibly. "She always worked too hard."
No response. The silence stretched again.
About thirty minutes from your complex, the low-fuel light blinked on. He pulled into a brightly lit drive-thru without asking, the same cheap burger place you two used to hit after school when money was tight for you and bountiful for him. He ordered without hesitation: double cheeseburger (no onions), large fries, vanilla shake. Your exact old order. When the warm paper bag landed in your lap, the smell of grease and salt hit you like a tsunami of unwanted nostalgia. You weren’t a foolish fifteen-year-old girl head over heels for someone out of her tax bracket anymore. You were a woman face-to-face with reality on the regular.
You stared at it for a long second. "Thanks," you muttered, pulling out a few fries to nibble. The burger stayed wrapped; motion sickness was already creeping in from the late hour and the car's smooth glide.
He glanced over as you ate, eyes flicking between the road and your face. "Given all the chaos tonight... you look great," he said quietly at first, almost like he was testing the words. Then louder, trying for confidence, he repeated himself. "Seriously. You do."
You gave him a flat "Thanks," again, voice dry. Inside, something bitter uncoiled. You were still right where he'd left you. Same neighborhood. Same, if not worse, struggles. Same invisible weight. Meanwhile, he rolled up in this absurdly expensive car, butterfly doors that lifted like wings when he'd helped you in earlier, interior glowing with soft ambient lights, custom coasters etched with some minimalist design, and a stupid center console drawer still crammed full of sweet gummies and some hard candies.
He tried again after a few more miles of silence. "I really did miss you," he said, softer now, shoulders visibly tense under the hoodie. "Seeing you tonight... I froze up. I'm sorry I didn't recognize you right away. Fuck. My brain just... it blanks out a lot of stuff from back then.”
He eased the car into your apartment complex, following the clipped directions you'd given him earlier. The headlights swept across faded brick and cracked sidewalks as he pulled up in front of your unit.
His words hung there, fragile and useless. Your head throbbed harder, a dull pulse behind your eyes.
"You wanted to forget about me," you said, voice low and edged. "I get it. Loud and clear."
He flinched as if you'd slapped him. "That's not what I meant.”
You were already unbuckling, yanking the door handle. The butterfly door rose with a smooth, expensive hiss, letting in a rush of cool night air that smelled faintly of garbage bins and rain.
"Don't," you cut him off, grabbing the fast-food bag and stepping out. Your sneakers hit the pavement with more force than necessary. "Don't explain. Don't apologize. Just... don't.”
You didn't look back as you walked to your door, keys jingling in your shaking hand, the paper bag crinkling against your side. Behind you, the engine idled for several long seconds, headlights still washing over the building like he was waiting for something; permission, forgiveness, a glance… anything.
The second the door clicked shut behind you, the dam broke. A raw, ugly sob ripped out of your chest as your knees buckled. You slid down the wood, back pressed hard against it, until you were sitting on the cold floor with your face buried in your trembling hands. Tears poured hot and endless, soaking your palms, dripping onto the hardwood beneath you. The apartment felt too quiet and small, like the walls were closing in to watch you fall apart.
Who was going to help you now? The police had barely looked up from their forms. A broke single mom from the wrong side of town. They probably filed your report in the same pile as every other lost cause. No car meant no way to pick up Mari, no way to get to the bar, no way to book another shoot without begging for rides like some helpless kid. The bus could take you to work, but getting Mari to school would be a problem.
And then, on top of everything, Satoru. The one person you never wanted to see you like this. Your stupid heart had still fluttered the moment those blue eyes locked on yours, like your body hadn’t gotten the memo that he’d shattered you eight years ago. Like it still remembers how gently he used to hold you, how those pale hands once traced your skin like you were something precious. You hated it. You hated him. You hated yourself most of all for still feeling anything.
A soft buzz from your phone snapped you out of it. You wiped your face on the sleeve of the borrowed hoodie, blinking through swollen, stinging eyes to read the screen.
Just got here. Coming up the stairs now.
Shit. You’d completely forgotten it was your night. Once every couple of weeks, you and Toji made it work. He dropped his son off with his ex, you left Mari with your mom, and the two of you just… existed together. A few years ago, after too many beers, things had almost gone further. You’d been kissing, clumsy and laughing, his hands warm under your shirt, but you’d pulled back fast, heart pounding with old memories. “I can’t,” you’d whispered. He’d just nodded, no questions, no hurt feelings. “It’s okay, beautiful,” he’d said, and that was that. The tradition remained after.
Three soft knocks sounded at the door, right by your ear. You froze.
“Hey,” Toji called through the door. “It’s me.”
You swallowed, forcing your voice to steady. “Yeah. I know.”
You pushed yourself up off the floor, legs trembling slightly as you reached for the door handle, bracing yourself. You didn’t have the energy to explain everything tonight, but you also didn’t want to be alone.
The door swung open, and you stepped aside to let him in.
Toji didn’t need an explanation. One look at you told him everything he needed to know, or at least, everything he thought he knew. He was aware of your work that night, had known where you were headed and why. In his mind, that alone was enough to explain the hollowed look in your eyes, and the way your shoulders sagged like you’d been carrying too much for too long.
But the dried tear tracks on your cheeks nearly did him in.
“Fuck,” he muttered under his breath, eyes narrowing as he took you in properly this time. “Was it really that bad?”
He set the case of beer down by the counter and dropped a Ziploc bag of loud, unmistakably pungent weed onto the coffee table like it was routine. Like this was just another night you needed numbing.
You opened your mouth to answer, but your face betrayed you first. Fresh tears slipped free, blurring your vision all over again. You didn’t even have time to apologize before Toji was already there, arms wrapping around you, solid and grounding. He didn’t say anything, didn’t rush you, didn’t ask questions. He just held you while your body shook, letting you cry it out into his chest.
For a moment, the world narrowed to that.
Then there was a knock on the door. The sound snapped through the room, sharp and unwelcome. You both stiffened. You pulled back instinctively, brows knitting together as confusion cut through the haze. Toji reacted faster, swearing under his breath as he reached for the coffee table and hastily slid the zip of weed out of sight, shoving it beneath a cushion.
“Of course,” he muttered. “No damn peephole.”
He stepped in front of you before you could protest, one hand lifting slightly as a silent command to stay back.
“I’ve got it,” he said, voice calm, confident, and protective. “I’ll handle this.”
Before you could argue, he opened the door.
Satoru stood on the other side. A paper bag hung loosely from his hand, the unmistakable scent of greasy fast food drifting into the apartment. He looked out of place against the dim hallway, too clean, too polished, even now.
The shift in Satoru’s expression was instant and brutal.
One heartbeat, he was still wearing that careful, apologetic mask he’d walked in with, all soft eyes and lowered voice. The next, something cold and sharp slid across his face like a shadow crossing the moon. His gaze flicked from the greasy bag in his hand, to Toji filling the doorway, to you standing half-hidden behind Toji’s broad shoulder, eyes swollen, cheeks blotchy, hoodie sleeves tugged over your knuckles like a kid trying to disappear.
His jaw locked. The blue of his irises seemed to deepen, darken, until it looked almost black under the harsh hallway light. It wasn’t anger exactly. He was understanding that someone else had been the one holding you while you cried tonight, just like someone else had to be around to hold you every night since he’d left.
The polite concern he’d worn on the way up the stairs cracked, revealing something colder underneath. Jealousy, maybe. Or hurt. Or the sudden, unwelcome realization that eight years had passed and you hadn’t waited in some frozen shrine to his memory. Even though he was literally on his way to getting engaged.
Even if he had no right to feel any of it, the way his eyes darkened said he did.
Toji noticed too. You could feel it in the way his stance shifted, shoulders squaring a fraction more, chin lifting just enough to exude domination.
In a not-so distant future, robots made for ‘personal companionship’ are widely distributed. Some seem to have a tendency to… defect. Make your order wisely.
: The CHOSO Model — coming soon.
antisocial and living alone, you bend to your desires for companionship and order the CHOSO model online. when he strays from changing the sheets to instead watch you sleep between them, you start to suspect he's more devout than he should be.
^ yandere sexbot!choso x loner virgin!reader.
: The GOJO Models — coming soon.
you’re a frequent customer at silk & static, a luxury robot sex club, and have become dutifully loyal to the high-end GOJO model. that is, until your favourite sexbot gets an upgrade, and you end up stuck between the GOJO model and his new-and-improved SATORU version—neither of which like to share.
^ sexbot!gojo x sexbot!satoru x reader
: The GETO Model — coming soon.
you're starting to suspect your (human?) boyfriend suguru is hiding something about himself. his lack of sleep, his never getting sick, how you've never met his parents... it all starts making sense when you come across an old discontinuation notice for the GETO model who looks a lot like your suguru.
^ secret sexbot!geto x gf!reader
: The TOJI Model — coming soon.
as a collector in the black market trade for robots with... special enhancements, you strike gold when you get your hands on a TOJI model. once used for special military operations, yours has been re-dressed and modified in ways some collectors could only dream of seeing. the only issue is, his system wasn't properly wiped—he still has his old military connections, and has no qualms blackmailing you with them for some special treatment.
^ illegal sexbot!toji x collector!reader
: The NANAMI Model — coming soon.
as a scientist with Jujutsu Technologies, you're tasked with studying the make-up of a defective robot, the NANAMI model. weathering your poking and prodding, he seems to insist he's working just fine. it’s when he escapes from the facility and shows up at your house to prove his sentience that you think you might have a problem on your hands.
defective sexbot!nanami x scientist!reader
: The SUKUNA Model — coming soon.
the SUKUNA model is a myth. some fucked-up scare tactic that anti-robot activists have pedalled to scare the masses. still, everyone knows the story of the alleged sexbot-turned-monstrosity who gained consciousness in the middle of an experimental trial and escaped, though not before killing every scientist in the laboratory. people say he'll be back one day for the man who greenlit it all.
it's a good thing your husband, the CEO of Jujutsu Technologies, insists that you haven't got a thing to worry about.
^ escaped sexbot!sukuna x CEO's wife!reader
and after everything, he's still just a machine.
i feel like i need to put a disclaimer before any of these drop: i detest ai with every bone in my beautiful body. fuck them robots! this time ur just doing it literally
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They rang not with grief but with duty. They were heavy, measured tolls that rolled across the kingdom like a command to mourn. Black silk swallowed the palace walls, golden effigies were draped in shadow; even the statues wore grief poorly.
You stood between the two coffins and felt nothing at first.
The roses were wrong. You noticed that first, deep red where your mother had always preferred white, arranged by hands that had never known her preferences and saw no reason to learn them now. You counted mourners the way one might count stones in a wall: forty-three, forty-four, forty-five, men and women in dark wool who had loved your father's title and your mother's stature. You would forget their faces before the season turned. The priest's mouth moved, uttering your house's mantra “ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” You watch him the way you watch the rain, present, distant, waiting for it to be over.
You catalogue the candles burning low on the altar, the smudged ink of the burial rites, the way Lord Harven's wife keeps touching her pearls, a nervous habit or performance, you could not say.
Suddenly, your cheeks are wet. You had not expected that.
Not for them. Not for the father who had looked through you like glass, who had made a quiet art of absence. Not the mother who spat venom at you and had loved you the way some women loved difficult weather: with resentment. The tears were not for who they were. You spent a lifetime waiting for them to change. They were for the versions of them you had spent twenty-three years waiting for, the ones who might have, one day, turned and finally seen you. That door was closed now. Sealed tight under dark oak and silver fittings with the specific weight of a lid that would not open again, covered in the wrong colored roses.
You mourn, and the kingdom watches. Daughters must cry when their kings perish, because silence would be mistaken for freedom, and freedom has always been dangerous for women like you.
You become aware of Geto in the way you always did, not by looking, but by the sudden steadying of the air around you. He stands at your left shoulder, two paces back, as propriety demands. You do not turn to look at him for reassurance; you realized that even that would not help.
He notices before you have, that you are crying. He was certain of it; you stand too straight, too composed. The particular stillness of someone holding themselves together by sheer will alone. He had learned your stillness the way a sailor learns weather: by long exposure, by necessity.
You had not moved in some time, had not shifted your weight, had not lifted a hand to your face. You were fixed, and somewhere, he knew that you were far from this room.
He wants to offer comfort, condolences.
It is not a useful thing to want. He is aware of that. He had known it for long enough that the knowledge had worn smooth, like a stone carried too long in a closed fist. Two paces behind you was the duty placed upon him, and duty was the only language available to him here in this room, in this life. He could not close the distance, could not put a hand on your shoulder or speak low into your ear or do any of the things that this situation seemed to call for. He was your knight. Geto keeps his hands at his sides and watches the back of your neck and says nothing.
The priest's mouth continues its familiar shapes. You do not move. He does not move. The candles burn lower, and the incense thickens, and somewhere in the middle of a prayer you had stopped hearing. Your shoulders drop half an inch, the ghost of something giving way. Geto feels it like a fist closing in his chest.
Still, he stays two paces back as duty says he must.
When the priest concludes his rites, the mourners shifted, that collective exhale of a crowd released from obligation. The room began its slow dissolution into smaller griefs and quieter politics. You remained still; it seems important to do so.
It is Lord Zenin's eldest son who approaches you first. You had been expecting someone. There were always men who mistake a woman’s bereavement for an open door. It was not Lord Zenin's son that you need to prepare for.
He comes from the side of the room, broad-shouldered, unhurried, wearing your father's colors with the particular ease of someone who has already decided they suited him. You do not know his face well. You know his name the way you know a rumor: Amos, one of your father's bastards, legitimized just enough to make him dangerous. He stops before you with the mourners still milling around you both.
“You’re alone now,” he says. As though this were news, as though this were a gift he was offering you, the observation of your own condition. You say nothing. “I mean to remedy that.’ he says it quietly but not quietly enough, a performance calibrated for exactly the right number of ears. A vow made public by design, deniable if necessary.
Behind you, you feel the shift in Geto's stance.
You do not see the knife until Geto’s arm comes across you.
It happens not slowly, not with any of the ceremony that the moment seems to demand, but quickly and badly all at once. Amos’ expression shifts. The mourners nearest scatter. You hear the knife before you understand what it was, a short bright sound of metal clearing a sheath, and then Geto was there between you and the blade and the man holding it. His sword is drawn with a speed that makes the motion look effortless.
The knife does not reach you.
Amos does not try a second time. Whether it is the sword leveled at his throat or the look on Geto's face, you can not say. In that strange suspended moment that followed, you find yourself staring at Geto’s back, at the set of his shoulders, at the particular stillness he wears now.
Guards come, there is shouting, and Amos is taken. Someone presses your arm and asks you something you cannot hear properly over the sound of your own pulse. You answer, and they leave you alone.
Geto sheaths his sword, and he turns to you, eyes scanning over your face, your hands, your throat, the swift and clinical assessment of a man checking for damage.
“Are you hurt?” he asks.
“No,” you say.
He nods, steps back into his place two paces behind you and says nothing more.
They gave you a room to wait in while they deal with Amos .
It is one of the smaller receiving chambers, the kind used for minor audiences and forgettable negotiations. Someone had come in to light the fire, another person brings wine you do not touch, and a plate of things you can not look at. A lady in waiting whose name you keep forgetting sits in the corner and watches you with wide, careful eyes as if she had been told to observe and report. You sit straight in your chair and look at the fire.
