Pairing/setting: Levi Ackerman x Female!Reader, modern!college!AU
Summary: When you catch your idiot boyfriend cheating, your grumpy roommate is there to pick up the pieces and watch your back as you toe a carefully drawn line in the metaphorical sand
Word Count: 2.3k
Warnings: very light smut (!!), fluff, pancakes, talking about emotions
AN: hiiiiii long time no see. i finally finished this fucking chapter. miss you guys, think about u often. if i've lost my touch with writing, no i didn't shhhhhh that's not even any of my business, really.
~valkyrie
(read chapter 6 here)
Levi’s lips are soft and dry against your own. He doesn’t react, doesn’t push against you eagerly or pull away in disgust, so you stay there for a long moment and let the softness quiet your mind.
When you do pull back and open your eyes, you see his own are closed. Your thumb, still resting gently on the point of his chin, moves to chuff at his lower lip, exposing the tiniest sliver of his wet, pink mouth.
His eyes open slightly and kickstart your heart into a frenzy with how beautiful they are in the dim light.
“Kid.” His voice is halfway stuck in his throat.
“Don’t call me kid when I’m kissing you,” you whisper, and indulgently pull at his bottom lip again, exposing teeth and tongue that your eyes track with a lazy hunger.
You can tell he’s fighting something in him for a long moment as you stare at his mouth and he stares at you. Distantly, you wonder if you’ve been imagining things, if he really doesn’t feel the same. But you know, so wholeheartedly that it makes you dizzy, that he does feel the same, that you can’t have been imagining something more behind the kindnesses he’s paid you in the last month. There was love there. Intentionally.
You watch his internal battle in the flicker of his eyes and the flexing of his hand against your duvet and wonder if he’ll have the guts to admit it to you.
He does.
After that, there’s nothing dry about kissing Levi. He pushes his whole weight into you when he kisses you again, tilting his head so he can catch you deeper and open-mouthed. It forces you back onto the pillows, and he pins you with his hands and tongue. You can feel his desperation making you hot all over, chasing his fingertips under your shirt. A gasp forces its way between you when you slip a hand into his silky hair, fallen from his mouth and against yours.
You grin up at him, giddy, then lead him into another series of slick kisses, teasing at his teeth with your tongue. Whimpering when they catch at your lip.
For all the bravado he’s put into kissing you, his trembling hands tell a different story. The one that’s not braced by your head is skating along your ribs, just under your breast. It tickles, and you have to squirm against the sheets to repress the giggles in your chest.
You take your own hand and encourage his to be bolder, cupping it around your tit and squeezing gently. Hot breath is wet against your lips when Levi pulls back to stare at you, his cheeks flushed red and his pupils blown wide.
You sigh softly when his thumb catches on your nipple.
“Yeah?” he breathes, and it’s all the warning you get before he’s ducking his head and pushing your shirt up above your breasts.
He pinches your left nipple and watches as you gasp and arch, tempting him into licking a long, fat stripe between your breasts. It makes you shudder and twist both hands into his hair as his face comes back to yours.
Your legs have fallen wide to make room for him, slotting his hips against yours in light, unintentional friction that you squirm to deepen when you feel the teasing bulge of him. There’s so much sensation, and you drink it down in greedy gulps, selfish tugs of your hands finally against his narrow hips. Guiding him into a delicious grind down in the cradle of you. He gasps against your cheek and repeats the motion, earning a stuttered moan.
It’s been so long since you’ve felt someone against you like this, and it feels so good you can barely keep yourself contained. Can barely keep up as Levi nips down your neck and sucks at the jut of your collarbone, his mouth and hips drawing downright embarrassing sounds from your chest.
It continues like this for a time you’re not entirely cognizant of. All you know is that his hands are finally on you, and your legs are around him, and pleasure is sparking in your gut, frustratingly tedious.
“Off,” you say at one point, hands pulling his t-shirt up and over the mess of his hair.
He ducks away for a moment to shuck off his shirt and toss it somewhere onto your floor, then his hands are back on you, pulling apart your tenuous self-control. You sit up to meet him, shrugging out of your unbuttoned flannel and shifting into his lap all in one. Here, from this angle, he looks so much more familiar, looking up at you with those unfathomable, slate-grey eyes. Looking up at you with what you now recognize as wanting.
Your hands settle at the base of his neck, fingering lightly at the short hair there, your mouth open as you drink him in. The momentum you’d been building is shivering at your fingertips, teasing in his palms against the plush of your hips.
“Levi— if it’s okay—” your voice is unfamiliarly husky, “if it’s okay, there are condoms in the drawer.”
The suggestion hangs between you for a moment, stutters uncertainly in your chest.
“But, we don’t have to—”
“Shut up,” he growls and surges up to kiss you so hard it might bruise. Not soft and dry like before, but aggressive. Claiming.
You break away after not too long, a ridiculous smile stretching your lips.
He gets the condoms.
--
The snow shuts you in for three full days, though it doesn’t feel nearly long enough. There’s still something unspoken between you, still a lack of clarity about what exactly it is you’re doing, but you find yourself too caught up in this new intimacy to care.
The big picture doesn’t change. You still wake up with your face mashed against a pillow, breathing in deep lungfuls of Levi’s scent, and roll out of bed to find him making tea in the kitchen. You still bicker over what to watch that night, and he still makes that little pout with his mouth when you suggest Gilmore Girls.
“It’s not what it sounds like, I swear it’s actually good!”
“It sounds like a pile of dogshit.”
“You have no taste, I swear.”
“Don’t go talking about taste when you think Happy Feet is a cinematic masterpiece.”
“Just say you hate cute animals and go.”
But now, he’s curled up on the couch with you instead of over in the chair, sprawled out across your chest and between your legs. He sighs and stretches up to press his lips to the underside of your jaw.
“I hate cute animals,” he deadpans, looking straight into your eyes, then settles back down to pillow his head on your chest.
“You’re awful,” you say, turning your attention back to the TV.
On the second morning, you make him pancakes — the only recipe you remember making as a family, though you still have to text your dad for the recipe. He replies with a picture of the old recipe card taped to your fridge at home, covered with your mom’s slanting handwriting in blue ink, as well as a selfie of him and his new girlfriend. They’re under the giant neon sign outside your favorite diner back home, pointing up at it with wide grins. He’d wanted you to come home for the holidays, claiming that she wanted to meet you, but you’d feigned too much schoolwork to make the trip. She seems nice -- has stuck around for longer than you expected -- but you just can’t bring yourself to make the effort.
You trace your finger down the line of your dad’s nose, reply with a heart, and then start gathering ingredients on the counter.
Levi putters around the apartment while you work. It’s soothing to have him in the periphery, folding towels and dusting behind the TV and doing god knows what other chores you’re not even aware exist. There was a part of you that worried you would lose this natural existence, a little voice in your head screaming not to be rash for fear of losing everything.
You’ve never been happier to ignore it, especially when Levi is pressing up behind you to reach for more paper towels from the cabinet. A grin teases its way onto your lips as he presses one kiss to the back of your neck and then is gone, disappeared into the bathroom once again.
The whipped cream in the door of the fridge turns out to be almost completely empty, fallen victim to your frequent hot chocolate cravings, so you top the pancakes with butter and cinnamon sugar instead. Levi’s not overtly vocal in his appreciation for your food, but he gives a nod of approval and hooks his ankle with yours under the table while you eat. Plus, you get the distinct pleasure of brushing stray cinnamon sugar from his top lip, so all’s well that ends well.
It’s almost disgustingly domestic.
---
On the first day without new snow, Levi wakes up to find you gone. You’re not in bed, and you’re not in the kitchen, and you’re not in the shower, and he has to stare at himself for a long minute in the bathroom mirror to remind himself this doesn’t mean anything. He’s not your keeper-- you can come and go as you please. You don’t owe him jack shit. This means nothing.
He’s just barely convinced himself of it, forcing himself into a normal morning routine, when he finds a sticky note on the tea kettle.
Gone out for a bit, will be back for lunch! :)
The exhale of relief he lets out is embarrassingly deep.
--
The barista at your favorite coffee shop looks haggard when you step through the door, doing your best not to bring too much snow in with you. She’s split between steaming milk and listening to some guy leaning over the counter, so you give her a wave and step over to the side to look at the pastry case until she’s done. You normally get the muffins here, but today you find yourself wondering what Levi would like. Is he a cookie guy? Does he like more savory things? You’ve never met a soul who doesn’t like a croissant, so that’s a safe bet--
Your pastry ponderance is cut off by Reiner’s voice behind you.
“Hey,” he says, and you turn.
“Hi. Thanks for meeting me.”
“Of course. Always.”
He looks tired. A little strung out. It’s been weeks since that argument in your apartment, and your heart pangs at seeing such a familiar face after such a length apart.
You swallow, mouth suddenly dry, and gesture towards the register where the barista is ready to take orders again.
“You’re getting coffee?”
“Yes,” he laughs a little bit, mouth twitching at the corner, “always.”
It’s not long before you’re both clutching steaming mugs of coffee; his, a Colombian light roast, black, and yours, a Mexican dark roast with cream and sugar. It feels right to have the rich coffee smells floating between you again.
You take a deep breath.
“Thank you for meeting me,” you say again, staring into your mug so you don’t have to look at him. “I talked to Annie a few days ago.”
“Oh,” is all he says.
“Yeah. She, uh, she cleared up a few things,” your fingers start tapping rhythmically, a calming strategy, “for me, and said you would appreciate having a chat….”
There is a quiet moment between you, backgrounded by the thudding of a milk pitcher against the countertop. You finally look up at him.
“I would appreciate it. What exactly did she tell you?” He’s keeping his tone neutral, clearly not wanting this conversation to be over before it’s really started. Reiner is usually much less calculated in his wording, at least with you.
A long exhale leaves your life, before, “She told me about Marcel.”
“Oh,” he says again, and this time you see the careful neutrality crack a little and a sadness enter his eyes.
“Yeah. I’m really sorry,” you say, and mean it. “I can imagine what that must have been like for you all, it’s not easy to lose someone like that. And I understand why you didn’t want to talk about it… why you didn’t tell me, but,” you exhale again, “but, you could have. You could have talked to me.”
He fidgets a little in his seat, knees knocking against the underside of the just barely too-short cafe table.
“I didn’t,” he starts, then stops, then looks at the ceiling. “I’ve never been good about talking about that stuff.”
“You mean grief? Loss?”
“Yeah, that… stuff. And everything.”
There’s another pause, during which you ease back in your seat, consideringly. You’re about to speak again, but he beats you to it.
“And you’re always so good at talking about it, about your mom, and stuff. Grief,” his eyes flash to yours for a moment as he half smiles again, “and stuff.”
You laugh, quiet.
“I don’t get how you do it, it’s actually something I admire about you a lot, I just,” he sighs, “have never gotten there. With everything about Marcel.”
“Do you know how I got there, Rei?”
The nickname catches him, holds his gaze to yours as he shakes his head “no.”
“Therapy.”
