The Feminine Urge

A reluctant liver of life in this universe | Currently listening to "you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love"| 🎶 It don't matter how your love feels anymore//It'll never be the cure🎶

[tldps-beautiful-boy]

Track 1...

You can call me Alex

My pronouns are She/They and I am Pansexual

I love writing all the stories in my head

I'm always listening to music thus the music themed blog

Requests: Open

You can always talk to me through requests!

Masterlist

DNI if you are a:

Homophobe

Bigot

Racist

AI User

[atelphobist]

──── 𝗟𝗢𝗩𝗘 𝗜𝗦 𝗕𝗟𝗜𝗡𝗗.

[内容] » 𝗒𝗈𝗎'𝗏𝖾 𝖺𝗅𝗐𝖺𝗒𝗌 𝗍𝗁𝗈𝗎𝗀𝗁𝗍 𝗒𝗈𝗎'𝗋𝖾 𝗁𝗎𝗌𝖻𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝗋𝗒𝗈𝗆𝖾𝗇 𝗌𝗎𝗄𝗎𝗇𝖺 𝗁𝖺𝗍𝖾𝗌 𝗒𝗈𝗎 𝖻𝖾𝖼𝖺𝗎𝗌𝖾 𝗈𝖿 𝗒𝗈𝗎𝗋 𝖻𝗅𝗂𝗇𝖽n𝖾𝗌𝗌. 𝗁𝖾'𝗌 𝗇𝖾𝗏𝖾𝗋 𝗁𝖺𝖽 𝗌𝖾𝗑 𝗐𝗂𝗍𝗁 𝗒𝗈𝗎, 𝗇𝖾𝗏𝖾𝗋 𝗄𝗂𝗌𝗌𝖾𝗌 𝗒𝗈𝗎, 𝗁𝖾 𝖽𝗈𝖾𝗌𝗇'𝗍 𝖾𝗏𝖾𝗇 𝗍𝖺𝗅𝗄 𝗍𝗈 𝗒𝗈𝗎. 𝗐𝖾𝗅𝗅, 𝗍𝗎𝗋𝗇𝗌 𝗈𝗎𝗍 𝗁𝖾'𝗌 𝗃𝗎𝗌𝗍 𝗍𝗈𝗈 𝗌𝖼𝖺𝗋𝖾𝖽 𝗍𝗁𝖺𝗍 𝗁𝖾'𝗅𝗅 𝗁𝗎𝗋𝗍 𝗒𝗈𝗎 . . . 𑣲 » 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺!𝘀𝘂𝗸𝘂𝗻𝗮 𝘅 𝗯𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗱!𝗳𝗲𝗺!𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿.

[𝜗ৎ] 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 : 𝗍𝗋𝗎𝖾𝖿𝗈𝗋𝗆!𝗌𝗎𝗄𝗎𝗇𝖺 :: 𝖺𝗇𝗀𝗌𝗍 :: 𝗂𝗇𝗌𝖾𝖼𝗎𝗋𝖾!𝗋𝖾𝖺𝖽𝖾𝗋 :: 𝗌𝗈𝖿𝗍!𝗄𝗎𝗇𝖺 :: 𝗏𝗂𝗌𝗎𝖺𝗅 𝗂𝗆𝗉𝖺𝗂𝗋𝗆𝖾𝗇𝗍 :: 𝗌𝗂𝗓𝖾 𝖽𝗂𝖿𝖿𝖾𝗋𝖾𝗇𝖼𝖾 :: 𝖼𝗎𝗇𝗇𝗂𝗅𝗂𝗇𝗀𝗎𝗌 :: 𝖿𝗂𝗇𝗀𝖾𝗋𝗂𝗇𝗀 :: 𝖻𝗈𝖽𝗒 𝗐𝗈𝗋𝗌𝗁𝗂𝗉 :: 𝘃𝗶𝗿𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗹𝗼𝘀𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗯𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗱 :: 𝗍𝗐𝗈 𝖼𝗈𝖼𝗄𝗌 :: 𝖻𝖾𝗅𝗅𝗒 𝖻𝗎𝗅𝗀𝖾 :: 𝗎𝗇𝗉𝗋𝗈𝗍𝖾𝖼𝗍𝖾𝖽 𝗌𝖾𝗑 :: 𝖼𝗎𝗆𝗆𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝗂𝗇𝗌𝗂𝖽𝖾 :: 𝗌𝗊𝗎𝗂𝗋𝗍𝗂𝗇𝗀 :: 𝖾𝗆𝗈𝗍𝗂𝗈𝗇𝖺𝗅 𝗌𝖾𝗑 :: 𝖼𝗋𝗒𝗂𝗇𝗀 :: 𝗌𝗐𝖾𝖾𝗍 𝗍𝖺𝗅𝗄 :: 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗮𝗯𝗹𝘆 𝗼𝗼𝗰!𝗸𝘂𝗻𝗮 𝖻𝗎𝗍 𝗂𝖽𝗀𝖺𝖿. » 𝗡𝗦𝗙𝗪 ! 𝗠𝗗𝗡𝗜 !

⋮ ⌗ ┆ 𝗾𝘂𝗶𝗰𝗸 𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗲 ! | okay first off, WHY is this SO FUCKIN EMOTIONAL for no absolute reason. damn. consider this a 1000 follower special! likes & reblogs are appreciated! 𖹭

[𝜗ৎ] 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗱 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁 : 2.9𝗄

𝓜𝘼𝙎𝙏𝙀𝙍𝙇𝙄𝙎𝙏!

my husband hates me.

the thought settles deep in your chest like a stone, familiar and heavy, as you lie on the silk sheets of the massive bed.

your fingers trace the embroidered patterns on your robe—some floral design you can't see but can feel beneath your fingertips. the fabric is soft, expensive. everything here is expensive. everything here screams luxury and power and wealth.

but none of it screams love.

you hear nothing from his side of the bed.

the man is so impossibly quiet, it makes your skin prickle with unease. you've been here for three months now. three months as the wife of ryomen sukuna, the king of curses, the most feared ruler in all the lands. and in those three months, he has barely spoken a word to you.

at first, you thought it was a game.

some twisted test of patience. you were clever enough to know that political marriages were rarely about love. you'd been prepared for indifference, for coldness, for a husband who saw you as nothing more than a strategic alliance.

but this? this silent treatment that stretches night after night, this deliberate distance he keeps?

it cuts deeper than you expected.

your hand moves from your robe to your stomach, pressing against the plane of your belly. you're small. you know this. delicate in a way that makes people underestimate you. and blind. gods, the blindness. the one thing that has sent every single suitor running in the opposite direction.

princes would see your face first—the one they called ethereal, otherworldly, beautiful in a way that seemed impossible—and they'd fall to their knees.

they'd whisper sweet words, promises of devotion, declarations of love at first sight. and then you'd speak, and they'd realize your eyes didn't track their movements, didn't meet their gaze. and slowly, painfully, you'd listen to them pull away. hear the hesitation creep into their voices. feel the distance grow until they were gone.

you were used to it.

but sukuna? sukuna had looked at you once, for a single moment, and said yes. the entire empire had been shocked. the king of curses, the ruthless murderer, the emperor who had never shown interest in any woman, accepting a blind bride from a neighboring kingdom? it was scandalous. impossible.

and you'd felt hope.

you hate yourself for that hope now.

because three months of silence have taught you the truth. he doesn't want you. he tolerates you. and honestly? you'd almost prefer cruelty. at least cruelty would be a reaction. at least cruelty would mean he saw you as something worth acknowledging.

but this nothingness? this endless, suffocating nothingness?

it makes you feel like you've already disappeared.

the servants guide you through your days with practiced efficiency. they dress you, feed you, lead you through the palace halls. you've memorized the layout of your chambers, the path to the gardens, the number of steps from your room to the dining hall. you've learned to navigate this world without sight, just as you've always done.

but you can't navigate him.

you don't know where he sits at meals. you don't know if he watches you. you don't know if he even notices when you're in the same room. his presence is a void—a massive, oppressive absence of warmth that you can feel but never touch.

tonight was bad.

you'd been led to the gardens by a new servant, someone who didn't know your habits. she'd taken you left instead of right, and you'd walked straight into a hedge, thorns scratching your calves before she'd yanked you back with a flurry of apologies.

then you'd almost fallen down a staircase—the grand staircase with its uneven steps—your foot catching on the edge, your heart lurching into your throat as you'd pitched forward. a guard caught you just in time.

and the whispers.

you can't see their faces, but you can hear their voices. the concubines. the noblewomen. the servants who think you can't hear them.

"the blind empress."

"does he even notice her?"

"i heard he hasn't touched her once."

"what a waste of a pretty face."

"she must be so lonely."

"she must be so pathetic."

you'd smiled through all of it. kept your head high, your shoulders back, your voice steady. you learned long ago that showing weakness only invites more cruelty. so you'd walked through the halls with your practiced grace, your cane tapping against the marble floors, your face serene.

but inside, you were crumbling.

and now, lying in this massive bed, with your hair spread across a silk pillow and the scent of incense curling through the air, you can feel him beside you. he's so close. you know he's sitting up, his back probably against the headboard, his presence a heavy weight in the darkness.

does he ever sleep?

you've never heard him snore. never heard him shift in his sleep. he's so still, so silent, you sometimes wonder if he's even real.

a long, long time passes. the candles burn down. the incense fades. the night wraps around you like a shroud.

and you can't take it anymore.

"ryomen?"

your voice comes out soft, barely above a whisper. you hate how small you sound. how vulnerable. you'd wanted to sound strong, confident, demanding. instead, you sound like a child calling out in the dark.

silence.

you wait. count your heartbeats. one. two. three. four. five.

just when you're certain he's ignoring you, just when the familiar ache of rejection settles into your chest, a voice cuts through the darkness.

"what."

it's gruff. low. a single word that rumbles through the air like distant thunder. and it's the most he's said to you in days.

you swallow. your throat is dry. your fingers twist in the sheets.

"i...i want to ask you something."

more silence. you can feel him staring at you. you can't see it, but you can feel it—the weight of his gaze, heavy and unreadable.

"ask."

you take a shaky breath. this is it. this is the moment you've been building toward for three months. the question that's been eating you alive, consuming you from the inside out.

"do you hate me?"

the words hang in the air between you. they sound so small. so pathetic. you wish you could take them back, but it's too late. they're out there now, exposed and raw.

"hate you?" his voice is strange. almost...confused?

"because of...because i'm...y'know, blind." the words taste like ash in your mouth. "i know it's...i know i'm not what you expected. i know i'm not the best option. i know i'm—"

"stop."

the word is sharp, and you flinch. your breath catches in your throat. you brace yourself for anger, for cruelty, for him to finally confirm what you've suspected all along.

but instead of harsh words, you feel movement. the bed shifts. his weight moves closer.

and then, without warning, a hand wraps around your waist and pulls.

you let out a frightened shriek as you're yanked from your position, your body colliding with something solid and warm. your hands fly out, grasping at fabric, at skin, at anything. you're on his lap, straddling his thighs, your chest pressed against his. he's so big—so impossibly large—that you feel like a doll in his arms.

"ryomen!" your voice is high, panicked. "what—"

"quiet."

his hand settles on your thigh. it's huge. calloused. rough in a way that sends shivers down your spine. but the touch is gentle. impossibly gentle. he strokes your thigh once, twice, a soothing motion that slowly calms your racing heart.

"you really think," he says slowly, his voice rumbling against your chest, "that i hate you?"

you can't speak. your throat is too tight. you settle for shaking your head against his chest, even though it's a lie.

a low sound escapes him—not quite a growl, not quite a laugh. his hand slides from your thigh to your chin, tilting your face up. his thumb brushes across your lower lip, feather-light.

"open your eyes."

the command catches you off guard. "what?"

"your eyes. open them."

you blink, confused. your eyes are already open. you can't see anything, but they're open. you tell him as much.

"no." his voice is strange. softer. "i mean...look at me."

"i can't see you."

"i know." his thumb traces your jawline. "but i can see you. and i want to see your eyes. please."

please.

the word catches you off guard. the king of curses, saying please? to you?

you don't move. don't breathe. just let him hold your face in his massive hand, his touch devastatingly tender.

"i don't hate you," he says, and his voice cracks on the words. "gods, woman. i could never hate you."

your heart stutters. "then why—"

"because i'm fuckin' terrified."

you blink. "what?"

"do you know what i am?" his hand slides from your face to your hair, fingers threading through the strands. "i'm a killer. i've been killing for centuries. my hands are stained with blood i'll never wash clean. i'm rough, and violent, and i don't know how to be gentle."

"but—"

"but when i saw you..." he trails off. his fingers tighten in your hair, just barely. "when i saw you, i couldn't breathe. you were so beautiful. so small. so... perfect. and i thought, 'she's too good f'me.' , 'i'll break her.' , 'i'll hurt her.'"

his voice drops to a whisper.

"so i stayed away. because every time i look at you, i want to touch you. and every time i touch you, i'm afraid i'll destroy you."

tears prick at your eyes. you don't understand. you can't understand. this entire time, you thought he hated you. you thought he found you repulsive, broken, worthless.

but he was...

...afraid?

"you don't hate me?" you whisper.

"no." his forehead presses against yours. "i love you. i've loved you since the moment i saw you."

a sob escapes your throat. it's ugly and raw and you can't stop it.

"but you never—you never talked to me—"

"because i didn't trust myself." his other hand comes up to cup your cheek. "because i knew if i started, i wouldn't be able to stop."

"then don't stop."

the words leave your mouth before you can think. they hang in the air, bold and desperate.

"don't stop," you repeat. "please. i don't want you to stop."

sukuna goes still. so still that you wonder if he's stopped breathing.

"you don't know what you're asking."

"i do." you reach up, your fingers finding his face. you trace the planes of his cheeks, the sharp lines of his jaw, the curve of his lips. "you're my husband. i want you. all of you."

"i'll hurt you."

"i don't care."

"i'll break you."

"i don't care."

his breath hitches. and then, finally, finally, his lips crash against yours.

the kiss is desperate. hungry. it tastes like three months of longing, of confusion, of aching loneliness. his hand fists in your hair, pulling you closer, and you gasp against his mouth. his tongue slides against your lower lip, asking for entry, and you give it willingly.

he tastes like sake and power and something darker. something that makes your toes curl and your heart race.

he pulls back, breathless.

"tell me to stop, and i will."

"don't," you say immediately. "don't stop."

he groans. his hands slide down your back, gripping your hips, and he lays you down on the bed. you fall against the silk sheets, your hair spreading around you like a halo. you can't see him, but you can feel him—his weight on the bed, his heat surrounding you, his breath ghosting across your skin.

"m'gonna show you," he says, his voice low and rough. "m'gonna kiss every inch of your body. gonna taste you until you scream my name. i want to make you feel so good that you forget every single doubt you've ever had about yourself."

your breath catches. "ryomen—"

"let me." his lips brush against your neck. "let me show you how much i love you."

you nod, unable to speak.

his hands find the tie of your robe. he undoes it slowly, reverently, like he's unwrapping a gift he's been waiting centuries to open. the fabric falls away, cool air hitting your skin, and you shiver.

"beautiful," he breathes. "so fucking beautiful."

you feel his lips on your collarbone. soft. worshipful. he kisses down your chest, his tongue tracing a path between your breasts. his hands cup your breasts, thumbs brushing across your nipples, and you gasp.

"sensitive," he murmurs. "good. i'll remember that."

he takes one nipple into his mouth. his tongue circles the peak, slow and deliberate, and you arch into him with a desperate moan. he laves at you, sucking gently, nipping with his teeth until you're writhing beneath him.

"more," you gasp. "please—"

"patience." his voice is a dark promise. "i haven't even started with ya' yet."

he switches to the other breast, giving it the same attention. his hand slides down your stomach, fingers tracing patterns on your skin, until he reaches the apex of your thighs. you're already wet—embarrassingly wet—and he lets out a low growl when he feels it.

"fuck," he mutters against your skin. "you're soaked. f'me?"

"yes," you whimper. "only you."

he groans. his fingers slide through your folds, collecting your wetness, and you buck into his touch.

"tell me what you want."

"i want—" you gasp as his thumb circles your clit. "m'want your mouth."

his laugh is dark and breathless. "demanding little thing, aren't ya'?"

"please," you beg. "ryo, please—"

"shh." he kisses your stomach. "i'll give ya' what y'want."

he moves down your body, his lips leaving a trail of fire. he kisses your hips, your thighs, the inside of your knees. by the time he reaches your core, you're trembling, desperate, aching.

and then his tongue touches you.

you cry out, your hands flying to his hair. he laps at you like a man starved, his tongue sliding through your folds, circling your clit, dipping inside you. he moans against you, the vibration sending shockwaves through your body.