Officials come in intervals: a steward, then the captain of the guard, then a lord whose title you could not place after he had been speaking for some time. They ask you careful questions in careful voices, and you give them careful answers; the whole exchange has the quality of something being performed. Two parties reciting lines from a script neither had written.
“A terrible business,” the lord says. You thought his name was Edmure. Or Edmund. Something with an Ed. “On such a day, no less.”
“Yes,” you say.
“Your lord father would have been–”
“Yes,” you say again, before he can finish.
Geto stands by the door. He is present enough to be useful, easy enough to overlook. You do not look at him directly. You have learned that lesson early: looking at him in rooms like this, in front of people like this, tells them something, and you have grown careful about what you tell people.
But you are aware of him; you are always aware of him.
The captain of the guard is the last to leave. He bows, expresses the appropriate condolences, and closes the door behind him with a soft final sound.
The lady in waiting looks at you expectantly.
“You can go,” you say.
“My lady, I was instructed to–”
“I know what you were instructed,” you keep your voice even. “Now, go.”
The girl went.
The fire crackles, the wine sits untouched at the table. Outside the door, you can hear the muffled sounds of the keep rearranging itself around today's events, footsteps, low voices,and the distant clink of armor as the guard rotation changes.
Geto has not moved.
You look at your hands in your lap; they are perfectly still. You were very good at being still.
“They will want a formal statement by morning,” he says after a time, not a question.
“I know.”
“I can have someone draft the language, if you prefer.”
“I can manage it.”
“I know you can.”
“It was a small knife,” you say.
You weren’t sure why you said it.
Geto was quiet for a moment. “Yes.”
“I noticed that, when you–afterwards, I noticed that it was small.” You looked at the fire. “I don't know why I keep thinking about it.”
He doesn't tell you that it doesn't matter. He doesn't tell you that you are safe now. He just says quietly. “The mind catches on strange things.”
“Yes.”
Silence again, not an uncomfortable one. You had spent enough of your life in silence with him to know the difference.
“You should eat something,” he says.
“Im not hungry.”
“I know.”
You almost smile. “Then why say it?”
“Because someone has to.”
You look at the plate and pick up something small without tasting it. When you look up, you realize he was looking somewhere else entirely, a courtesy you recognized and appreciated.
“Thank you,” you say.
“Yes.”
You set your hands back in your lap. Outside, the keep continues its quiet reorganization. The fire burns lower, and the wine stays untouched, and eventually you rise and say goodnight. Bowing as duty requires, you walk to the door.
You stop with your hand on the frame.
“Geto.”
“Your Highness.”
“Were you frightened? Earlier.”
A beat, just one.
“Yes,” he says.
You nod once at the door and then walk through it.
At nightfall, you find his quarters.
You had not made a decision, exactly. You had made a series of small ones, not to return to your own chambers, not to accept the ladies in waiting who had been sent to you, not to sit with the court officials who wanted statements and assurances that you simply could not give. Each small refusal had carried you down a corridor and then another, through the quieter parts of the keep where the torches burned lower, and the stone held the cold, until you were standing in front of a door you should not have been standing in front of.
You knocked before you could think better of it.
He answers quickly. He has not been sleeping; you can see that immediately, still in his clothes, candlelight behind him, a book set face down on the table. An edition you recognize as one you had lent him three years ago and never asked for returned. His eyes find your face and do that thing again, that swift cataloguing.
“Your Highness,” he says.
You had always hated that, the way he says it with such care. As though it were a door he was choosing to keep closed.
“Don’t,” you say. Your voice comes out smaller than intended. “Not tonight. Please.”
You make it as far as the center of the room before you stop, and stand still, and feel the whole day crash into you like a wave you had been outrunning for hours. Your parents are in the ground. The wrong colored roses. Amos's knife and the sound it made, and Geto's arm across you, solid and immediate, the only real thing in the room. The door was closed now, and you were still standing in front of it.
You put your hands over your face and sob.
You are not quiet about it. You had spent all day being quiet about it, and you found, here, that you had nothing left for that particular effort. The sound that comes out of you is awful, and you were briefly, distantly ashamed of it, and then Geto's arms come around you, and you stop caring.
He holds you completely, without hesitation. One hand on the back of your head, your face against his chest, he doesn’t tell to you to stop or that it was alright or any of the useless things people said. He just held you, steady, and solid, and warm, and let you fall apart.
You didn’t know how long it lasted, long enough for the candles to burn lower. Long enough for the worst of it to subside into something quieter and more bearable, the small exhausted tremors of a storm that had passed.
His hand was moving slowly in your hair.
“I wanted to come to you,” he says, his voice low. You felt it through the wall of his chest. “At the funeral I kept–I watched you stand there, and I wanted to close that distance so badly I could think of nothing else.”
You say nothing, you didn’t trust your voice yet, but you hadn’t moved away.
“You stood so still,” he continued. “You always do that. When youre trying not to let anyone see. Ive known that about you since you were twelve years old and I have never–” He stops, starts again, more carefully. “I have never hated two paces more than I did today.”
You laugh a little. It comes out wet and ruined, and you feel him exhale against the top of your head.
“They were never kind to you,” he says quietly. “Your parents. I know that, I was there for most of it, and I know that isn’t–I know it doesn’t make grief simpler. I know you know that.” A pause. “I just wanted to say it. That I saw it, that I always saw it.”
You press your face harder against his chest and say nothing, because there was nothing to say except I know and thank you and please don't let me go, and you were not certain yet which of those you were permitted.
He seems to understand anyway; he always did.
“You’re safe,” he says, very quietly, and you understand that he means more than the knife. “You’re safe. I have you.”
Outside, the keep settles into its nighttime sounds–distant footsteps, wind against stone, the world continuing in its indifferent way. In here, the candles burn, and his arms stay around you, and for the first time since the morning, you feel your composure come apart without disaster.
He walks you back.
You had asked him not to. He had simply fallen into step beside you, not two paces behind, not tonight, but beside you, close enough that the sleeve of his coat brushed your arm in the narrow corridor. You did not comment on it. You thought that if you commented on it, he might remember himself, and you were not ready for that yet.
The keep was quiet at this hour. The torches had burned to their lower registers, casting everything in amber and shadow. Your footsteps were the only sound, yours lighter, his steadier, a rhythm you had been listening to for twelve years without ever quite getting used to it. You were very aware of his arm against yours, brushing lightly, almost not even there.
You two walk slowly through the amber-lit corridors of the keep like two people with nowhere particular to be, which was not true of either of you. You think about reaching sideways, breaking the distance between you two. The thought arrives plainly, without preface, the simple mechanics of it, the small distance, how easy it would be, and how completely impossible. You keep your hand at your side.
He keeps his at his.
You reach your chambers. The door is closed, the ladies in waiting long dismissed, a single torch burning in the sconce beside the frame. You both stop and stand in the corridor outside of your door, and the quiet settles around you, and you are aware, acutely, almost painfully, of how close he is standing. Not two paces, not tonight. Close enough that if you turned to face him fully, you two would be–
You look at the door.
“You should sleep,” he says, low and careful.
“I know.”
“You won’t.” Not a question.
“Probably not.” You keep your eyes on the door. “But I will lie down, that shall count for something.”
He makes a quiet sound that isn’t quiet agreement. You had a catalogue of his sounds, you realize, you had been building it for years without meaning to, filed away under the heading of things you weren't supposed to notice.
You put your hand on the door handle and let it rest there without turning it.
“Geto.”
“Yes.”
You turn to look at him. He was looking at you in the way he sometimes did when he thought you weren't paying attention, fully, without the careful management he wore in public, and it was a great deal to be looked at like that. Like you were something worth looking at, like you were something he was afraid to lose.
The torchlight dances between you two.
You look at his hand, hanging at his side. You look at yours on the door handle. The distance between them was very small and yet insurmountable. Slowly, you move your hand from the door handle. You do not reach for his. You let one hand fall to your side, and just for a moment, half a breath, the space between one heartbeat and the next, your fingers hung beside his in the torchlight, close enough that you can feel the warmth of his hand without touching it.
He does not move.
You look up at him. He was looking at your hands, and then he looks at you. His expression in that moment feels like a hand pressed flat against your sternum, like something you would think about for a very long time.
You step back.
“Goodnight,” you say, softly.
“Goodnight,” he says. Not Your Highness, just goodnight.
You go inside and close the door. You stand on the other side of it, press your hand against the wood, and breathe.
You lie in the dark and think about his hands.
Not in the way you usually disciplined yourself not to think about them–the abstract, careful suppression of it, the practiced redirect. You think of him without armor, you think about his hand at the back of your head. The steadiness of it, the deliberateness, the way it had settled there like it had always known where it belonged.
Your thoughts dangerously wander further.
You think about what those hands would feel like if they wandered. If instead of that single, careful touch at the nape of your neck, they had slid down. Down the curve of your spine, learning the shape of you through the silk of your gown. Down to your waist, spanning, pulling you closer. Down further still, to your hips, gripping them with the same sureness that had cradled your head.
Heat pools low in your belly at the thought.
You think about his fingers, long, calloused from years of sword work, capable of such violence yet careful with you, tracing the line of your collarbone. Following it slowly, deliberately, with that same patience he brought to everything. You imagine them slipping beneath the neckline of your gown, finding the soft skin of your shoulder, your breast, learning the weight of you with a reverence that makes your breath catch.
You think about those hands on your bare skin. The contrast of his roughness against your softness. The way they would map your body with rapt attention. You imagine them cupping your face, the way they had cupped the back of your head, but this time tilting it up for a kiss. Imagine them sliding into your hair, fisting there, holding you in place while his mouth claimed yours.
Your own hand moves without conscious decision, sliding across the silk of your nightgown, and you feel your breath hitch at even this pale imitation of what you were imagining.
You think about his hands on your thighs, pushing them apart with gentle insistence, settling between them. His thumb tracing patterns on the sensitive skin while he watches your face. You think about those fingers–god, those fingers–finding you wet and ready, learning exactly what makes you gasp, what makes you arch, what makes you forget entirely that you were a princess and he was your knight and there were a thousand reasons why this could never happen.
You think about his hands gripping your hips hard enough to leave marks, pulling you against him, showing you exactly how much he wanted you through the friction of your bodies moving together. Think about them sliding up your ribs, your sides, memorizing every curve and valley. Think about one hand at your breast and the other between your legs and his mouth at your throat.
You think about those hands, the same hands that held swords and worn armor and signed unofficial documents–trembling slightly as they undressed you. Taking their time despite the urgency, despite the years of wanting compressed into a single moment. Peeling away each layer like unwrapping something sacred.
You think about him looking at you, finally seeing you, and those steady hands becoming unsteady with the weight of it.
You think about his hands on your bare skin, no barriers left, nothing between you but the breath and heat and the sound of your name on his mouth like a prayer.
Your hand moves lower, seeking friction, seeking relief from the ache that had been building. You bite your lip to keep quiet, very wary that he was somewhere in this castle, possibly lying awake thinking about you in the way you were thinking about him.
You wonder if his hands were on himself right now. If he was thinking about you, if he was imagining the same things. You beneath him or above him or pressed against a wall with his hand over your mouth to keep you quiet, taking you with all the pent-up want that had been building between you two for years.
The thought makes you gasp softly into the darkness.
You think about his hands after. Thought about them becoming tender, tracing idle patterns on your back while you catch your breath against his chest. Think about his fingers threading through your hair, his palm warm against your cheek, his thumb brushing across your lips in a gesture that was somehow more intimate than everything that came before.
You think about waking up to those hands reaching for you in the morning light, sleep-rough and insistent, pulling you back against him. Think about them learning you in the daylight, no longer hurried, taking their time to discover every place that makes you sigh, every touch that makes you melt.
You think about his hands at the funeral first, because that was where it started. He had kept them at his side all through the service. You had not been watching him; you were aware of him peripherally, completely, and noticed the stillness of his hands and understood it for what it was,
Restraint. The conscious, continuous exercise of it.
Now alone in your bed with your hand between your thighs and your breath coming faster, you understand exactly what he had been retraining. Understood that those hands, so carefully controlled, so deliberately still, wanted to touch you the way you were imagining. That every moment of that studied composure was costing him something. That he went to bed every night, wanting, aching, disciplining himself not to reach for something he could not have.
You come quietly, biting your lip, his name a whisper you didn’t dare let yourself speak aloud.
After lying in the dark with your heart still racing, you feel the weight of it settle over you. The impossibility of it. He was your guard. You were a princess. Those hands, no matter how much you wanted them, no matter how much you suspected he wanted to give them, they would always remain at his sides. Would remain controlled, restrained, denoted from a distance that protocol and position demanded.
You think about the receiving room. The untouched wine, the way he said, the mind catches on strange things, and tried not to fix anything, not tell you what to feel or when to stop feeling it. Just sat with you. You had so rarely been sat with.
You think about the corridor, his sleeve against your arm, the warmth of it through the fabric, such a small point of contact. You had been aware of every step. You had counted them without meaning to, measuring the distance to your door in the private knowledge that when you arrived, he would step back and the distance would be reinstated and the brief fiction of the corridor would be over.
You think about outside your door. The way he looked at you.
You had a word for it, you realize, lying in the dark. You had been avoiding the word for some time, the way you avoided looking directly at something bright, but here in the dark with your armor off, you found it sitting plainly in the center of your chest, obvious, and terrible, and there.
Devoted, that was how he looked at you. Not with the performance of devotion that knights wore in public, the correct angles of deference and duty, but with the real thing, private, unguarded.
And you, lying in the dark with the phantom sensation of his hands on your skin, hands that had never actually touched you the way you wanted, might never touch you that way. Still, you were just as devoted, irrevocably ruined for anyone else.
You press your face into your pillow and try not to think about how many nights like this you would have to endure. Tried not to calculate the years stretching ahead, full of restraint and distance and wanting what you could not have. You try not to think about his hands. You fail, as always, completely.
You think about his arms around you. The specific warmth of them, the solidity. You felt held, like the world had edges again and you were inside them.
You’re safe. I have you
You press your face into the pillow.
You think about his hands at your door, at his sides, carefully still. You think about how close you had been. You think about twelve years and two paces and Your Highness and the thing that lived between you without a name. You fed into it, without meaning to, every time you lent him a book or said don’t when he said your title, and he listened, always listened, and it was just so Geto. Just himself, just the person you knew better than almost anyone else.
You think about being married off. The matter of your settlement. Some lord or the other, chosen for his holdings, and you would smile and manage your face and be grateful.
You think about Geto’s face outside your door.
You think: I don’t want to be left alone
You think: I want–
You stop. You knew what you wanted; you had known for a long time. When you finally sleep, you dream of a corridor. Torchlight, his arm against yours, warm through the fabric, and a door at the end that you never quite reached.
Morning arrives with a particular cruelty: too bright, too ordinary, too indifferent to everything that had happened in the dark.
You hear Mercy before you see her, the soft sounds of curtains being drawn back, the careful footsteps of someone trying not to wake you and going about it noisily enough to do exactly that.
Mercy wakes you this way on purpose. The noise was a kindness, a gentle negotiation between respecting sleep and respecting the day, a way of saying you’re ready without ever quite letting you sleep forever. Mercy had never admitted it; it was one of the many small understandings that lived between you two without requiring language.