He dips his head, nodding. “Yeah. Who’d’ve thunk.”
“Who, indeed.”
You’re not about to hold his hand through coming to terms with addressing his own mental health -- he’s a grown adult, for fuck’s sake -- but you feel it’s your due diligence as a person who was once his partner to at least point out the obvious.
“Therapy helps. It doesn’t fix everything, and it takes time, but just talking to someone really, truly helps.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. And we talked about other stuff, too. Like what I saw the night before we broke up.”
“Oh?” he says, for a third time, as you take a sip of coffee and settle in for another re-hash of events you’d rather leave completely un-hashed.
Pairing/setting: Farmer!Ushijima Wakatoshi x Fem!Reader
Word Count: 2.6k
Warnings: very fluffy, implied sex, reader wants a baby
AN: I've been working on this sporadically for *checks watch* 2.5 years so I hope y'all fucking like it lmao. I really struggled with tying up the ending, so if it feels abrupt that's why! also was too intimidated to try and write baby-making smut, so feel free to imagine those particular shenanigans in your own huge and wrinkly brainsicle. love you all! ~valkyrie
It’s on mornings like this that you feel most unlike yourself. When you slip out of bed before your husband and tug on one of his huge flannels, the sun just peeking into your window. It’s too early. Too early to think, too early for food, too early to do anything but slip out onto the porch in bare feet and curl up on the porch swing. The birds are just waking up with you -- chickadees singing a greeting and the chickens clucking softly in reply. The dewy air sends goosebumps up your bare legs and settles in your lungs as mist clings to the ground. It makes you feel a little lost, a little out of place; mornings have never been meant for you.
When your husband wakes up with the rooster, he joins you on the porch swing, the screen door creaking shut behind him, and hands you a cup of coffee. You lean into his sturdy side and clutch your third favorite mug with both hands (the handle broke last year when you dropped it on the kitchen tile). He doesn’t say anything, just presses his lips to your temple and looks out to the mountains with you. He knows you’ve never been meant for mornings.
When his yellow mug is empty, he rubs your bent knee with a huge hand and leaves you to start farm chores. You may be entitled to a slow start, but the horses expect breakfast before 7 or they’ll be ornery all day.
The sun burns enough dew away for the farmhand’s truck to kick up dust as he drives up your long driveway -- your cue to go put on pants. Back in the bedroom, the stained glass ornaments hanging in the windows are casting shifting rainbows on the wall. This is what lifts your lips for the first time today and prompts the first sip of tepid coffee. You sprawl out on your unmade bed, stretching like a cat in a sunspot made just for you.
By the time you pad downstairs in jeans and an airy blouse, the morning has begrudgingly made a space for you in between its sense of purpose and quiet watchfulness. You set about making breakfast and more coffee, nudging the kitchen awake. You say good morning to the toaster and the butter bell and the kettle on the stove and purposely ignore the dishwasher, which has been giving attitude since the weekend.
You’re murmuring quietly to a pancake when Wakatoshi clomps back in, hanging his hat on the hook by the door.
“Good morning,” you greet, offering up your cheek, which he kisses along with a heavy hand on your hip.
“Does the pancake ever talk back?” he wonders aloud, looking over your shoulder into your cast iron pan.
“Not yet,” you reach for your spatula and grin up at him, “which is what makes it such a good listener.”
He hums thoughtfully and squeezes your waist with his big hand before turning away to reach for plates from the cupboard.
Breakfast passes in conversation about the farrier visiting in the afternoon -- some horses are due for new shoes -- between bites of food. Toshi disappears out the back door to start the rest of his day and you load dishes into the dishwasher. It grumbles to life after a swift kick to the bottom left corner. You’ll have to call the plumber before the weekend.
You’re feeling halfway back to yourself again when you settle into your creaky wooden office chair. It’s nearly the end of the month, which means today is for paying bills and making calls. It’s not nearly as much of a task as it was when you first took over the business side of the farm. Then, you’d had to wade through fifty years of an unintelligible filing system and re-negotiate deals that Wakatoshi’s grandparents had made just as long ago. You’ve always had a way with numbers and a sense for business; it’s the local politics that gave you trouble. People this far into farming country simply don’t trust outsiders, no matter if they’re married to the local golden boy.
Wakatoshi says it had been the same for his father, coming in as an outsider and marrying the beloved daughter of a beloved family. That’s why he’d left, when Toshi was just a kid, never having managed to really feel at home in the community or on the farm.
“But he didn’t have the advantage of your smile,” he’d joked, poking the corner of your mouth gently as you lay in bed late one night a couple of weeks after your wedding.
You’d giggled, swatting his hand away and burying your face into his broad chest. “Do you really think they’ll like me?” you asked in a small voice after a quiet moment.
“They’ll love you. Just like I do.”
You wouldn’t quite say they love you, but the town has at least grown to tolerate you after you’d asserted yourself into their daily lives. Miss Betty at the feed store still doesn’t give you a discount on grain like she had your mother-in-law, and Mary Fletcher still calls you a gold digger behind your back. But at least you’ve made good enough friends with her cousin Amber, who boards her horse in your stables and comes by almost every weekend, to hear about it.
You begin to sweat as the summer announces that it’s still here in the late morning and turn on the rotating fan in an effort to stay cool. The dial of the old rotary phone whirs under your fingertips as you call up the bank, one bare foot bouncing in the air where your leg dangles over the armrest of your chair and receiver cradled to your ear.
It’s a tedious conversation with Laurie, the one and only bank teller, whose daughter is going off to college in just a couple of weeks, that carries you over into lunchtime. You eventually manage to steer her in the direction of the purpose of your call, learning, amidst tidbits about her daughter’s roommate and her son’s soccer tryouts, that your check to the vet had bounced because of an error on the bank’s end. Thank God.
“Shit, that woman can talk,” you breathe when the receiver is safely in its cradle, and Laurie won’t threaten to wash out your mouth with soap for using foul language.
With a deep exhale, you allow your head to fall onto the back of the chair, languishing in the buzzing heat. For the millionth time this summer, you think back to your tiny city apartment, with its shitty water pressure and shitty commute and heavenly air conditioning. What you wouldn’t give….
Well, you wouldn’t give up Wakatoshi, for one.
And you’d had that, with him. You fit him into your tiny shower, washing each other’s bodies and then fucking on the bathroom counter when he couldn’t figure out how to finagle his limbs to fit. He kissed you every morning before work, pressing a packed lunch into your hands.
He proposed under your favorite oak tree in the park at peak foliage, asking you to marry him and move back to his home. You said yes.
You meant it.
But, God. This heat.
The afternoon drags you down, oppressive and lingering, and you find yourself incapable of thinking anymore.
You pass Wakatoshi on your way across the driveway and give him a brief wave, your ring of keys hanging off your middle finger.
“I’ll be back for dinner,” you call as he takes off his hat and runs his fingers through his sweaty hair.
He watches the way your legs propel you up into the elevated cab of his truck, loaded with some buzzing anxiety to move, even through this thick air.
“Okay,” he says.
The first summer you knew Wakatoshi, he invited you to visit home with him for a week. You weren’t together yet, still dancing on the periphery of a relationship with that youthful arrogance of those barely touching adulthood. Halfway through the six-hour drive from the city, he pulled over at a farmstand and bought peaches and lemonade. You ate them in the bed of his truck parked under a maple tree, boughs flush with green and peach juice slipping down your chin.
These grocery store peaches aren’t quite as tender -- you’re just too far North to get them really fresh -- but they’ll do. Still, you worry they’ll bruise as you set the paper grocery bag on the passenger seat next to the bakery box already there. You stand there for a second dumbly, trying to think of a better way to pack them in among your other groceries so they won’t bump around, until the afternoon sun has sunk into the top of your head so it feels like your brain is melting to the inside of your skull. Feeling a little foolish, but otherwise at a loss, you buckle the grocery bag and the box into the seat.
That makes you grin to yourself and snort a giggle as you slam the passenger door and circle around to the other side of the truck. The engine turns and complains for a second before giving in.
Sometimes this is all you need to put yourself back in your body. This little ritual of grocery shopping by yourself -- driving with the music turned up, reading ingredient labels, watching the deli counter guy slice half a pound of provolone. That mundanity, that routine of an adult woman who buys her own groceries, puts everything else in perspective.
You’re here because you want to be. Because you chose to be.
You come to a decision.
Wakatoshi doesn’t pick up the phone when you call on your way out of town, but that’s to be expected. This time of day, he’s most likely out with the horses, and cell reception gives out only a quarter-mile into the pastures. The call goes to voicemail, and you smile to yourself as his recorded voice instructs you to please leave a message. The tone beeps.
“Hey, I’m headed home now. I’ll be there in, uh, about fifteen? Anyway, meet me down at the pond for dinner. Maybe… six-thirty? I thought we’d do something a little special. Okay, I love you!”
The pond is at the East edge of the property, fed by a brook that bubbles out of the foothills. On the side opposite of where the horse pastures end, there is a willow tree that stretches and drapes down to trace the surface of the water. It is under that willow tree that you unpack your picnic basket, pouring white wine into thermos mugs as the low sun streaks through branches.
The heat of the day is finally breaking, giving way to a cacophony of peeper frogs that you can normally only hear distantly in the house. Here, it fills your mind and allows you to think of nothing else but watching the distant silhouette of your husband crossing the pasture towards you. He’s backlit, long shadow reaching across the fence long before he does. You watch him walk in an easy, rolling gait through long grass, watch him hop the fence like he was born for it.
And he was, you remind yourself. He was born for these wide spaces and nature smells. Where you must find space for yourself in the uninhabited corners of the farm (the office, the Eastern edge, the kitchen), he fills the rest as naturally as water fills the pond.
He says your name at the edge of the willow tree, ducking under a bough.
“Hello, love,” you say and smile and pat the blanket next to where you’re sitting.
Your husband sits, folding his legs under him like a little kid. It makes your heart feel a little tender as you tuck yourself into his side and explain your meal: sandwiches and fruit, cherry pie and wine for dessert. He thanks you simply, bending down to kiss you in that slow way that caught you like honey in a trap that first night in front of your apartment building, all those years ago. He tastes like vanilla chapstick.
You eat. Wakatoshi tells you about his day. About the farrier's visit and fixing a leak in the chicken coop’s roof.
“Wakatoshi,” you say, leaning forward to pick at the grass as he works the stone out of a peach with his pocket knife. He hums, deft in his work but listening. “What would you say about having a baby?”
He makes a sharp noise of pain and you look over, wide-eyed, to see he’s sliced clean through the peach and into his own palm. The blood wells before your eyes, mixing with peach juice as you gasp and lunge for the paper napkins in the basket.
“You have to be more careful! What if you seriously--”
“Yes,” he cuts you off as you’re taking his hand in both of yours, setting the fruit and knife aside, and wadding up the napkins to stop the bleeding.
“What?”
“I’d say yes to having a baby.” He’s looking right at you with those hazel eyes, the expression in them so close to reverence it stuns you.
“Oh,” you breathe, staring straight back.