"taste s'good," he mutters against your skin. "could eat ya' forever."

he sucks your clit into his mouth, and you scream. your hips buck against his face, but he holds you down, his massive hands gripping your thighs. he alternates between sucking and licking, building a rhythm that has you climbing higher and higher.

"that's it," he praises. "let go f'me...lemme taste ya'."

his fingers find your entrance, sliding inside you without warning. two fingers, thick and long, stretching you. he curls them, hitting a spot that makes you see stars, and you shatter.

you come with a scream of his name, your body convulsing as waves of pleasure crash through you. he doesn't stop. he laps at you through your orgasm, drawing it out until you're sobbing from the intensity.

when you finally come down, he crawls up your body, his lips finding yours. you taste yourself on his tongue, and it's the most intimate thing you've ever experienced.

"m-more," you whisper. "m'want more."

his eyes—you can feel them—search your face.

"are you sure? we can stop. we can—"

"i'm sure." you reach for him, your fingers finding his chest. "i want you...please."

he hesitates. you feel the tension in his muscles, the restraint he's barely holding onto.

"m'bigger than ya'," he says, matter of factly. "a lot bigger. and i have...i have two dicks, woman. i don't know if—"

"i don't care." you pull him closer. "i trust you."

he groans, pressing his forehead against yours.

"if it hurts too much, tell me. and i'll stop."

"okay."

"promise me."

"i promise."

he shifts above you, and you feel something heavy and thick press against your thigh. and then another. two cocks. the thought should terrify you, but instead, it sends a thrill through your body.

he aligns himself with your entrance, and you feel the tip pressing against you. he's huge—so much bigger than his fingers—and you wonder if you can actually take him.

"relax f'me," he murmurs. "breathe."

you inhale deeply, and he pushes in.

just the tip, and you gasp. he's stretching you in a way that's almost unbearable. it hurts. there's a burning sensation, a pressure that's too much and not enough.

"shh," he soothes. "you're doing s'well. so good f'me."

he pushes deeper, inch by agonizing inch. you feel your body struggling to accommodate him, your walls clenching around his length. and then—

a sharp pain.

fuck...you forgot.

you cry out, your nails digging into his shoulders. he stops immediately.

"did i hurt ya'?"

you can't answer. the pain is fading, replaced by a strange fullness. you feel something wet trickle down your thigh. warm. sticky.

blood.

his eyes slowly flicker down, and you can hear his breath stop. he's tense. too tense.

"fuck," he hisses. "you're—you're a fuckin' virgin?"

you nod weakly, biting your lip. your heart is pounding fast. loud. "is that...bad?"

"no." his voice is strained. "no, it's not bad. i just—fuck—i didn't know. i would have been more careful, woman."

"you are being careful," you whisper, fingers pressing into his shoulders "keep going."

"you're fuckin' bleeding."

"i don't care. please. i want to feel you." you sniffle. god, the pleasure is making you bold. too fucking bold.

he lets out a shaky breath. "you're going to kill me."

but he pushes deeper, slower this time. gentler. his lips find yours, kissing you softly as he sinks into you. the pain fades, replaced by a deep, aching fullness that makes you moan.

when he's fully sheathed, he stops. lets you adjust. his forehead presses against yours, his breath ragged.

"y'feel incredible," he breathes. "so tight. so...fuck...perfect."

"move," you beg. "please."

he pulls out slowly, then pushes back in. the friction is delicious, the stretch exquisite. he sets a rhythm—slow, deep, deliberate—each thrust hitting a spot that makes you see stars.

"ryomen," you gasp. "r-ryo—"

"i know," he murmurs. "i know, doll. feels s'good, doesn't it?"

"yes—yes—"

his hand slides down your stomach, pressing against the slight bulge where he's buried inside you. the feeling makes you moan.

"look at that," he says, awe in his voice. "you can feel me, can't ya'? right here."

he presses down, and you feel it—the outline of him inside you. it's obscene. it's incredible.

"more," you gasp. "harder—"

"y'sure?"

"yes—please—"

he obliges. his pace quickens, his thrusts becoming more urgent. the bed creaks beneath you, the sound mixing with your moans and his grunts.

"gonna come," he warns. "where do you want it?"

"inside," you gasp. "please—i want to feel you—"

he groans, his hips slamming into yours. and then he's coming, hot and thick, filling you so completely. you feel it—his release pouring into you, painting your walls, claiming you from the inside. his cum is already trickling down your thigh, oozing out of your cunt.

at the same time, he's stroking his other cock. you feel the wet spurts hit your stomach, warm and sticky.

he collapses on top of you, careful not to crush you. his face buries in your neck, and you feel his breath, ragged and uneven.

"i love you," he whispers, gruff. it's funny. you've always thought the word love doesn't exist in his vocabulary. but here he is, saying it over and over again. "i love you so much it terrifies me."

you wrap your arms around him, pulling him closer.

"i love you too."

a long moment passes. then another. and then—

"we're going to do that again."

you laugh, breathless.

"right now?"

"after i clean you up." he kisses your neck. "and then again. and again. and again. until ya' can't walk."

"promise?"

he pulls back, and even though you can't see him, you know he's smirking.

"promise."

you're already half asleep when he pulls you against his chest, his arms wrapped around you like he's afraid you'll disappear. his lips press against your hair, your forehead, your eyelids.

"my wife," he murmurs. "my perfect, beautiful wife."

you smile against his skin.

"my husband."

"forever."

"forever."

2026 ── 𝓦𝐎𝐑𝐊 𝐎𝐅 @atelphobist 𝜗ৎ

ᥫ᭡ | © 𝘰𝘧 𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘱𝘩𝘰𝘣𝘪𝘴𝘵 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘶𝘮𝘣𝘭𝘳. 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘴 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘦𝘥. 𝘯𝘰 𝘤𝘰𝘱𝘺𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘳 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘮𝘺 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬 𝘵𝘰 𝘢𝘪.

⋮ ⌗ ┆ 𝗽𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗹 & 𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗲 divider credits go to : @uzmacchiato !

[tldps-beautiful-boy]

Computer, this was amazing. Computer, how do I get more TrueForm!Sukuna x Blind!Reader? Quickest route, no burnout for the OP. COMPUTER, DO YOU READ ME?

[tldps-beautiful-boy]

What If I Miss You For The Rest Of My Life

Paring: Gojo Satoru x Fem!Reader

Summary: You hadn't seen Gojo in a month. That was more than enough time to grow crazy. You went to the places he frequented and lashed out at people who tried to help. You needed to move on but you were content with missing him for the rest of your life.

Warnings: Really really angsty, most definitely not proofread, swearing, potentially OOC Shoko and Yuji,

A/N: It was 10pm and I like to act out songs as story ideas and at the crux of the song, I realized something beautiful I could do to the story. You are going to love it.

Ever since you could remember, you had been cursed to always remember faces and names. This was great when you were meeting new people. Not so great when you were trying to forget your boyfriend, now ex-boyfriend, Gojo Satoru. To be fair, he was pretty unforgettable.

Even on the day you first met him. You two had come up together in the same class. He may have been the Strongest but you were quite powerful by any merit, not just your own. Seeing as you had gone on all those missions together, endured Geto's optimism together, and suffered through laps only assigned because of Gojo together, you had grown pretty close.

It was amazing in the beginning and it never stopped being amazing. He was a gentleman: loving, sweet, kind. He was also Gojo: Annoying, entitled, endearing. He was yet to propose but you may as well have been married, with his class becoming your kids. You had been so settled with him that you retired from the School. You assumed it was going well but assumptions were not truths.

You were walking through downtown, looking at shops you and him liked to frequent. As you peered through the window of his favourite cafe, the only one that served his strawberry matcha with chocolate drizzled on top, you noticed piqued white hair and had to step inside.

You couldn't find him but the waiting side was hard to see from the till. With a receipt for a hot chocolate in hand, you made your way over to the serving station. There you were met with nobody but a teen boy with bleached hair. You threw out the drink as you made your way out of the store.

You knew you had seen his face. It was there. It was real. Blinking away your frustrated tears, you hurried down the street, now sick of the crowds and world. Sick of the shopping spree you decided to go on to make yourself feel better.

As you walked through an alley that could cut through to your neighbourhood, you saw a black uniform wearing boy with pink hair. Craning your neck and blinking to be sure, you could confirm he was actually walking perpendicular to you. You ran to the other end of the alley and, instead of going right to go home, went left.

"Yuji! Yuji!"

"Huh?" He turned and then smiled.

You knew that smile. That sorry smile people gave you after someone died or you lost an heirloom or you went through a breakup. That smile you kept seeing from everybody who had heard about Gojo's venture away from you, towards supposed greener grass.

"Hey, nice to see you." He said with a wave.

He bowed as he did when he first met you. The action caught you off guard as you tried to remember the last time he was so formal, so adherent towards etiquette rules both you and Gojo had always ignored.

"Hey, what are you doing in this neighbourhood?" To be frank, a part of you was curious, seeing as you resided here.

"Just a minor haunting."

"Is Gojo around?"

Yuji cocked his head a bit but smiled nonetheless. "No, not now. You know that–" He paused, as if he was trying to remember his lines. "He'd rather not see you now."

You pursed your lips. "Well, I'd like to see him now."

Yuji scratched his neck. "I don't know if that's a good idea."

You blinked, genuinely just blinked at him. "Yuji–"

"Maybe you should go home. Get some rest." He frowned slightly. He was worried now. Worried for you. That hurt your heart in a different way than how it was hurting right now. Anger was easiest to acknowledge than heartache so you chose that instead.

"I thought you were better than that. I thought that you had a spine but you're just a puppet, repeating whatever phony garbage he's feeding you." You sneered before turning in your heel and stomping back home.

Rest? What did you know about rest? Sleep rarely came easy on normal days, let alone now that your love wasn't home anymore. The pillows were losing his scent, his coffee mug, that matched yours, was collecting dust, his closet untouched during this whole process.

These forgotten items were just another scrap of proof to you. Proof that he was coming back. Who would leave a house, a relationship, but leave their stuff behind? Nobody who truly meant to stay gone.

Opening the glass cabinet doors, you grabbed a wine glass and carried it with you to the fridge to grab the bottle of wine you had opened the night before. The door bell disrupted you from pouring properly, the noise spooking you, prompting you to spill. You sighed, bumped the fridge door closed with your hip and walked over to your front door to reveal Shoko standing behind it.

"Shoko, I'm not doing this today."

"Tough luck, because I am." She pushed past you and took off her shoes, placing them next to a pair of loafers Gojo had always hated. Loafers you knew he was going to wear one day, once he came back to you. "You didn't show up to our meeting today."

"It's not a meeting. It's some screwed play that you expect me to act in so that everybody feels comfortable." You turned and walked over to your kitchen, closing the cabinet you left open earlier.

"It's been a month. You need to move on." Shoko sat at your table like nothing was wrong. Like everything was normal. That pissed you off.

"I have five months until it becomes pathological." You muttered to the lip of your wine glass before taking a sip. Spotting the spill of red wine in your counter, you lowered your glass with a huff and went to grab your paper towel.

"Do you plan to hit six months and then cancel your free trial of grief?"

"No, Shoko, I don't plan to cancel anything except for that stupid event. And even so, I refuse to grieve somebody who is still alive!" The counter took the brunt of your anger as you scrubbed the liquid away. Still, you felt eyes on you. "Don't look at me like that."

"How else am I supposed to look at you?"

"Well, don't look at me like I'm a crazy person. He still loves me. He told me he would always love me, no matter what." You swung your palm into your chest as you defended your point.

"People change. Plans change. Life is unpredictable. This job is unpredictable."

"Don't talk to me about probability or predictability. Don't tell he's not coming home. Why would he leave his clothes in our closet, his, his, his shoes in the front foyer, his mugs in our cupboards? Why would he do that if he wasn't coming home!" It wasn't a question you needed answered, seeing as you knew the answer. But it helped prove your point so you dredged up questions you asked yourself a month ago.

"I know he once loved you. But you need to accept that he does not love you anymore. He physically cannot love you anymore."

You laughed incredulously at her words as your face settled into a scowl. "This is why I didn't go to your stupid rehearsal. This is why I'm not going tomorrow. I don't care what you think." You fought hard to keep your voice steady and your eyes dry. "He didn't leave you, he left me. But I know he is coming back."

Shoko sighed and took a step back. "I'm gonna pick you tomorrow at 9am, okay? Remember, wear all black."

You watched her leave, eyes trailing behind her with your head stuck facing at the wall she was standing in front of. You finished your glass, chugging it, ignoring the drops that trailed down your face, and slammed it down as hard as one could with a wine glass. You finished the bottle that night as you scrolled through pictures for you and Gojo.

The next day, Shoko showed up at 8:54. As angry as you were, you had humoured her by dressing up in a black gown that covered everything. She didn't say much on the drive there but handed you an accessory that you clipped into place.

As she talked with some man you had met before, you spotted white hair entering a room. Your prep room. You followed it, not even saying goodbye, as you sped down the hallways. Slamming open the door, you saw him in your prep room, clear as day, for the first time a month.

"Gojo,"

"Love, you need to calm down."

"No, don't say that. I get it, we had issues. It's okay, we can work through them, together." You reached for his hand as you looked up at him. He moved it out of your grasp. You tried not to let it show how much that had hurt you.

"You can't still be doing this. Not today."

"Doing what, trying to fix our relationship?" You crossed your arms, going on the back foot.

"There's no relationship anymore. Look, I think I should go or you should go."

"This is my prep room, Gojo. That you entered."

"I thought it was mine. The name on the door thought so too."

You turned, opened the door with narrowed eyes and read the name that cemented your mistake. Gojo's Viewing Preparation Room. Still, you fought, though now anger was the thing driving you, not love.

"So what? It's your room? It's our life. And you're just throwing it away!"

"I'm not doing this. Not today. You're clearly hurting. You need rest. You need to take a break." You could swear you felt his hands on your shoulder and they felt so goddamn real as you shrugged them off.

You changed tactics. "You want me to say you won? You won. Just come back to me. Love me again."

"You're not listening."

"You're the only one for me! Just listen to me!"

"No, you ha–"

"Stop it! Stop and listen! Think this through! Just wait."

"It's time for you to leave."

"I retired for you because I loved you so much. You are the only thing in my life. You made it so that I only had you and now you're trying to leave. No deal, Gojo!"

"It's time to start the ceremony now. You speak first!"

"I am going to miss you for the rest of my life!"

"You have to go!"

"Where do I go from here? Where, Satoru? You left me! I'm supposed to figure it out myself! No fucking chance!" You cried. You screamed at him, banging on what you believed to be his chest. Tears had clogged your vision. You wailed, trying to catch your breath and figure out what to say. "I-I-I REFUSE THAT!"

"You have to–"

"NO!" You stepped closer. "I have a house for us to live! We will be a family. We will have kids! I will give you kids, as many as you want, if you stay!"

"Honey–"

"Don't find another woman or fall in love with someone else. You can only be mine. I only want you to be mine!" Your voice began to crack as tears blurred your vision. Still, you could see the white haired man clearly. "Please don't be a lesson or a story with a moral at the end. Please, just love me! Please just stay!

"I will wait for you! Go on every mission they send you on! Live your life! Travel! I don't care! I will wait and wait and wait here in this spot! I will stand in front of the door and wait for you to come back home! I will wait even if the city is burning down. Even if the apocalypse happens."

"Baby–"

"I WILL WAIT AND WAIT AND WAIT AND LIVE ON WHAT WE WERE!"

Your voice gave out after that and so did your knees. You fell fowards, just barely catching yourself with your arms. In your hysterics, you had knocked over a picture. The same one they had outside. You clutched it in your hands.

"How could I forget your pretty face?" You choked out through your sobs. Shoko knocked on the door from outside.

"Are you ready?" She asked. You calmed a fraction, happy she hadn't heard you bear your soul.

You stood, smoothed your dress, and wiped your tears. You clipped on a veil and took a deep breath. Opening the door with a smile, you nodded to Shoko. The lectern didn't seem so bad once you were behind it. You looked out at the crowd, all dressed in black. The world had seemed to get the message, seeing as it was cloudy outside.

"I'd like to thank you for coming..." You took in a sharp breath and worked hard to stop your tears from spilling over. In that moment you wondered to yourself if he was thinking of you up in heaven. You begged him to think of you. "To Gojo Satoru's funeral."

[tldps-beautiful-boy]

Safer To Kiss

A/N: So I'm rewatching Criminal Minds and...

"The number of pathogens passed during a handshake is staggering. It's actually safer to kiss."

Those were the first words Spencer Reid said to you. He had come into your floral shop to buy flowers for Penelope after she was shot on her doorstep.

He had charmed you, in his own way. So, you decided to formally introduce yourself, with your name and a handshake. Which had prompted him to say his famous line.

You smiled and looked up at him, your head tilted just a bit. "If you're planning to kiss me, Spencer, you better take me on a date first."