You open your eyes to pale winter light and the sight of Mercy moving around the room with the brisk unhurried efficiency that was her primary mode of existing in the world. She was perhaps eight years older. She had come to court at eleven, the eldest daughter of a minor lord whose estate had failed and whose pride had not, sent to serve because there was nothing else to be done with her. Because a position at court, even a minor one, was worth more than what remained of the family name.
You had been eight when Mercy arrived. You remembered the first morning: a girl you did not know standing at the foot of your bed, her hands folded and her chin up. You had stared at her, and Mercy had stared back. She was terrified.
I’ve been assigned to you, Mercy had said, clearly practiced.
I know, you said. You don't have to stand like that.
Something had shifted in Mercy's expression then, not much, but enough.
You two had not, exactly, become friends. That was not the shape of you; you two had become something that was more complicated and more durable than friendship. Something that had been built incrementally over thirteen years of shared mornings and difficult nights and all the ordinary intimacies of a lived life in close quarters
You knew that Mercy’s hands shook slightly when she was angry, that she’d never spoken of the family she’d left behind all the years since she’d left them, that she loved someone once. A young knight, briefly, before he had died of a fever at twenty-three. She had not mentioned him. You had understood that she did not want him mentioned. There were whole rooms inside people that you learned to walk past.
Mercy sets a cup of tea on the bedside table, the particular blend you preferred. She pulls back the second curtain and surveys the gown that had been laid out the night before.
“Good morning,” she says without turning around.
“Is it,” you say into the pillow.
She hums in response. Mercy turns now and looks at you with an expression that was fond and clinical in equal measure, the look of someone taking stock.
“But it is morning nonetheless; that is something.”
You push yourself upright. The room was cold despite the fire Mercy had already coaxed into being, winter pressing through the stone. You wrap your hands around the cup and look out at a sky the color of old pewter.
Mercy begins the work of dressing you. There was a familiar comfort in the sequence of it, the warm weight of fabric, the sure and gentle efficiency of Mercy’s hands, the smell of the particular soap she’d brought with her. You had been dressed by a number of ladies in waiting over the years, well-born girls who did it correctly and impersonally. None of it had ever felt like this, unhurried and unperformed, just the quiet cooperation of two people who knew each other well enough to move around one another without effort.
You think, without meaning to, about last night, about other hands, about warmth. You press the thought flat.
“How did you sleep?” Mercy asks. She starts with your hair, detangling your coils with a patience that was characteristic of her. Mercy never rushed the hair, had always maintained that the hair set the tone for the day.
“Adequately.”
“Mm.” She was not convinced, yet says nothing. You watch the gray sky through the window, let Mercy work, and try your best to be mentally present in the room.
“It was a hard day,” Mercy says, after a while, carefully. “Yesterday, however complicated the feelings, a hard day is a hard day.”
“I am fine.”
“You said that yesterday, too, before it.”
“I was fine yesterday, too.”
Mercy stops for a moment. “I know something about burying parents before the shape of them is finished.”
You go still.
You knew this about Mercy, knew the bones of it at least. Her father had died when she was seventeen, two years before the estate had failed entirely. Her mother had lasted another three years, long enough to see Mercy established at court, and then had died of something that was listed as a winter illness, which Mercy had never elaborated on. She had been twenty when she became, formally and finally, alone in the world.
You had been twelve when Mercy’s father died. You remembered her coming back from the brief leave she had been granted–three days, not one more.
“Mercy,” you say, quietly.
“Yes?”
A pause.
“Don't,” you say, “Please,” your voice comes out carefully, measured. “Not this morning. I can't–” You stop
The silence that followed was not an unkind one. That was the thing about Mercy, even her silences were careful, considered, chosen.
“Alright,” she says softly, and her hands resume their work.
“You look ashen,” Mercy says, after a moment, in a lighter tone, a door closed with care. “We’ll do something about that.”
“I look like someone who did not sleep.”
“You look like a princess who did not sleep.” Mercy appears in the mirror before you, setting her hands slightly on your shoulders, meeting your eyes in the glass with an expression that was fond. “Which is a distinguished thing. Very affecting.”
You laugh.
“Thank you,” you say quietly. “For all of it. For staying with me.’
Mercy looks at you in the mirror for a moment.
“Where else would I be,” she says simply. Not a question. You held that for a moment and let Mercy finish her work.
Breakfast was a quiet affair
You eat in the smaller dining room. Mercy managed these quiet accommodations. The great hall could wait, with its long tables and its watching eyes and its forty-three mourners recycled into forty-three opinions about your future. That could wait indefinitely.
The food was good. You feast upon buttered breads, eggs, and various meats; you eat it all without tasting, a habit you could not quite bring yourself to address. The room was small enough to be warm, a fire doing honest work in the grate, the windows showcasing the same pewter sky as this morning. You watch it between bites, thinking about nothing in particular.
Geto stands two paces behind you.
You know things about him now that you did not know yesterday morning. The smell of his room, the warmth of his arms. You had more of him now than you’d had before, filed away in the part of yourself where you kept special things, familiar and new at once.
You do not look at him; he does not speak. You both do not need to.
This was the particular cruelty of it, you think, cutting methodically through your meat. What existed between you was not a simple thing. If he were merely handsome, or merely kind, or merely other than he was, you might have managed to put him out of your mind years ago. But it was not so simple. You knew him, knew him the way you know twelve years of small moments and long silences. You knew which silences were comfortable and which were not; you knew the sound he made when he was trying not to laugh, the small change in his posture when he was at ease versus when he performed. You knew him, and yet you could not have him.
Your tea has gone cold; you drink it anyway.
The summons from the small council arrives while a servant girl clears the breakfast things, delivered by a page who bowed too many times and looked at the floor when he spoke.
The small council chamber was a room designed to make the occupants feel the weight of history, with stone walls hung with banners of your father's line, a table long enough to seat twelve, and windows that looked out into the inner courtyard. You take your seat at the head of the table with the composure you had spent the morning reconstructing, fold your hands, arrange your face, and wait.
The lords file in. Lord Edmure, Lord Balthus, who was old enough to have served your grandfather and carried himself accordingly. Lord Aldric, who was around your age. Two others whose names you could not place. They settle and exchange courtesies. Lord Edmure opens proceedings.
You listen for the first quarter hour–the succession, Amos’s formal charges, the question of the northern holdings your father had left. You ask clarifying questions when they are called for and offer measured responses.
You did not feel present.
It happens gradually, the way it always does when you are tired, and the subject matter is abstract; the words keep arriving but stop landing. You find yourself watching Lord Edmures mouth move with the same attention you had given the priest the day before, cataloguing the shapes of the words rather than their content. The question of your settlement. Certain parties have expressed interest. Mouths moving, hand gesturing.
–which is why we feel the timeline requires your consideration before–
You think about the weight of his arms, the smell of candlewax.
–of course, we understand this is a difficult time; however, the political situation being what it is–
You think about marrying someone else.
You let yourself think about it plainly, without the usual deflection. You think about standing beside some lord or other in a great hall while the court watches, about a hand that wasn't his, about nights that were not in his room with its old books and comforting aroma. You think about two paces, forever. Two paces until you were old, until you both were old, and you wore some other man's name while he remained Sir Geto, Your Highness, the correct angle of a bow at the required moments.
Lord Balthus says something about the Eastern Alliance. You become aware that the room has developed an expectant quality.
“--Your Highness?”
You return. Lord Edmure looks at you with clipped patience.
“Forgive me,” you say smoothly. “You were saying?”
He repeats himself, and you listen this time, providing a suitable answer that satisfies the room, if not yourself. You fold your hands a little tighter, look out into that courtyard, and think: I need to leave this room.
You wait, measuring the current thread of conversation, looking for its likely conclusion. The natural pause that would come after Lord Aldric finished making a point, which he was still building toward. You wait until he finishes before letting a pause arrive.
“I wonder if we might adjourn until tomorrow.” You keep your voice even, unhurried. “It has been a difficult two days, and I think we would all benefit from the rest. There will be time tomorrow to address the remaining items properly.”
The lords exchange glances. You watch them calculate, the items unresolved, the threads they had wanted to pull further, weighted against the fact that you were the authority in the room, and you were looking at them with an immovable expression. Lord Balthus looks at Lord Edmure. Lord Edmure looks at his papers.
“Of course,” he says. “Of course, Your Highness, until tomorrow.”
You rise, and they do along with you. You incline your head and walk to the door with Geto two paces behind. Then you two were in the corridor, and the door was closed, and the sounds of the council chamber receded behind you.
You stop walking.
The corridor was empty save for stone and torchlight, the ordinary quiet of a part of the keep that went unloved in the morning. You stand with your back to the council chamber door and tip your head back against the stone. You close your eyes and let yourself, just for a moment, be a person instead of a princess.
You hear him take a step toward you, then stop. He catches himself.
“They want to marry me off,” you say, to the ceiling. “That’s what the matter of your settlement means. They’ll dress it up another meeting or two, but that’s the shape of it.”
“Yes, I know,” he says quietly
You open your eyes and look at him. The corridor is empty, there was no one to perform for, and you were tired. Deeply, bone-tired; two days of holding yourself correctly, and so you look at him plainly, and he looks back at you the same way.
He looked tired too, you notice, the shadows under his eyes. He hadn't slept either.
“I dissociated for most of it,” you say.
“I noticed.”
“Was it obvious?”
“Only to me.” The faintest thing moves at the corner of his mouth.
You exhale. Something in your chest loosens, slightly. “They want to discuss it again tomorrow. The settlement.”
“I know.”
“And the northern holdings, and the question of–” you stop, press your lips together. “There is a great deal to decide, and they will decide most of it without particularly consulting me.”
“Yes,” he says it without pretense. You value that, the way he never softened the true shape of things for you. “Thats likely.”
You look at him, he looks at you, the torchlight shifts.
“I do not wish to return to my chambers yet,” you say.
He is quiet for a moment. He turns just slightly and holds out his hand, palm up. Not reaching for you, not closing the distance, just offering. Leaving it entirely to you.
You look at his hand, then his face. You think about twelve years of two paces, and the corridor last night, your fingers hanging beside his in the torchlight.
You reach out and set your hand in his. He closes his fingers around yours with a slowness that feels deliberate. His hand is warm; you knew it would be.
You stand in that empty corridor, not moving, not speaking, just your hand in his.
“Geto,” you say softly.
“I know,” he says. His thumb moves once across your knuckles, so slight.
Footsteps around the corner–two of the household guard, mid-conversation, pulling up short at the sight of you, snapping into formality with trained efficiency
“Your Highness.” A bow. “Sir Geto.”
You had already let go; you do not remember deciding to let go, but your hand was already at your side, and your face was composed. “Good morning,” you say.
The two men move on, and you wait to hear their footsteps recede around the next corner. Then you stand in the corridor and look at the space in front of you, and feel the warmth of his hand still sitting in your palm.
You begin to walk.
Two paces behind you, as always, he followed.
You carry his thumb across your knuckles all the way back to your chambers, tucked somewhere careful and unnamed, the way you carried most things that mattered.
The afternoon passes in a way that has no particular shape to it, a series of small obligations strung together by corridors and the sound of your own footsteps.
You meet briefly with the head steward about the household accounts, which were in order and required nothing but your signature in three places. You receive a letter of condolence from a northern lord you had met twice and do not particularly remember, written in a careful hand, clearly written by a secretary. You compose an equally careful reply. You approve the menu for a memorial supper you did not want to attend but would go to anyway.
You stand at your window for a while, watching the courtyard below, where two young pages are chasing each other around while a senior huard pretends not to see them.
Mercy brings you tea at the third hour and sits with you while you drink it. You talk about nothing significant, the steward's unfortunate new beard, the particular awfulness of the memorial suppers' proposed centerpiece, a rumor Mercy had gathered from the kitchens about Lord Aldric and a merchant's daughter. You find yourself laughing, properly, the kind that arrives without warning. Mercy looks pleased.
“You should rest before supper,” Mercy says, when tea is finished.
“I am not tired.”
Mercy looks at you pointedly.
“I am not tired in a way that resting would help,” you amend.
“That's different,” Mercy concedes. She gathers the cups and pauses at the door. “Don’t do anything, I’ll have to hear about someone other than you.”
You look up. “What does that mean?”
Mercy gives you a pointed look and leaves.
You technically rest, in a way that means lying in your bed in your loungewear, staring at the ceiling, while your mind conducts a thorough, uninvited review of the day. The corridor, your hand, and his. The warmth of it and the brevity of it and the particular cruelty of interruptions, Lord Edmure's mouth moving. Certain parties who have expressed interest, the northern holdings, and your settlement. The shape of your future being assembled around you by men.
You look at the ceiling for a long stretch of time.
The memorial supper was everything you expected it to be and nothing you had the resources to manage gracefully. Forty-odd people in dark clothing eat well-prepared food, and say careful things about your parents that were half-truths and entirely hollow. You sit at the head of the table, gracious and attentive and present. You ate almost nothing and speak to the lord to your left about his estate and a lady on your right about her daughter's upcoming marriage.
Geto stands at the edge of the room.
You talk about someone’s estate and someones daughters wedding and the appropriate future for a recently orphaned princess, and keep your hands still in your lap, your face composed and your eyes away from the edge of the room, and it costs you, tonight, more than it usually did.
You and Geto share a look across the room.
You were released at the ninth hour; you change out of your supper clothes with Mercys assietance. You submit to having your hair taken down and accept the cup of warm wine that Mercy presses into your hands. You drink it by the window, while the city lies below, spilling down from the keep walls in its nighttime configuration—torchlight in the streets, the distant sound of music from somewhere in the lower quarter, the particular alive quality it had after dark.
You press your hands to the glass.
You had not been down to the city since before your parents fell ill. Two months, perhaps more. You had been managing things: the illness, the deterioration, the slow, awful administrative machinery of succession, and the city below continues below you in the window without you, living its life.
You set down the wine.
“Goodnight, Mercy,” you say.
“Goodnight,” she says slowly.
“You can go.”
“I am aware that I can go.”
“Mercy.”
A long pause. “I did not hear anything,” Mercy says finally. “Whatever I did not hear, I did not hear it, and if anyone asks, you retired at the ninth hour and slept soundly.”
You look at her, something warm moves through your chest.
“Thank you,” you say quietly.
“Don’t thank me.” Mercy picks up the empty cup and moves to the door, pausing with her hand on the frame. “Be careful.”
The door closes.
The trunk at the foot of your bed contains, beneath three layers of folded winter linens, a bundle of clothing that was not yours in any official sense. A plain wool dress in a color that had once been pink and was now something more ambiguous, a heavy cloak with a deep hood, a pair of boots worn enough to be unremarkable. You had acquired the pieces over the course of several years, from sources you had been sure not to make traceable.
You changed quickly, and braided your hair yourself, plainly, the way Mercy had taught you when you were young and had a romantic idea about doing your own hair. You had retained the skill for exactly this purpose. You pull the hood up and look at yourself in the mirror(mention that she looks unremarkable yet still beautiful). Then, you pick up your small purse and go to the door.
You open it to find Geto leaning against the opposite wall, his arms folded.
You stop. He looks at you, you look at him. He takes in the cloak, the hood, the worn boots.
“No,” you say.
“I did not say a word.”
“You were about to.”
“I was considering my options,” he says, mildly. “Where are you going?”
“For a walk.”