At that exact moment, the setting sun glows orange at the top of the pasture hill, streaking Wakatoshi’s cheek with gold through the willow branches. All the breath is gone from you, your head gone light from having this question you’ve mulled over for weeks answered so simply.
His uninjured hand finds your cheek, tucks stray hair away from your face.
“Are you asking? Do you want to have a baby?”
“I-- Yes. I’m asking.”
He smiles, soft as the cattails that sway at the opposite edge of the pond, and leans in to meet your lips with his. You let yourself sink into it for a moment, unable to stop smiling against his mouth, but pull away to further inspect the slice across his palm. He lets you, his fingers curled gently inward while you dab away blood and rub a gentle thumb on his wrist, but his gaze never wavers from your face. It’s intense-- almost like how it was when you first knew him, but with an undercurrent of affection that makes your chest warm.
“It doesn’t look too deep,” you conclude, folding up some clean napkins and pressing them to the wound. “But we should clean it--”
“It can wait.”
“But it could still get infected, what if--”
“It can wait,” he interrupts again, insisting with gentle obstinance. The next words are low in his chest. “I can’t.”
You don’t get back to the house until late, August constellations suspended thickly overhead. It’s like you’re kids again and the barn cat is your mother, watching disapprovingly from her perch on the porch railing as you sneak in after curfew, wine-tipsy and elated. Your husband crowds in the door after you, handsy even after you’ve done nothing but touch each other all evening. You pull him into the kitchen and make him wash his wound thoroughly, your thumbs rubbing into the meat of his palm.
“I hope our daughter has your eyes,” he says. He’s close, his own eyes finding yours in the almost-dark.
“A daughter, huh?”
“A daughter. She’ll be just like you.”
“And what am I like?” you ask, coy, looking up at him through your lashes in the starlight streaming in the window.
Wakatoshi leans forward gently, resting his brow on yours. “You are,” he swallows thickly, eyes fluttering closed, “you are the world.”
Your day ends nothing like it began. Your day ends with utter surety of your place in this house, in this town, in Wakatoshi’s arms. The day ends and you feel completely yourself again, cradled in the gently rolling hills of the life you’ve chosen.
Pairing/setting: Pro-hero!Bakugou Katsuki x Fem!Reader
Summary: As he re-learns the joys of loving you, Katsuki also learns how to help you back on your own feet when you need it.
Word Count: 1.4k
Warnings: reader has depression and self esteem issues, panic attack, fluffy comfort
AN: So, this is a sort of "in the aftermath" look at the relationship in you feel love in the sodium, from Katsuki's perspective. Honestly, I don't know what hit me last night but it just plopped down onto the paper from my brainsicle and I've decided it's worthy of seeing the light of day. Plus, it has the @katsupeach seal of approval and I trust Emme's brain much farther than I trust my own<33 As always, don't be afraid to come say hi in my inbox or DMs or comments, I always love when y'all do that:D Be kind to yourselves and others. ~valkyrie
prequel: you feel love in the sodium
Two weeks after moving back into your apartment, Katsuki comes home from the night shift to find you crying at the kitchen table. You don’t hear him come in -- don’t pick your head up out of your hands or stop sobbing as he hastily toes out of his boots and comes to your side.
“Hey, what’s up?” He’d been tired after a long shift, eyes drooping on the elevator ride up to your floor, but now his heart is pumping like he’s been doing rounds boxing with Kirishima. His hand clamps firmly around your forearm, to ground himself as much to ground you.
You jolt in your seat as he touches you, letting out a shocked hiccup that cuts off your tears.
“Oh, god,” you breathe. “Is it really that late? I’m sorry, I didn’t want--”
“You’re sorry? Fuck being sorry, what’s wrong?” His tone is maybe a little too sharp, but the way his stomach is flush with anxiety over your blotchy and wet face demands answers.
“I didn’t want--” you start, but have to stutter back more tears trembling on your lashes. “I didn’t want you to see, but I just-- I just-- shit--”
You can’t get a decent breath. Katsuki can see your chest rising too shallowly and sporadically. His hand leaves your arm to twist in your fingers and he finally lowers himself to sit at the table from where he’d been leaning over you.
“Breathe.” The command leaves as gently as he can make it from his mouth. “Don’t rush it.”
You nod, gripping his hand tight and focusing on where his eyes are boring into yours. Painstakingly, he waits as your lungs regulate and start working normally again. Your fingertips are chilly against his sweaty palm.
When your throat seems to unstick itself, you try again.
“I just really hate myself tonight.”
Your words are spoken too softly for their meaning. Katsuki’s never heard something so violent said with such careful reverence. The first response that threatens to pass his lips is altogether too aggressive, and the second would be entirely unhelpful. Four or five possibilities cycle through his mind before one his anger management counselor would deem appropriate pops up.
“Why?”
It’s a simple question, but one he would rather slice his own toe off than know the answer to. He doesn’t want to know why you hate yourself tonight, doesn’t want to hear and dissect the bullshit lies your depression is feeding you to make you feel this way.
But he thinks this is how he gets through without making you shut him out entirely.
Your lips twitch into a smile briefly -- like some part of you is happy to elaborate on how you suck -- before you answer him.
“Because I’m a fat, worthless college dropout with no prospects whose pathetic cries for attention earned her a pity boyfriend who has better things to do than pick her up off the floor every other day. Because I’m an awful, stupid person who does selfish things that hurt the people around her. Because I--” you interrupt yourself with a broken half-sob, half-laugh, and gesture with your free hand to the kitchen floor behind Katsuki. “Because I broke the fucking Pyrex.”
Katsuki follows your gesture, turning to see a mess of soapy water and glass all over the kitchen tile. For a moment, he just stares at it. Your words scatter through his mind until they rearrange themselves into something decipherable.
“You hate yourself,” he turns back to see you biting your lip, “because you broke the fucking Pyrex.”
“Yeah,” you say, looking for all the world like you expect him to start yelling. You blink at each other for a moment, until he bursts out with--
“I fuckin’ hate Pyrex!” He does yell it, but it shocks you so much that you stop looking so pathetic and start looking confused. “Shitty fuckin’ company,” he continues, finally letting go of your hand and standing up. “Says it’s shatter-proof, but look at this shit! Fuckin’ shattered.” He points at the mess, then pins you with the most deadpan face he can manage. “We should sue.”
“Katsuki.” You sniff and run a hand under your dripping nose. “Don’t be sarcastic.”
“I’m not, we should sue for emotional damages. Look at you.” Now, he steps closer into your space and chuffs a finger under your chin. “You’re distraught over-- what? A couple hundred yen of glass? We’ll suck the sons of bitches dry.”
It takes a second, but Katsuki sees the exact moment when the layer of melancholy over your face slips enough to allow clarity.
“Ha,” you laugh tonelessly. “You’re funny.”
“I’m a goddamn comedian. But before we sue a kitchenware company, let’s clean up their shitty trash and discuss more in-depth why my beautiful, intelligent girlfriend hates herself.”
Together, you clean up the glass and mop up the water. Katsuki finishes the half-done dishes in the sink while you go change out of wet pajamas. As the sunrise starts to creep in through the windows, turning your living room grey and breathing into Katsuki a new understanding of exhaustion, you cuddle on the couch and try to believe him when he tells you your brain is a dirty, filthy liar.
When he tells you that you’ve been his first choice since he was seventeen. When he reminds you that you did get your undergrad degree and that he’ll support you when and if you decide to go back to school. When he tucks his body into the curves of you and whispers worship into your skin.
It’s not the last time Katsuki comes home only to have to stack you back onto your feet. He gets better at it, learning when to pry and when to cradle. Learns how to tell you he needs a break in a way that won’t make you feel like a burden. As he re-learns the joys of loving you, he comes to view knowing this side of you as a privilege. To know the whole of you is to be trusted, to be known in return. To know you won’t think he’s weak for breaking down when his own shit gets too heavy.
Nonetheless, it’s not an easy thing to tell if the two of you will be okay. Not for a while, at least. There are moments when he can’t reach you, when he can’t find the right avenue in and becomes destructively frantic to keep you from slipping too far.
You try to break up with him again, once:
“I don’t want this anymore.”
“Bullshit, you don’t want it.”
“You don’t get to tell me--”
“Do you still love me?”
“I--”
“Well? Say it to my face, if you don’t.”
“I can’t--”
“Yeah. ‘Cause, you do. You do love me.”
“Sometimes, that’s not enough--”
“It’s enough for me. I love you. Let me love you.”
“Katsuki.”
“Baby. What’s this really about?”
And there are moments when he’s so manically in love he doesn’t feel real. When it’s just the two of you riding on a speed train through the countryside on the way home from a much-needed vacation. You lean your head into his neck and read aloud from your book, and he tries to keep his head from floating to the top of the train car.
And there’s a moment when you’re standing in the kitchen of your stupid, shitty apartment scrubbing brand new glass measuring cups and humming an indistinct tune that Katsuki feels the gravity of the afternoon he came back to you so fully he can’t breathe. One more day, another hour, if he’d ignored Izuku’s calls, and he wouldn’t have you. You might’ve been gone, too far for him or anyone to reach.
You pause in your humming and place a dish in the drying rack.
“What’s with the face?” Your voice, so blissfully normal and real against the storm in his chest, sends goosebumps across his skin.
“Fuck you,” he says, voice cracking with heatless emotion. “I can’t look at my hot girlfriend?”
That afternoon, he does a lot more than just look at you.
ochaco and izuku start dating in high school. it just makes sense, right? they’re perfect for each other. sweet, adoring izuku and sweet, adoring ochaco with their cheeks and their hair and their “you can do it with the power of friendship!”
and don’t they always say your partner should be your best friend? ochaco and izuku are best friends! so it just makes sense!
deku and uravity make their debut as pro-heroes just months after graduating. the fans love them. and I mean, LOVE them. they’re the darlings of japan, fresh faced, young, high school sweethearts, inspiring role models. they’re attached at the hip— everywhere you see deku Detroit-smashing a villain in the face, uravity’s not too far behind, holding up an entire fucking building in the wake of the fight’s destruction. when uravity walks the red carpet, draped in silk and gold and making hearts at the cameras, deku’s two steps behind her blushing and saying “I’m just so lucky!” every time someone so much as breathes in his direction.
and there’s this one fight where a villain almost gets the better of deku. you can see it in the footage aired on tv for weeks afterward: he’s falling through the air, curls wild and suit torn in an ugly gash across his back and body eerily limp. the villain (some wannabe with a fucked up mutation quirk) is closing in on him, too caught up in the glory of killing japan’s national treasure to notice the blur of concrete hurtling towards him until he’s already down. the camera pans quickly to uravity, zooming in and readjusting focus for a second until you can make her out, running in a dead sprint to meet deku before he hits the ground. her mask shields most of her face, but you can just hear her screaming, an ugly, desperate wordless cry as she leaps off the third story of a half-destroyed building and crashes into him mid-air. they tumble for a second in sickening somersaults until she gets control and can lower them safely to the ground. the camera follows them all the way, and catches how deku is splayed stomach-down on the ground, halfway in uravity’s lap, and the way her hands shake as she removes her helmet and ducks low to him.
in following interviews, they’re asked about that moment with a disturbing reverence.