His eyes widened and his mouth opened and closed. He pursed his lips as you began to kick yourself for being so forward. You wrapped his flowers to busy yourself.

"Does Saturday at 7 work?"

"Yeah, it does. See you then." You said, handing him his flowers.

And now, you were standing in front of him, the two of you in front of all your friends and family. The officiant had said it was time to kiss the bride. You held back a giggle as you held out your hand. Spencer didn't even glance at it, eyes on you.

"The number of pathogens passed during a handshake is staggering. It's actually safer to kiss."

And with that, he took your hand, pulled you in and kissed you, achieving something promised years ago.

[thepittmemes]

HAPPY FATHER’S DAY

[ohsweetzombiecthulhu]

Considering the day, I think it appropriate to post Chapter 1 of the 2 gay dads and their (formerly) unhoused daughter fic.

Look out for it this evening as I am currently traveling and approximately 2.5 hours out from my sweet, sweet laptop.

[tldps-beautiful-boy]

Where might I find this fic? Asking so that I may show the Victorian ghost, Jonathan, what true fan fiction is

[ohsweetzombiecthulhu]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

[tldps-beautiful-boy]

Jonathan quite liked it. Thank you very much ❤

[satellite-evans]

hula hoop

Pairing: Jack Abbot x reader

Summary: After a violent patient attack leaves you critically injured, Jack is forced to confront what it means to almost lose the person he loves.

Word count: 12k+

Warnings: patience violence, severe injury, angst, fluff

A/N:

read part 2 here

hey guys !! i’m genuinely so excited to finally post my first jack abbot fic, and i’m so excited for you guys to read it 😭

because tumblr hates me and this fic apparently exceeded the block limit, i had to split it into two parts <3 but i really hope you guys enjoy reading it as much as i enjoyed emotionally ruining myself while writing it.

anyways !!! thank you so much for reading, and please be nice this is my first time writing for the pitt/jack hahahah. if i used any medical terms wrong, my apologies 🫶

English is not my first language, so I apologize if I made any (grammar) mistakes. Feedback, requests, talks, vents, recommendations or just simple questions are always welcome.

Happy reading xxx

I do NOT give permission for my work to be translated or reposted on here or any other site.

The rain had started sometime before dawn.

By the time you merged onto the interstate, the entire city looked washed out and miserable beneath sheets of gray rain and smeared headlights reflecting across wet pavement. Your windshield wipers moved at full speed and still barely kept up with the storm. The coffee sitting untouched in your cupholder had gone cold nearly an hour ago, though you were honestly too exhausted to care anymore.

The overnight shift had turned into fifteen hours instead of eight after two trauma admissions arrived back-to-back near the end of the night, and now every muscle in your body ached with the kind of exhaustion that settled deep into your bones. You genuinely could not remember the last time you slept more than four uninterrupted hours.

Traffic slowed suddenly ahead of you.

At first you assumed construction or flooding because of the weather, but then smoke curled upward through the rain and your stomach dropped immediately.

Cars sat mangled across three lanes of traffic at impossible angles. One SUV had spun into the median while another sedan looked almost folded around the back of a delivery truck, its front end crushed so badly it barely resembled a vehicle anymore. Hazard lights blinked weakly through the storm while people stumbled across the interstate in shock.

Your body moved before your brain fully caught up.

“Oh my God.”

You were already unbuckling your seatbelt before the car completely stopped.

Adrenaline sliced straight through your exhaustion hard enough to make your hands shake as you reached for the trauma bag in the passenger seat. Rain hit you instantly the second you shoved the door open, cold water soaking through your clothes within seconds while distant screaming echoed somewhere through the storm.

Someone yelled that a driver was trapped.

Another voice screamed for a medic.

A woman near the shoulder sobbed hard enough she could barely breathe, blood running down the side of her forehead while a man beside her stood completely frozen, staring blankly at the wreckage like his brain had stopped processing reality altogether.

You were already running.

“I’m a doctor,” you shouted over the rain. “Move back and give me some room.”

People listened immediately.

The trapped driver looked somewhere in his forties, pinned awkwardly behind the wheel of the crushed sedan. Blood streamed from a scalp laceration down the side of his face while the airbags hung deflated around him. His breathing came too fast beneath the sound of rain hammering against twisted metal, panic beginning to sharpen around the edges of every inhale.

You crouched carefully beside the shattered driver’s side window, ignoring the glass biting through your scrub pants into your knees.

“Hey,” you said, forcing calmness into your voice despite the adrenaline roaring through your chest. “Can you hear me?”

The man blinked slowly toward you, dazed. “Think so.”

“Good. That’s good.” You adjusted the flashlight between your fingers while quickly checking his pupils. “What’s your name?”

“Leon.”

“Okay, Leon. I’m Dr. Y/L/N.” Your voice stayed steady automatically, years of emergency medicine taking over before panic had a chance to settle in. “Don’t move your neck for me, alright?”

A shaky breath of laughter escaped him. “Wasn’t planning on it.”

Despite everything, you smiled a little.

“You’re doing great,” you assured him quietly. “Stay with me.”

And he did.

His eyes kept finding yours every few seconds like you were the only stable thing left in the middle of the chaos.

Your hands moved automatically after that.

Pressure against the head wound. Monitoring responsiveness. Keeping him conscious and talking while you assessed what you could from outside the vehicle. Rainwater mixed with blood beneath your fingers while traffic backed up for what looked like miles behind you, headlights glowing dimly through the storm.

Leon kept looking at you every few seconds like you were the only stable thing left in the middle of the chaos.

“You work at the PTMC?” he asked weakly after spotting the hospital logo embroidered onto your soaked jacket.

“Unfortunately.”

That got a real laugh out of him, brief and pained but enough that relief loosened slightly in your chest.

“You always this calm when you see a car crash?”

You let out a tired breath through your nose. “No. I’m panicking beautifully internally.”

That made him laugh again.

Patients relaxed faster once they laughed. It was something you learned early in residency, fear loosened the second people felt human again instead of helpless.

So you stayed with him.

Even after the paramedics arrived.

Even after they started finishing the extrication, peeling back what remained of the driver’s side door while rain poured endlessly over the wreckage.

You stayed crouched beside him talking him through every step because shock was already creeping in around the edges of his expression, and every time panic threatened to overwhelm him again, his eyes found yours immediately.

“You’re okay,” you kept saying quietly. “Stay with me. You’re okay.”

The interstate blurred around you in streaks of red brake lights and flashing hazards. Rain soaked through your jacket and scrubs completely now, damp fabric clinging uncomfortably to your skin while your hair stuck to the back of your neck. The adrenaline that had carried you through the crash scene was already fading, leaving behind an exhaustion so heavy it felt physical.

An EMT looked up from the stretcher and did a double take.

“Dr. Y/L/N?”

You snapped back into focus automatically.

“Male, approximately forty-two. Restrained driver. Brief LOC reported by witnesses. GCS fifteen currently. Complaining of left-sided rib pain. Possible concussion. Neuro status intact for now, but keep an eye on him.”

The EMT nodded once while adjusting the cervical collar. “Got it.”

They moved quickly after that, securing straps, checking vitals, loading equipment through the rain while Leon tracked every movement with the wide-eyed focus of someone trying very hard not to think too much about what had almost happened.

Your knees ached from kneeling on broken glass. Your hands had started trembling slightly now that nobody urgently needed anything from you anymore.

But you stayed beside him anyway.

Leon caught your wrist weakly just before the paramedics closed the ambulance doors.

“Hey.”

You looked up immediately.

His face looked pale beneath the blood and rainwater, eyes glassy with pain and adrenaline, but there was something steadier there too.

Gratitude maybe.

“Thank you for taking care of me.”

The words landed somewhere deeper than they should have.

You swallowed hard before giving his hand one quick squeeze.

“Yeah,” you said softly. “Of course.”

For a second, you just stood there breathing.

The interstate still smelled like gasoline and smoke. Somewhere farther down the road another paramedic shouted instructions while tow trucks crawled through the rain toward the wreckage. Traffic in the opposite lanes slowed almost to a stop as people stared through fogged windows at what was left of the crash.

“You riding in with us?” one of the EMTs asked.

You glanced once toward your abandoned car still trapped in unmoving traffic nearly half a mile behind the accident scene. The thought of trying to get back to it right now felt impossible.

“Yeah,” you answered tiredly.

The ambulance doors shut behind you a second later, sealing you inside with the sharp smell of antiseptic, wet clothing, and adrenaline.

Leon talked for almost the entire ride to the hospital.

Nervous talking.

The kind trauma patients did when they were scared enough to fill every silence because silence meant thinking too hard about how close they came to dying. You’d seen it hundreds of times before. Some people cried. Some got angry. Some went terrifyingly quiet.

Leon talked.

So you let him.

He rambled about his job, about his daughter’s soccer game this weekend, about how his wife was going to kill him for wrecking the car because they still hadn’t finished paying it off. Every few sentences his voice shook slightly before he forced another joke out anyway.

You stayed beside him the whole ride, monitoring pupils and vitals while keeping him talking just enough to assess mental status without making it obvious you were doing it.

“You always pick up patients on the highway on your day off?” he asked weakly at one point.

You let out a tired breath of laughter. “Only the lucky ones.”

That earned another shaky smile from him.

The ambulance doors burst open, paramedics already rolling the stretcher down the bay entrance while rainwater dripped steadily from the wheels onto the floor.

By the time the ambulance rolled through the bay doors at The Pitt, you were freezing hard enough your teeth almost hurt. Your scrubs were soaked completely through, your shoes squelching against the floor while trauma staff moved around you in organized chaos.

“Look what the cat dragged in,” Santos called across the ER the second she spotted you climbing out of the ambulance bay. “Always a pleasure seeing you this early, Iron Woman.”

You groaned immediately.

You earned the nickname after accidentally mistaking a patient for Robert Downey Jr. during a twenty-hour shift.

To be fair, the goatee had been identical.

“Dana,” you called immediately, falling into step beside the stretcher. “What’s open?”

Dana barely looked up from the nurses’ station. “Trauma Two’s clear.”

“Perfect.” You pushed damp hair back from your face before glancing toward the department. “Whitaker, Javadi, you’re with me. Perlah, can you help set up Two?”

Perlah nodded immediately and disappeared ahead of the group while Whitaker grabbed gloves from the wall dispenser on his way past.

“You look cold,” Whitaker informed you conversationally.

“Thank you,” you replied flatly.

Javadi appeared beside the stretcher while all of you pushed through the trauma bay doors together. “What happened?”

“Restrained driver, approximately forty-two,” you answered automatically. “High-speed MVA during the storm. Brief LOC reported by witnesses. GCS fifteen on arrival, complaining of left-sided rib pain and worsening headache. Possible concussion.”

“Vitals stable en route,” one of the paramedics added while helping transfer Leon onto the trauma bed.

Whitaker immediately started attaching monitors while Javadi pulled supplies from cabinets with the frantic efficiency of someone still trying very hard to look calmer than she actually felt.

Then Jack looked up from the computer station.

And somehow, in the middle of the packed emergency department, everything softened slightly around the edges.

You caught the exact moment recognition crossed his face. The exhaustion behind his eyes shifted immediately into concern as his gaze moved slowly over you. Soaked scrubs, blood smeared across your gloves, rainwater dripping steadily from your hair onto the floor beneath you.

Jack crossed the trauma bay almost immediately.

“You okay?” he asked quietly. “What happened? I thought you went home.”

His voice grounded you in a way almost nothing else could anymore.

Maybe it was because he always sounded calm even during chaos. Maybe it was because after years together your body recognized him before your brain consciously caught up. Or maybe it was simply that exhaustion hit harder the second somebody else arrived to help carry it.

“I’m fine,” you answered automatically while stripping off your soaked gloves and replacing them with clean ones. “Probably need a head CT.”

Jack’s expression tightened instantly.

“For you?”

You blinked at him before realizing what you’d said. “What? No. For the patient.”

Behind you, Perlah had already started cutting away Leon’s soaked shirt while Whitaker attached cardiac leads to his chest.

“BP’s holding,” Whitaker called.

“Sinus tach at one-ten,” Javadi added while checking another monitor. “Probably pain and adrenaline.”

“Good,” you answered automatically before stepping back beside the bed.

“Where’s Robby?”

“Overdose in Four,” Dana answered from the doorway.

You nodded once and reached for your penlight again, checking Leon’s pupils carefully while rain continued tapping faintly against the ambulance bay doors behind you.

Santos wandered into Trauma Two looking personally offended. “Why does huckleberry and crash get invited? I can help.”

“You can stand there and look pretty while actual doctors save lives,” you shot back immediately.

Santos gasped dramatically. “Dr. Abbot, your girlfriend is bullying me again.”

“She bullies everybody,” Jack muttered.

But there was no heat behind it.

His eyes lingered on you a second too long.

You knew that look by now.

Jack had spent years in emergency medicine learning how to bury concern beneath sarcasm and exhaustion, but you still caught it every time. He noticed the dark circles under your eyes. The slight tremor beginning in your hands now that the adrenaline was wearing off. The way your shoulders sagged whenever you thought nobody was looking.

“You’re freezing,” he said quietly.

“You are correct. I am freezing.”

Without another word, Jack pulled his hoodie off the back of the nurses’ station chair and draped it carefully around your shoulders before you could protest. It was still warm from him, smelling faintly like coffee, antiseptic, and the cologne he only remembered to wear maybe twice a month.

Something in your chest tightened stupidly at the gesture.

Behind him, Santos gagged theatrically. “Oh my God. Romance in the trauma bay. I’m going to throw up.”

“Go chart something,” Jack said flatly.

Whitaker looked up from the monitor leads. “Actually, I think it's very sweet."

“You’re all miserable,” you informed them while pulling the hoodie tighter around yourself.

“No,” Javadi corrected while checking Leon’s blood pressure. “You two are just aggressively in love in public.”

Jack looked genuinely offended. “Aggressively? I don't get it."

Despite yourself, you laughed softly while stepping back toward Leon’s bedside.

Leon noticed the interaction immediately.

“That your boyfriend?” he asked weakly from the trauma bed.

“Husband to the emergency department,” you corrected while snapping fresh gloves on. “Boyfriend in real life.”

Jack rolled his eyes while typing orders into the computer. “Don’t encourage her, Leon.”

Leon grinned despite the pain. “You guys are disgustingly cute.”

Under the brighter trauma lights, bruising had already started blooming dark purple across his ribs beneath the rain-soaked skin.

“Headache worse?” you asked while checking his pupils again.

“A little.”

“You nauseous?”

“Not yet.”

“Good,” you answered. “Let’s keep it that way.”

Javadi palpated carefully along his left side while Whitaker adjusted the blood pressure cuff.

“There’s something strangely comforting about you people,” Leon admitted weakly after a moment.

“You say that now,” Javadi muttered.

That earned another tired laugh from him before he winced sharply afterward.

“There it is,” you said softly. “Still joking. Good sign, buddy.”

There was something oddly comforting about patients who stayed conversational. After years in emergency medicine, you learned to appreciate moments where humanity still existed between procedures and bloodwork and trauma assessments.

Sometimes those tiny conversations mattered almost as much as the medicine itself.

Jack stepped beside you while reviewing Leon’s vitals, his shoulder brushing yours briefly in the cramped trauma bay. The room smelled faintly of antiseptic, damp fabric, and rainwater now that Leon’s soaked clothing had finally been cut away.

“You should change,” Jack murmured quietly while adjusting one of the monitor leads. “I got this, baby.”

You barely glanced at him, still focused on the chart. “Don’t worry. I’ll survive.”

A tired look crossed his face immediately.

“That’s usually what people say right before passing out.”

You shot him a look over your shoulder, though exhaustion dulled most of the energy behind it. “You’re dramatic.”

“You’ve been awake how long now?”

“Eighteen hours.”

Jack stared at you flatly. “That’s not comforting.”

“You stopped at a major accident scene after an eighteen-hour shift?” Javadi asked incredulously.

You shrugged slightly.

And that alone made Jack’s jaw tighten, because that was exactly the kind of thing you always did.

The adrenaline carrying you through the crash scene had almost completely faded now, leaving behind exhaustion so heavy it felt physical. Your wet clothes clung coldly to your skin beneath Jack’s hoodie while every muscle in your body ached now that the immediate crisis had passed.

Jack exhaled softly through his nose before lowering his voice.

“You don’t always have to run yourself into the ground trying to save everybody.”

The words landed harder than they should have.

You focused instead on adjusting Leon’s blanket over his chest, smoothing the fabric carefully just to give your hands something else to do.

Jack knew you too well by now to push after saying something like that.

That was part of what made loving him dangerous sometimes. He noticed things you worked very hard to hide from everybody else.