“In commoners' clothes.”
“In comfortable clothes.”
“At the tenth hour.”
“I could not sleep.”
He looks at you for a long moment.
“You have done this before,” he says, not an accusation.
You say nothing, which is its own kind of answer.
He exhales through his nose, looks at the ceiling briefly, then pushes off the wall.
“Give me a moment,” he says.
You blink. “What?”
“To change,” he is already moving. “I will not go into the lower city in a knight's uniform.”
“You’re not–” you stop and recalibrate. “I do not need you to come.”
“No,” he agrees, disappearing around the corner. “You need me to stay two paces behind you in official capacities and let you do whatever you like, which I do, and have done, and will continue to do. But you are going alone into the lower city at night, merely two days after someone tried to kill you with a knife. I am coming with you whether you would like me to or not.” A pause. “ I will be quick.”
You stand in the corridor and wait. You hear the sounds of movement from his quarters–drawers, briefly, the soft sounds of fabric. You stand in the corner with your hood up and look at the ceiling, thinking of nothing in particular. A moment passes.
He was taking longer than expected.
You shift your weight and look at the corridor in both directions, look at his door. You raise your hand to knock lightly only to realize the door had been open. “Are you–”
You push the door open.
He turns from the small table by the window where he had been doing something with his sleeve, and he was–he had the shirt in his hands and had not yet put it on, and you were looking at him. His body sculpted, his hair loose.
“I–” you start.
“I am nearly done,” he says, his voice very even. It was as if he was enjoying this. “If you would like to wait outside–”
“Yes,” you say, “I should very much like to wait outside.”
You go back out into the corridor, stand outside, and press the back of your hand briefly to your face and breathe. From inside, you could hear the sound of Geto laughing.
You shut your eyes.
“I can hear you,” you say, to the door.
A pause. “I am not doing anything.”
“You are absolutely–”
“I am getting dressed.” A beat. “Your Highness.”
He emerges approximately a second later in plain dark trousers and an old coat, his hair loose and his expression composed. You two share a look before the corner of his mouth moves.
You feel the laugh arrive before you can stop it, the real kind, wild and undignified. You press your lips together; he presses his. You two stand in the corridor with great seriousness, trying not to laugh at each other and failing entirely. It cleanly and completely breaks the last of the awkwardness, like something cut rather than unraveled.
“Come on,” you say, when you can speak. “Before I lose my nerve.”
“You do not have nerve to lose,” he says, “That is rather the problem.”
You turn toward the servants’ stairs before he can see you smile.
You take him through the back passages.
The servants’ quarters occupied the oldest part of the keep, stone worn smoother by centuries of daily use, low-ceilinged corridors that smell of tallow and old wood. You move through them with ease and familiarity. You had mapped this route over several years, carefully, through a combination of observation and occasional bribery. Geto follows close behind, ducking slightly where the ceiling drops. He trusts you completely, here in the dark, in a part of the keep he did not know, following without question. The entrance was behind the laundry, a low door set into the outer wall. It had been an old supply entrance before a newer one was built.
You ease the door open, cold air comes through, beyond it, the city.
You hear him exhale beside you, not quite surprise.
“You made youralef a private entrance,” he says
“I found a pre-existing one. “ You step through. “Are you coming?”
A pause, then footsteps behind you.
The city receives you both without ceremony.
You had a route, you always had a route, accumulated over years of careful exploration, a mental map of the lower quarter in its nighttime form. The upper city was a performance, this one was real, warm, and loud. It smelled of woodsmoke and spiced wine. You breath it in.
Geto is quiet beside you, taking it all in with the focused attention he gave most things. It wasnt passive, never passive, but present in a way that was quietly devastating.
“You love it,” he says after a while.
“Yes. I always have, theres something about being–” You pause, searching for it.”Unknown. Here I am just a woman in a cloak. I could be anyone.” You look across the street ahead of you, the warm spill of lamplight across cobblestones. “It’s the only place I have ever felt that.”
He is quiet for a moment. You feel him look at your profile. “Unknown,” he repeats softly. “Is that what you want? To be unknown?”
You consider it. “No. I want to be known and be unremarkable for it. I want to be known without it costing anything.” You pause. “I want to be known without it having to mean something political
The words sit between you in the cold air.
“You are known. You are deeply known, by at least one person.”
You do not look at him. “I know.”
You continue your walk while Geto falls into step with you, though not the two paces behind–beside you, close enough that when the streets narrow and the crowds thicken you feel the solid warmth of his arm against yours. You move fractionally toward it rather than away, the way one moves toward a fire when they are cold.
You show him things, this was new, you had always come alone, navigated by yourself, a solitary anonymous figure. Having him beside you changes it entirely. You find yourself wanting to show him everything, to press all of it into his hands like gifts, to watch his face take it in. You had spent twelve yeats watching his face, cataloguing its shifts and subtleties, you felt greedy for it. For soaking in the unguarded version, the ones he kept for empty rooms, for the city at night, for warm bread and old maps and the smell of woodsmoke in cold air.
At the baker’s stall you stop and buy a stil warm bread roll and press it into Getos hands. The back of his fingers were cold when you pressed bread into them. You were acutely aware of his cold fingers, and your warm ones, of the small transfer if heat between them, of how long you held the contact before making yourself let go.
He looks at the bread, looked at you, something in his expression was pillow soft.
“Eat it,” you say.
He eats it, you watch his face, the slight wase of it, the almost smile that was not managed or considered. “Thank you,” he says.
“Its bread.”
“It’s not just the bread.”
You look at the road ahead of you and say nothing. You continue your walk.
The hot wine comes from a woman at the corner of the market square, a clay cup each, steam rising in the cold air. You hand him his cup and make the mustake of looking at him only to find him looking at you with fondness in his eyes. His face is open and undefended in the lamplight. You think of all the years of the keep and its careful management and its two paces and Your Highness, but here now he stands before you with his hair loose around his face and a clay cup of spiced wine. This was more of him than you had ever been permitted, and it means a great deal.
You look at the square. You drift to the edge of it naturally, the way water finds its level. The bonfire at the center throws gold light across the surrounding buildings, and a fiddle and a drum were working through something fast and bright that had accumulated a crowd of dancers in the open space. You felt the music before you properly heard it, a vibration in the air, a pull in your chest that was old and instinctive.
You watch the dancers. You were aware then, in your peripheral vision of im watching you. You felt the quality of it, the attention, the specific focused warmth of it, quiet and steady and entirely yours.
“Go,” he says. You turn to look at him.
He has his cup in both hands, and was watching you with an expression you recognized from the corridor, from the candlelit room, from outside your door. The one you finally named in the dark, devotion. Simply, privately, devastatingly devoted.
“Come with me,” you say.
“I don’t–”
“Geto.” You watch his expression, watch something in him respond to you like a key in lock. “Come with me.”
He looks at you for a long moment. The firelight dancing across his face. He then sets down his cup on the low wall beside him and holds out his hand.
Your heart does something unreasonable.
You take his hand.
You were not graceful initially. This surprises and diluted you in equal measure. You had figured, in the abstract, that Geto would be good at everything in the same quiet competent way he was good at most things. The reality of him slightly mistiming the turn and overcorrecting for it, of him being a person with limits rather than the composed capable figure of every official capacity.
You laugh, you do not mean to, it arrives without permission, and then you were laughing at yourself too because you had stumbled on the third step and grabbed his arm to right yourself, which helped nothing. The music is faster now and you both were laughing now, here in the middle of the square, helpless and undignified and real.
You look at his face. He is laughing fully without management. You think that you want to keep him like this, here. His hand is warm now. The music slows.
You feel the change before you register it consciously, the fiddle finding a lower register, the energy of the crowd around you resettling, the natural physics of a slower song that requires less distance between people. You were already close to him, and when the tempo changed neither of you stepped back.
You feel his hand settle at your waist and feel the warmth of it through the fabric of your cloak and stand inside of it for a moment before you can breathe properly again.
You put your hand on his shoulder, and you both move slowly with the music.
The fire is warm at your left. The night was cold everywhere else. His hand at your waist was the line between you, and you were aware of it with a specificity that made everything slightly blur around the edges. The square, the crowd, the music, all of it present yet secondary to the precise weight of his fingers, the distance between his chest and yours.
You could close that distance, it is not far.
You let it stay.
“You are very far away,” he says. You feel his voice more than you hear it, through the hand on his shoulder.
“I am right here.”
“You are thinking.”
“I am always thinking.”
“Not like this.” A pause, his hand shifts drawing you a fraction closer. “What are you thinking about?”
You look at the fire over his shoulder. “Something I cannot say out loud.”
“Ah. I know that one.”
Of course he does, of course he spent his days full of things he couldn’t say out loud. The weight of it, twelve years of small careful distances of his daily life. You had thought about your own longing so often and so thoroughly that you had not remembered to think about his. That he stood behind you at state functions and watched men talk about your settlement, and your future and certain parties who have expressed interest and yet he stays two paces back and says nothing.
You close your eyes and rest your head against his shoulder. You feel him go very still. You press closer and feel his chin come to rest against the top of your head. You were not dancing anymore. You were standing stll in the middle of the square while the music continues around you and the fire burns, and the city goes about its indifferent life.
“I used to think,” he says, into your hair, “when they first assignment me to you–I was twelve and I thought I can do this. I can be exactly what is required and nothing more.” A pause. “I was very stupid.”
You laugh, soft and helpless, and you feel him hold you tighter.
“When did you know? You ask.
“Which time?”
“The first time.”
He goes quiet for a moment. “You were fifteen,” he says. “There was a state dinner. Four hours of it, and at the end in the corridor you turned to me and said. I am so tired of performing gratitude for things I did not ask for, and then you caught yourself and went back to looking like nothing.” His voice is soft. “I thought–there she is. There is the actual person.” A breath. “I thought I would rearrange quite a lot to know her.”
You lift your head from his shoulder to look at him.
He was very close, the firelight makes him amber and warm, his hair falls loose across his forehead.
You bring your hand up from his shoulder and let your fingers find the side of his face slowly giving him every opportunity to pull away. He does not. He turns his face, very slightly, into your hand and his eyes close for just a moment.
You feel it like stone dropping into still water.
“I am sorry,” you say softly. “That it has cost you so much.”
“Do not apologize for–”
“I know,” your thumb traces his cheekbone. “I want you to know i see it, what you carry. I dont think I’ve said that.”
He holds very still inside you hand and says nothing
.
“I have one more place left to show you,” you say, finally, softly. “Come on.”
Cupids Chalice was exactly how you had always found it , warm bodies, dimly lit, the kind of establishment that had been old for so long it become permanent, its darkness comfortable. It smelled of ale and sawdust and held the particular warmth of a room full of people who had nowhere else to be.
You love it unreservedly.
You lead Geto to a corner table, your table, one you had claimed on your second visit and returned to reliably since. It was set slightly apart, with a view of the whole room and a wall at its back.
A woman comes, you order without looking at the menu.
“Ale,” you say.
“You drink ale?”
“I drink very good wine when it is put in front of me at state functions,” you say pleasantly, “and I drink ale when I am somewhere I’d actually like to be.”
He is quiet for a moment. “Two ales,” he tells the woman.
The first drink goes quickly.The dancing, the cold air, the particular thirst of a night that leaves you parched. He keeps pace with you, you notice.
The second ale goes slower. The bare hums around you, occupied with its own business, a card game in the far corner, two men arguing cheerfully about something you can not hear properly, a young couple kissing near the fire.
You watch them for a moment.
“Dont,” he says quietly, beside you.
You turn to look at him.
“Whatever you’re thinking when you look at them,” he says “Don’t.”
You look back at the couple. “I was just–”
“I know what you mean,” he says looking at the table now, turning his cup slightly in his hands. “I do it too. I have learned not to.”
You are quiet.
“Does it get easier?” You ask, genuinely.
“No, you just get better at knowing when to look away.”
You drink your ale.
The fifth comes without you quite deciding to order it. The bar has reached its warmest hour, the noise a comfortable ambient thing. You feel a mix of dizzy and euphoric, the room is softer at the edges, the days accumulated weight redistributed into something more bearable.
He watches you while you drink with intention.
“I’m fine,” you say.
“I know.”
“I’m just–” you turn the cup. “I don’t want to think about the council tomorrow. I dont want to think about settlement agreemenets. I dont want to think about–any of it.” You look at the table. “Just for tonight. I just want tonight to not be about any of that.”
“Alright.”
“Alright?”
He settles back slightly in his chair, and something in his posture changes—some last residual formality releasing, the final version of him that was technically still on duty steps back, and what wass left was just—him. Just Geto in a bar, in plain clothes, with his hair loose and his eyes warm. “Tell me something I dont know about you.”
You look at him. “You know everything about me.”
“I know everything that happens to you, thats different. Tell me something you’ve never told anyone.”
You think about it, turning through the inventory of yourself looking for something you hadn’t shown anyone. It is a smaller collection that it should have been. You have kept so much, managed so much, filed so much away. You were a person of tremendous unsaid things.
“I used to come down here, after particularly bad days. Not to drink or dance—just to walk. Just to be in it.” You look at the fire across the room. “Sometimes I would just stand at the corner of the marker square for an hour and just watch people exist.” A pause. “I know it sounds vey small.”
“It doesn’t,” he says.
“I used to think about what it would be like to live down here,” you continue, the bruw making you more forthcoming. “Ordinary, unremarkable, going to the market and coming home again.” You look at the table. “I know it’s not—I know ordinary has its own weight. I am not not naive about it.” A pause. “I just wanted to want something I wasn’t allowed to have.”
The fire crackles, the bar moves between you.
“What else do you want,” he says, very quietly, “that you’re not allowed to have.”
You look at him.
He looks back at you with an expression that was entirely without pretense, no management, no carefulness , just the question and the face of the person asking it and the warm dark of the bar around you.
You hold his gaze.
“You know what else,” you say softly.
“Say it,” he says, his voice is low. “Just—say it, just this once, just here.”
You look at him and think about twelve years and two paces and the way he had turned his face into your hand in the firelight.
“I think you know,” you say, “exactly how I feel about you. I think you have known for a very long time.” Your voice is quiet and steady. “And I think you feel the same, and I think we are two people who have been standing on either side of a door for twelve years and neither of us has opened it and—and i dont know what to do with that.”
He is very still.
“I don’t either,” he says, after a long moment. Raw and simple and true.
The space between you at the table was not large. It was, in fact, very small. You were aware of how close he is, the warth of the bar and the ale’s softness in your chest.
He reaches across the table and sets his hand besides yours—not on it, beside it. Close enough that you can feel the warmth of him. He looks at his hand for a moment, then look at you.
He turns his hand over slowly. An invitation.
His fingers close over yours.
You breathe.
You sit like that for a moment that was very long and very quiet inside all the noise of the bar. You look at your hands, and then his face. He was looking at you. You feel something move though you.
You learn forward, slightly.
He leans toward you.
The distance between you closes in the slow deliberate way of something that had been a long time coming–not rushed, not urgent, something more careful than that. His forehead comes to rest against yours, you feel his breath, he feels yours. Your faces were close enough that the cold air between you was warm close enough that you could feel the slightl echale of him and knew he could feel yours, close enough that the space between your mouths was barely space at all.
You close your eyes.
You feel him there, just there, just the warmth of him and the breath of him and the barely there distance that was not quite a touch a not quite not.