“and uravity, what did you feel in that moment when the two of you were finally safe on the ground?”
“well, I just remember thinking, I just almost lost my best friend. what if I hadn’t been there, you know? I almost lost my b-best friend—“
Pairing/setting: Ushijima Wakatoshi x Fem!Reader, college!AU
Summary: Reserved biology student Ushijima finds himself falling in love when you, an adorably disorganized art student, wander into the greenhouse.
Word Count: 3.4k
Warnings: fluff, kissing
AN: Hi!! So, the inspiration for this one sprang from the beautiful, sexi brain of Emme ( @doinmybesthere ) way back in MARCH ahem anyway, it's done! I hope it's just as soft and intimate as you envisioned<33 Also, big shoutout to my beautiful friends Arobi ( @daqueenobooty ) and Cee ( @spacelabrathor ) for being wonderful betas and giving me such kind comments:) I hope you enjoy, and as always don't be shy about leaving comments or coming to chat! Be kind to yourselves and others. ~valkyrie
p.s. check out this amazing art that @/54prowl made of plant boy ushi!! :D
Plants don’t talk back, Ushijima learned as a toddler. He’d babble to them in nonsensical phrases as his mother worked in the garden, and they’d only sway in the wind and listen, waxy under his chubby fingers.
A volleyball doesn’t talk back, either, not even through its bounces and echoes on hands and hard surfaces. It doesn’t listen as easily as plants, but can be herded and shaped like putty into a winning thing if you touch it right. This, Ushijima learned at his father’s hand and carried with him through childhood and adolescence.
The joy and puzzlement of you is that you do both. You listen so intently and openly with your steady eyes and soft body as the words pour out of him. And then, you reply. With your clear voice and new perspective, you offer something new. You offer companionship.
It was the second week of spring semester that you wandered into the greenhouse, eyes lit by the sun and sketchbook under one arm. Ushijima was repotting a large fern, dirt up to his elbows as he kneeled on the floor. He barely gave you a second glance, preoccupied with nestling the plant’s root system comfortably.
You settled a short distance away, crossing your legs to sit on the tile floor in front of an orange tree to sketch its still-closed flower buds with charcoal pencils. He kept working as you did, the sun sliding across glass, shadows shifting into the early evening of winter. When the sun was threatening to set over the city skyline — even with the greenhouse where it sits on the roof of the biology building — he turned to tell you he was closing up, only to find you gone. In your place, sitting on the wooden table that held newly planted basil and sage, was a drawing.
It was a single branch, detailed in shades of charcoal down to the last dewdrop. At the bottom, looping handwriting scrawled, “thank you for the peace.”
That night, he tacked it up above his desk in his dorm next to the postcard from Tendō and hoped you’d come back.
And you do, a couple of days later, on a Saturday. He looks up from where he’s filling in the logbook, this time, catching your gaze and holding it for a moment before you break away to survey the room. Today, he thinks you looked breathtaking. You’re wearing a long, flowing skirt and a sweater that makes him want to feel how soft it is, and how soft you are in it, and by the time his brain catches up with his thoughts, he’s been staring too long and your eyes have wandered back to him. It’s raining, today — it never really snows in this city, he’s learned — and shadowy droplets play across your face as they drip down the greenhouse’s arched glass ceiling, highlighting the curve of your cheekbone and making your eyes glow softly.
He clears his throat and looks back to the thick spiral-bound book on the table before him. Sometimes, when he meets people for the first time, he knows he can come across as intimidating. That worked out for him in high school and on the volleyball court, but in his adulthood, it’s been more of a hindrance than a help. It makes it… difficult to make friends here, where he doesn’t already know anyone.
And the last thing he wants is to scare you away. The last thing he wants is to break the peace you’ve apparently found here.
Which is why he barely dares to breathe when he looks up to find you approaching him where he’s perched on a sturdy wooden stool.
“Hi,” you smile and lilt, and god if it isn’t the most beautiful word Ushijima’s ever heard, if it isn’t the prettiest smile he’s seen.
He doesn’t respond, doesn’t want to scare you away.
“Uhm,” you start again, when the silence makes it clear he’s waiting for you to speak, “I have an art assignment,” you start digging around in your shoulder bag as you speak, “to draw a, um, what’s it called?”
“I don’t know.”
You pause in your rifling and pin him with such a sunny smile it makes his knee start bouncing. And you laugh, too, which officially replaces your “hi” as the most beautiful sound in the world.
“Ha, you’re funny,” you resume digging, “it was um, pretty leafy and... tropical, I think? Oh! Here.” Triumphantly, you produce a wrinkled paper from your bag. It’s the first imperfect thing Ushijima’s found out about you, that you’re shit at keeping your belongings organized, and he files it away for later reference. You hold the paper in front of your face and squint slightly to read in the shifting light. “Canna indica.”
Canna indica, native to tropical climates, notable as a minor food crop for South American Native populations for thousands of years.
“And I was told that you have it, here, in the greenhouse.”
Ushijima nods and finds himself relieved that this is what you’re asking him. Plants, he can do.
“We do. Would you like me to show you?”
“Yes, please,” you also sound relieved, like he’s provided the solution to every problem you’ve ever had.
He unfolds himself from the stool, setting down his pen as he goes. You take a step back and look up at him mildly, as though you hadn’t realized quite how huge he is.
“This way,” he indicates, leading you deeper into the maze that is the biology department’s greenhouse. The winding path back to the tropical room gives him a moment to sink back into the earthy peace of being here, even if now there’s someone sharing that peace.
The temperature change from the warm main greenhouse to the balmy tropical room prompts Ushijima to shed his flannel outer layer, hanging it on the nail hammered by the door while you step in behind him.
“Whew,” you exhale, shrugging off your soft cardigan as well, “it’s hot in here.”
Ushijima hums in agreement and tries not to look too hard at the patch of skin revealed by your cropped tank top. Canna indica isn’t too far into the room, so he just gently moves past draping leaves and ceramic pots.
“Here,” he stops, holding back leaves for you. He stops breathing again when you duck under his arm and end up so close in the narrow aisle that he can smell your shampoo. The moment passes, and he can breathe again when you breeze past him and squat down to peer at the bright, waxy red leaves of your subject.
“Beautiful,” you murmur, and he silently agrees.
You’re leaning so close to the plant he’s afraid you might topple over when you make a noise of realization and sit back on your butt to rifle through your bag once again. Ushijima knows he should probably leave you to it, but he’s glad he waited just an extra minute when you pull out a pair of glasses and pop them on your face. Adorably.
“That’s better.” You’re looking back at canna indica, now, at a normal distance.
He’s figured you’ve forgotten he’s there when you start to pull out pastels from your seemingly bottomless bag, so he turns to leave you.
A soft, “hey,” calls him back to you, however, and he’s met by your face glowing eerily in the shifting rain-light. “Thank you for your help.”
“You’re welcome.”
When he locks up that afternoon, he finds another charcoal drawing waiting for him on the table near the door, this time of his favorite agapanthus africanus. No note, this time, but he attaches all the sounds he heard from you today in its place. He also finds your cardigan forgotten next to where you were sitting and carefully folds it for when you come back.
The drawing joins the orange branch on his wall-- an odd starter garden, he thinks, but all the more precious because it came from you.
The next time he sees you isn’t in the greenhouse, but instead at a cafe a couple of blocks away, two weeks later. He’s walking past, gym bag slung over his shoulder, when he hears your laugh ring out across the outdoor seating area. His eyes find you, head tipped back in sending peals of mirth into the lively spring air. It’s the first truly warm day of the season, though you and your companion are the only patrons sitting outside, and the sun catches on your glasses sat atop your head.
Your friend says something apparently hilarious, because your giggles redouble, and an honest-to-god snort pushes out of your nose. Ushijima catalogues it in his ever-growing list of sounds you make, and pauses at the crosswalk, halfway turned back to keep one eye on you and one on the light. If you were alone, he might’ve approached you and told you that he still has your sweater in the greenhouse, waiting on a shelf between succulents, but he doesn’t want to interrupt your— date?
He isn’t sure, but the person sat there with you seems like someone you might date. Clearly also an art student, judging by the carefully disheveled blue hair and combat boots. Are you the type to date someone with blue hair? Unlikely, he decides. You seem too… bright. Too floaty to be so concerned with looking like you don’t care how you look.
Ushijima’s still debating whether you find blue hair attractive when the crosswalk light begins its countdown and he starts across the street. And he almost makes it all the way across, too, when a voice calls—
“Wait! Hey!”
He turns partially because it sounds urgent enough that it might be an emergency, and his grandmother would roll in her grave if he remained a bystander to some horrific accident. But it’s you, standing up from your seat and waving him back over. He glances at the crosswalk countdown, which lights up red as it ticks from four to three, then turns and jogs back towards you, waving a hand apologetically to the cars waiting at the light. You meet him at the metal fence around the cafe seating area, and now that you’re standing, he can see you’re wearing a yellow sundress that cuts off at your calves and drapes over your hips like the fabric was spun from pure light.
“Hello.” Ushijima talks first this time because if he doesn’t refocus his brain on something else he knows he won’t be able to stop staring.
“Hi! Sorry about that, uh, and I’m sure you have places to be, but, um, did I leave my cardigan at the greenhouse? I can’t find it, and I know I have a tendency to forget things, so,” you finish with a laugh, one hand fiddling with the rings on the other.
“Yes, you did. I put it on a shelf in case you came back.”
“Oh! That’s great!” You sound relieved, and Ushijima’s suddenly very grateful he didn’t take it down to the bio department’s lost and found like they’re technically supposed to. “Is there maybe a time I can come pick it up? When you’ll be there?”
“I’ll be there all day tomorrow, opening at nine.”
He can’t tell if he sounds a little too eager, and he’s about to soften his meaning by telling you that they’re open today, too, and anyone can hand you a sweater, but you’re already smiling big and sunny and telling him,
“I’ll see you at nine, then. Do you drink coffee?”
He doesn’t; his coaches have always told him that caffeine can only harm his athletic performance.
“Yes, I do.”
“Then I’ll see you at nine, with coffee.”
Ushijima says goodbye and turns to wait at the crosswalk again while you swirl your way back to your seat and pick up your conversation with your friend. He can feel two pairs of eyes on him as he crosses the street, red numbers blinking down from ten, and can’t help but turn to look back as he steps onto the opposite sidewalk. Where your friend tactfully looks down into their cup of tea, you catch his eye with yours and wave. He lifts his hand halfway in a goodbye before an eighteen-wheeler stops at the intersection and blocks you from him.
Ushijima’s normal work attire is typical of an average agricultural biology student accustomed to being up to their elbows in dirt every day: practical cargo shorts, dirt-stained but sturdy sneakers, a “plant dad” t-shirt (a gift from Tendō when they’d said their goodbyes and gone away to college), and a soft cotton flannel. He’s usually satisfied with this for his shift at the greenhouse, expecting to be mud-covered at least up to his wrists by the end of the day.