He noticed the way your hands trembled after bad trauma calls once the adrenaline wore off. How you skipped meals without realizing it during difficult shifts. How every patient death stayed with you longer than you ever admitted aloud.

Jack had spent years in emergency medicine learning how to compartmentalize just enough to survive it, which somehow only made him better at recognizing when you weren’t doing the same.

His hand brushed briefly against the small of your back as he moved toward the monitors again.

“Don’t worry, Leon,” Jack said easily while checking the cardiac tracing. “You’re in good hands.”

Leon looked toward him before his gaze drifted back to you.

“I figured that out already,” he said softly. “She stopped on the interstate for me.”

You glanced up from the chart, slightly surprised by how steady his voice sounded now despite everything.

“You didn’t have to do all that,” Leon continued quietly.

You shrugged lightly, pushing damp hair away from your face. “Part of the job.”

“Maybe,” he answered softly, still watching you carefully. “But most people would’ve kept driving.”

Something warm and uncomfortable settled low in your chest at that.

Most patients never saw the moments in between all of this. They saw calm voices and steady hands. They saw competence because that was what they needed from you in moments like these.

They never saw the aftermath.

The exhaustion. The panic doctors swallowed in real time just to keep functioning. The way people occasionally locked themselves in supply closets for thirty seconds after bad cases just to breathe before walking back out like nothing happened.

But Leon had seen you kneeling beside twisted metal in freezing rain with blood on your hands while traffic screamed past only feet away.

He’d seen the human part too.

And somehow that felt far more exposing than expected.

Before you could answer, something shifted.

Subtle.

Small enough most people in the room probably would have missed it entirely.

But after years in emergency medicine, your body noticed changes before your brain consciously caught up.

Leon’s breathing changed.

One second it was slow and uneven with postictal exhaustion.

The next it caught strangely in his chest.

His eyes lost focus somewhere over your shoulder while every muscle in his body tightened beneath the blankets all at once.

Your stomach dropped instantly.

“Leon?”

Jack looked up from the monitor station at the exact same moment Leon’s entire body stiffened violently against the mattress.

“He’s seizing!”

Everything exploded into motion.

The seizure hit hard and fast, violent enough that the entire trauma bed rattled beneath him. His back arched sharply while his arms convulsed uncontrollably, knocking equipment sideways as monitors erupted into sharp screaming alarms throughout the room.

“Clock started,” Perlah called immediately.

“Two minutes on the seizure pads,” Whitaker added while grabbing suction.

“Turn him,” you ordered.

You and Javadi moved together automatically, carefully rolling Leon onto his side while his body continued jerking violently beneath your hands. Blood appeared at the corner of his mouth where he’d bitten through his tongue while every breath came in horrible choking gasps between convulsions.

“Airway’s clear,” Javadi said quickly, though her voice still sounded tight with adrenaline.

Across the room Jack was already pulling medication from the crash cart while Dana called CT from the doorway ahead of transport.

Then finally, slowly, the seizure broke.

Leon’s body slumped heavily back against the mattress drenched in sweat while ragged breaths tore unevenly from his chest. The room fell briefly into that strange silence that always followed emergencies, where everybody still moved quickly even though the worst part had passed.

For now.

“Let’s get a CT stat,” Jack said immediately.

You nodded once, trying to ignore the tremor beginning in your hands now that the adrenaline spike was crashing again.

“I’ll stay with him until transport.”

Jack hesitated.

Only briefly, but long enough for you to notice.

Something unreadable crossed his expression while his eyes flicked from Leon back toward you.

Concern maybe.

The same quiet tension he always carried after particularly violent trauma cases.

“You sure?” he asked softly.

You frowned slightly. “Yeah.”

Whitaker glanced briefly between both of you like he noticed something too, but before he could say anything Dana appeared in the doorway again.

“Trauma Three needs help now.”

Jack’s jaw tightened.

His fingers brushed briefly against your wrist before he stepped away toward the hallway, disappearing almost immediately back into the noise and chaos outside the trauma bay.

The room quieted afterward.

Machines beeped steadily while rain tapped faintly against distant ER windows somewhere down the hall. Whitaker and Javadi had already been pulled into another room, leaving you alone beside Leon while he lay motionless in exhausted postictal confusion.

You dimmed the overhead light slightly before adjusting the blanket higher over his chest.

“Hey,” you said gently when you noticed him beginning to stir. “You’re okay. You had a seizure.”

No response.

His eyes stayed fixed upward, unfocused and confused.

Postictal.

You had seen it hundreds of times before. Disorientation. Confusion. Agitation sometimes. Patients waking terrified because their brains had not fully caught up to reality yet.

Your shoulder ached dully now that exhaustion was settling deeper into your body again. You reached absentmindedly for the chart at the foot of the bed, mentally running through differentials and imaging priorities while waiting for CT to call back.

You missed the shift in him by less than a second.

One moment Leon lay motionless against the mattress, the next his eyes sharpened violently.

Not recognition.

Fear.

Pure terrified instinct.

Your stomach dropped.

“Leon—”

He surged upright before you could finish the sentence.

His hand closed around your throat with terrifying force, slamming you backward into the cabinet hard enough to knock the air violently from your lungs. Pain exploded across the back of your skull as your head cracked sharply against metal.

“Leon!”

The sound came out broken and strangled.

But he wasn’t seeing you.

That was the horrifying part.

His eyes looked completely wild now—unfocused, terrified, empty all at once. Pure neurological panic stripped entirely of recognition.

For one terrible second, training overrode fear.

“Leon,” you gasped desperately, grabbing his wrists instinctively instead of striking him. “Listen to me. You’re in the hospital. You’re safe.”

Nothing reached him.

His grip tightened harder around your throat.

Air stopped.

Panic slammed through you instantly now, sharp and animal and overwhelming in a way you almost never allowed yourself to feel. Your vision flickered violently while you clawed uselessly at his hands, trying desperately to drag in even one full breath.

You needed help.

Safe word.

Your mouth opened automatically.

“H—”

Nothing came out except a rasp.

Leon shoved you backward harder, your skull slamming against the cabinet again hard enough that white exploded across your vision.

The hospital safe word.

You just needed to say it.

“Hula—”

The sound collapsed into another strangled gasp as his fingers crushed tighter against your airway.

Your lungs burned.

Tears blurred your vision from pain and lack of oxygen while movement echoed faintly somewhere outside the trauma bay. People were still moving through the ER completely unaware of what was happening behind the curtain.

Your body was weakening fast.

You forced one shredded breath into your lungs and screamed:

“HULA HOOP!”

The entire department reacted instantly.

The trauma bay doors burst open hard enough to slam against the wall while voices shouted over each other.

Hands grabbed Leon, trying to drag him backward while he fought wildly in blind confusion and terror.

But before anyone could fully pull him away, he shoved you violently across the room.

Your shoulder struck the edge of the cabinetry with a horrible crack before the rest of your body collapsed hard onto the tile floor.

Pain tore through your arm instantly, sharp and wrong enough it barely felt real.

You couldn’t breathe.

Couldn’t think.

The room blurred violently while alarms screamed overhead and people shouted your name somewhere nearby.

And through all of it, through the pain and chaos splitting apart around you, your brain found one thing instinctively.

Jack.

You thought about the way he always found you in crowded trauma bays without even trying. The way his hoodie still smelled faintly like coffee and antiseptic around your shoulders. The quiet brush of his hand against your back only minutes earlier.

You wondered irrationally if he was going to blame himself for leaving the room.

That thought hurt almost as badly as the pain itself.

Your eyes slipped closed just as the world dissolved completely into noise.

Jack was halfway through finishing a chart when he realized he had not seen you in several minutes.

He looked up automatically, scanning the department for you out of habit more than anything else. Usually he could spot you immediately no matter how crowded the ER became. You moved quickly when you worked, sharp and focused and impossible to miss once he knew what to look for.

But you were nowhere.

“Hey, Javadi,” he called while signing off medication orders. “Have you seen Dr. Y/L/N?”

Javadi looked up so quickly, like she was a deer caught in headlights. “Uh… no,” she answered quickly. Too quickly. “I haven’t seen her since I left Leon. Sorry.”

Then she disappeared almost immediately toward another patient before he could ask anything else.

He pushed himself upright from the workstation, the familiar ache radiating faintly through his prosthetic. Long shifts always made it worse. The socket rubbed raw after enough hours on his feet, especially during busy trauma nights when he barely sat down.

Normally he ignored it.

Right now he barely felt it at all.

“Dana,” he called, already moving toward the nurses’ station. “Have you seen Y/N?”

Dana barely looked up from the chart she was reviewing. “Pretty sure she’s still with Leon. Why?”

Jack turned the iPad slightly toward her. “They haven’t gone to CT.”

That got her attention.

Her eyes flicked quickly toward the tracking board before settling back on him. “They’re probably backed up upstairs.”

“Maybe.”

But something still felt wrong.

Dana sighed softly. “Jack, she’s a big girl. She can handle herself.”

He knew that.

God, he knew that better than anybody.

You were one of the strongest people he had ever met. Smarter than most attendings twice your age. Calm during trauma activations that made residents freeze completely. You handled combative patients, pediatric codes, catastrophic MVCs, and grieving families with a steadiness that still amazed him after all these years.

But that feeling in his chest would not go away.

Dana pointed down the hallway. “I actually need you in Central Fourteen. Chest pain rule-out and Dr. Garcia wants another set of eyes before she calls cards.”

Jack exhaled through his nose, still staring at the tracking board.

“Right,” he muttered distractedly. “Yeah. Okay.”

He turned reluctantly toward the direction of Central Fourteen, adjusting his pace automatically as the prosthetic clicked softly against tile beneath his scrub pants. Fatigue had settled deep into the joint hours ago, making his gait slightly uneven now that the adrenaline from earlier trauma activations had worn off.

Then he heard it.

“HULA HOOP!”

Everything in his body stopped instantly.

The voice was barely recognizable.

Raw. Ragged. Strangled around obvious pain and panic in a way that made every hair on the back of his neck stand upright immediately. For one horrible second his brain refused to process it properly because it did not make sense. Not your voice. Not like that.

And then recognition hit him all at once.

The hospital safe word.

Trauma Two.

Jack’s heart dropped so violently it almost hurt.

No.

The thought hit him before anything else.

No no no.

Adrenaline detonated through his bloodstream hard enough to make him dizzy.

Then instinct took over completely.

“No,” he breathed aloud, already moving before the word fully left his mouth.

He pivoted so sharply pain shot violently through his prosthetic, the sudden turn grinding pressure through the socket hard enough that under normal circumstances it would have staggered him. But right now he barely felt it beneath the sheer overwhelming panic flooding his system.

Fear swallowed everything else whole.

Not the controlled fear he knew from trauma medicine. Not the clinical kind that sharpened your focus during codes and mass casualty calls.

This was different.

This was personal.

Jack shoved past a stretcher hard enough that the wheels screeched across tile while people all around him started reacting at the exact same time. Nurses turned toward Trauma Two instantly at the sound of the safe word. Dana’s head snapped upward from the nurses’ station. Santos was already running before half the department fully understood what was happening.

But Jack got there first.

The curtain outside Trauma Two jerked violently as shouting erupted from inside the room. Monitors screamed overhead loud enough to echo through the entire department while equipment crashed hard against the floor somewhere beyond the drapes.

“Get him off her!”

The words barely registered through the roaring in Jack’s ears.

His pulse was so loud now it drowned everything else out.

He hit the doorway hard enough that the curtain ripped halfway off the track as he shoved inside.

And then he saw you.

Lying on the floor.

Motionless.

For one horrifying second his brain simply stopped functioning.

You were crumpled unnaturally against the tile beside the cabinets, one arm twisted wrong beneath you while blood streaked across the side of your face from where your head had struck something hard enough to split skin open. Jack noticed everything all at once in the brutal hyperclarity trauma doctors developed after years in emergency medicine.

The bruising already forming around your throat.

The abnormal angle of your shoulder.

The way your chest barely moved.

And somehow that was the part that terrified him most.

You were not moving enough.

Leon was still screaming somewhere nearby while Ahmed and two nurses fought to restrain him against the opposite wall, his face wild with postictal confusion and terror. Somebody was yelling for sedation meds. The entire trauma bay had dissolved into complete chaos.

But Jack barely registered any of it.

Because you were on the floor.

And you were not getting up.

Something inside his chest seemed to cave inward violently.

“Oh, honey.”

Then he said your name, and the sound that came out barely resembled the steady, composed voice Jack used during traumas and codes and every impossible shift the hospital threw at him.

This was different.

There was no clinical calm left in him now.

Only fear.

Pure terrified fear.

He dropped beside you so fast pain tore sharply through his prosthetic as his knee hit tile, but he ignored it instantly. His hands shook hard enough he almost missed your carotid pulse the first time he checked.

Then finally.

There. Weak, but there.

Relief hit so hard it almost made him nauseous.

“Oh my God,” he whispered shakily, one bloodstained hand cradling the side of your face carefully while the other pressed against your neck searching for injuries. “Hey. Hey, stay with me. Come on.”

You did not respond.

Jack’s stomach turned violently.

Training forced itself back online in fragmented pieces despite the panic threatening to choke him alive. Airway. Breathing. Circulation. Neuro. He assessed automatically even while his brain screamed at him that this was you beneath his hands.

Not a patient.

You.

Blood pressure crash from trauma? Concussion? Cervical injury? Shoulder dislocation? Fracture? Internal bleed?

His eyes flicked instantly toward your throat again and rage flooded him so suddenly it nearly stole his breath.

Finger-shaped bruises were already darkening against your skin.

He hurt you.

The realization nearly made Jack physically sick.

“Jack,” Dana’s voice cut sharply through the chaos as she dropped beside him. “We need to move.”

But Jack could barely hear her.

Your eyelashes fluttered faintly for half a second before falling closed again and something inside him broke completely at the sight.

“No no no,” he whispered frantically, brushing damp hair away from your face with shaking fingers. “Stay awake. Baby, stay awake for me.”

His voice cracked hard on the last word.

That terrified him almost as much as the sight of you bleeding on the floor.

Because Jack Abbot did not lose composure.

Not during traumas, not during mass casualties, not while pronouncing deaths.

But right now panic was tearing straight through him so violently he could barely breathe around it.

And for the first time in years, he had absolutely no idea how to separate being a doctor from being the man who loved you.

“What the hell happened?”

Robby’s voice cut sharply through the chaos as he pushed into Trauma Two with Mohan directly behind him, but for half a second, both of them stopped cold.

The room looked catastrophic. Leon was still fighting violently against security near the far wall, his movements frantic and disorganized while Santos shouted for more sedation. Equipment littered the floor around the trauma bay, overturned trays and scattered supplies crunching beneath people’s shoes as alarms screamed overhead loudly enough to make the entire room feel claustrophobic.

And in the middle of all of it, you were lying motionless on the floor with Jack kneeling beside you.

Blood streaked down the side of your face and disappeared beneath the collar of his hoodie still hanging around your shoulders. Bruising had already started darkening visibly around your throat, ugly fingerprints blooming beneath the fluorescent trauma lights, while your left arm rested at an angle that made Mohan’s stomach immediately drop.

“Jesus Christ,” Mohan breathed.

“Security’s got the patient,” Dana snapped, already dropping beside you with Santos. “Probably postictal aggression after the seizure. He went after her.”

Robby moved instantly after that, years of trauma medicine overriding shock the second he reached your side. “Get her on a gurney now. C-spine precautions. Santos, I need vitals. Dana, page CT and tell them we’re coming immediately. Mohan, get me neuro and ortho on standby.”

Everybody moved except Jack.

He stayed frozen beside you on the tile floor, one hand still cradling the side of your face like he physically could not force himself to let go.

“Jack,” Robby said.

No response.

Jack was staring at you with an expression Robby had never seen on him before. Not panic exactly. Worse than panic. Helplessness, maybe, like his brain had short-circuited somewhere between doctor and boyfriend and now could not figure out how to function as either.

“Jack,” Robby repeated more firmly.

That finally seemed to pull him back enough to blink.

“She isn’t breathing right,” he said hoarsely, voice rough enough it barely sounded like him anymore. “He had her by the throat. Her head hit the cabinet, probably. Possible LOC. Shoulder’s definitely dislocated, maybe fractured too.”

The words came out clipped and automatic, pure trauma assessment forced through panic, but his hands were still shaking.

Dana and Santos carefully slid a backboard beneath you while Mohan cut away the remains of the hoodie around your shoulder to assess the injury better. The second the fabric moved, Jack saw the full extent of the bruising spreading across your throat, dark purple already beneath your skin.

“He squeezed hard enough to leave petechiae,” Santos muttered quietly while examining your neck. “Shit.”

Robby’s jaw tightened immediately. “We need airway monitoring. Neck trauma protocol.”