His free hand comes up–slowly, the way everything he did was slowm chosen. You feel his fingers at your jaw. Not a touch, a nearness, a hand that was deciding. You feel the warmth of it. You tilt you face, fractionally, toward it.
And then you feel him exhale.
He presses his lips to your forehead.
Soft and brief, intentional as everything he did. He held you there for a moment that you count, that you kept, that you would keep. He draws back and his forehead returns to yours for just a moment. Your noses nearly touch.
“Not like this,” he says, very quietly. “Not with ale in you.” He stops, breathes. “Not in a way we can’t–not in a way that isn’t” He seems to be looking for the right combination of words and found that none of them were adequate. “You deserve better than a bar,” he says simply. “Than a moment neither of us chose properly.”
You keep your eyes closed for a moment longer.
You think about saying a great many things, yet none of them reach your tongue, you open your eyes.
He looks at you with an aching expression.
“Alright,” you say softly.
He looks at your for a moment longer. His thumb moves across you hand, once. Then he sits back, carefully, putting the appropriate distance between you and look at the table.
“We should go,” he says. His voice is steady, you admire that. You arent sure that yours was.
“Yes,” you say.
He settles the bill while you stand and wait by the door.
You press you fingers to your forehead, briefly, where his lips had been.
You feel it like a brand, like a promise. Like something that was not over, had not been ended, had only been set down carefully, for later.
The walk back is quiet.
Not uncomfortably. The streets were thinning at this hour and the cold was proper now, deep winter cold. You were aware of him beside you with an acuteess that feels almost unbearable. The sound of his footsteps, the warmth at your right side. The gap between you that neither of you closed yet both of you feel.
At the servants’ entrance he stops you with a light touch at your elbow. He checks the corridor, holds the door, and you walk through. You were aware of him at your back in the narrow stairwell, of the cold that followed you from the outside and the warmth of the keep reclaiming you gradually as you climbed.
You did not want to reach the top of the stairs.
You climb them at a normal pace.
When you reach your corridor, they stop outside your door in the particular spot that had accumulated meaning over the last two days. The torchlit space outside your chambers became its own geography, its own separate country, with its own set of rules.
You turn to face him.
He looks tired, not unwell, just the honest tiredness of someone who had felt a great many things in a single evening and was carrying them carefully. His hair was still loose. You think of his forehead against yours, about the warmth of his breath and the almost of it.
“You should sleep,” he says.
“I know.”
“You have the council–”
“To hell with the council.” You look at him. “Geto.”
He waits.
“Thank you,” you say. “For tonight. All of it.” You pause. “For–stopping. Earlier, even though I–” you stop. “Thank you.”
Something moves through his expression. He looks ar you for a long moment in the torchlight.
Slowly, he raises his hand. You hold very still.
His fingers find your jaw, the way they almost had done in the bar. This time they did. Just his fingertips, barely there, the same touch you had given him in the squirrel You feel it go all the way down.
“One day,” he says, very quietly, “it will not be a bar. It will not be a borrowed coat or a servants entrance or two paces behind.” His thumb traces the line of your cheekbone, once, so carefully. “One day it will be the right moment, and I will tell you everything I have been carrying and you will not have to wonder any longer.” His voice is low and steady and entirely without falseities.
“I need you to know that.”
You look at him.
“I know,” you say softly. The same I know he gave you. The one that meant more than knowing.
He holds your face for one more moment, then slowly, his hand falls.
He presses his lips to your forehead again, just once, just as soft as before, just as intentionally. He then draws back, and looks at you, and then you see it in his face. The whole twelve years, every two paces, every Your Highness, all of it present and accounted for and carried with a grace you were not sure you deserved.
“Goodnight,” he says.
You can not speak for a moment.
“Goodnight,” you manage.
You go inside, and close the door. You stand on the other side of it pressing your back against the wood and your fingers to your forehead and breathe.
Outside the door, you hear hear him standing there, for a long moment, in the corridor.
You press your palm flat against the door.
You wonder if he does the same.
After a long moment you hear him breathe. Then slowly, his footsteps move away. You stay against the door for a long time after. You press your fingers to your forehead.
One day, you think.
You carry it carefully to bed.
A/N I have had so much fun writing this, I've been feining to do a princess au for so long ALSO I am so sorry if there are any typos I stayed up late writing this so just ignore them
“fuuuckk, that's my girl.” 𝓢 𝒂𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒖 groaned as you found your rightful place on his lap.
he's exhausted. blindfold still strewn over him as he crooks his head on the couch. slumped over from back-to-back missions and endless hours of teaching.
still, his big, shaky hands slipped around your waist. guiding his favourite girl down his tip and sinking you further on his cock. throbbing and sensitive from not feeling your warm, wet, welcoming pussy for weeks.
he clung to the fat of your ass. jaw slack and eyes droopy. seconds from passing out but still fully sober on your slick velvet fluttering on his underside vein.
“yeah— fuck, just like that.” he whimpered. gojo satoru, whimpering. because his girl's pussy was sucking him in so good. cause his tip's suffocated by your cervix. cause you're bouncing on his dick and letting him slump cause he had nothing left to offer you.
“suuuchhh a good girl,” his groan caught in his throat as you dragged his blindfold down. revealing glossy, bright blue eyes and endless devotion. “such a good girl. know just how to treat m'cock huh? love it so much?”
“love you more, satoru.”
“oh god.”
he whines. pitched and breathless as back arched and his cock throbbed hard. hips bundling his last bits of strength to buck up into your suffocating cunt. grinding needy and stuttery. as he fully melted beneath your soft thighs, your softer hands, your softest heart.
“love me, baby.” he whimpers, pitiful, pleading. “love me, love me, love me, love me please.”
The desert is cold at night. The West Bank of the Nile deadly silent, with a sand gripping your lifeless body. But you shall not fear death, as your mother would say. You shall not, because he will come and guide you to the afterlife. Anubis, God of the Dead, Lord of the Duat, Protector of the Desert, Jackal-Headed Lord, your – oh.
part of the Gods, Heroes, Warriors collection!
content/warnings: ancient Egypt AU, Egyptian gods, Anubis!Geto Suguru x F!Reader, he's a God OMG, oral (fem rec.), fingering, spitting, heavy breeding kink, Suguru is massive, tummy bulges, mating press, manhandling, happy ending, swearing, reader is in the afterlife lol.
WC: 7k
a/n: I'm a history girlie, so ofc I have a crush on Anubis since I saw him in an elementary school textbook. Also, Ennead may or may not be my favourite manhwa.
divider by @saradika-graphics
art by Lemon Emlyn (@lemon_emlyn) on X
Nights in Egypt came in two ways.
The East Bank of the Nile bathed in lights, quietly dimmed by the heavy darkness. The river breathed its last time, cities slowly going quiet, with the last whispers creeping up the streets. The sun rose in the East – it gave life to its people and bestowed the Godly presence. The East was a vitality, essence in itself, where life bloomed under the warmth of the sun, and prayers were listened to in the corners of the stone temples.
The West Bank of the Nile was the land of Osiris. That's where the sun set, with merciless and cold nights haunting the adventurers. The West came only with the smell of death and a journey to the underworld. When the sun set over the horizon, a vast field of unknown power was quiet under the stars. Dangerously so, grains of sand racing one another, sinking under heavy bodies of daredevils who stepped on a cursed path. There were no city walls there, only the low howling of jackals and growling wind grazing cold tombstones.
Egyptians believed in Godly presence.
The East Bank basked in life-giving force and blessed sun, the birthed children and flowing water, fertile land and boundless love. The Gods endowed their land and its people with the sun and life.
On the West Bank, cold wind followed buried bodies and heavy steps of jackals. The Gods were there – hidden under the grave sand, welcoming the realm of the dead and blessing the buried.
For Egyptians, the desert meant death.
Its merciless hands never tying anything down. The bodies barely buried before being taken away by animals under the cruel stare of the moon. Jackals could open the grave just with their paws, sinking teeth into the body on its journey to the underworld.
The Egyptians feared them.
Their yellow eyes dangerously set on the dead, claws scratching the heavy surface of sand. Jackals were masters of the night, when eerie quietness haunted the high mountains of sand and vast land going way farther than one could ever imagine.
So, they decided to turn their fear into a blessing, the Godly presence which would protect their buried bodies and guide them to the underworld. To tame fear meant turning it into a God, and pray to that God not in dread but in fortune, to guide the desert and edge of life. As the first presence welcoming you in the afterlife and weighing your life on a scale, allowing you a journey to the land of the dead.
Your journey started a few minutes ago, with cold sand hugging your exhausted body and the immense power of the desert slowly taking you away.
The moon was hanging high and low howling of jackals was somewhere there. Above the dancing wind and massive hills, where your eyes couldn't reach, already too tired to keep your eyelids open.
You remembered your mother's stories of God meeting you after death, of his yellow eyes and jackal's head, which you shouldn't fear, child. For when the time comes, he will be your guide into the underworld, where Mother Desert will embrace your body again and bury you with your people. As he protects the desert and the ones long passed, as the fair judge of the afterlife, whose kindness and power are inestimable.
You wondered whether your mother passed the test of weighing heart. You wondered whether you would pass it, with a soul burdened by the life in poverty and dreadfulness, the horrible deeds you needed to do just to keep your siblings safe.
And you never meant to get lost in the West Bank of the Nile, where no man in his right mind would wander under the heavy stare of the night and desert welcoming you with eeriness, its claws so sharp you could feel your body slowly being covered by its cold hands.
Lying on your back, with a foggy head and barely opened eyes, you heard the heavy footsteps. Paws, running your way and loose tongues drooling at the sight of your lifeless body.
The smell of death floated in the air, so pungent you wondered whether it was your sinful heart, just waiting to be taken on a scale.
The jackals were fast, and you could see them before the moon bestowed you last glance, and the ethereal coldness of the desert slipped between your fingers, almost inviting you on a new journey in the unknown.
And the darkness came together with heavy paws.
No, not only paws.
There was someone else walking behind the envoys of death. Decisive footsteps, but almost too light to hear, and low howling of jackals accompanying the stranger.
Wet noses touched your buried body – left sinfully, desecrated under the open sky, blameless in the eyes of the God of Death. The heaviness left your soul, eyes once again opening lightly towards the endless bounds of the night, but a body still too heavy to even move.
You managed to turn your head to the side, seeing the yellow eyes staring at your soul. The lulled tongues and bared teeth, spit disappearing in the sand.
Jackals weren't big, but they always travelled in a pack, and the feeling of their footsteps circling your lifeless body was enough to make your eyes close tightly.
You weren't sure what state you currently remained in – the world closed on you just a minute before, but now, the night desert sky welcomed your soul back, coldness not as unbearable as it was, sand feeling almost pleasant under your skin.
The moment you breathed, however, there was no visible puff of a small cloud floating around you as it used to.
There seemed to be no heartbeat either, just a heavy organ sitting quietly under your skin.
You felt a wet tongue on your cheek and another jakal sniffing your legs.
It was a whole herd, the wolf-like animals circling you with a peaked curiosity, as if just waiting for the order to devour your body.
But this order never came, just a quiet, almost inaudible whisper.
"Shhh, don't bother her."
And then you noticed a figure, far in the dunes. Looking almost unreal, like an oasis for a dying man, a feeling you wanted to cling to, without knowing what it was you yearned for.
When the figure came closer, you saw his long legs and muscular body. Hips, tightly wrapped in yellow–black robes, with a gold chain hanging loosely above his pelvis. His chest was bare, with only a heavy, gold necklace and a droplet-shaped Ankh spread on his chest, moving slightly with his every step. His fingers clenched around a long Was Scepter, slightly curled at the end. A heavy mask rested on his head, of a black jackal with pointed ears and yellow eyes, covering his face and ears, grazing his shoulder lightly. And long hair was black as the sky, with its ends just above the hips, scattered slightly by the West wind, howling with death and fear.
He looked like a God.
He was a God.
The man came closer, Jackal's head looking over your body, though you couldn't see his gaze. With a long Was Scapter, he chased away the wolf-like creatures, who ran away towards the boundless borders of the desert.
And then he extended his hand towards you, with gold bracelets rattling quietly as they moved.
"Come on," he whispered, with a voice warmly colling your mind. "It's time to go."
It was difficult to move a moment ago, but now, after his command, your body moved as if by itself, with your palm slowly grasping his.
When you stood, the world moved around you, but his hand never left yours, squeezing it tightly.
You could look at him closer, just now seeing how massive he was, with muscles bulging under his sun-kissed skin and a thin, gold chain spread on his chest. To meet the gaze of his Jackal's head, you needed to throw head up, till your neck went stiff, looking at the man twice taller than you. His God-deserved body turning slowly towards the unknown, directing you by the hand through the desert.
Sand pleasantly sank under your feet when you followed his heavy footsteps, and Was Scapter pushed into it with his every step.
And so you walked in a quiet, with stars following your long path to the unknown, shimmering lustrously as if whispering about your fate and his warm fingers wrapped strongly around yours. It felt so intimate, yet normal, almost like his touch lingered before on your skin, long forgotten in a dusty corner of your memory.
Raven hair flowed down his muscular back, swaying with his every step. You wished to see his face, but no God was showing their full appearance to the dead, acting only as their guides and protectors.
You wanted to ask questions, but it felt so out of place, with the silence between you two almost pleasant in its heaviness. You could enjoy this moment just for a while, before he puts you through a final trial of weighing your heart on a scale. You were the most afraid of this process, almost sure that all your doings would be heavier than a feather.
And what happens when your heart outweighs the feather?
What happens when you can no longer enter paradise?
What happens when your soul gets devoured by the monsters and stops its existence?
You looked back, but your body was long left behind, hidden somewhere in the desert's cradling arms.
"Don't worry, I will be sure to prepare it for burial," you heard a whisper, low tone disappearing somewhere between the gusts of wind.
He said it, as if reading your mind.
"My God, my family wouldn't be able to mummify it, they..."
He clearly tensed at the way you addressed him.
"I know," he stopped your explanation. "I'll be the one responsible for it."
And the only thing you could say, through your tightened throat, was a weak:
"Thank you."
Jackal's head moved slightly, as if wanting to turn back to you, but he continued to walk.
And suddenly you noticed, a large temple rising in its might in front of you, as if before covered by the night blanket and a sand dust, floating around you in slow circles.
It was massive, with candle flames dancing in the air to guide your way through slowly appearing single palms and a stone path, leading right to the entrance. It spread across the desert, and you couldn't see the end of it.
You heard heavy steps of jackals running around and saw two statues of wolf-like creatures sitting calmly in front of the temple, almost like guarding it from strangers. Their pointed ears listened to your footsteps and hitched breath, although Anubis was guiding you confidently through the unknown path towards the temple.
Its pillars high as mountains, coated in colourful paintings of jackal-headed God, his life and history. Myths you've heard as a child, and his long figure, steady guiding lost souls through the underworld.
Underworld, which in paintings seemed different. Not just paintings, the stories you've heard, too. Duat was a vast land filled with danger, untamed monsters and demons, needing to navigate it with spells and Anubis's guidance. Before facing the final judgment of the weighted heart, every soul, together with pharaohs, needed to pass Duat. So you naturally also prepared yourself for the dangerous journey, the spells from the Book of the Dead already pinned somewhere in your memory, back from the early teenage years.