But today… Today, he pauses in the dorm bathroom to scrub his face raw, and he clips and shapes his nails like his mother used to do for him every Saturday. He normally only does it before tournaments, now, and it calms his nerves to feel prepared for a Big Event, even if that event is only handing you your gently pilled cashmere cardigan and receiving a coffee he won’t drink in return.
The air that morning is heady with spring, earthy and alive, reminding Ushijima of lying beneath the hedge along his mother’s garden to pass notes to the girl next door. He was seven and she was nine, so naturally she knew everything he didn’t. She knew about the planets and why worms live in dirt and how to spell the word “catastrophe,” and Ushijima would’ve bet his whole weekly allowance that she was the coolest person in the world, if he knew what betting was. (She did, and once bet him half an ice cream sandwich that he couldn’t climb the oak tree in his backyard all the way to the top. He did, and then twisted his ankle on the way down, and she brought him an ice cream sandwich every day for a week as an apology.) She was all shiny, long black hair and dark eyes and fast words, nothing like the spring blooming around him.
You, on the other hand, are exactly the spring.
He stops at his favorite pastry place on the way to work to pick up two fresh cream donuts. The line is just dwindling from the height of the morning rush, so he manages to make it to the biology building just five minutes before he normally does.
Morning sun sends rainbows through the automatic misting spray as Ushijima unlocks the greenhouse door, letting a burst of humidity out into the rest of the building. The spiral-bound log book is there on the desk, a thick parchment bookmark sticking out from where whoever closed last night marked the page.
Ushijima places his backpack and pastry bag on the desk and reaches to hang his key on its hook just when there’s a knock on the door.
“I know I’m early,” you start, edging your way into the room with a paper coffee cup in each hand. “But I saw it was already open, so...”
Ushijima smiles despite himself. In their second year Oikawa Tooru had told him that his smiles can be unnerving, but he can’t help it right now. You look so lovely today, in jeans and a silky tank top, with a certain morning tenderness in the way you hold yourself.
“It’s okay, come in. I just need to check the temperature controls and I’ll be done opening.”
“Sounds good,” you reply, smiling back.
As he makes his way to the temp controls on the Southern wall, you perch on the wooden stool and set down the coffee.
With his back turned to you for a moment, you allow yourself to slouch, planting two hands on the table and stretching your shoulders with a sigh. It’s earlier than you normally get out of bed, let alone actually leave your apartment, and you can already feel a quiet exhaustion setting into your bones.
But this is worth it, you remind yourself. Worth it to talk to the beautiful boy with broad shoulders and gentle hands.
He’d been unexpected. That first day in the greenhouse, you’d sat down with the intention to calm down from a tedious school day and nothing more. Your hands had moved of their own volition on that second drawing of the orange branch, scribbling out a hasty message that made your cheeks burn. But he was so present that day, in the corner of your eye but staying respectfully out of your space. And you’re not blind -- you saw the muscles under his shirt as he lifted an entire small tree in its pot. You saw the startling shade of green his eyes took on in the sun. You saw it all, and it drew you back, and now you’re here.
When he joins you back at the table, leaning back against it to face you, you stick out your hand and offer your name.
He looks at it for a moment, then back at you.
“I just, uh, realized we never properly introduced ourselves,” you explain, with a hesitant smile.
He smiles again and your heart thuds, then his big hand engulfs yours and he shakes it firmly.
“Wakatoshi. It’s nice to meet you.”
You learn in the following weeks of coming to the greenhouse that Wakatoshi doesn’t like coffee. But he does like tea and donuts, so that’s what you bring him on the mornings you can find it in you to wake up before nine. You sit with him in the greenhouse, talking and listening as he records data and waters plants and sits next to you on the quilt you’ve fallen into the habit of bringing. The occasional professor or student comes through, and you get to watch Wakatoshi show off his brains when he leaves you to help them.
There are several things you learn about him over those weeks. Number one: he never minces words. Two: he prefers grapefruit chapstick over anything else. And three: he kisses like it’s his last day on Earth.
You discover number three late one night when you decide to drop by after class, shooting him a text to make sure he’s still there. Today he’s closing instead of opening, and you missed spending your morning with him.
The city lights cast a different kind of glow at this time of night. They add a distance to everything that’s palpable as you drop your bag by the door.
“Toshi, are you here-- oh, hi.” You turn the corner to find him closing the door to the supply closet.
His cheekbones are highlighted briefly by a billboard outside flashing red.
“You should get some sleep.”
“I’m not tired. And I wanted to see you.”
“You wanted to see me?”
He takes a step towards you and you have to tilt your head back slightly to keep your eyes on his. They’re leaf green and unreadable.
“Yeah, uh,” you wet your lips with your tongue, “is that okay?”
“Yes.” He pauses for a long time, then, watching you carefully in the neon glow of the exit sign. His hand shakes as it reaches up to push your glasses from your face onto your head.
Without them, he looks fuzzy and soft around the edges.
He says, “Can I kiss you?” and it feels like there’s a bird trapped in your ribcage.
“Yes. Kiss me.”
Wakatoshi kisses nothing like you expected, all tongues and teeth and heavy fingers in the dip of your waist. He growls when you gasp and mewl against him, sucking on your lower lip as your hands find purchase in his shirt. He kisses you so absolutely breathless that you think you might pass out. Your knees buckle and you pull away, gasping with your eyes closed for a moment until you come back to yourself.
“Are you alright, little one?”
The endearment makes your cheeks flush with heat and your eyes snap open.
“Yes, I’m alright. Please do it again.”
And so he does it again, and again, and again until you find yourself bringing him home with you on the last bus that goes towards your neighborhood. He’s standing in the aisle, one hand wrapped around a pole and the other wound around you, who’s standing in front of him. He keeps you steady as the bus rounds a corner.
That night, you bring the peace of the greenhouse into your home, and the only thing you find yourself wishing for is that it never leaves.
Pairing/setting: Ushijima Wakatoshi x Female!Team Manager!Reader, canonverse in their third year at Shiratorizawa (so, they’re both 18)
Summary: When Ushijima spikes a ball into your face, the least he can do is take you to the nurse. And the hospital. ...And fend off your gross ex-boyfriend?
Word Count: 5.5k
Warnings: face injury, concussion, fluff, kissing, toxic ex-boyfriend, teensiest threat of violence
AN: Hello my lovelies, have some fluffy Ushiwaka for your Wednesday evening! I have to admit I’m not entirely satisfied with this one, but it’s reaching the point where I might never be, so you get it now:) BIG BIG BIG thanks to my editors who I would literally commit treason for, @ghostlightprincess, @doinmybesthere, and @ackermans-freedom-inc, and to the lovely friends over at Haikyuu HQ for their comments and encouragements!! PLEASE PLEASE feel free to drop into my inbox (DMs or asks!!) to let me know what you think. Be kind to yourselves and others. ~valkyrie
The volleyball smacking you directly in the face isn’t the worst thing that happened today, but it is the most painful, in the literal sense. The impact sends you tripping backward to land directly on your ass on the hardwood floor of the gym, as you bring both hands to your face instinctually.
“Oh shit, are you okay?” Akakura jogs over from where he’d been keeping score, leaning down with hands on his knees to peer at you.
The rest of the gym falls silent, shoes squeaking to a stop and the offending ball’s bounce echoing to stillness.
“Ow,” squeaks out from between your lips as your eyes screw shut to keep from crying. You feel hot, wet blood begin to drip from your nose and through your fingers and down your chin.
The silence is broken when Tendō begins to crack up, wheezing and cackling from across the court. “Ushi-Ushiwaka, look what your spike did to our poor pretty manager! You big brute!” he descends further into a fit of giggles as Coach Saitō strides over from the bench and crouches down next to you.
“Akakura, go get the first aid bag,” he instructs, then directs his attention to you, putting a stabilizing hand on your shoulder. “You alright? That was a direct spike to the face, no wonder you’re bleeding.”
“Yeah, I, um,” you open your watery eyes and tilt your head back like your mom always told you to do with a nosebleed. Your voice is nasally and you’re breathing through your mouth. “I should go to the nurse, right?”
He nods. “Make sure they check you for a concussion, too. I’ll get someone to go with you. Here,” he looks out to the players, who have started to drift in your direction, looking concerned. Except for Tendō, who’s wiping away tears of mirth as he hangs off Ushijima’s shoulder. “Yunohama, you can take her—”
“I’ll take her.” It’s Ushijima who interrupts, shrugging off his best friend and stepping forward. “It’s my fault, I was overzealous.”
“Oh, you don’t have to—” you begin to wave him off, turning to Akakura who’s handing you gauze to stop the bleeding, but he interrupts you again in that stoic bass of his.
“I insist.”
And so it’s decided. Akakura helps you staunch the bleeding, then hands you wipes to clean up your hands. All the while, you feel Ushijima looming over the pair of you on the floor as Coach Saitō tells the rest of the team to quit gawking and start serving drills. It’s not that you don’t like the team captain; as the manager, you’ve spent countless hours in his company over the last three years and have grown to know him pretty well. It’s just that, well... he never quite ceases to be intimidating, and he did just spike a ball into your face.
When you’re sufficiently cleaned up, you start to fold your legs under you to stand up on your own, but Ushijima’s already there, gripping your waist in his big hands and helping you up.
“Thank you,” you murmur when you’re on your own two feet, then sway dangerously when you’re hit with a wave of dizziness.
“Whoah,” Coach exclaims, reaching out an arm, but Ushijima’s already there again, catching you against his side with an arm around your shoulder.
“I’m okay!”
You’re not okay. You try to take a step, gently pulling away from him, but then the dizziness hits you tenfold and your knees buckle.
When your vision clears, he’s carrying you bridal style out of the gym, carefully maneuvering so that your head doesn’t hit the doorframe.
“Shit, sorry about that, Ushijima.” You pick your head up from his shoulder and tuck your arms to your chest, careful not to touch his.
“Don’t apologize,” he rumbles, glancing down at you with his serious green eyes. “I’m the one who should be apologizing. I’m sorry about that spike.”
“No, no, I wasn’t paying attention,” you wave your hand dismissively. “I’ve been... distracted recently.”
“Agree to disagree.”
As you cross campus, afternoon sun glaring down, you can feel eyes on the pair of you and hear whispers from some people. You understand why. Ushijima’s a big name, even on home turf. Why is he carrying you? And why do you look like you lost a fight with a golf club?
“I, uh, I can walk, you know,” you try, glancing up at him.
He makes a disgruntled sound and adjusts you in his arms. “Don’t be stupid. You just fainted.”
“I didn’t faint, I... passed out. There’s a difference. And don’t call me stupid.” Your tone is defensive, only because your pride is on the line here. This is embarrassing, objectively, being carried through campus so conspicuously. And it’s embarrassing to catch a ball to the face when you should know better.
“If you say so.” He almost sounds indulgent. “You’re still not walking.”