You stirred weakly then, letting out a broken sound somewhere between a gasp and a whimper as Dana stabilized your shoulder. Jack moved instantly at the sound.

“Hey,” he said, voice softening so fast it almost hurt to hear. “Hey, don’t move. You’re okay.”

Your eyes fluttered halfway open for barely a second before unfocusing again.

“She’s awake,” Jack breathed.

“For now,” Robby answered grimly while checking your pupils with a penlight. “Possible concussion. We’re not ruling anything out yet.”

Jack knew that tone. It was the same one they all used when things might be much worse than they looked initially.

Around them, the room was finally beginning to settle into controlled chaos instead of outright panic. Security had Leon restrained now while Santos pushed sedatives through an IV line with tight, controlled movements. Leon’s terrified shouting dissolved into confused, exhausted mumbling as the medication began taking effect.

“He didn’t know what he was doing,” Mohan said quietly, mostly to fill the horrible silence hanging over the room.

Jack did not answer. Rationally, he already knew that. Postictal aggression, neurological confusion, severe agitation after seizure activity. They had all seen it before. But none of it mattered right now, because every time Jack blinked, he saw your body hitting the floor again.

“On my count,” Santos said firmly while positioning herself near your head. “One, two, three.”

They lifted you carefully onto the gurney, and the second they moved your shoulder, a sharp cry tore from your throat despite your barely conscious state.

Jack physically flinched.

Robby looked at him immediately. “Jack, I need you with me here.”

But Jack still looked frozen. His prosthetic locked slightly as he stood too quickly, pain shooting sharply through the joint while exhaustion and adrenaline crashed violently together inside his body. Normally, he compensated automatically for it. Years of physical therapy had taught him exactly how to move through pain without thinking.

Right now, he barely noticed it. All he could see was you strapped to a trauma gurney instead of standing beside one, and somehow that felt profoundly wrong in a way his brain could not fully process yet.

Dana squeezed his arm briefly as she passed him. “She’s alive,” she said quietly, firmly enough that it sounded almost like an order. “So stay with us.”

Jack swallowed hard, then finally nodded once.

The second the gurney locked into place beside the trauma bed, the room shifted fully into trauma mode. Controlled chaos. Fast hands. Sharply clipped orders. Monitor alarms blending into the constant noise of the ER outside while everybody moved around you with the kind of practiced coordination that only came from years of emergency medicine.

“BP dropping,” Santos called from the monitor station. “Ninety-two over fifty-six. Heart rate one-forty. Pulse ox ninety-four.”

Robby swore quietly under his breath before stepping beside the gurney. “Dana, I need another large bore IV. CBC, CMP, coags, type and screen, lactate. Full trauma panel.”

Dana was already moving before he finished speaking.

Mohan carefully stabilized your cervical spine while Perlah adjusted the collar more securely around your neck. Blood stained the side of your face now, dark against pale skin beneath the fluorescent trauma lights, while bruising continued spreading visibly across your throat.

“She’s tachycardic from pain and adrenaline,” Mohan said quickly while palpating carefully along your ribs and clavicle. “Left shoulder deformity obvious. Could be anterior dislocation, maybe proximal humerus fracture too.”

“She hit hard,” Dana added grimly while cutting away the sleeve of your scrub top completely. “Look at the swelling already, poor baby.”

Jack forced himself closer finally, though every instinct in his body screamed at him to stop looking entirely.

Your shoulder looked wrong. Not subtly wrong, catastrophically wrong. The joint sat visibly displaced beneath skin already darkening with bruising while your arm rested protectively against your torso in unconscious guarding. Even barely responsive, your body was trying to protect the injury.

“Y/N?” Robby called firmly while shining the penlight into your eyes again. “Hey, stay with me.”

Your eyelids fluttered weakly, and your lips parted slightly before a small broken sound escaped you, more pain than words.

“There you go,” Dana said softly. “That’s good, hey sweetie.”

“She’s responsive,” Mohan confirmed. “Pupils reactive bilaterally.”

“Any obvious neuro deficits?”

“Hard to assess until she’s more alert.”

Jack swallowed hard. Normally those words would have sounded clinical. Routine. Hearing them about you made him feel sick.

Robby’s fingers moved carefully along your scalp before stopping near the back of your head. “She’s got a laceration here. Probably where she hit the cabinet.”

“How bad?” Jack asked immediately.

Robby looked up briefly. “Needs staples. I’m more concerned about intracranial bleed.”

Jack felt the room narrow sharply around him as his brain supplied every possibility instantly. Subdural. Epidural. Contusion. Diffuse axonal injury. Years of trauma medicine suddenly felt less like a skill and more like torture because now he knew exactly how bad this could become.

“BP’s still dropping,” Santos called sharply.

“Hang another liter.”

Dana connected fluids immediately while Mohan checked your abdomen carefully for rigidity and tenderness.

“She guarding?”

“Little bit.”

“Could just be pain response.”

“Or internal injury,” Robby answered grimly.

Jack closed his eyes briefly. Only twenty minutes ago, he had been teasing you for refusing to change out of wet scrubs. Twenty minutes ago, you had been standing beside him alive and exhausted and rolling your eyes at him. Now you were strapped to a trauma gurney while your coworkers discussed possible brain bleeds.

The trauma bay doors pushed open again.

“What do we have?”

Garcia entered already pulling gloves on, clearly expecting another routine consult before her eyes landed on the gurney. Then she froze.

“Is that...?”

Nobody answered immediately because suddenly saying it aloud made everything feel horrifyingly real.

Garcia moved closer automatically, surgical instincts taking over even while shock still flickered visibly across her face. Her eyes swept quickly across your injuries, taking in the bruising around your throat, the unstable shoulder, and the blood matted into your hair.

“Oh my God.”

Jack looked away sharply at the sound in her voice. He could handle panic, trauma, blood, failed resuscitations, and catastrophic injuries. But he could not handle hearing pity directed at you.

“What happened?” Garcia asked quietly.

“Postictal assault,” Robby answered while reviewing your vitals. “Patient seized after MVC. Became combative during recovery.”

Garcia’s jaw tightened immediately. Her eyes flicked briefly toward Jack, and somehow that made everything worse. Everybody in the hospital knew about the two of you. Not because either of you talked about it much, but because some things became obvious after enough years working together. The way Jack unconsciously searched for you in crowded rooms. The way your voice softened around him even during impossible shifts. The way both of you somehow always ended up side by side during difficult traumas without discussing it first.

And now everybody was watching him try not to fall apart while you lay bleeding in front of him.

“Y/N,” Garcia said gently while stepping closer to assess your airway. “Can you hear me?”

Your brow twitched faintly at the sound of your name.

“Good,” she murmured softly. “Stay with us.”

Jack finally moved closer again until he stood directly beside the gurney. For a second, he just stared at you. Really stared. At the bruises darkening beneath your jaw, at the trembling rise and fall of your breathing, at the blood drying against your temple.

Then very carefully, he reached down and took your hand.

Your fingers twitched weakly against his palm almost immediately.

Tiny movement. Huge relief.

“Okay,” Robby said firmly, forcing the room back into focus. “Let’s move. I want CT angio head and neck immediately. We’re ruling out intracranial bleed and carotid injury.”

Garcia nodded once beside him, already assessing your airway with practiced hands. “Neck swelling’s getting worse.”

Jack saw it too now that she said it aloud. The bruising around your throat had spread darker beneath the fluorescent lights while swelling gathered visibly beneath your jawline. Every breath you took sounded wrong now. Wet. Shallow. Strained enough to make every survival instinct in his body start screaming.

“Pulse ox is dipping,” Santos called sharply. “Ninety-one.”

“Jaw thrust,” Garcia ordered immediately.

Dana repositioned carefully at your head while Garcia leaned closer, studying the bruising around your airway with growing concern. “She may need to be intubated before CT if the swelling progresses.”

The word hit Jack like a physical blow. Intubated. His brain immediately supplied images he did not want. Ventilator settings. Sedation drips. ICU monitors. Neurological checks every hour.

“No,” he said automatically before he could stop himself.

Everybody looked at him.

Jack swallowed hard immediately, realizing too late he had said it aloud.

Robby’s expression softened slightly. “Jack.”

He hated the way Robby said his name right now. Carefully. Like he was one bad second away from falling apart completely.

“I know,” Jack muttered quickly, dragging a shaky hand down his face. “I know.”

But he didn’t. Not really. Because his brain kept splitting violently between two impossible realities. One side of him catalogued injuries automatically. Airway trauma after strangulation. Possible cervical instability. Hypoxia. Concussion. Internal bleeding. Shoulder fracture-dislocation. The other side could barely process the fact that you were lying here at all.

Your breathing suddenly hitched sharply.

Jack’s head snapped toward you instantly.

Your eyes fluttered weakly before opening. Confusion crossed your face immediately while you tried weakly to move, but pain flashed across your expression so fast it made Jack physically tense.

“Don’t,” he said immediately, stepping closer. “Baby, don’t move.”

Your gaze drifted slowly around the trauma bay like you were trying to understand where you were. The bright lights. The people surrounding you. The monitors beeping overhead. Then finally, your eyes landed on Jack.

Relief flickered there instantly. Small. Barely there. Enough to nearly destroy him.

“Hey,” he said softly, gripping your hand tighter without realizing it. “Hey, I’m right here.”

Your lips parted slightly, but nothing came out at first except a weak breath.

Jack leaned closer immediately. “What?”

Your brow pinched faintly in confusion.

“...Leon?”

The room went quiet for half a second.

Even now, barely conscious and injured and terrified, your first instinct was still the patient. Something inside Jack cracked painfully at that.

“He’s restrained,” Robby answered gently before Jack could. “You’re safe.”

Your eyes shifted again, slower this time.

“Hurts,” you whispered faintly.

Jack looked immediately toward your shoulder. “I know,” he said quietly, voice finally cracking despite how hard he tried to control it. “I know, sweetheart.”

Garcia’s eyes flicked sharply toward him at the sound. Jack almost never lost composure at work. Not like this.

You tried to swallow and immediately winced.

Garcia noticed too. “Throat pain?”

A tiny nod.

“Difficulty breathing?”

Another weak nod.

Garcia looked immediately toward Robby. “Airway’s worsening.”

Robby swore quietly under his breath. “We tube here or risk losing it in CT.”

The room shifted instantly again. More movement. More urgency. Dana reached for airway equipment while Santos prepared sedation meds with visibly tighter movements now. Mohan adjusted oxygen flow quickly while Garcia moved toward the head of the bed.

Jack felt suddenly frozen all over again.

Your eyes moved back toward him weakly, panic beginning to flicker beneath the pain now that you were awake enough to understand pieces of the conversation around you.

“Jack,” you whispered hoarsely.

His chest tightened violently. “I’m here.”

Your fingers curled weakly against his hand.

“Don’t...” Your breathing hitched painfully. “Don’t leave.”

That finally broke him.

Because you sounded scared. You, the person who stayed calm during pediatric arrests and mass casualty incidents and catastrophic traumas that made residents physically sick afterward.

Jack leaned down immediately, pressing his forehead briefly against yours despite the blood and chaos surrounding both of you. “I’m not going anywhere,” he whispered shakily. “Okay? I’m right here.”

Then your heart rate spiked sharply.

“One-fifty,” Santos warned.

Your oxygen dipped again.

“Eighty-eight.”

Garcia looked up instantly. “That’s it. We’re securing the airway.”

Panic flashed visibly across your face, and Jack felt your hand tighten weakly around his.

“Hey,” he said immediately, brushing damp hair carefully away from your forehead. “Look at me, sweetheart.”

Your unfocused eyes found his again.

“You’re okay,” he whispered, even though his own heart was pounding hard enough to make him nauseous. “Just keep breathing for me.”

Garcia stepped beside him carefully. “Jack,” she said quietly. “I need room.”

And suddenly he realized there was nothing else he could do. No medication to order. No procedure capable of fixing this himself. No trauma protocol separating him from the overwhelming terror flooding his chest.

All he could do was let go of your hand and watch other people try to save you, and somehow that felt worse than anything he had seen in his entire career.

And somehow that felt infinitely worse than any injury he had seen in his entire career.

The intubation blurred together afterward in fragments Jack knew would probably stay with him for the rest of his life.

Garcia’s voice turned sharp and clinical the second she stepped fully into procedure mode. “Etomidate ready?”

“Ready.”

“Succinylcholine?”

“Ready.”

“Pulse ox?”

“Eighty-seven and dropping.”

The room moved quickly around you after that. Packaging tore open, monitors screamed softly overhead, and Santos pushed medications through your IV with controlled precision while Dana stabilized your cervical spine at the head of the bed.

Jack stood rooted beside the wall, feeling completely fucking useless.

He had watched hundreds of intubations in his career. He had performed them himself during impossible traumas, with blood filling airways and families screaming outside the room. Usually, the procedure grounded him. Medicine always grounded him because medicine made sense. Algorithms. Protocols. Airway, breathing, circulation. Find the problem and fix it.

But this was you, and suddenly none of it felt clinical anymore.

Your eyes found his one last time before the sedatives fully took effect. Fear still flickered there beneath the exhaustion and pain, but so did trust. Complete trust. The kind that made his chest ache violently because you were still looking at him like he could somehow fix this.

Then your body relaxed beneath the medication.

Garcia moved immediately. “Going in.”

The room fell quieter for a second except for the ventilator alarms and the sound of Jack’s own pulse hammering violently in his ears. He watched Garcia guide the laryngoscope carefully while Robby monitored your vitals from beside the bed.

“Visualized.”

“Tube.”

“Advancing.”

Jack swallowed hard enough that it hurt.

You looked so small suddenly. That was the thought that kept repeating in his head while he stared at your motionless body beneath trauma lights that suddenly felt much too bright. You had always seemed larger than life somehow. Loud when you wanted to be. Brilliant. Sharp-edged. Impossible to intimidate. The kind of doctor residents followed instinctively because even during disasters, you carried yourself like you could handle anything thrown at you.

Now you were lying completely still while somebody else breathed for you.

“Tube’s in,” Garcia confirmed.

Relief swept through the room instantly, subtle but collective.

“End tidal color change confirmed.”

“Breath sounds bilateral.”

“Secure it.”

Dana taped the ET tube carefully into place while the ventilator connected with a soft mechanical hiss. Your chest finally began rising in slow, controlled breaths afterward, steady and artificial and horrifyingly impersonal.

Jack hated the sound immediately.

The ventilator transformed you from injured into critical in a way his brain could no longer avoid.

Robby was already moving again. “Okay, we transport now. I want CTA head and neck, cervical spine imaging, chest CT, trauma series. Somebody call ortho and tell them she’s likely got a fracture-dislocation.”

“She’s still hypotensive,” Santos warned while adjusting fluids.

“Pressure?”

“Ninety systolic.”

“Hang another liter.”

Everything continued moving around him after that, but Jack could barely process any of it fully anymore. The room had narrowed into snapshots burned violently into his memory. Blood staining the collar of your scrub top. Finger-shaped bruises spreading darker around your throat. Your hand slipping weakly from his when they rolled the gurney toward the doors.

He followed automatically beside the bed while they rushed you toward imaging. His prosthetic protested immediately beneath the sudden pace, sharp pain radiating through the socket with every uneven step, but he barely registered it now. His entire body had narrowed itself into one singular instinct.

Stay close. Do not lose sight of her.

Hallway lights blurred overhead while the gurney rattled violently across tile. Nurses moved aside instantly when they recognized who was lying on the stretcher, and somehow that silence hurt worse than panic would have.

People stopped talking when they saw you.

A respiratory therapist physically froze near the elevators before whispering, “Oh my God.”

Jack looked away immediately. He could not handle watching other people realize how bad this was.

Then suddenly, he was left standing alone in the hallway.

The silence hit him all at once.

He stared numbly at the closed doors for several long seconds before finally turning back toward Trauma Two because he genuinely did not know what else to do with himself.

By the time he returned, the room was mostly empty again. The chaos was over. Only the aftermath remained.

One overturned tray still sat abandoned near the wall where it had been kicked over during the struggle. Wrappers and syringes littered the floor beside shattered plastic packaging while a monitor continued beeping pointlessly beside an empty bed.

And blood.

Your blood was still everywhere.

Jack stopped walking.

For a second he just stood there staring at it. Tiny streaks across the tile floor. Smears against the cabinets where your head had hit. Dark fingerprints dried against the bedrail.

His stomach twisted so violently he thought he might actually throw up.

Because the only thing left of you in this room now was blood.

Not your laugh echoing across the nurses’ station during overnight shifts. Not your sarcasm when Santos annoyed you on purpose. Not the warmth of your body curled against his after impossible shifts when both of you were too exhausted to even speak properly anymore.

Just blood.