So why weren't you there?
Why were you standing in front of Anubis's temple, warm and safe, with the only danger you could think of in the form of Jackals?
But you were already dead, so even these creatures wouldn't be interested in hurting your soul.
You turned, seeing him standing right next to you in silence, following your every glance.
He was still holding your hand, his warm touch never leaving your skin.
You were tempted to finally ask, although it was difficult to assess his temper, covered under the heavy mask, down to his shoulders.
"My God, why–" you started, but your voice suddenly stuck in throat. So you tried once again. "Why am I here? Aren't we supposed to go through Duat?"
He stared at you silently, his mask making you feel as if you were talking to yourself.
For a moment, he didn't react at all, just standing close enough for you to feel the heat of his body. But then he turned around and followed inside the temple.
"I–"
"Do you want to go to Duat?" he interrupted you.
He guided you inside, right to the massive chamber, with walls filled with his portraits and stories up and down. Multiple candles lighted your path, reflecting the gold elements inside, making the place deserved of the Godly presence.
"I thought we must–" you started, but he interrupted you once again, this time more sharply.
"Do you want to go to Duat?"
Was it already a trial?
Was there a wrong answer to this question?
Of course, you didn't want to wander around the unbounded land filled with dangers, but if this is what you needed to do, to get into paradise, then–
"No," you whispered, looking down at your bare feet.
He knew the temple like the palm of his hand, guiding you through its long corridors and chambers. All of them flowing with gold and riches, one room more lavish than another, inviting you with their soft cushions and plush carpets, hugging cold, stone walls.
But then, you finally stopped, a chamber skimmed in darkness, with just a few candles scattered here and there. The biggest difference, however, was the massive bed, with a canopy made of flowing material, delicate as silk, covering it lightly from the prying eyes. The cushions decorated the floor, with a window, or rather just a lack of a wall, with a view of the borderless desert under the night sky.
You didn't know which floor you were on; however, you've never seen the desert from this height, so beautiful in its cruelty, you almost wanted to gladly give yourself to its hands.
The chamber was, nevertheless, warm, with a small fire sizzling shyly in the corner. Though you were dead already, and no mortal problems such as coldness could touch you no more.
The man turned to you once again, his massive figure covering the moonlight creeping inside the chamber.
"My God, why am I here?" you asked him warmly, feeling how his hand tightened on yours. "I should go through the judg–"
"You don't have to," he answered quickly, almost on one breath.
You looked at him in silence, with your chest tightening. Confusion bloomed on your face, and wind light as a feather crept inside the chamber, moving his hair slightly.
"My God, what do you–"
But his body tensed. Warm hands embraced yours, rubbing your knuckles in small circles, as his yellow eyes fixed on your face.
"Don't call me that," he whispered, almost painfully, dropping his head. "Do you not recognise me, my love?"
Your soft lips suddenly parted, a pink blush covering your burning cheeks, when you heard the way he addressed you.
He took a step closer, looking down at you as if in expectancy. An answer that would satisfy him the most, but one which you did not possess.
"My God, I'm sorry, but–"
You noticed he had a habit of not listening to you fully, too impatient to let you prolong this tension.
So his next request startled you even more.
"Take it off," he asked, kneeling in front of you.
Never in your dreams would you even think of a God kneeling in front of a mortal.
His presence alone was overwhelming, as if knocking the breath out of you and straining the nervous system in every wrong way.
Golden hoops were almost bursting on his muscular arms, slowly embracing your body. You gasped when he looped his arms around your hips, bringing you closer. This time, jackal's head looked at you from below, black ears almost touching your chin and yellow eyes just waiting for your next move.
Chill run through your spine, seeing a God himself in such an innocent, almost humiliating position, for a simple woman.
"Please, take it off, my love," he repeated, and the only thing you could do was to grant his wish.
The mask was smooth under your skin and lighter than it looked. You took it off slowly, careful of the long, gold earrings hanging from his ears and a few strands of hair, getting tangled in a black veil, covering both sides of the mask.
And then.
Oh.
And then your knees almost went weak. A weird part of your memory, closed a long time ago, suddenly opened, all dusty and forgotten, but nevertheless there.
So precious, you couldn't believe you still remembered it after your death.
As before, while your heart was still pumping with warmth, when you could still hear the laughter of your siblings and your mother's nagging voice, the feel of the heavenly Nile on your skin and the sun blessing your skin with long kisses, he was there.
And he was yours.
He was yours since you remembered.
Since you were a child, wandering alone near the river banks, with the waters so calm they didn't pose any danger. Some boats were floating quietly, the sizzling heat mercilessly warming your skin, although your legs dipped in water gave you a bit of pleasure.
You hid among the long grasses, in the corner only you knew of, quiet and peaceful, with a bustling city left far behind you.
You were lonely as a child, with your siblings still too small to keep you company, and your mother always too busy with them. Your father was somewhere there, always working, seldom home, barely keeping poverty from haunting your doorstep.
And when your mother would send you to fetch water and do some small errands, you would come here.
Alone.
Well, maybe not entirely.
You would look at him, casting shy glances at the boy nearby, with his servants carefully overseeing his body dipped in water.
Not just a boy.
A Pharaoh's son – a prince himself.
And it didn't matter how secretive you thought you were, gazing at him from the long canes, fully covering your little body. It didn't matter how hard you tried to hide yourself, look at him greedily from far away – at his sad, lonely eyes, staring somewhere above the vast desert, with his beautifully smooth skin touched by goldness.
He knew you were there.
And he would wait for you in the warm evenings, when he could quietly leave the palace and meet you at the West Bank.
He was telling you about his childhood in a palace, and you would listen attentively, with glittering eyes and ears perked up to all the luxury he was swimming in.
There wasn't much to talk about as children, but you liked each other's company.
You were there for each other, two lonely souls, living in two different worlds, but somehow finding comfort in your own presence.
So it was sweet while you were children.
But then you started to grow up, and he too, with both of you glancing your way with more curiosity that made your stomach flutter, and cheeks burn under the moon.
He grew taller, broader in shoulders, his laughter deep like a Nile, raven hair right under his collarbones. Gold collars replaced the simple beds he once wore, and the weight of kohl-lined eyes carried something heavier than childhood loneliness now.
And you–
You grew sharper from hunger and labour. Your hands roughened from grinding grain, from washing linen in river water that bit at your skin. Yet when you met him in the evenings, when the sun bled red into the sand, and the whole world softened into amber, none of that mattered.
He would bring you figs wrapped in cloth, bread still warm, sometimes little trinkets stolen from lessons – an amulet chipped at the edge, a bead fallen from a noblewoman's necklace.
"For protection," he would say, putting it into your palm with a grin.
You knew it was risky. Everyone did.
A prince did not belong on the West Bank.
A prince did not sit in the dust beside a girl with no name worth carving into stone.
But he did, week after week.
And then the rumours began to spread through the city – about unrest, blood spilt in the dark corners of streets, about Pharaoh growing crueller with age.
And the prince grew quieter. His eyes wandered more often towards the unknown arms of the West Bank desert. Towards the death and low howlings, somewhere far away, above the dunes.
"I wish to take you away," he confessed once, voice barely louder than the evening wind. "Somewhere where I'm not watched. Where we could be together."
You smiled softly, the sadness creeping up your spine. It was such an innocent, teenage wish, both of you knowing never meant to come true. But nevertheless, you said:
"We are, here."
That night, he kissed your forehead, reverent, trembling. As if praying.
Not long after, the meetings stopped.
The palace gates closed tighter. Servants whispered. Soldiers marched.
And one morning, the city woke to mourning cries ripping through the air like a torn linen.
The prince was dead.
Some said it was an illness. Some, that it was the Gods. They said many things, but you know the truth lived somewhere between the boy who wanted love and a world that allowed him none.
You stood among mourners as his body was carried through the city. Wrapped in white, crowned in gold. And when your knees gave out in the dust, no one noticed. You were simply invisible to everyone else. Just not him.
So now, with the jackal's head still in your hands, you felt it again. This flame, which you thought extinguished a long time ago, together with him.
With your prince.
Your Suguru.
His eyes looked at you from below with such a deep yearning and loneliness, your skin shivered. Dark, long locks surrounded his handsome face, carved just perfectly for a God, with deep kohl lines around his almond eyes, making the deep purplish irises stand out. You put a shaking palm on his cheek, his long earrings swinging when he nestled into it with a deep breath. His skin was as soft as you remembered, with one gold ring adorning his lower lip.
"Suguru?" you whispered, your voice trembling with emotions and tears prickling in the corners of your eyes. "Is it really–"
He placed a kiss on your palm, breathing the smell of your skin.
"I waited so long, my love," he said deeply, with arms locking you in an even tighter embrace. "I was counting the suns like a madman, waiting for our meeting."
You still couldn't believe it, caressing his beautiful face, running your fingers over his straight brows and plump lips, high cheekbones, pushing them into raven hair, softly dipping under your touch.
He looked so fulfilled, as if your touch alone was satisfying all his desires. Dark eyes drinking you in as if he feared you might vanish again.
They tracked every movement of your hand, looking at your soft lips and listening gentle voice, with an intensity that made your chest ache. There was hunger in him, yes – but not the crude kind. It was the longing of centuries, of devotion stretched thin across the spheres of life and death.
"I learned patience in Duat," he murmured, his forehead resting against your chest. "I learned restraint while my heart weighed. While I watched over every soul but not you."
"How did you end up like that?" you asked, gently tracing dark corners of his eyes.
"I begged Osiris to grant me this role. He cursed me forever with life among the dead, never able to see the sun again," he confessed softly, voice breaking at the edges. "But none of this mattered, as long as I could see you again."
"And Osiris, the God of the Dead, he's–"
"Dead now."
You went silent, eyes suddenly widening with loss for words.
"Suguru, w-what do you mean? You killed... you killed a God?"
He slowly stood up, once again towering over you like a beast, with muscles bulging under the tight embrace of gold hoops.
He pressed his forehead to yours, his eyes burning with heaviness that knocked breath out of you.
"He tricked me. Never wanted me to take you back," his finger traced your slightly parted lips, thumb pressing them softly. "I didn't have any other choice. But now, I am the God of the Dead. And I decide where you spend your eternal afterlife."
You gasped, glancing between his eyes and lips, feeling a sudden surge of strange warmth between your thighs.
"And you'll stay here. As my Goddess."
𓋹 𓋹 𓋹
You couldn't quite remember how you ended up in this situation. How quickly it escalated, after Suguru swiftly lifted you up and lay on a soft bed, a baldachin surrounding your burning bodies, as your lips clashed. He kissed you hungrily, with a deep frown and quite moans escaping his lips. The kiss was wet, messy, with your hands deep in his long locks, and his massive body hanging right above you, fingers slowly untying your robes and going straight for your breasts.
"Sugu–" you moaned, feeling him pinching your nipples, exposed to his gentle touch.
A harsh contrast to the wetness building fast between your thighs, so intense you curled your fingers in his locks, instinctively pushing him down on you.
"What's the rush, love?" he grinned devilishly, looking devastatingly beautiful above you. His voice like honey to your ears.
"Please," you begged, opening your legs wide like a good girl, looking at him with teary eyes.
And, oh, something must've snapped, because the next second he ripped the robes off you, leaving you bare under the moonlight. The inside of your thighs already covered in juices, opened wide just for his touch. He pushed your bent knees right to your chest, rubbing his clothed, aching cock against your sloppy pussy.
"Never in my lifetime have I felt such hunger," he closed his eyes with a deep groan, dark robe hugging his thighs, suddenly becoming wet with droplets of his precum. He looked down between your legs and slid a thumb between your pussylips, collecting even more juices gathered in your entrance. "Dear God, I can't wait to fill you full. We're gonna create the next generation of Gods."
Before you could answer, he lowered down, and the last thing you heard, before pleasure exploded in front of your eyes, was a loud slurp of Suguru's tongue running over your folds. It was drenched in his saliva, absolutely devouring your leaking pussy, spreading your folds with his two fingers.
"Mhmmm Sugu!" the moan that escaped your lips was obscenely loud, your eyes already rolling back.
Suguru groaned, sending tremors through your folds. His tongue was filling you just right, lips sucking hard on your clit till your hips jittered, wriggling on the bed sheets.
"Ah, ah," he put his heavy hand on your stomach, just where he planned to put his heir, pushing you harder against the mattress. "Stop moving, let me enjoy my meal."
He licked everything – every spot, every fold, twisting his tongue around your clit and pushing it inside, finally putting one finger in, to scoop up even more of your juices.
"Love, y-you taste so, oh God."
He slowly rubbed his hips against the mattress, stimulating his painfully hard cock while he devoured the sweetest dessert even the palace's kitchen couldn't serve.
And when he pushed his finger fully inside, your back lifted up in a delicious arch, spreading your thighs even wider, ready and desperate to feel something else aside from his fingers.
With his nose deep in your pussy, Suguru added a second one, praising you all the way long, imagining how your tight pussy will squeeze his cock.
"A-ah Suguuu, right there!"
Your eyes crossed when his fingers hit the sweet pot, driving you absolutely mad. Pushing one hand into his locks, you started to grind your hips against his tongue, madly, desperately and disgustingly filthy, trying to reach your high, using him as your personal toy. And he couldn't enjoy it more, his hips rubbing harder against the sheets, when he felt your small hands pulling his hair lightly.
And as much as he wanted to immediately cum inside your sweet pussy, the sheer view of your bouncing tits and slightly parted lips, eyes absolutely lost in pleasure and sweet, juicy folds tasting like pure ambrosia on his tongue, made him think that he won't last long.
It was so pathetic – to see a God in such a weak state, looking at you from below with teary eyes and pure desire, with tongue plastered to your folds and brows furrowed in pleasure. His long hair stuck to his wet forehead, looking devilishly good with nose deep in your folds.
"S-Suguru, stop, b-breath," you groaned, seeing how utterly lost he was.
Oh, his face was obscenely wet with your juices, while he pumped, pumped, pumped his fingers inside you, already feeling cramps in your lower belly. You were close, and he meant to walk you right through it.
"Don't need it, I'm a fucking God," he snapped, this time putting not just a hand, but a whole meaty arm on your belly to bring you even closer. "Come on, love. Cum for me."
His fingers were abusing your spot, lips sucking the clit, brushing it with teeth and shovelling his tongue even further inside your pink hole, fluttering for him so prettily he couldn't stop looking at it, overflowing with the syrup so good he wished it was the one which poisoned his mortal body. His long fingers as if reaching for your womb, going down your fluttering walls, stroking your sweet bundle of nerves, just to get you over the edge.
You started grinding harder, blubbering under your nose and moaning like a cat in heat, with his fingers stretching your tight pussy.
"Sugu, Sugu, Sugu, here, hereee."
And it was your final moan, before a watery gush escaped your sweet pussy, drenching his face in your heavenly juices.
"That's it, go on, my good girl," he talked you through it, while your thighs wrapped tightly around his head.
And if he wasn't a massive God, manhandling you with his pure weight of muscles, maybe you would worry about accidentally strangling him. "You're doing so good, you taste so fucking good, my good fucking girl."
He held you in an absolute chokehold, with thumb and index finger pinching your clit until you squirted even more, over his lowered chest and hair, until your thighs trembled and back lifted in delicious arch.