You huff and look away, only to catch a pair of second years sitting under a tree, looking at you and whispering behind their hands. You groan and tilt your head back, massaging a temple. As if the rumors about what happened this morning weren’t enough, now there’ll be... whatever this is.
“Fuck my life.”
“You have a foul mouth,” he comments, pushing open the door to the main administrative building at last.
“It’s part of my charm.”
When you get to the nurse’s office, he still doesn’t put you down, even when you glare at him pointedly. He only blinks down at you and asks you to knock on the door.
It opens, and the nurse takes a long look at your bloodied face before heaving a deep sigh and standing aside to let you in.
“Put her there, Casanova,” she instructs, pointing at the cot with crisp white sheets in the corner.
While she snaps on disposable gloves, Ushijima sets you down gently on the cot, like you’re made of glass. He sits in a chair by the door to wait.
“So what was it?” the nurse begins, plopping down in her rolling desk chair and rolling up to you. “Baseball to the face?”
“Volleyball, actually.” You lean forward so she can start peeling away the gauze plastered to your nose. Your whole head hasn’t stopped rhythmically throbbing, and you close your eyes against the renewed pain in your nose, even though her fingers are practiced and gentle.
“Ah, volleyball.” She glances over her shoulder at Ushijima. “Did he spike it right into your face, or something?”
“Yeah, actually,” you laugh breathlessly. “Not on purpose.”
“I should hope not. Have you experienced any dizziness?”
“Not really—”
“She fainted.”
Your exasperated gaze cuts to Ushijima across the room. He’s staring at you resolutely, unphased. Snitch.
“Hence the carrying?” The nurse’s tone is slightly teasing, but she looks more concerned than before.
“I could’ve walked. He just wouldn’t put me down.”
The last layer of gauze is cautiously peeled away, revealing only a slow trickle of crimson left. The nurse hums, her brow pinching.
“I can’t be entirely sure until the swelling goes down, but it does look broken. If I was a betting woman, I’d say pretty badly.”
“Really?” Your eyes widen, pleading.
She nods. “Sorry, sweetie. I just need to check for a concussion, and then you should call your parents for them to take you to the hospital so you can get it set.”
“Okay.” You slouch dejectedly, risking a glance over at Ushijima, who’s looking dourer by the second. You send him a reassuring smile (even though it makes your nose sting), then look down at your hands in your lap. This is turning out to be a bigger mess than you’d hoped.
The nurse gently tapes more gauze over your nose, infinitely more neatly than you and Akakura had managed to do, then leans back to dispose of her gloves and the old gauze in a trash can.
“Alright, look at my finger,” she holds up a finger in front of you, “and follow it with your eyes.” She moves it up and down, then side to side, then leans forward to look for a size difference in your pupils. “Your pupils are even, which is good, but your eye tracking does worry me a little bit.”
“Do I have a concussion?” God, that would suck. You have so much to do before the next tournament, and there’s no way you’ll get it all done if you have to slow down because of your stupid brain.
“I’m not qualified to diagnose,” she holds up her hands. “But no driving, watching TV, reading, or using your computer or phone until you see a doctor. And you should call your parents now.”
“My, uh, parents are out of town? I’ll just call my doctor and make an appointment.” You rub the polyester of your track pants absentmindedly as you glance at the clock on the wall. “The next bus leaves in twenty minutes, I can—“
Both the nurse and Ushijima speak over you:
“You shouldn’t take the bus by yourself if you’ve been fainting—”
“I’ll take you.”
You both turn to look at Ushijima in surprise. He looks completely serious (like he always does), olive eyes fixed on you.
You let out a long breath and close your eyes against the pounding of your head. “Ushijima, I can’t ask you to do that.”
“You’re not asking.”
You crack your eyes open to stare him down with your tried and true “Tendō, if you do not settle down right now I will tell Coach what exactly happened at training camp last summer” glare. It doesn’t seem to shake him. The nurse looks back and forth between you like she’s watching a particularly exciting volley.
You crack first.
“Fine. But I’m walking this time.”
He nods.
“You crazy kids,” the nurse starts laughing, rolling back to her desk and shaking the mouse so her computer monitor lights up. “Come see me tomorrow if you need forms for class exemption.”
“Okay. Thank you for your help.”
Goshiki comes running up to you from the direction of the volleyball gym when you’re crossing the student parking lot, holding up your school bag.
“Here, you left this,” he pants, holding it out to you and looking slightly queasy at the state of your nose. “Are you, uh, okay?”
You take your bag from him and swing it over your shoulder. “Thank you, Goshiki. I’m really alright, we’re just going to the hospital to make sure I don’t have a concussion.”
His eyebrows raise, looking between you and Ushijima, who’s hovering at your elbow as though he expects you to collapse any second now.
“The hospital! Wow. But, uh,” he turns to address his team captain, “Coach Washijō wants you back at practice, like, five minutes ago.”
“Tell him I’ll be missing the rest of practice. She needs a ride.”
“B-but,” Goshiki stutters, “you can’t possibly expect me to tell Coach that. He’ll skin me!”
Ushijima drops a hand on his junior’s head and gently ruffles his carefully styled hair. “He will not skin you.”
Goshiki looks ready to combust, sputtering and ducking away to smooth down his hair again, but before he can argue further, you lean in conspiratorially.
“Think about it,” you stage whisper, causing his eyes to flick to yours. “Now’s your chance to prove you can be Shiratorizawa’s next Great Ace while this big brute’s busy babysitting me.” You jerk your thumb at Ushijima.
Realization dawns on Goshiki’s face, then he’s nodding while backing away. “Right! I’ll go do that! Good luck with your nose!”
“Attaboy!” you cheer as he turns and jogs away, then wince at the renewed pain in your head it brings.
Ushijima chuckles and starts walking to his car again.
“You always seem to know what to say to get us to do what you want,” he observes, opening the passenger side of his blue SUV for you.
“I’ve had a lot of practice.”
He helps you up, his hand on your elbow, then shuts the door when you’re all the way in. You slide your backpack off your shoulder to sit between your feet and lean your head back against the headrest.
The ride to the hospital is only about twenty minutes, and you’d called ahead to make an appointment. This shouldn’t take too long, an hour and a half, tops, and then you’ll make it back in time for dinner. Well, if your face isn’t too fucked up, that is.
Ushijima folds himself into the driver’s seat and starts the car. As he’s backing out of the parking space, turned around with one hand on the back of your seat, he says, “You said you’ve been distracted recently. Why?”
“Oh, well, uh,” you wave a dismissive hand, “it’s nothing important, really.” You’re not sure you can handle rehashing how your morning went, right now. Not with Ushijima, who’ll probably think your problems are petty. Maybe you’d be willing to discuss this with Tendō, who’d at least crack a couple jokes and make you laugh through the pain.
“It’s important if it distracts you from volleyball.”
At this, you laugh. “I suppose you would think that. You really want to know?” You examine your fingernails, picking at the dried blood you’d missed underneath them.
“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t.” He turns out of the parking lot.
“True.” You take a deep breath and slouch down in the seat, bringing your knees up so that your feet rest on the dashboard. He gives them a look but doesn’t say anything. “I got broken up with this morning. He didn’t like that I devoted so much time to the team.” You swallow, unable to sniffle through your swollen nose. “Which is, like, totally unfair because he knew what he was getting into when we started dating!”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. And I really liked him, too,” you mutter to your lap, then turn to watch buildings pass by through watery eyes.
“It was the basketball player, right? I never liked him.” He says it so firmly that you would think your ex was Ushijima’s mortal enemy or something.
“Yeah, uh, Victor. You remembered that? I don’t think I introduced him to the team or anything...”
“We see you walking with him after practice, and he’s in Reon’s biology class.”
You hum thoughtfully, eyeing his profile. You suppose you can understand the team knowing about who you’re dating — they can get pretty protective, sometimes. But Ushijima has always seemed uninterested in that sort of thing. In fact, you thought he never really gave you much mind past your joint duties as manager and captain. Interesting.
“Why don’t you like him?”
“He’s not good enough for you. You deserve better.”
If you could snort, you would. Instead what comes out is a choked scoff.
“He’s not a saint, but neither am I. He was plenty good enough for me.”
“If he was good enough for you, he would have supported your devotion to the team.”
You shake your head, looking out the window again. You suppose he’s right, but that doesn’t make your heart hurt any less. “I just... I really liked him.”
A warm hand lands on your knee and you flinch in surprise, looking down at it. His fingers are long and well-manicured, almost beautiful, and the heat from his palm makes you breathe funny. He pats twice, eyes on the road, then retracts his hand back to rest on the wheel.
The gesture, while oddly fatherly, feels downright tender coming from Ushijima, who hardly ever shows affection to anyone. Your eyes tear up as you send him a small smile.
“Thanks, Ushiwaka.”
“Call me Wakatoshi.”
—
“Fractured bridge, mild concussion,” you report to Ushijima in the waiting area of your doctor’s office. He stands from the uncomfortable-looking chair, worry lines etched between his brows.
“Were they able to set it?” He falls into stride beside you as you walk down the hall towards the elevators.
“No, I have to come back over the weekend. It’s technically surgery, because they put you under anesthesia, but apparently it’s relatively quick.” You stop in front of the elevators and push the down button. You look at the floor, rather than your companion, blinking back frustrated tears you don’t want him to see. You’re not allowed at practice until after surgery, for fear of another ball messing up your nose more. You’re not allowed to do work on your computer, or handwrite, or read, or do practically anything for at least the next week. What can you do? Wallow. Which is what you were going to try to avoid doing by throwing yourself into your work.
Ushijima clears his throat. “I wanted to apologize again—”
“Stop,” you cut him off with a raised hand. “You’ve already apologized. And it was my fault, anyway. Coach told you to practice cut shots and that’s what you did. I should’ve known better than to stand where I was standing.”
He shifts uncomfortably as you lapse back into silence, watching the numbers above the elevator change.
You hold it in until the car. Then, while he’s weaving his way between rows of parked cars, you curl up in the passenger seat and rest your head against the window, hot tears tracking down your cheeks. You cry all the way through town, hiccuping softly over the white noise of the air conditioning. Ushijima has the sense to leave you alone, though you can feel how abnormally tense he is across the space between you.
“I’m just,” you suck in a breath, “worried about falling behind. I have so much to do, for school and for the team, and,” you wipe at your cheeks, “I just don’t know how it’s all going to get done.”
“I’ll help,” he reassures. “And Tendō and Soekawa. We won’t let you fall behind.”
“Really?” You look at him with big eyes. “You’d do that?”
“You already do so much for us, all on your own. It’s our turn to help you.”
“Oh,” you say, suddenly overwhelmed with affection for your team. “Thank you, Wakatoshi.”
“Of course.”
You smile, watery and tenuous, and reach a hand over to squeeze his shoulder. “Really. It means a lot.”
One of his big hands covers yours and squeezes once. Your breathing turns funny again, until he lets it go and you pull your hand safely back to you. You’re staring at it in your lap, heat on your cheeks, until a terrifying thought occurs to you and you whip back around to stare at him.