Jack looked down slowly at his own hands. There was still dried blood caught beneath his fingernails from where he had held your face trying to keep you conscious. More stained the sleeves of his scrub top in dark rust-colored smears that made his chest tighten painfully every time he looked at them.

You were intubated upstairs while trauma surgeons searched your brain for bleeding.

The thought cracked something open inside him.

If he had stayed. If he had trusted his instincts. If he had checked sooner.

“Jack.”

Dana’s voice came softly from the doorway behind him.

He did not turn around immediately. For a second, neither of them spoke while she took in the scene around him. Dana had worked in emergency medicine long enough to understand what trauma aftermath looked like, not just physically, but emotionally too.

Jack looked wrecked. Not outwardly hysterical. That almost would have been easier. Instead, he looked hollowed out from the inside.

“You should sit down,” she said gently.

“I’m fine.”

The answer came automatically, immediate and empty.

Dana almost sighed because they both knew it was complete bullshit. She stepped further into the room slowly, careful with him now in the same way people approached trauma patients who had not realized how badly they were injured yet.

“You’re shaking.”

His hands were trembling badly now that the adrenaline had started wearing off, small uncontrollable tremors moving through his fingers no matter how tightly he clenched them into fists.

“I left her,” he said quietly.

Dana’s expression softened immediately. “Jack.”

“I left her alone with him.”

The guilt in his voice nearly hurt to hear.

Dana moved closer. “You could not have predicted postictal aggression escalating like that.”

“But I should’ve checked sooner.”

Jack laughed once under his breath, but there was absolutely no humor in it. Just panic and exhaustion and guilt twisting together so tightly he could barely breathe around it anymore.

“She sounded scared,” he whispered roughly. “Do you know how bad it has to be for her to sound scared?”

Dana’s chest tightened painfully because she did know. Everybody in that hospital knew how terrifyingly calm you usually were under pressure. You were the person comforting other people during disasters. The doctor residents looked for during bad traumas because your voice never shook.

But tonight it had.

Dana stepped directly in front of him then and reached up without hesitation, gripping the back of his neck firmly enough to ground him.

“Listen to me,” she said softly but seriously. “She is alive.”

Jack swallowed hard. “She squeezed my hand before CT.”

“Then hold onto that.”

His eyes burned immediately at the words.

For a second, he looked terrifyingly close to falling apart completely.

“She was looking at me like she thought she was dying.”

Dana’s face crumpled slightly at the crack in his voice because Jack Abbot almost never sounded fragile. Not after everything life had already put him through.

But this was different.

This was you.

“You know her,” Dana said quietly. “You know how hard she fights.”

Jack closed his eyes briefly because somehow that made this hurt even worse. He did know. He knew the exact stubborn determination living inside you, the way you worked through exhaustion and grief and pain because your body physically did not know how to stop caring about people.

And suddenly, the idea of losing you felt so catastrophic he genuinely could not imagine surviving it.

When you woke up, the first thing you felt was pain.

Not sharp at first. Not localized enough to understand. Just heavy.

A crushing ache spread through your entire body like every bone had shattered somewhere deep beneath your skin. Awareness dragged itself slowly upward through layers of medication and exhaustion while fluorescent hospital light glowed faintly red through your eyelids. For one blissfully empty second, your brain stayed blank enough that you did not remember anything at all.

Then your chest tightened violently around the ventilator tube lodged in your throat.

Panic hit instantly.

Your eyes snapped open as your body reacted on pure instinct, trying desperately to fight the foreign object forcing air into your lungs. The movement sent agony ripping through your throat and jaw so violently it nearly knocked you unconscious again. A horrible choking sound escaped around the tube while pain exploded across the side of your head hard enough to blur your vision immediately.

The monitors beside your bed erupted into sharp alarms.

Then suddenly Jack was there.

He moved so quickly the chair beside your ICU bed nearly tipped backward onto the floor. One second the room felt empty and terrifying and unfamiliar, and the next his hands were hovering carefully near your face like he wanted to touch you everywhere at once but was terrified of hurting you more.

“Hey, hey, don’t fight it,” he said immediately, voice low and urgent. “You’re okay. Breathe with it.”

You could see his mouth moving. Could see panic written all over his face.

But you could not hear him properly.

Everything sounded distorted beneath the ringing in your ears, voices muffled and warped together like you were trapped underwater. The ventilator hissed rhythmically beside you while your chest rose mechanically against your will, and the sensation was horrifying enough to send another wave of panic crashing violently through your body.

Jack kept talking anyway.

You recognized the cadence of his voice more than the words themselves. Calm. Steady. But underneath it there was something rawer now, something desperate he usually hid much better than this.

Your entire body hurt.

Your throat burned every time the ventilator pushed another breath into your lungs. Your jaw ached violently from the intubation while your left shoulder throbbed with deep nauseating pain that radiated all the way down your arm. Even breathing hurt despite the machine doing most of the work for you.

Then memory came back all at once.

The trauma bay. Leon seizing. Hands crushing around your throat. Your head slamming violently against the cabinet. The floor.

You started crying before you even realized it was happening.

Tears slipped silently sideways into your hair while panic clawed straight up your chest hard enough to blur your vision again. You could not stop shaking. Every instinct in your body still screamed danger even though logically you knew you were safe now.

Jack’s entire expression broke the second he realized you were crying.

“Oh, baby,” he whispered hoarsely.

At least you thought that was what he said.

He sat carefully on the edge of the chair beside your bed before reaching for your hand, avoiding IV lines and bruises with practiced gentleness. The second his fingers touched yours, you grabbed onto him desperately enough that pain shot violently through your injured shoulder again.

You did not care.

Jack was here.

And somehow that meant alive. Safe.

Your grip tightened harder around his hand while your breathing turned ragged around the tube again. Jack immediately leaned closer, his thumb brushing shakily across your knuckles while he tried to calm you before you exhausted yourself further.

“It’s okay,” he murmured softly. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.”

Only then did you really look at him.

And God.

He looked awful.

Dark bruising sat beneath his eyes like he had not slept once since this happened. His hair looked messy in a way that suggested he had spent hours dragging anxious hands through it, and there was something hollowed out in his expression now that made your chest tighten painfully.

You mouthed the question anyway despite the ventilator.

What happened to you?

Jack watched your lips carefully before understanding finally crossed his face. His throat worked once visibly while emotion flashed so openly across his expression it almost scared you more than the pain itself.

He still looked terrified.

Even now.

Instead of speaking, he carefully turned your hand over in his and began tracing slow letters against your palm with his thumb.

Patient attacked you.

The memory crashed back completely after that.

The pressure around your throat. Leon’s empty unfocused eyes. Your body hitting the wall. The terrifying realization that he genuinely did not recognize you anymore.

You jerked violently on instinct before you could stop yourself, panic surging through your bloodstream so fast your vision blurred instantly while the cardiac monitor erupted into another wave of alarms beside the bed.

Jack reacted immediately.

“Hey, hey, look at me.”

You could not fully hear the words, but you knew his voice. Knew the shape of it. The desperation underneath it.

Your breathing turned frantic around the ventilator while terror clawed violently through your chest again. You remembered thinking you were going to die. Not abstractly. Not distantly.

Really die.

And for one horrifying second, lying in this ICU bed unable to speak or breathe on your own, that feeling came rushing back all over again.

Jack kept one hand wrapped tightly around yours while the other hovered uncertainly near your face. He looked like he wanted to pull you against him and protect you from everything all at once but knew touching you too much would only hurt you further.

“You’re safe now,” he kept saying quietly. “He can’t hurt you. You’re safe.”

Safe.

Your eyes darted weakly around the ICU room instead. Machines. IV poles. Bandages. Your leg elevated and immobilized beneath blankets. Soft restraints loosely secured around your wrists so you would not accidentally pull the ventilator tube out while disoriented.

You felt trapped inside your own body.

The panic became unbearable.

Then your eyes landed on the PCA pump beside the bed.

Jack noticed immediately.

His entire face fell.

“Baby…”

You reached weakly toward the button anyway with trembling fingers.

Jack looked absolutely shattered watching you press it. Not angry. Not disappointed.

Heartbroken.

Because he understood immediately what you were doing.

You could not stop the fear. Could not stop the pain.

So you were choosing unconsciousness instead.

Medication flooded slowly through your bloodstream almost immediately afterward. Warmth spread outward in gradual waves, softening the sharp edges of panic first before the pain finally began loosening its grip around your body. The terror still lingered somewhere deep beneath everything else, but it no longer felt sharp enough to suffocate you alive.

Your grip weakened slightly around Jack’s hand as exhaustion dragged heavily at your eyelids again.

Jack stayed exactly where he was.

You could barely keep your eyes open anymore, but you still saw the way he looked at you while the medication slowly pulled you back under.

Completely devastated.

Like watching you choose sedation over consciousness hurt him almost as much as the attack itself.

Your fingers twitched weakly against his palm before your eyes finally slipped closed again.

The last thing you felt before unconsciousness dragged you under completely was Jack lifting your hand carefully toward his mouth and pressing one shaking kiss against your bruised knuckles.

The second time you woke up was somehow worse because this time you stayed conscious long enough to understand what had happened to you.

Pain existed everywhere now.

Not sharp anymore. Not even severe enough in one specific place to focus on. It had settled deeper than that, heavy and constant, wrapping itself around your entire body until even breathing felt exhausting. Every inhale pulled painfully against bruised ribs while your jaw throbbed in slow aching pulses that spread all the way into your skull. The medication dulled the edges enough to keep panic from swallowing you whole again, but not enough to make you forget.

Nothing let you forget for very long.

Garcia stood beside your ICU bed when your eyes finally opened again, flashlight moving carefully across your pupils while monitors hummed steadily around the room. The overhead lights had been dimmed sometime while you slept, leaving everything washed in pale blue-gray shadows that made the hospital feel strangely unreal.

“Hey,” Garcia said softly the second she noticed you were awake. “Welcome back.”

Your hearing still came and went in fractured bursts after the concussion. Some sounds arrived painfully sharp while others disappeared completely beneath the relentless ringing inside your ears. Voices felt warped and distant, like everybody speaking stood underwater somewhere far away from you.

You blinked slowly toward the doorway and spotted Santos hovering there awkwardly holding a bouquet of flowers that looked aggressively stolen from the hospital gift shop. Half the stems bent sideways beneath crinkled plastic wrap while one of the price tags still dangled visibly from the bouquet.

You stared at them for a second before a weak breath of laughter escaped you despite the pain immediately punishing the movement.

Santos looked so relieved at the sound she nearly seemed close to crying herself.

“You scared the absolute shit out of us,” she said quickly, like humor was the only thing keeping her from saying something genuinely emotional instead.

The ghost of a smile tugged weakly at your mouth.

Garcia stepped back after finishing the neuro assessment while Santos moved a little closer to the bed, still clutching the flowers awkwardly against her chest.

“Abbott threatened like six people,” she muttered after clearing her throat.

Your eyes shifted toward her slowly.

“He almost went through security trying to get back to Leon.”

Your stomach twisted instantly.

Leon.

For one horrible second you saw him again exactly as he looked before the attack happened. Pale and exhausted beneath ambulance lights while rain hammered against the windows around both of you. Laughing weakly through pain. Asking if you were always that calm. Looking at you like you were safe.

You swallowed hard against the sudden nausea crawling into your throat.

“What happened to him?” you asked quietly, each word dragging painfully through the ache in your fractured jaw.

Santos’ expression changed immediately. The sarcasm disappeared first. Then the humor.

“He’s okay,” she answered after a moment, voice softer now. “Physically, I mean.”

You closed your eyes briefly.

Santos hesitated before continuing more carefully. “He doesn’t remember anything after the seizure started. Robby thinks it’s the postictal state mixed with the head trauma.”

The room fell quiet after that.

Not awkward quiet.

Heavy quiet.

The kind that settled directly into your ribs and stayed there.

Because the worst part was that you believed her completely.

You knew exactly what postictal violence looked like. You understood the neurological confusion, the blind panic, the total loss of recognition that sometimes followed severe seizures. Rationally and medically, every part of your brain understood exactly what had happened inside Trauma Two.

But emotionally, it still hurt in ways you did not know how to untangle yet.

A strange grief wrapped itself around the fear sitting inside your chest because less than an hour before the attack, Leon had been sitting beside you in the back of an ambulance talking about his daughter and his wife and soccer games and stupid jokes while rain pounded against the windows. You remembered thinking he seemed kind, the sort of patient who apologized too much for being in pain.

You had liked him.

And then suddenly he became the person who nearly killed you.

Emergency medicine was cruel like that sometimes. One second somebody was human to you. The next they became trauma.

Santos stepped closer quietly before squeezing your foot gently through the blanket. “We’ll come back later, okay?”

You nodded weakly.

After they left, the ICU room felt unbearably quiet again. Machines hummed softly around you while rain tapped faintly against distant windows somewhere beyond the hallway. Pittsburgh looked gray outside the narrow ICU window, the city blurred beneath another storm rolling slowly across the skyline.

You drifted in and out for hours after that.

Sometimes nurses came in to check vitals and neuro responses. Sometimes transport arrived to wheel you toward imaging. Sometimes you only woke long enough to register pain before medication dragged you under again.

Then sometime deep into the night, consciousness returned slowly enough that you realized somebody was sitting beside your bed.

Jack.

At first you thought he was asleep.

His head rested bowed carefully against your hand where it lay on top of the blanket, broad shoulders slumped forward like exhaustion had physically crushed him downward into the chair. The dim ICU lighting softened the edges of him enough that for one brief second he looked strangely fragile.

Then you noticed he was shaking.

Your heart cracked instantly.

Jack was crying.

Quietly. Almost silently. But hard enough that his shoulders trembled every few seconds beneath the dim blue ICU lights.

The sight hurt worse than any fracture in your body.

You had seen Jack exhausted before. Angry. Burned out after impossible shifts and mass casualty nights and pediatric codes that left entire departments emotionally gutted afterward.

But you had never seen him like this.

Very slowly, ignoring the pain shooting through your ribs and shoulder, you lifted your fingers weakly toward his hair.

The movement alone was enough.

Jack lifted his head immediately.

His eyes were bloodshot and red-rimmed beneath exhaustion so deep it looked painful. There was stubble shadowing his jaw now like he had not even thought about himself since this happened, and the healing cut near his cheekbone stood out harshly beneath fluorescent light.

Destroyed.

That was the only word your exhausted brain could find for the way he looked.

Jack Abbott was always the steady one. The person everybody else leaned on during disasters because he never seemed to break no matter how catastrophic things became around him.

Until now.

“I should’ve stayed.”

The words came out rough enough they barely sounded like him at all. Raw. Torn open somewhere deep inside.

You frowned weakly despite the pain. “No.”

“I knew something was wrong.”

“You couldn’t know.”

“I did.”

Jack stood abruptly then, pacing once across the small ICU room before turning back toward you like he physically could not force himself to stay still anymore. His prosthetic clicked sharply against the tile beneath his scrub pants while one trembling hand dragged hard through his hair again.

“I left you alone in there.”

“Jack.”

His face crumpled so suddenly it stole what little breath your bruised ribs could manage.

“When they pulled him off you...” His voice broke completely for one horrible second before he forced himself to continue anyway. “You weren’t moving.”

Your own eyes filled instantly.

Jack pressed shaking fingers hard against his mouth, trying desperately to regain control of himself and failing anyway.

“There was so much blood,” he whispered finally.

The confession hollowed the entire room out around both of you.

You reached toward him carefully despite the pain.

Jack moved back to your bedside immediately this time, like he physically could not tolerate distance from you anymore, and leaned down slowly until his forehead rested carefully against yours.

For a long time neither of you spoke.

Machines hummed softly around the room while rain tapped gently against the windows again. Jack’s breathing still shook every few seconds no matter how hard he tried controlling it, and you realized with sudden aching clarity that he had been holding himself together by force ever since the attack happened.

Probably for everyone else.

For the department.

For you.

Until now.

Finally, through the ache in your jaw and throat, you whispered softly, “You saved me.”

Jack closed his eyes immediately like the words hurt almost as much as the memory itself.

For a long moment he did not say anything at all. His forehead stayed pressed carefully against yours while his breathing shook unevenly every few seconds, and you realized suddenly that he was trying very hard not to completely fall apart in front of you. The effort of it sat visibly in every tense line of his body, in the way his fingers curled tightly around yours like letting go might physically destroy him, in the way his shoulders remained rigid even now like some part of him still expected another disaster to happen the second he stopped bracing for it.

“You almost died.”

The words came out so quietly you nearly missed them beneath the hum of machines surrounding both of you.

Jack pulled back just enough to look at you again, and the expression on his face made something ache deep inside your chest because he looked terrified still.

Not panicked anymore. Not frantic.

Just deeply, genuinely terrified in a way you had never seen before.