Suguru moaned lowly, pushing his arm on your belly and with one last grind cumming right in his robes, the sole taste of your pussy making him tremble in pleasure.
"Did you just–"
But you never finished, when he once again crashed against your lips in a hungry, messy kiss, this time tasting like your cum.
"Don't worry, there's still enough to knock you up before sunrise," he whispered, and you answered with a moan, sucking on his tongue, and feeling yourself get wet once again.
You droolled when he pulled back, gazing at you with parted lips and pupils so dilated, you started to worry whether he's mind was still here with you.
And he was right, because the moment he pulled back, you saw his massive cock hard again, leaking with a precum, with wite droplets dripping smoothly down his veiny shaft. His red tip ferociously sliding up and down your plump folds, so desperately you weren't sure whether you could take him!
"Oh," you gasped when he put both of his big hands under your thighs and pushed you into a very, very mean mating press.
He looked so beautiful, truly Goldy, with bulging forearms keeping you submissively in a place, and small droplets of sweat, dripping down from his temple, through his sharp jaw and down the muscular chest, glistening under the faint flame of the fireplace.
"My God, I don't think I can–"
And this time, this name pushed him over the edge, weakening truly beastly ferocity inside him. Maybe he had something from a jackal, after all, looking hungrily at your teary eyes and winy lips, swollen from his sharp kisses, still wet from his saliva. He slowly glanced down at your bare breast and hard nipples, looking so tastefully, he couldn't wait till they would grow with milk, filling the robes he especially made for you with their plump heaviness. Your belly was breathing heavily, and the fat on your hips was making him truly crazy.
He cupped the heavy swell of your ass, pulling your puffy lips closer to his cock. He could feel your hole fluttering around nothing, and his cock just twitching at this sheer thought.
"You can, my love. I'll make it fit," he slapped his cock against your pussylips, before his head caught on your entrance. "I'm a God, there's nothing I cannot do."
And before you could fight, he pushed your thighs closer to your chest, ass almost in the air, while he sank his pulsing cock inside, so big and heavy, almost ripping you apart.
You moaned loudly, with stars already fluttering in front of your eyes.
But Suguru stayed quiet.
Too quiet.
And when you looked closer, you saw this mountain of muscles trembling slightly, his lips parted in an o, and brows furrowed, face flushed, as if he was restraining himself. As if your walls were clamping on him so hard, so raw, he needed a minute to not cum immediately deep into your warm womb.
"Mhgm Sugu–"
But when he opened his eyes, you shut up.
Oh.
Oh, well, you weren't going to make it out alive today.
Because he suddenly pushed, hard, raw, so obscenely rough the breath was knocked out of your chest. He moulded your hole to his size, pink walls catching on him almost like a glue and never allowing him to leave your sweet pussy, pumping, pumping, pumping his heavy shaft with pure passion.
"M-my love, oh God," he threw his head back, allowing you to lurk at his glistening neck and collarbones, hugged with a heavy gold necklace. "Your pussy's so greedy, mmm, makes me wanna make you a Goddess right here and there."
But you could just nod stupidly, with eyes rolling back and soft gasps leaving your parted lips. You could feel your cheeks getting wet with tears, when he placed his hand on your lower belly.
"Do you feel it, my love?" he asked, pushing his cock even rougher, fuller, his balls touching your ass. He pressed his hand around your tummy, bulging with his cock. "I've always dreamed of it, my love. You have no idea, ahhh, how often I imagined ravishing your sweet pussy."
He bent over, slowly licking tears from your flushed cheeks and then kissing you hungrily. He was devouring all the gasps escaping your lips, before he licked your lower lips, and the chin, cheeks, small curve of the nose, and your ears, groaning when you squeezed around him.
He was truly like a jackal, like a dog in a heat, licking and panting, filling every corner of your pussy up till your womb, up till your lower belly looked almost pregnant, so full of his heavy, leaking cock.
Gold earrings swayed with his every move, golden bracelets on his wrists clacking softly, when he pushed your thighs even closer to your chest, crushing you with a heavy mass of his muscles.
"Sugu, yes yes yes yes," you mawled, curling your toes, his cock making your head spin. "I-I'm almost, ngh, I can't, why you're so biiiiiig."
You rolled your eyes when he laughed with audacity and kissed your cervix with the head of his cock. He pulled back, only to look down at your hottishly, pink pussy, gripping his cock, as if waiting for him to breed her fully. He opened your pussy lips with two fingers, spitting on your clit with a devilish grin.
"She's not complaining," he chuckled, but the next second, you clenched on him so hard, his breath came out almost ragged. "M-my love, d-don't, ngh–"
And you felt so satisfied, seeing how easy to tame he was.
A God of the Dead himself, fucking you raw like a madman, manhandling in the meanest ways, only to glance at you with teary eyes the moment he felt your gummy walls clamping down on his cock.
"It feels so good, my love, so fucking good," he groaned, deciding to continue the abuse of your cervix, kissing, scratching and pushing it back with his reddened tip, until you felt a tingle in your womb. "I've never thought it would be like this. How many children do you want, hm?" he bent down again, catching your wet cheeks with his hand. "How many, my love? Six, seven? I'll be filling this pretty pussy till you wish."
But the only thing you can do is to cry out his name, feeling him growing feral, rougher, watching you madly in love, the way you arched your back and looked at him beggingly.
"Sugu, mhmmmm, as many as you want, as many as you want, j-just p-please let me–"
"I'll make you Goddess of the Sun, fuck–I'll kill that, ngh, fucker–I'll make you next Goddess of Egypt," he groaned right to your ear, but you couldn't do anything aside from feeling your legs shake, his hips slamming with each thrust.
His massive body pressed you once again, as if he knew how much pleasure you took from this, his veiny forearms crushing your thighs, pushing you in a stable mating press, not even a droplet of your juice escaping from your pussy, with his cock blocking the entrance as if glued to your walls.
"Tell me how you feel, love, go on," his hips rolling faster, rougher, feeling you getting closer and closer, with belly coiling with warmth.
"So gooood, so good, good–God!"
And then you gave him last, hard sweeze, your final warning before a broken moan spilt from your lips, with pussy trying to milk him dry, clenching and squirting all over his abomend and pulsing cock.
"S-shit–my love–take it, mhmmm, you'll be dripping with my cum, ah," his voice broke, when he slammed harder, one last time, his head bullying its way right through your clenching walls, spilling thick, hot ropes right into your womb. "I can't fucking–fuck–please m-marry me, please please please."
He ripped your pussy raw, pulsing inside you till you felt his warm cum coiling in your belly. He moaned so pitifully, licking, biting and peppering your face with kisses, his mind far too gone, just drowning in the pleasure of your sweet, clenching walls.
And then, he finally kissed your wet forehead, and put his mass carefully on your tired body, crushing you slightly, while he hid his face in your neck. His cock was still inside, rutting small, weak thrusts, just to keep the cum inside.
After a second, when you managed to control your ragged breath and trembling legs, you ran your fingers through his tangled hair, long cascades spilling all over your breast. And placed a weak kiss on his forehead, humming quietly until you felt his shallow breath.
"I don't want to be a Sun God," you whispered, feeling his body slightly move. "I just want to stay with you, here. I don't mind the darkness and the desert. I only wish to follow my God."
He raised his head. With a gaze full of love, he cupped your face, kissing you slowly, gently, with a pure, pure devotion.
"And he shall grant your wish."
That was something, I hope you liked it! Julius Cesar Gojo next LMAO
edit: since so many of you liked it, tag list is open! <3
Your best friend Suguru asks you to dinner over a sheep’s heart in a bio lab on Valentine’s Day. You humour him. Tis the season, or whatever.
☆ collab w/ @sixxels for her v-day event :) check out that masterlist for a trove of good reads. also to note: this is not a part of my bestfriend!suguru series. this is... just me leeching off the one niche i have lol, this is a separate story to those events.
18+ MDNI
☆ Dissecting hearts on Valentine’s Day.
Your biology professor has a sense of humour, at least.
It doesn’t do much to sate the churning of your stomach, but it’s a nice thing to consider as you stare down at the washed-clean sheep's heart on the table in front of you. High school biology taught you the ins-and-outs of the heart, its valves and chambers and absolute vitality to the function of the human body that very little else matters in comparison.
It is, for lack of better words, an organ to be revered.
“I’ll give you five dollars to lick it.”
Your best friend Suguru seems to think otherwise. He stands beside you, with the most stupid looking eye protection on. His hair was begrudgingly pulled up when your professor mentioned the seventeen different hazards of hair as long as his being left down in a laboratory. And his smile is, as per usual, cocksure.
“Five dollars is not worth the buffet of bacteria I’d be inviting into my mouth,” you nudge the metal tray away from you with a gloved fingertip. “I’ll give you ten, though.”
Suguru scoffs. “I’ll give you fifteen.”
“Twenty,” you lift a metal probe from the tray and point it at him. “And I’ll turn this into a sounding rod and—”
“How about neither of us lick the sheep's heart,” he interjects with a stressed smile, plucking the probe from between your fingers and pointing it at your chest instead, “and you come over for dinner tonight.”
You can’t help but roll your eyes. “Yeah, I’m not exactly dying to be your pre-game for whatever gross Valentine’s hookup you have planned, Suguru. I know you don’t wash your sheets.”
“I wash them,” Suguru argues, poking your arm with the probe. “And you happen to be my best friend, so I’d have told you if I had a Valentine—which I don’t.”
You snort. “I find that hard to believe. You always have a Valentine.”
“No one asked.”
“I bet Gojo asked.”
“Well, yeah, but he also asked Nanami. And Shoko. Come on, let's be single and lonely together in my dorm with some real gourmet eats.”
There’s a certain level of assumption that your best friend carries with him. He’s hardly ever wrong in said assumptions, but they still pull a grimace to your face. Really, who is he to assume you don’t already have a valentine? Sure, you share every last aspect of your lives with each other, but that doesn’t mean your love life (or lack thereof) needs to be any of his business.
You turn away from him, deciding to rark his assumptions. “Can’t. I’m busy tonight.”
“Yeah, right.”
“I am,” you insist, grabbing the probe back from Suguru and gripping the heart in your left hand. You find the Superior Vena Cava, and stick the probe downwards into the right atrium, as instructed. After doing the same with the Inferior, you hand the heart and probe unceremoniously to Suguru. “Your turn.”
He takes the heart, but instead of probing it like you’ve been asked, Suguru drops it back onto the metal tray. It clatters a little against the table, and a few people turn their heads to look at the two of you.
“You don’t have a Valentine.”
Your brows raise. “Oh wow, is this a jealousy thing, Sugu? I mean, maybe we could invite you to sit in the cuck chair and—”
He’s quick to cut you off with a gloved hand to your chin, lifting it up to lengthen your neck and start checking the column of your throat for… something.
“What the fuck are you—” your voice trails off when Suguru’s grip shift, and his other hand, the one that was holding the heart, takes the side of your face. “Oh my god Suguru that is so fucking disgust—”
“If anyone had half the mind to ask you out, this—” he taps your pulsepoint with two gloved fingers, “—would be marked up. You’d have to be dating an idiot to be allowed to walk around without staking some sort of claim on you.”
Staking claim? Allowed? “What am I, a lunchbox? My Valentine has to write his name on me so everyone knows I’m spoken for? ‘Don’t eat this one, it’s mine’?”
Suguru shrugs. “Kinda. Does it matter? My point is, I know you’re lying—there’s no possible way you have a Valentine, so I’ll see you at seven.”
What an ass. “Wow. ‘No possible way’, you are just so kindhearted.”
You can see him biting his cheek. He looks down at you with those sharp purple eyes, even through his protective glasses, and shakes his head. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Then what, pray-tell, could you have possibly meant instead?”
“I meant,” he starts, grabbing the probe once more and pointing it at you without acknowledgement of infection control and the fact it was just inside the vena cava of a sheep’s heart, “I’ve already written my name. You know… ‘do not eat, this one’s mine’?”
You follow his gaze downwards to the shirt you’re wearing… his shirt. He had left it in your dorm after a night over and never asked for it back. It’s not a thing, you just think it’s more comfortable than any of your own clothes. And it smells like him.
Suguru then points the metal rod to your wrist which, just underneath your sleeve, is a beaded bracelet that reads ‘SG’ in purple beads. He has a matching one of your initials that he wears around his right wrist, the two of you made them together five or so years ago to commemorate your ‘ever-lasting and never-dying’ friendship.
Lastly, he turns the rod on himself and points it right at his own chest. You look him over, enjoying the obvious view but finding no indication of ‘ownership’ as he’d so smugly claim. “Am I meant to know what you’re pointing at?”
Geto sucks in a breath, looks down at the heart on the table, and then back up at you. “So, maybe a few guys have noticed how close we are. And so they’ve asked me if you have a boyfriend, because they’ve wanted to ask you out.”
No fucking way.
“You told them I have a boyfriend, didn’t you? God, you’re such an asshole, Suguru—you can’t just police my love life because you think the guys here arent—”
“I told them I’m your boyfriend,” he cuts you off. “And if they wanted to keep their balls in tact that they shouldn’t talk to you. Or look at you. Or… breathe in your direction.”
All you can do is blink up at him. You’re pretty sure the professor calls out to get you both back on track, but you’re locked in a staring match that seems to last a lifetime. He wouldn’t do that, he’s fucking with you—doing what he always does and trying to get a rise out of your for his own sick entertainment. He likes it when you get mad, when you complain and pout and smack him on the arm for saying stupid shit. He’s fishing.
But then you think about it. You’ve had a pretty regular college experience, minus the attention from guys. You’d always chalked it up as being due to your own neglect towards romantic endeavours. You haven’t been overly interested in hooking up with anyone, and Suguru takes you on enough outings that you’ve never felt the need to date.
But that wouldn’t explain the lack of guys hitting on you. You get it off campus, sometimes a man will buy your drink at the cafe and ask for your number. The odd times you have hooked up with someone, it’s been someone you’ve met outside of school.
“You’re lying,” you say.
Suguru opens his stupid deceptive mouth to respond, but the bell cuts through the air before he can speak. You’re at a standstill until the bleating stops, and even then, all he does is smile.
“You’re lying.”
He shrugs, purposefully raking his eyes down the shirt of his you wear, and then back up to you. “I’ll see you at seven?”
“Nope.”
You made him wait until seven thirty, just to piss him off.
Unfortunately for you, he didn’t answer the door until seven thirty-five, just to piss you off.
Succeeding in his efforts, Suguru finally answered the door to a very cross-looking you, whose bad mood could now only be sated by greasy pizza and room-temperature beer from a can—which is exactly what was waiting for you when you walked in. Propped up on his bed next to a battery-operated fake candle and one singular fake rose in a vase on his bedside table.
Sometimes it’s the little things that remind you that Suguru really is just a college-aged man.
Though you can’t say much with three and a half slices of pizza in your system, and your legs sprawled out over Suguru’s lap as he drums his fingers against your calves. An empty beer can balances precariously on your stomach, a very slight buzz lifting your spirits.
“I wasn’t joking in bio,” is the sentence that your best friend decides to break the easy silence with. “Just by the way. And if you want to throw a few things and call me an ass before you storm out, it might turn me on more than it will make me feel guilty.”