“But if you let Tendō fuck up my spreadsheets, I’ll break both your noses in revenge.”
A subtle, amused grin cracks across his face. “Noted.”
—
The dining hall is bustling by the time you walk in with Ushijima, not having bothered to drop your things off at your dorm. You duck your head as you walk past tables filled with students to get to the line for food. You can’t tell if they’re staring at your busted face or at Ushijima, who usually manages to turn heads when he walks into a room. Either way, they’re staring, and it makes you fidget nervously with the strap of your school bag.
You take less food than usual, your stomach in knots from the stress of the day, and miss the way Ushijima frowns down at you. It’s when you turn to face the tables again that you realize you’re not sure what comes next. Usually you’d find Victor — sure enough, you can see him at his usual table in the corner with the basketball third years — but obviously, that’s not an option anymore. You could try to find your roommate, but you’re honestly not sure where she sits. You stand still for a moment, then your feet start moving of their own volition. Where to? Hell knows. Just keep moving and it won’t be awkward.
Your salvation comes in the form of Tendō, who springs up from his seat to wrap an arm around your shoulders, steering you to an empty seat at his table with Reon and Semi.
“Sweets! How’s the nose? Wakatoshi grovel enough yet?” He grins, slouching down to your level.
You smile gratefully, sliding into the seat next to his and dropping your school bag to your feet. “Ushiwaka doesn’t need to grovel, it was an accident.”
“Aww,” Tendō whines, splaying himself out across the table towards where Ushijima’s sitting down across from you. “But it would be so amusing!”
Ushijima only grunts and turns his attention to his rice.
“No, but seriously,” Reon leans around back of Tendō, “how’s the nose?” He taps his own for emphasis.
You poke at your food with your chopsticks, then flash him a smile you hope looks honest. “It’s broken and I have a minor concussion. I have to go in on Sunday for them to set it, and I’m not allowed at practice until after that.”
“Man, I’m sorry,” he commiserates between bites of food. “That sucks.”
You shrug. “It is what it is.”
“What a shame,” Tendō sits up and gazes at you with wide eyes, “I always liked your nose. It was cute!”
You swat away his hand that reaches out to hover an inch away from the body part in question, sticking out your tongue. “Who’s to say it’s not still cute, Satori, hmm?”
“A fair counterargument!”
The conversation turns away from you when Semi tells Ushijima that Coach had a fit when he didn’t come back to practice, and so you duck your head and nibble while you listen. Normally, you’d join in on the banter with your friends, but the day has rubbed you raw and you don’t really have it in you to be social more than you have to.
You last twenty minutes before the urge to go back to the solitude of your dorm and cry overwhelms you. You stand up suddenly, hooking your bag over one shoulder and stuttering something about being tired before leaving. You can feel their confused gazes following you as you drop off your half-full tray and head for the door. It’s not fair, exactly, and probably only worries them more, but you simply cannot find it in you to be in the presence of other people anymore.
You’re almost free, just slipped out the door into the darkening dusk behind a group of second years, when a hand lands on your shoulder and someone says your name. You jump and whirl around. It’s Victor, looking concerned and awkward as the door closes behind him. He’s almost as tall as Ushijima — you have to look up to catch his expression.
“What happened to your face?”
You shrug off his hand before answering. “It caught a volleyball.”
He swallows and shoves his hands in his pockets. “Are you, um, okay?”
“Do I look okay?” you whisper hoarsely, a little manic. “I feel like I’m falling apart at the seams, here.”
His eyes grow wide and he takes a cautious step forward. “Is there anything I can do?”
You step back. “Yeah, you can fuck off.” It’s quiet, but stern. You know if you’re any softer with him, he’ll weasel his way back in with soft smiles and long-limbed hugs. He’s done it before and you wouldn’t put it past him to try it again.
“Listen, I—”
“I don’t wanna hear it. Leave me alone.” You turn away, back towards the steps of the dining hall, but he darts around you and spreads his arms to block your way. Damn his long legs. You huff and glare up at him. “Move.”
“No. Listen, I’m sorry—”
“And I said I don’t wanna hear it. Move!” You can hear yourself getting louder with your frustration, voice echoing off the academic buildings around you, and pressure builds in your ears to a dull roar as Victor says something you can’t focus on. Your head hurts, your face hurts, your heart hurts, and you can’t fucking think—
You feel a warm presence at your back an instant before Victor’s mouth stops moving and he looks above your head.
“She said move.” It’s Ushijima. You sigh in relief and step back into him to regain some stability and let your head clear. He puts his hand on your shoulder.
Victor looks between the two of you for a moment. Something you can’t quite place enters his eyes, but he finally steps aside, so you don’t dwell on it, just brush past him and head for the steps.
That is, until, “Guess the rumors were true.”
You stop and turn to face him a few steps down. Ushijima, now slightly ahead of you with one hand on your elbow, stops as well. It dawns on you that you’ve seen this particular gleam of malice in Victor’s eyes before, when he’s about to destroy another team. And suddenly, it all makes sense: this is a game to him.
“What rumors?”
“Oh, haven’t you heard? Apparently, you’re fucking the whole volleyball team.”
In the next split-second, Ushijima moves fast, as though he’s going to punch him, but you move faster. You slap the back of your hand to his chest to stop him and fix Victor with a sadistic glare of your own.
“Is that so?” Your tone is icy. “What, are you jealous I’d fuck them but never put out for you? Or— oh.” You cover your mouth in mock sympathy. “Worried I told the team how tiny your dick is in comparison?”
His face flushes red, and he lurches forward, hand raised, “You bitch.”
You flinch back, but Ushijima’s there, pushing past your arm to shove him away before he can touch you. He’s slightly taller and much broader than your wiry ex-boyfriend, and has no trouble pinning him to the wall by the door. You follow them, but don’t call him off even as your eyes widen and heart pounds.
Ushijima leans in, face inches from Victor’s and growls the next words, low and threatening. “You do not touch her. You do not look at her. You do not talk about her. Understood?”
Your breath hitches in your throat and your fist clenches around the strap of your school bag. The team may have been protective in the past, collectively looming over opposing players who had the nerve to approach you at tournaments, but Ushijima had never been involved in all that. And really, you’d been grateful for his lack of interference; you can take care of yourself, no matter if the team thinks you’re a delicate flower in need of guarding.
But this is different. This is dangerous. Victor had nearly put his hands on you, had threatened and slandered you in front of him.
They stare each other down for a long moment, chests heaving, before Victor’s face crumples slightly in fear and he wheezes out, “Understood.”
The tension stretches, then breaks when you let out the breath you were holding with a squeak. Ushijima drops his hands from Victor’s shirt and takes a step back, maintaining eye contact. Victor slumps against the wall, clenches his jaw, then drops his gaze to the concrete.
“Come on,” Ushijima growls to you as he turns and tucks you under his arm, finally leading you down the steps.
You don’t look back, even as you hear laughter behind you as another group spills out from the dining hall, just lean subtly into your friend and beat a familiar path back to your dorm. As the adrenaline tapers off, it leaves you tired and even shakier than before, questions swirling around your mind until you manage to latch onto one and keep it there, at the forefront.
You stop walking underneath the giant oak by the back entrance to the girls’ third year dorms. Ushijima stops, too, looking down at you and slipping his arm off your shoulders when he catches your expression: ashen and nervous and contemplative.
“Wakatoshi...” you start, adjusting your bag on your shoulder and peering up at him. Artificial light from a sidewalk lamp casts shadows of oak leaves on his face, shifting and shaking in the mild breeze. “Why did you do that?”
His expression pinches slightly in confusion. He shifts his feet to face you fully before answering. “He was going to hit you. He said you... he said vulgar things about you.” He says it like the explanation’s obvious, like if you look between the cracks in his words you’ll find it sitting there plain as day.
“But... you threatened him.”
“Does that bother you?”
“No,” you concede, settling your weight on one hip and picking at the hem of your track jacket. It doesn’t bother you, oddly. Normally it leaves a bad taste in your mouth when someone pulls a savior act; but this felt honest, and necessary. Victor wouldn’t have backed down, otherwise.
Still, you don’t completely understand.
“It’s just...” You swirl the words around your mouth before letting them flow out. “I’ve never seen you act like that before, with anyone. For anyone. Wakatoshi, I’ve known you nearly three years and never known you to do something like that. You fucking carried me to the nurse, drove me to the hospital, threatened someone on my behalf...” you trail off in bewilderment, mouth open as if an explanation will fall into it.
His shoulders tense, but his bass is as smooth as ever when he asks, “Did you not want me to do those things?”
The explanation falls into your mouth all at once, clumsy and a little awkward, but truthful all the same. “No, I did... want you to do those things.” You take a step closer to him, and if your nose wasn’t so fucked up you would’ve smelled the crispness of the evening mingling with the heady musk of him. “But why did you do them?”
He steps closer as well, so that you have to crane your neck to meet his eyes.
“Pretty girl,” he says, your mouth suddenly very dry as he hooks a finger under your chin, “Must I spell it out for you?”
Everything is still for a moment, save for the light playing across his face and illuminating his serious, green eyes so that you can see flecks of brown in their depths. Your hand leaves the strap of your bag to rest on his shoulder, feeling it tense under layers of polyester. The explanation sits there on the tip of your tongue, waiting, so you push up onto your toes to deliver it. Your chests bump as your mouth meets his softly.
He lets you have control, just shifts his big hand to cradle your jaw and smooth across your cheek as your lips mold together. You’re afraid to go much further, for fear of bumping your nose and making matters worse, but as your eyes flutter closed and his other hand finds a place on your hip, you think this is enough to tell him you understand.
When your head starts to get light from lack of oxygen, you break away from him and gasp, tilting into his body. He catches you there, chin tucked to keep his eyes on your dazed face as you catch your breath.
He rumbles your name and secures an arm around your waist to keep you close. “I don’t... feel this way often,” your fingers bunch the fabric of his track jacket lightly, “but I’ve liked you for a long time. And it makes me sick that you were with him when you could’ve been with me. It makes me sick that he treats you that way. That’s what I meant when I said you deserve better.”
You swallow thickly and rest your free hand on his jaw. It’s wide and slightly scratchy with peach fuzz, grounding you to him when the rest of you feels like you might float away.
“Wakatoshi?”
“Yes?”
Your eyebrows pinch slightly as you think for a moment, searching his eyes. “I really like you, too. But, I just barely got out of a relationship, and I feel like I don’t really have my head on straight? At the moment?” Your head tilts to the side, voice breathy with uncertainty. “So, I guess, I just kind of want to take this”—you gesture between the two of you—“slow. Make sure we do it right.”
“Alright,” he agrees, soft and low, “let’s make sure we do it right.”
You nod, a smile splitting your face and making his eyes turn even gentler. You kiss his cheek, opposite where your hand lies, then pull back and shift away from him. His arm finds a place around your shoulders, rather than your waist, and he turns to walk you the last bit to your dorm.