“I couldn’t get to you fast enough,” he admitted roughly, eyes fixed on your face like he needed constant proof you were still here. “I heard the safe word and I ran, but by the time I got there...” His throat tightened visibly. “You were on the floor.”

You swallowed painfully.

Bits and pieces still came back in flashes more than complete memories. Leon’s hands around your throat. The cabinet slamming against the back of your skull. The overwhelming certainty that your body was beginning to give out beneath you.

Then Jack.

Your eyes drifted slowly across his face now, taking him in properly for the first time since waking up. The exhaustion. The fear. The sleepless hollowing beneath his eyes. He looked like somebody who had been surviving on adrenaline alone for far too long.

“You did get to me,” you whispered carefully.

Jack laughed once under his breath, but the sound cracked painfully in the middle. “Barely.”

“That’s not true.”

His jaw tightened immediately.

You knew that look. The same one he got after bad outcomes. After losses he carried around long after everybody else moved on. Jack had always been harder on himself than anyone else could ever be, especially when the people he loved were involved.

And God, he loved deeply.

Even when he pretended not to.

You shifted your hand weakly against his, ignoring the ache radiating through your shoulder and ribs.

“Jack.”

His eyes lifted back to yours instantly.

“I’m here.”

Something inside him seemed to break completely at those words.

Jack lowered his head again, pressing one trembling kiss carefully against your bruised knuckles before holding your hand against his chest. His heartbeat pounded hard and uneven beneath your fingers, fast enough that you could still feel the leftover adrenaline vibrating through him.

For a while neither of you spoke again.

The ICU remained dim and quiet around you while rain continued tapping softly against the windows outside. Nurses’ footsteps echoed faintly somewhere down the hallway, distant enough that it almost felt like the rest of the world existed somewhere very far away from this room.

Your eyelids had started growing heavy again by the time Jack finally spoke.

“You scared me,” he admitted quietly.

The confession sounded small somehow. Honest in a way that made your chest ache more than the injuries did.

You looked at him for a second before squeezing his hand as tightly as your exhausted body would allow.

“I know,” you whispered.

Jack nodded once, eyes never leaving your face.

Then very carefully, like he was handling something impossibly fragile, he leaned closer and pressed a kiss against your forehead while exhaustion slowly began pulling you back under again.

This time, when sleep finally took you, Jack’s hand never left yours.

taglist : @kittykaylat1987

[tldps-beautiful-boy]

I don't even know what to say. I'm too busy crying.

[thepittmemes]

HAPPY FATHER’S DAY

[ohsweetzombiecthulhu]

Considering the day, I think it appropriate to post Chapter 1 of the 2 gay dads and their (formerly) unhoused daughter fic.

Look out for it this evening as I am currently traveling and approximately 2.5 hours out from my sweet, sweet laptop.

[tldps-beautiful-boy]

Where might I find this fic? Asking so that I may show the Victorian ghost, Jonathan, what true fan fiction is

[tldps-beautiful-boy]

The Cure

Pairing: Steve Harrington x Fem!Reader

Summary: Something is wrong with you and for once, Steve was not the cure.

Warnings: Swearing, Vecna, Max is not in a coma, Angstttttt, very much not proofread

A/N: This is amazing. It's nice and fun and definitely not at all angst. Blame Olivia Rodrigo, this is all her fault.

You and Steve had been going downhill for a while. Not that you ever addressed it. You thought if you didn't talk about what was so obviously there, it wouldn't be real. And if it wasn't real, it wouldn't be an issue. If it wasn't an issue, it would just go away on its own. That's how it worked, right?

You two had been the couple of the school, having gotten together at the end of 11th grade. People would whisper about how cute you two were, oohing and ahhing as you both passed by in the hallway or wolf whistling as you kissed before class. In fact, you ended up being high school sweethearts.

You and Steve had become surrogate parents towards the kids, finding that they were always at either yours or Steve's houses. Especially since both your parents had been out of Hawkins when the quarantine was out into place. You worked as a librarian which meant you grew close to Dustin in his endless pursuit of knowledge. Being a girl had also put you in the unique position to be welcomed into Max's inner sanctum.

Steve would pick you up from work on days he could or simply come home. Being with Steve was like a dream. He made every second, even the boring ones, feel special. Grocery shopping would become scavenger hunts, filling up gas would be a speedrun as to whether or not you could get two slushies and a bag of peanut M&M's before he finished filling the tank, even something as boring as laundry became a monkey chain that grew more and more convoluted everytime you did it.

On paper, you were the perfect storybook couple. So disgustingly beautiful, you were like a Hallmark movie. But stories are just lies with positive adjectives and yours was nothing different.

You didn't really know when the first nail was driven in. All you know was one day, you woke up and knew you didn't love him like you used it. Your heart didn't flutter like it used to, you didn't smile as wide, and cuddling droned on.

Brewing coffee was no longer that comfortable silence where you felt safe. It was now awkward silence. Buying groceries was a monotonous task where finding the best avocado was nothing more than just that. All in all, you just didn't love Steve like you once did.

Things really reached the boiling point when Hawkins was quarantined. You were still reeling from Vecna hold on you. Steve had managed to save you from Vecna, because he loved you so much he knew what song to play you. But the things Vecna whispered in your ears hadn't truly gone away. Whispers about your parents, rumours about Steve hooking up with exes, threats about exposing your true feelings to Steve.

Even though it had been months since Vecna had had his claws in you, his voice, his words had, unfortunately, rang true. Which meant his truth, the truth, still hung in the air.

The distaste for him truly grew after Vecna. You had been despondent for weeks after and Steve seemed to believe that optimism and smiling could fix it all. A kiss on the cheek, words of affirmation, and good vibes were the only healing tools at Steve's disposal. When you cried, he'd hold you for a bit before telling you to 'keep your head up'. If you wouldn't get out of bed, he'd play 'Walking On Sunshine' and drag you out of bed. It was made clear that Steve thought if you didn't dwell on your feelings, you wouldn't really feel them. But his optimism only made your discontent worse.

You felt aversion every time Steve held your hands or cradled your cheek or slid closer to you in bed. That aversion, or rather disgust, made you feel guilty for not loving him. You didn't get it. Why couldn't you love someone like Steve? He's Steve, the perfect boyfriend all around.

Though you felt dislike towards him and aversion and guilt because of the aforementioned emotions, you also felt jealousy. Something you couldn't quite wrap your head around. You didn't like him, didn't want to touch him, and yet you were jealous every time you saw a girl get too close to him.

Still, when the kids were around, you acted in love with him. You'd swallow the bile that crawled up your throat and sit in that grey loveseat with him or accept every kiss he wanted to give you without wiping your lips or cheek afterwards or talk to him, just simply talk to him, like you used to. The act almost made you hate him but it definitely made you hate yourself more. Why couldn't you just love Steve? Why did you have to throw away the one good thing you had going for you?

All these feelings and tensions bubbled over one day. You had been home, a rare day off, and had taken the opportunity to tend to your garden. This placement had made it easy for the delivery guys to find you, yes, you.

"Excuse me, miss?" You heard from behind you.

"Yes?"

"Is this 88 Elmwood drive?"

You echoed your previous response, putting a hand over your forehead to get a better look at the gentleman.

"I have a delivery for this address. A dark red loveseat." He flipped through his clipboard.

"I'm sorry, you must have the wrong address. The Anderson's down the road are moving in."

"Bought by a Steven Harrington." He read.

"That's my boyfriend." You wiped your hands on your pants as you rose. "Here, I'll sign."

The whole situation was odd, to say the least. A loveseat you called nice a month ago while flipping through a magazine was now in your living room, or rather, your parents living room. You put your wrists on your hips, hands out turned, and sighed. You were infuriated but too tired to truly be anything but that. Tired. So you went back to the garden and finished planting your new violets.

The kids waved to you, yelling greetings at you. You greeted them back, not looking up from your flowers. Once you finished, you washed your hands and started on dinner for the army of kids eating through the chips and cookies you attempted to hide. The nice thing about the house was that the kitchen was connected to the sitting room. Which made it easier to stop them from fighting or to get them to eat real food.

"If you're gonna eat, at least eat a fruit." You begged.

Eleven, your saving grace, decided to grab an apple after that comment.

The kids were still in the sitting room when Steve came home. Sure, they'd shifted positions but were still where they started. He came in, put down his bag, and found you in the kitchen. He put his hands on your shoulder and kissed your cheek. You didn't force a smile and dodged his lips.

"What's wrong?" He asked.

"Notice that new chair? The one Dustin and his books have taken over?"

"Huh?" Dustin looked up, having heard his name.

"Nothing, sweetie."

"Do you like the chair?" He asked.

"Yes, I like the chair. You know what I don't like? The fact that you didn't talk to me about buying that loveseat." You looked up at Steve.

"Well, you said you liked it before. And I know you've been wanting to change the sitting room. And Karen said that chair was a best seller."

The name brought your blood to 100 Celsius. You cocked your head, narrowing your eyes.

"Karen? You mean, your ex?"

"No, I mean Karen who works at the furniture store." Steve crosses his arms, exasperated by now.

"Karen Manniway?"

"Yes."

You couldn't suppress your laugh. "Your ex, who happens to work at the furniture store, recommended that chair to you? And you decided to listen to her over going home and talking to me?"

"I don't see what the big deal is. I was talking to a salesgirl. I wasn't meeting up with her in a motel room."

"You may as well have been!" Your hands shot up. Steve's eyes glanced over at the side, realizing you two had an audience.

"Can we talk about this later?"

"No, we're gonna talk about this now. Is this why you haven't been coming home? Cause you've been going to that store everyday after work."

"It was supposed to be a nice surprise." He groaned, running his hands over his face.

"Congrats, Steven! I'm surprised!"

"I don't see what the big deal is!"

"You didn't talk to me! You just went ahead and made a big purchase and sent it to my house."

He blinked. "It's your parents house."

"What parents? They're locked out of the city. You know, because we're quarantined. We've been stuck in this city ever since that asshole came into town and ruined everything!" You yelled. "You know what. I'm done! Sleep on the couch, sleep in the guest rooms, sleep at your own damn house! We can fight tomorrow, we can fight next week. But no more tonight. I'm tired." You turn to the kids. "Dinner's done."

You left the kitchen and took the stairs. You slammed your bedroom door and slid down it. If you were more aware, you'd have realized that you felt more satisfied than angry. You had been holding in these feelings for a while and now you finally had a reason to let it out. The high of yelling at him, of letting out your feelings, was fading as quickly as it came. That led you to want more.

Even after Steve made up with you the next day. You wanted more. You wanted to fight and yell and feel something, even if that feeling was anger. You'd find any reason to start a fight. Too many pillows on the bed, not enough Macintosh apples and too many Red Delicious apples in the fruit bowl, you hated lasagna all of a sudden.

Something in you felt alive when you fought with Steve. Something that hadn't been alive in a long while. A part of you felt guilty for using Steve in such a way but it was hard to truly feel anything but satisfied. Half the time you weren't even in control of yourself, you'd just blink and you were yelling at Steve about nothing more than a shoe.

"What are you even angry about?"

"You scuffed my shoes! They were new!"

"What is wrong with you? Why are you on edge all of the time? It's like everything gets you going." Steve turned, walking further into the house. "I mean, did you hit your head or something?"

"No, Steven, I didn't hit my head! And before you ask, no, I'm not on my period."

"I wasn't going to–"

"Whatever!" You screeched! "I'm sick of this! I'm sick of you!"

"Babe, what's wrong. Seriously, what is wrong? Why are you being like this? Did I do something?"

Steve stepped closer to you, hands outstretched to take yours. You moved away from them, scrunching your face up and rolling your shoulders back. You acted like his touch would burn you. He looked hurt but what was worse was the pity on his face, for you of all people. That pissed you off further.

"No, you didn't do anything, Steve. Nothing's wrong." You angled your body away from him, avoiding his gaze. You heard Vecna's voice in your brain or at least what you thought was his voice. You've really done it now.

"Then what is wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong." You wrapped your arms around your midsection. Something's wrong and he knows it.

"Why aren't you you anymore–"

"I'm still me!" You pressed a hand to your temple. No, you aren't!

"–and why aren't we us?"

"We're still us!!" The voice in your head didn't even dignify that one with a response, knowing it'd done all it needed.

"Then why aren't we normal?"

"BECAUSE I DON'T LOVE YOU!" You cried, tearing your hands off your head and looking at him. "Because I am sick and tired of this! Or you! Because I'm sick, period!

"We go to the park, we go to the diner, we go to the fucking grocery store and all I see are exes that want you back!" You began to cry. "And I thought I could ignore it, I thought I was fine but I'm not fine. When Vecna took over my mind, he told me all these things and he wasn't wrong. He got in my head and I can't stop hearing him.

"But that's not the issue. The issue is I am not in love with you. I am sick or just not normal. I thought if I didn't address my feelings, they would go away. And than didn't. I thought maybe you could fix it. I thought it'd found the antidote with you.

"But I'm unraveled. And I've been unraveling for a long long time. You and your stupid fucking optimism were supposed fix me up or stitch me back together. But it wasn't enough! You weren't enough! It was never enough. IT'LL NEVER BE ENOUGH!" You screamed, tears falling down your face.

"I don't understand. What's wrong?"

"You don't understand, Steve? I don't fucking understand anything anymore! My head is full of poison and my heart is full of fucking doubt! I have toxins in my blood and I tried to force you to suck them out.

"You were supposed to be my medication. I didn't tell you. That wasn't fair to you, I know, I'm sorry, but I thought it would work. I thought you could be my medication. You were good! You are good! But love, your optimism, you! It'll never be the cure!"

You sobbed, knees giving out. You stumbled backwards in an attempt to right yourself. Steve looked...not good. He was hurt and broken and sad. He was completely, totally, and positively devastated. And it was all your fault.

"It'll never be the cure!" You warbled, hiccuping a few times.

"I, uh, I think I'll go." Steve uttered. He left, the door slam shaking the bones of the house.

You stared at the floor before sighing. You figured if you were going to cry, it may as well be in your bed. The stairs were took too much energy so you resorted to crawling up them. You used the railing to pull yourself up and stumbled into bed. Immediately after, you slid out of the bed that smelled like Farah Fawcett and melancholy. So you opted to go to the guest room. One that smelled like clean sheets and potpourri.

Tonight you had fought with him, like you'd been doing for months. Except the other times, you felt satisfied after it. This time, all you felt was guilt. Guilt and sadness and like an absolutely atrocious person. Not because you broke up with him but because you broke him.

In all honesty, you didn't know when you were going to break up with him or if you were ever going to. Maybe it was good to be free. Maybe it was good to not have to lie. Maybe that was the cure. Finally being honest and ridding yourself of the poison that filled your brains, of the doubt that controlled your body, of the toxins that riddled your blood stream. You had sucked them out yourself, you had found your own medication and this time, it truly was good for you.

But now at least you knew what medication was. It wasn't love or optimism or Steve. It was honesty, it was believing in yourself, it was freedom. That was the cure.

[siennayaps]

Bed warmer reader x King Sukuna 🗡️

(Betrayal and angst)

War Prize Reader watched the king return beneath a sky bruised purple by smoke and dying fire. Blood darkened the edges of his armor, fresh and old alike, and every soldier in the camp seemed to shrink beneath the weight of his presence. Uraume removed the ruined plates from his shoulders while General Nanami delivered reports from the front, and then, as though dragged by fate itself, Sukuna’s gaze settled upon you.

War Prize Reader stood chained to a weathered post at the center of the command tent, wrists bound in iron and clothes stained with mud, ash, and battle. Your hair hung in tangled waves around your face, catching stray lantern light like threads of gold among ruin, and your eyes remained impossibly calm despite the circumstances. “Is she a whore?” Sukuna asked without ceremony, his voice carrying the exhaustion of war and the cruelty of a king who had forgotten mercy.

War Prize Reader heard Nanami answer with a shrug. “Taken from enemy territory. Beautiful enough to earn coin, dangerous enough to warrant caution.” Sukuna’s eyes traveled over you once before a smirk touched his mouth. “Rather pretty for a bed warmer,” he murmured, and though the soldiers laughed, something unreadable lingered in his stare.

War Prize Reader should have looked away. Instead, you met his gaze directly, silent and unyielding, while the storm rattled against the canvas walls. Something flickered across the king’s face then…a brief irritation at finding no fear where fear should have lived and he waved dismissively. “Leave her here.”

War Prize Reader became another object inside his war tent, another trophy gathered from conquered lands. Yet every evening his attention drifted toward you despite himself, finding your quiet figure arranging maps, replacing extinguished candles, or mending torn banners with scraps of cloth scavenged from camp. The king who commanded thousands discovered he disliked entering a room that did not contain you.