You lift your head to look at him. The smile you thought would be gracing his lips isn’t there, greeting you instead with a frown that reminds you of bad news. You suppose this is bad news, he’s been going behind your back to lie about who you’re dating—but anger isn’t the first thing to bubble up in your chest.
It isn’t even confusion, either. Is your heart… racing?
You pull your elbows back to lean on them, the empty beer can falling from your stomach to the mattress beneath you in the process. All you can do for a very long while is look. And realise.
His lips have always been this pretty—you remember the times you’d have a drink too many and still find yourself going wide-eyed when staring at them and moving with the words he’d speak. Which is funny, because you’re never shy around Suguru.
And his hair has always been that nice. Your fingers have always itched to play with it, braid it, run your fingers through it and learn what kind of a reaction Suguru Geto has when you give it a harsh tug. You’ve found yourself up late some nights, wondering if he’d grunt or whine or if you dipping your hand beneath your waistband to touch yourself to the thought means anything.
Well shit. You like Suguru.
He must notice a change in expression on your face, because his lips are quirking up into a grin, and you’re suddenly… shy?
“You alright there?” he teases, leaning over you to get a better look at your face. “Pizza didn’t agree with you, huh? Happens to me too sometimes, you just need—”
“Shut up, Sugu,” you try to retort like normal, but the million different thoughts crashing through your mind has your voice small, and your face heated. “I’m mad at you. You aren’t my boyfriend, so you had no right to tell everyone you are.”
You don’t have half the mind to process that Suguru is practically on top of you now. His hair falls over his shoulder and down to your chest as he looks you deep in the eyes. You half expect him to pull away, but instead he leans forward and… licks you.
Right on the corner of your lip. It’s quick, but enough tongue-to-lip contact that it has you rearing back and looking up at your best friend with wide and very confused eyes. You open your mouth, try desperately for a ‘what the fuck?’ or a ‘you just fucking licked me, you idiot’, but… nothing comes.
“Oookay,” Suguru pulls back a little at your lack of reaction. “I was expecting more than that. Sorry, you’re upset and I shouldn’t have—”
“Why’d you…”
“Sauce,” he gestures to his own lips. “Pizza. Doesn’t matter. I made you uncomfortable, and I’m sorry.”
“No, you—well. I just… you licked me.”
“I’m trying to send a message here,” he shrugs.
“By licking me?”
“By… well, yeah.” Suguru looks down at you awkwardly. “Best friends don’t lick each other, you know?”
“You just did.”
“Yeah, well I don’t want to be your best friend anymore. Take the hint, I’m begging you.”
Oh. What a weird way to end a friendship. You suppose Suguru has always been unconventional in his approach to life and change, but making light of it isn’t going to make it hurt any less. Your stomach clenches a little, and you’d blame it on the shitty pizza if not for the hot tears that spring to your eyes despite your every wish.
“You’re crying,” Suguru gawks down at you. “You… why are you crying?”
“I don’t know,” you try desperately to reach up and wipe your eyes, but Suguru takes each of your wrists in his own and pins them down to his mattress, forcing you into the bed a little. “I think crying is a pretty normal reaction to your best friend of fucking forever telling you he doesn’t want to be friends anymore!”
Though your vision is blurry, you can make out the vague shape of Suguru’s lips twisting into a stupid, mocking smile that you’d like to just wipe clean off his stupid, mocking face. It’s only made worse when he laughs something joyous and his shoulders shake with the intensity of his humour.
“For such a nerd,” he starts, “you can be so fucking dumb sometimes.”
His lips press against yours in something slow, and soft, and explorative. It’s sweet, the kiss he gives you, but equally starved. He contradicts himself even with his lips on yours, pushing into your mouth and pulling back the second you’re of mind to try and kiss back.
He tastes like pizza and beer. You’d make a face and tell him to go and brush his teeth if you weren’t so sure you tasted the exact same. He greets you with a grin when he breaks the kiss, which quickly turns to a look of confusion when he sees whatever look is on your face.
“Was that okay?” he asks, moving a hand from your wrist to cradle the side of your face. “Say no and it never happened.”
Damn the entire fucking world and the omnipotent deity that may-or-may-not-have created it. You open your mouth to try and force something out, and still nothing comes.
This is Suguru, for the love of everything holy. Your Suguru, who has seen you elated and humiliated and scared and furious, but never shy. You are not shy with Suguru.
And yet.
“I—” you try again, but your gaze drops. Coward. “It was fine.”
“Fine?” he repeats, pulling back a little more to look at you better. You can feel his gaze heating up your skin like it’s suddenly Summer time and he’s the burning sun. “...Are you nervous?”
You scoff automatically, though it catches. “No.”
“You are. You’re being weird. You’re being shy—you’ve never been shy with me.”
He’s taken it personally, like the idea of you being nervous around him affronted him personally.
You swallow. “Yeah, well, you’ve never kissed me before.”
“And doing so made me what? Scary?”
“No!” you try, frustrated both with him and with yourself. “It just changed things.”
Your best friend does what he seems to do best lately and takes another long moment to study every last inch of your burning face. He looks from the lips he just kissed to your nervous eyes and pinched brows. You’re being shy with him, and neither of you could really say as to why.
Maybe because he does stuff like this. Without warning, Suguru reaches down to grab at your hips and, in one irritatingly easy motion, flips the two of you over so that you’re the one on top. Your thighs bracket his hips as you land straddling him, a small and very undignified noise escaping your lips in the process.
Before you can even try to process your new position, or the expanse of solid mass now beneath you, Suguru lifts up slightly and pulls off his shirt, tossing it across the room to land on Satoru’s bed. Thank god he isn’t here to witness the state you’re in.
“I think that look on your face is one of the hottest things I have ever seen in my entire life,” he starts, resting his head down against the pillow and looking up at you, hands still holding your hips. “But I hate it, because I don’t ever want you to feel nervous around me. I don’t want to make you shy.”
Part of you wants to hit him. “I think that’s probably the least reassuring thing you could say to a shy person.”
“Good thing you’re allowed to be shy with literally anyone else. Here,” one hand leaves your hip to guide your wrist forward until your palm presses flat over his sternum. Right over his heart. “Tell me something about it.”
His skin is warm. Warmer than yours, but he’s always run hot. Your beaded bracelet, the one with SG on proud display, runs against his skin as you feel. His heartbeat is steady, thrums against your waiting palm in a slightly elevated beat.
“You’re nervous too,” you quip, which makes him scoff.
“Obviously. I just kissed the person I’ve wanted to kiss since I was thirteen. Tell me something nerdy, nerd.”
Your brain, the traitor that it is, latches on to the familiarity of academia. You trace over his sternum, slightly to the right—his left. “The two largest veins are in your heart,” you exhale slowly, keeping your hand over his firm chest even as his falls away. “The inferior and superior vena cava.”
“And what do they do?”
“Well really, you should tell me. You weren’t paying attention at all today, even though I tell you to listen—” you trail off as you notice the grin Suguru sports on his lips, most likely at your less-shy demeanour. You suppose irritation is your baseline with him. “They return deoxygenated blood to your heart. The superior vena cava takes care of your upper body.”
You trace your fingertips up to his collarbone, down his bicep a little. “Your arms, chest…” and then back up to his face. You take a moment to look at the beautiful sculpted stone that is his bone structure, and then give his forehead a flick for good measure. “All the dumb stuff in your head, too.”
He huffs a laugh.
“And the inferior vena cava returns it from the lower body,” you add, eyes holding his sharp gaze as you trail that same hand over his chest again, and then lower. Your sudden shyness now exchanged for a boldness you hadn’t seen in you, as you feel each ridge of his abs on your descent to his waistband, which sits snugly between your thighs. You’re a half-inch from brushing over your own clothed clit. “It all goes back to the heart.”
“Full circle,” Suguru glances down at where your hand sits. You feel him give your hip a squeeze, and then tentatively trace his hand up your spine, under your shirt. “And when the heart’s working overtime…”
His hand drags slowly over your ribs and up over your left breast. You swallow your spit. “It beats faster,” you finish his sentence. “Sinus tachycardia.”
“God, you’re such a nerd,” he laughs under you, the rumbling vibrations of it going straight to your clit. You shoot your hand back up to his chest to fight the overwhelming urge to break the seal of his waistband and take what you want. “Your heart is racing.”
You know—you can feel it in your throat. So is his, though—thump thump thump against your palm like a telling drum.
It’s a weird telepathic kind of need that kicks the two of you into drive next. Mirroring each other, the both of you hold eye contact as you drag your touch down each other’s bodies nice and slow. From chest to stomach, then to waistband and beneath.
Suguru is rock hard, and although not the first dick you’ve felt pulse beneath your touch, he’s definitely the biggest. You wrap your fingers around his length and gasp as he simultaneously drags his fingers between your folds to find you soaked and sensitive.
The heart wants what it wants, you guess.
You snort at that, which makes Suguru look up at you with a funny expression. “What?”
You shake your head fondly. “Nothing. We’re just… really doing this.”
His gaze is intense—he’s sitting up a bit now to get a better look at you, fingers slowly drawing circles around your clit. Suguru doesn’t know this part of you like he does everything else. Doesn’t know what makes you writhe quite yet. It’s something he’ll learn by the end of the night.
It’s like you’re in a haze of want. Like every stray thought you’ve had before this moment has now compiled in your brain to play on a loop—you’re undressed before you know it. The two of you, bare skinned and breathless against each other. Moving with each other’s bodies in a familiarity only the two of you could have.
You stroke him nice and slow—your form of preservation. Or punishment, for him being an ass.
“I think you’re beautiful,” he groans as he keeps rubbing quick circles over your clit, mouthing over one of your nipples as he keeps his eyes trained up on your face. “Used to think of this perfect fucking body beneath some other guy and feel sick. S’why I told everyone we were together—I would have scared you off with the things I’d do to someone else who got to see this.”
Maybe you should be concerned about the fact that that is quite possibly the hottest thing he’s ever said to you. You mean to open your mouth and retort with something teasing about his obvious unbridled obsession, but what comes out instead is a strained “I need you,” that sets every nerve in Suguru’s body alight.
“You have me,” he’s pulling his hand from your achy cunt and using the collected slick to mix with the pre beading at his tip. You let go of his cock and watch as he mixes your arousal, smearing it all over the thick head of his cock and guiding you to hover over his tip. “God, you’ve always had me.”
What a sap. You smile, lean forward, and press a soft kiss to his lips.
“Took you long enough to admit it,” you manage. “Nervous or something? Shy?”
“Yeah?” He mocks, cooing the word out like silk. His strong hands hold your hips, and then slam them downwards onto his efficacious dick. “Shut the fuck up.”
He fills you entirely in one sick, sedative stroke. You feel blissed out and desperate and fucking sore all at the same time. The stretch is manageable, as is the pinch you feel when his tip near-meets your cervix, but what has you choking out a moan is the instant pace he takes with you.
So much for you being on top—Suguru thrusts upwards into you with such gluttonous voracity that you’d think he’s trying to send you stupid on his cock. It’s all so much and so sudden that you can’t even find it in you to be ashamed of how quickly he knits an orgasm up in the pit of your stomach. And you thought the guy was meant to cum quick.
You hold on the best you can, both to your orgasm and to Suguru. Your fingers dig into the muscle of his shoulders, one hand snaking up to collect his hair between your digits and yank hard in an attempt to pull the reins. You find your question to old fantasies answered as a loud moan rips right out of his chest, but your attempt at slowing down your best friend only riles him up further.
“Close,” you manage. “Suguru, please…”
“Spit in my mouth.”
That gives you pause. You still, the best you can when he’s rutting up into you with such fever, and look down at your heart-eyed best friend. “That’s gross. I just ate.”
“I’mliterallyinsideofyourightnow,” he chokes, slowing down his thrusts into something a little more rolling, but no less deep. “Please. Fuck, please—I want you to fill me when I fill you.”
Oh.
At the risk of finding out something new (and unsanitary) about yourself, you lean forward and start with a kiss. Suguru’s cock filling you up doesn’t do much for your balance, and your teeth click against his a few times, but you keep your pace. Geto snakes a hand down to your clit and urges you across the cliff face he’s walking.
Your orgasm builds like the pressure in your heart. Quick and explosive and enough to contract the very organ that gives you life. Your hand on Suguru’s shoulder canvases his skin, down his rapid heart as you pull back enough to spit right onto his waiting tongue.
He lets it sit, holds your gaze with an open mouth and your spit pooling in his mouth. The sight might be both the strangest and sexiest thing you’ve seen, and you’re only slightly concerned at the way it triggers your climax.
Mirrored, two beating hearts of the same soul, whatever other symbolic depiction of a shared orgasm you can think of—the two of you embody it. You squeeze hard around Suguru’s pulsing cock, milking the cum right out of him into your waiting body.
He swallows his moan (and your spit) with a desperate choked sound that only prolongs your orgasm. “Oh my god,” you hold his gaze. “Oh my god.”
Suguru holds you in place on his cock as he catches his breath. When he speaks, his voice is so beautifully ruined that your traitorous heart skips a dramatic beat or three.
“You look pretty when you cum. Hey—don’t hide your face. No getting shy.”
He pulls you back a little to lift your head from his heaving shoulder, which you had pressed your forehead against in an attempt to keep Suguru’s teasing eyes off you. “Don’t say things that make me shy, then.”
“I can say whatever I please now that you’re mine,” he sing-songs. “Oh, that reminds me…”
You mourn the loss of body heat as Suguru leans away from you and stretches over for something on his bedside table. Your mind doesn’t register what it is until you hear the ‘pop!’ of a pen cap being taken off, and a sudden coldness bloom over your sternum… slightly to the left.
“Stay still…”
You look down to see Suguru Geto writing across your skin with a Sharpie, and you don’t need much more than common sense to know what he’s doing.
“You better not start calling me a lunchbox after this,” you chide, though you don’t make a move to stop him.
“Then I’ll just have to call you my Valentine,” he hums in return, glancing up at you with his tongue caught between his teeth. “That’s a yes to being my Valentine, right?”
“I guess I have no choice now,” you shrug, tucking your chin into your neck and looking down as he finishes up with the Sharpie. “You’ve staked your claim.”
On your chest, right over where your heart beats, reads ‘SUGURU’ in big bold letters.
a/n: thank you @sixxels for asking me to collab. i am no match for the talents working on this event but i am honoured nonetheless to have been able to participate. FIRST COLLAB DONE AND DUSTED MOTHER FUCKERS!
the banner is made by sixxels as well i just stole it because i'm evil. the art in it is by @/thatsallitchief
I’ve regretted not sharing my thoughts and feelings about you and your beautiful works sooner. Every story you wrote and every comment you made touched my heart. I’m sorry for being late in expressing my gratitude for everything you’ve done. I also feel deeply for what you had to go through with the plagiarism issue. No one should have done that to you. Unfortunately, it seems that nowadays, honor and integrity are rarely sought, with people often taking the “easy” way out and exploiting others.
Despite what some might dismiss as fanfiction or stories based on manga/anime, you gave us so much more. You poured your soul into your writing, and it was truly beautiful to witness. The way you engaged with nearly every comment, and the way people fell in love with your words, showed just how much heart you always invested in your work.
I’m writing this so that, if you read it someday, you’ll know that you are missed. You’ve changed someone’s life, and your work remains one of the best I’ve read.
Thank you, Bunny. I hope that someday, when you feel ready and better, you may return to us.