As you dig out your ID card to access the building, a thought occurs to you as you pause, arm completely inside your bag.
Pairing/setting: Levi Ackerman x Female!Reader, modern!college!AU
Summary: When you catch your idiot boyfriend cheating, your grumpy roommate is there to pick up the pieces and watch your back as you toe a carefully drawn line in the metaphorical sand.
Word Count: 2.1k
Warnings: fluff, romantic vegetable chopping, the chapter of realizing things
AN: Well, it’s been six fucking months, but it’s finally here!! It’s a little shorter than I’d prefer, and took a lot of iterations to get here, but I’m very satisfied:) Thanks, as always, to my lovely @doinmybesthere for editing and encouraging. I hope you all enjoy! I think there’re maybe 1 or 2 parts left in this story, that’ll hopefully be out more quickly than I managed this one. Please let me know what you think! Be kind to yourselves and others. ~valkyrie
—
(read chapter 5 here)
Finals week passes in a slow blur, barely leaving enough time for you to breathe between essays, exams, and one presentation that you think takes at least a year off the end of your life. It’s much the same for everyone else, as well — you barely see Levi, not counting the nights you spend alternating between your bed and his, and you don’t see Hange at all. Consequently, there’s no opportunity to break apart what happened on Saturday. No chance to peel back its layers and find how you really feel. Although, to her credit, Annie doesn’t appear again, so you’re able to shove it into a corner of your mind for the time being.
Saturday brings with it both a new winter storm and an overwhelming sense of relief. You let it fill you completely as you sit and watch snow swirl outside. The street below your kitchen window is bustling with students trying to outrun the storm to get home for vacation. But you have nowhere to be, nothing to do. It’s nice.
The door opens, bringing with it the stomping of Levi’s boots. You turn to watch him shake snow from his hair, sinking deeper into the reassurance of knowing that everything you need is here under your roof. Safe.
Hmm. What the fuck?
You choke on the next sip of your tea as the realization of what you just felt hits you square in the chest. Through your coughing and hacking, you reach again for that fleeting sense of home. Childish, content, warm.
“Are you okay?” Levi calls from the entrance, looking at you with pinched brows halfway through hanging up his jacket.
“Fine,” you cough out, pushing back from the table to hunch over and catch your breath. “I’m okay.”
It takes a moment for you to stop breathing hard, though when you do, your heart rate doesn’t return to normal, instead pushing blood to your face and neck and making your body feel light. Levi doesn’t help when he finally joins you in the kitchen, all floppy hair and bright cheeks from the snow. All leisurely about the way he stretches his lean body to take his favorite blend of Earl Grey from the top of the fridge.
“I was thinking about dinner,” he starts, completely oblivious to the way you’ve started sweating under your cardigan. “We shouldn’t order because of the snow, so I brought home stuff to make soup.”
“What kind?” It’s a miracle the words come out normally.
“Chicken noodle.” He turns to face you. “My mom’s recipe.”
—
“I don’t get why guys are always so uppity about kitchen knives,” you say, picking up what Levi’s told you is a utility knife. “Like, it’s just a knife. I’m not about to stab myself with it.” Your finger drags along its sharp edge for only a split second when Levi’s slim fingers are suddenly around your wrist.
“Don’t. Touch. The knives,” he growls, taking the utility knife gently from your other hand and placing it back on the counter. “I just sharpened them last week, you could’ve seriously cut yourself.”
His steel eyes hold yours for another long moment until you nod your head mutely. You haven’t been able to shake the knot of hyperawareness that’s been settled in your belly since your what the fuck moment, and it only twists tighter when he’s so close to you. His hair is dry now, curling slightly because he hasn’t bothered to comb it since he got home. You have to actively resist the urge to twist a particularly enthusiastic curl around your finger in the split second before he backs away again.
Muttering under his breath, he returns to the simmering pot on the stove that he claims has turned into stock, though you hardly believe it. Growing up, you’d never been taught kitchen skills, let alone anything close to actual labor.
For a while, you’re content to watch, sitting at the table and nursing both the ache in your chest and a fresh cup of chamomile, but the urge to join him in his quiet work overwhelms you as he’s washing the vegetables.
“Levi, please, can I help?” Your tone edges on whining, prompting him to huff and shift on his feet. “I promise I won’t touch the knives! There, just, must be something I can do.”
You see him roll his eyes, swear under his breath, then turn towards you with a glower.
“No talking, no questions, and go wash your hands.”
“Yes!” you cheer and stand up with a bounce.
The scent of the bar of soap as you lather and wash cuts pleasantly through the spices and thick scents already filling the kitchen. It’s not something you’ve experienced often, and you relish in what you realize must be home comfort, your grin settling from enthused to contented.
Levi is arranging carrots, celery, and onions next to the cutting board when you join him again.
“I thought I wasn’t allowed to touch the knives?”
“You’re not, until I show you how to do it without chopping off your fingers.”
“Oh, ye of little faith,” you tease, but nevertheless settle in beside him to watch as he lines up a carrot and picks up the utility knife.
“We’re generally going for even pieces, though it doesn’t matter much because it’s a soup. Put your fingers like this,” you lean over a bit to see how he’s arranged his left hand holding the carrot, the tips of his fingers just barely tucked under the knuckles, “so that you can chop like this—“ he begins slicing, knife guided by his knuckles “—and not lose your fingers. Always point the blade away from yourself and others, and never hold the handle like you’re going to stab something. That’s not effective, anyway. If you have to use this as a weapon, it’s much more effective to slash rather than stab, considering bone density—“
“Uhh,” you cut in, “pause. Are we slicing carrots or fending off home invaders?”
He stops chopping. “What did I say about asking questions?”
“Right. Sorry.”
“Anyway. Considering bone density, you’ll have better luck aiming to cut big veins than forcing through ribs.”
He’s done with the first carrot, now, lithe fingers flipping the knife so the blade is up.
“Never drag the blade along the surface sideways. Flip it over and use the blunt edge to move food.” He demonstrates, moving the little pile of carrot slices to a corner of the cutting board. “Your turn.”
And then, like it’s nothing, he’s offering you the handle with a flat expression.
“Uhm.” You press your lips together and eye it for a long pause. “Are you sure?”
“It’s just a carrot. You’ll be fine.” He lets another unsure moment slide into being, then sighs and reaches out to wrap your hand around the handle. “Here, like this.”
And like you’ve suddenly stepped into a poorly-written romcom, he’s guiding your hands under his to the next waiting carrot, curling your fingers exactly like he showed you before, and scooting over to let you stand in his place. You just let yourself go along with it, hoping desperately that he won’t feel your hands grow clammy or see the way your chin has tucked itself shyly to your chest so you can watch.
Fucking shit carrots, useless goddamn root vegetable, can’t chop itself, has to make me do all the work—
Your aggressive inner monologue takes you all the way through the second carrot, then his hands are leaving yours and he’s placing a third under your waiting blade. Time to fly solo.
—
When you fall asleep in the armchair that night, sated and full of comfort food, Levi sketches in pencil on scrap paper. He sketches his hands over yours in the kitchen and he sketches the steam rising from the pot on the stove. He sketches you sitting with a bowl of soup in your lap, face illuminated by the TV and he sketches your sleeping body curled up, hair in your mouth. He sketches a close-up of your face, with special attention to the curve of your bottom lip, and he considers it practice for finishing the painting in his room.
Levi doesn’t think about how if he doesn’t do something soon, all of this will change. About how you’ll get over your heartbreak and move out at the end of the year and he won’t see you every day and every night. And he definitely doesn’t think about how he’ll have to adjust back to sleeping without your soft body tangled in his, and he doesn’t wonder how he ever slept before you.
No, instead of thinking, he just cracks his knuckles and gently scoops you from the chair and into his arms.
It’s as he’s climbing into his side of your bed that you stir and snort and blink sleepy eyes open.
“What time is it?”
“Ten forty,” he whispers, “go back to sleep.”
You hum and turn on your side to face him, face half hidden by the squish of your pillow. He settles more comfortably in, tucks your head under his chin even though you’re taller than he is, and drapes his free arm around the curve of your waist.
Quiet breathing is the only thing that fills the room for a long while, and he finally thinks you’ve drifted back off, when:
“Hey, Levi?”
“Hmm?”
“I... I’ve been thinking a lot, and...”
The tone of your voice is odd and it makes Levi’s throat seize up for a moment while you hesitate. He swallows deliberately.
“And?”
Your next words are more confident, like you have really been thinking a lot, your voice not sleepy in the slightest. It’s matter-of-fact and soft and lovely.
“And you make me feel really safe. Just, like, all the time. And I’m glad I met you. You make me feel, um...,” a small sniffle, “You make me feel held.”
Levi tightens his arm around you and swallows again. It feels like he’s balancing on the head of a pin, and a thousand angels are swirling around him, and it’s taking all he has not to get pushed off.
“Well, I am holding you.”
“Psssssht,” you wriggle slightly back so you can look at his face. You look simultaneously exasperated and vulnerable in the shadows of your bedroom. “You know what I mean.”
“What if I don’t?”
“Well, I guess...”
You pause to think for a moment, eyes flicking away from Levi’s face for a split second. Then, they’re back on his and he can feel the vulnerable honesty already spilling from you.
“I’ve never really, um, gotten a lot of physical affection? From people in my life? And, uh, it’s not just that, it’s that you’re so... so— so familiar, and not just because I know you, godimnotmakingalickofsense, but because it feels like I’ve always known you?” It’s said like a question, like you want to know if he feels the same. “And you just make me feel held.”
You pause on a shaky inhale of breath, then cover your face with your hands and roll onto your back away from him.
“God, I’m sorry, that doesn’t make any sense at all, I’ll just—“
“Stop,” Levi cuts you off, pushing up to lean over you and grasp your wrists in one hand and cover your mouth with the other, a mirror of the pair of you in the kitchen weeks earlier. “It makes sense. I get it.”
Your doe eyes stare up at him just like they did then and he selfishly indulges in an extra second of staring back before he releases you and slides back to rest on an elbow. Your hands stay demurely tucked by your chest where he put them and your tongue flicks out to lick at your lips as your eyes follow him.
“Really?”
“Yeah. I get it.”
“Okay. Good.”
Suddenly, Levi doesn’t feel like going to bed. He feels like running for miles or painting until his hands ache or hitting something, anything to distract him from doing something incredibly stupid right now. The mattress sinks as he sits up and spins his legs out of bed, muttering something about tea and not tired yet, and he almost doesn’t catch the sensation of you sitting up behind him.
He turns halfway back to tell you to go back to sleep, but your fingers catch his chin and he’s abruptly out of breath.
The curve of your bottom lip is perfectly, exactly the way he sketched it in the semi-dark. It’s slightly chapped.
When you kiss him, soft and certain, he topples off the pinhead and back into his body just in time to do something incredibly stupid and kiss you back.
When you catch your idiot boyfriend cheating, your grumpy roommate is there to pick up the pieces and watch your back as you toe a carefully drawn line in the metaphorical sand.