War Prize Reader learned the rhythm of Sukuna’s temper before anyone else. You knew which reports would sour his mood, which generals would test his patience, and which victories would leave him strangely restless. While advisers argued over strategy around the campfire, your fingers would smooth loose strands of hair from his brow, and somehow the monstrous king listened longer before reaching for violence.

War Prize Reader decorated the bleak military encampment with small stolen comforts. Candles appeared where darkness had gathered, carved trinkets emerged from discarded wood, and strips of crimson ribbon found their way around sword hilts before battle. Sukuna mocked every gesture publicly, yet none of your gifts were ever discarded.

War Prize Reader listened as soldiers began whispering. They spoke of the king who demanded your presence during councils, the king who searched for you after every battle, the king who stared too long whenever you laughed. They did not notice how carefully you listened to troop movements, supply routes, and battle plans hidden inside those same conversations.

War Prize Reader quickly became the most dangerous distraction in the king’s encampment, though nobody would have been foolish enough to say so aloud. The men who marched beneath Sukuna’s banners noticed how his temper burned less fiercely when you occupied the same space, how reports that once might have ended with bloodshed now received only a cold glare and a dismissive wave. Entire evenings passed with commanders waiting for decisions while the king listened to your quiet observations instead. It was a strange thing to witness a conqueror feared across continents finding solace in a captive taken from enemy lands.

War Prize Reader sat beside countless campfires while strategy meetings unfolded deep into the night. Maps covered every available surface, generals argued over troop movements, and messengers arrived carrying news soaked in mud and blood, yet Sukuna always seemed aware of where you were. Even while discussing war, his gaze would drift toward your figure curled beneath blankets near the flames. The habit became so obvious that seasoned veterans eventually stopped pretending not to notice.

War Prize Reader learned very quickly that Sukuna’s patience was a resource more valuable than gold. Commanders measured every word around him, servants avoided lingering in his presence, and even trusted advisers rarely risked challenging his opinions. Yet somehow you existed beyond those rules. You could question his reasoning, interrupt his thoughts, or speak when others remained silent, and the king merely regarded you with amused irritation instead of anger.

War Prize Reader often found the king waiting within the command tent after returning from battle, armor discarded carelessly beside his chair while the sounds of the camp echoed beyond the canvas walls. The burden of conquest never truly left him; it lingered in every scar, every exhausted breath, every casualty report stacked across his table. Yet whenever you entered, something in him visibly relaxed. The tension remained, but it no longer seemed unbearable.

War Prize Reader witnessed moments that few others ever saw. There were nights when devastating reports arrived from distant battlefields, when supply caravans vanished and offensives collapsed beneath enemy resistance. Those evenings darkened the king’s mood enough to silence entire gatherings. Yet your presence often interrupted the spiral, drawing his attention away from frustration long enough for reason to return.

War Prize Reader became the center of endless whispers drifting between soldiers after sunset. Some believed you had enchanted the king somehow. Others claimed Sukuna merely enjoyed having something beautiful amid endless violence and ruin. Whatever explanation they chose, nobody could deny the truth standing before them: the king searched for you instinctively whenever he entered a room.

War Prize Reader discovered that victory celebrations changed as the months passed. In earlier years, Sukuna had surrounded himself with trophies, entertainers, and endless reminders of conquest. Now he often abandoned those festivities entirely, choosing instead to remain inside the command tent while distant celebrations echoed through the camp. More often than not, those evenings ended with him fucking you rough while the rest of the world faded away.

War Prize Reader slowly began noticing the loneliness hidden beneath Sukuna’s arrogance. Power had isolated him long before you arrived, separating him from ordinary companionship through fear and reputation. Every person who approached him wanted something…favor, protection, promotion, survival. Yet with you, conversations existed without agendas, and that unfamiliar comfort became something he found himself seeking again and again.

War Prize Reader became the calm at the center of a kingdom built upon warfare. Whenever Sukuna prepared to ride into battle, his eyes lingered upon you before turning toward the horizon. Whenever he returned victorious, he searched the camp until he found your familiar silhouette waiting among the lantern light. And though neither captor nor captive ever spoke openly about what was forming between them, the entire encampment could see it growing stronger with every passing season.

War Prize Reader carried secrets beneath every smile. Each report overheard inside the command tent found its way beyond camp boundaries, delivered through hidden channels to General Suguru and, eventually, to Satoru Gojo himself. Every kindness Sukuna offered became another weapon placed into your hands.

War Prize Reader hated him some days. You hated the villages burned beneath his banners, hated the fear his armies carried, hated the ease with which he spoke of conquest. Yet there were evenings when he returned wounded from battle and allowed only you near enough to remove the blood from his skin, and hatred became something far more dangerous.

War Prize Reader almost forgot the mission. Almost. There were moments when Sukuna spoke of the future instead of war, moments when his hand lingered against yours while discussing the kingdom awaiting his return. In those rare seconds, the monster disappeared, leaving behind only a lonely king imagining a life he had never been allowed to want.

War Prize Reader sent the final piece of intelligence three nights before the decisive battle. Enemy forces moved precisely where Sukuna least expected them to be, striking supply lines and surrounding divisions with terrifying accuracy. The trap closed because you had drawn its shape yourself.

War Prize Reader watched the empire begin to crumble. Messengers arrived breathless. Generals vanished into emergency councils. Victory, once certain, slipped through Sukuna’s fingers like sand through a clenched fist. For the first time since your capture, fear entered the camp.

War Prize Reader disappeared before dawn.

War Prize Reader left behind only an extinguished candle, a crimson ribbon, and a command tent that felt unbearably empty. Sukuna returned to gather what remained of his forces, already preparing for retreat toward his homeland, and found your sleeping furs untouched. He stood there for a long time, staring at the space where you should have been.

War Prize Reader was nowhere to be found. Not among prisoners. Not among refugees. Not among the dead.

War Prize Reader became the final betrayal, became the answer, and the reason he lost.

And as realization settled like poison beneath his ribs, Sukuna closed his eyes and finally understood that the war had not been stolen by Gojo’s armies. It had been stolen by the beautiful captive he had allowed into his heart, the spy he had mistaken for something precious, the woman who vanished carrying every secret he had ever trusted her with.

[tldps-beautiful-boy]

Let's play put a finger down. ✌ Put a finger down if you genuinely forgot what the warning said, got caught up in the fluff, and got jumpscared so bad by our betrayal that they'll be calling it the Bite of '26. ☝Put a finger down if that was beautiful and you want more ✊

[tonycries]

Right Round

Synopsis. He’s a 10 but you milk him dry?!

Pairings. [SEPARATE] Higuruma x Reader, Gojo x Reader, Ino x Reader, Sukuna x Reader, Choso x Reader, Geto x Reader, Nanami x Reader, Toji x Reader

Content. MDNI, fem!reader, making him cúm dry, making him WHlMPER, p sIapping, spítting, chokíng, headIocks, challenges, DlLF!Toji (well he already is), Avatar AU (for Geto), Fire-bending master!Geto, use of powers, true form!Sukuna, Heian era, DP, Sukuna’s second mouth, overstím, squírting, slight dry-húmping, they’re GONE, GOJO’S POWERS, Shinjuku Showdown FR, ìnappropriate use of cursed techniques, unIimited void, he’s feraI, slight pIots, matíng presses, fuII neIsons, manhandIing, pussydrunk JJK men, sIight bóndage (Higuruma), creampìes, cúmpIay, slight cúmfIation, pet names, swéaring.

A/N. ALRIIIIIIIGHT I heard you babygirls ab Zuko okay?! And he just kept remindig me of Sugu so…

♡ TOJI FUSHIGURO - 6 rounds.

Your neighbor Toji has been eyeing you for a while.

Of course—one could argue that that was simply due to the structure of this place. It was one of those shoebox apartments; deceptively smaller-looking on the outside, with a pitiful few sprigs of a garden and an elevator that never worked. The only thing the exterior got correct was just how…intimate you’d be with your next-door neighbor. 

And you knew all too well.

When you first moved, you’d walked the few steps it took to knock on your neighbor’s door - Fushiguro, the nameplate said - and you were met with…the most attractive man you’ve ever seen.

Off-color undershirt. Tall stature.

A body that could’ve been handcrafted by the gods themselves as he lifted a muscular arm up to grasp the door frame. “Tch. Whatever you’re selling, we’re not buying.”

But you weren’t put off - because you’ve been eyeing Toji, too.

And the moment you saw him, you’ve been wanting to ride that man dry.

But perhaps that was too much for an introduction to your next-door neighbor, no? That was probably more of a second meeting thing- hah. And so you’d hastened to explain that you were actually the new tenant, handing over the bundle of cookies that you’d baked for the residents you were close to.

And Toji had looked at the cookies, and at you….and at the cookies…and at you- before ultimately sticking his head outside and glancing down the hallway - as if to make sure that this really wasn’t some superior marketing tactic. 

And yes, he really had just gotten free cookies.

Finally, he raised a dark brow at you and smiled - or at least what you imagined was a semblance of a smile. Just the slightest quirk of his scarred lips. “Heh…we’ll get along. Nice to meetcha, I’m Fushiguro Toji.”

And just then, Fushiguro Megumi had made an entrance at the wafting smell of freshly-baked treats. Immediately tugging the bag out of the man’s hands and taking it for himself-

You promised Toji that you’d make another batch for him.

And so you did. And so you baked, you accompanied Toji shopping, you helped him move away from giving poor Megs instant ramen for dinner all the time—you even got to bake in their kitchen when your oven once broke down. 

Thus. After a few months, Saturday nights often looked like an amalgamation of both your previous routines; with you ignoring your manager’s overtime phone calls to put on your favorite show and indulge in some selfcare. Toji with his pen out and his eyes squinting at the latest jockey racing results- dammit, Haru Urara lost again. 

Down the hall, Megumi was fast asleep.

All in his apartment.

You can’t remember the last time you’d wound down in your own- but before you can consider what that meant…Toji’s throwing his pen down. He heaves himself up from the brightly-lit dining table to sit down beside you—gaze narrowing at the half-shitty soap opera you’d put on to pass the time. “What…the hell is that?”

“A show.” You retort.

“I get that- hah, you think m’stupid?” Toji rolls his sage green eyes. And before you can reply with something smart, he’s gesturing half-heartedly at the screen before him. “I mean- why the hell is there so much…crying and moaning.”

Your gaze snaps to the quickly-shifting scenes on-screen, “That is, uh…” In the few seconds you’d looked away to scour Toji’s library for a book that wasn’t a sports magazine or a Haru Urara fanbook, it seems the plotline on the TV had taken…a far more different route. “Sex.”

“You think I fucking don’t know what’s-” As you’re laughing your head off, Toji cuts himself off and pinches the top of his nosebridge. Surely to ward off his oncoming headache.

You always did do that to him. In the best way.

And after a deep breath, he gestures idly at the screen once more. Or more specifically: the way the love interest’s eyes widen in shock, mouth dropping as he looks between where they were connected. He’s saying something that makes you still, “Why is he talking about…cumming dry? There’s no way that’s fuckin’ real.”

“It is?” You’re peering at him in confusion. “It literally is?”

Toji crosses his beefy arms, “No way.”

“You’re going to argue with science, Toji?”

“M’just saying- it’s never happened to me.” He retorts.

And the words are out of your mouth before you can stop them- “…Is that a challenge?” You regret them as soon as they’re entering the tense air, making the older man stiffen beside you—

And you’re just about to apologize and bow yourself out of the awkwardness when-

“Oh you can fucking try.”

It’s how you find yourself being guided to Toji’s single bedroom - no matter how many times you’ve been in his apartment, you’ve strayed far from here - and sprawled out on his vast mattress. Legs straddling his hips. Hands braced on his pecs.

You’re grabbing a nice feeling of them and it makes the beefy man groan. He’s peering up at you through his jet-black bangs, only half-covering his smoldering gaze. “So…? I’m fucking hot, yeah, but you’re just gonna stand there ogling me or…”

“So humble, too.” You scoff.

And then you’re fiddling with the drawstrings of his sweatpants to take his thiiiiick, reddened tip in a single swoop - or at least try to. He grins, “Yeah. And don’t forget big.”

.

.

.

Toji Fushiguro fucks you - or it’s more like you’re on top n’ bouncing your hips down onto him - so that you won’t forget it.

So that you’re feeling the lil’ twinge of pressure between your legs once you’re walking out of this damn room, so that you’re feeling the remnants of his cum glued creamily to your pussy. It better feel empty without him in there - and Toji has one palm of his pressed up against your gaping mouth, so that you won’t wake Megumi.

And the other one of his was latched your left hip.

Gripping lovingly onto the flesh there and lurching your hips up and down—faster and faster. Moving. Manhandling. Because with just a few strokes of his sheer girth, you’re seemingly dickmatized.

And leaving it aaaaaall up to Toji to guide n’ prod.

To angle your hips in figure-eights so that he can feel his cum swirling inside. Stirring it with his glistening cock. “Atta girl.” Toji gruffs out at the feeling of being utterly slathered by your walls. “And what was that about cumming dry? Hah- because m’still rock-hard and the only one having trouble here is you—”

“You’re trouble.” You huff.

“Not what I said.” He snickers. Before his handsome face leans upwards and licks off a stray tear dangling from your cheek, “But you’re lucky you’re- hck! cute. And how many rounds was that, huh, doll?”

“Six.”

“Good. And how many rounds have I cum dry?”

“Zero…” Huffing at the smug look on his face- oh, how you wanted to wipe that off. Oh, how you wanted to make him eat his words—and perhaps without even realizing it, you’re jerking your hips stubbornly back and forth.

It wasn’t matching up to the controlled place that he was slammin’ away at the back of your cervix- but it sure was something.

Your velvety walls were utterly drenched in Toji’s hot cum by now - and that just made it so much easier for you to ground your feet into the mattress n’ take him. All of him. All of those crude, curved inches of him that opened you up perfectly—“B-but don’t think that you’re gonna get off that easily.”

“Oh yeah?” A moan hatches at the back of his throat- botched exhales. “And what’s different about this time, huh?”

“This time-” Fuck, Toji’s grin spreads in a feline way across his face. He was looking at you through half-lidded eyes, vision just a little blurred from pleasure, and there was an almost…wolfish hunger in them that makes you answer- “This time I don’t have enough space.”

And that makes one of his brows raise, “Hah?”

“I said it.” To emphasize your point, you’re parting your thighs just a little—almost difficult with the way his sap had them glued together. The milky-white ribbons of Toji’s cum leakin’ out of your poor pussy, so much of it that it’s dripping down and making his black curls there glisten. “Look…”

Toji’s pants slightly quicken at the sinful sight.

“Next time, you better not cum so much again- or else s’not gonna fit.”

Scoffing, he runs a thumb freely between your pussylips- and pushes in a few of the escaping wads. “And what if I just…make it fit.” Along with the fat edge of his thumb. “Juuuust like this.”

You’re wracking with shivers at the sudden intrusion, “What- cock so sensitive you can’t stop cumming?” Though you really liked it - with how much he was flooding your cunt every time - and he knew it, too.

“Pussy so whiny she can’t handle one more?”

“You wish.” 

And that’s earning you a good spankin’ on top of your pussylips.

One. Two. Three.

Without pause. Soon, your cunt’s feeling utterly raw in the aftermath—and you’re clinging onto Toji’s firm deltoids for dear life. 

But that didn’t mean you were going to back down anytime soon.

No…instead, you’re using the sudden grip to steady your weakened hips. With your two knees squeezing either side of his obliques, and your back arched into a curvature that makes his mouth water - you’re meeting Toji’s sloppy pace. Pushing him back down by the shoulders and taking over the sloppy pace—

Toji’s tipping over onto the pillows now. You’re smack-smack-smacking your hips down onto his at a jackhammerin’ cadence - faster than even he was, perhaps…

And it’s that fact that makes him breathe, “O-oh, okay.” Toji’s unsure where to put his hands- so you’re swiftly taking them into yours and making him puuuuush down on your bloated stomach. The wads of his cum glisten down your thighs, catching the dim lighting of the bedroom. “This is new.” Never has anyone ever tried to take charge of him.

And there was something so hot about it.

Something so irresistible about that determined set of your brow. The way you’re ruined on his cock and attempting to desperately make him even more so. The way you’re squeezing your cunt so tightly around his length—dragging your walls down it. And up. And down.

Your hamstrings ache as you ride. Your pussy’s grabbin’ him all over from the veeeeery crowned top- and then down to his thickened hilt.

Milking him is the only expression he can use to describe the motion.

“New as in…” You’re feeling the smile stretch across your face, milking Toji’s cock was all he was worth. Your hips accelerate. “-going-to-make-you-cum-dry sort of new? Or?”

Another spank- this time, right on your clit. “D-don’t get ahead of yourself.”

Pushing him down from attempting to take control of the pace once more. You’re throwing your head back and riiiding out his erection the way you like it - “M’just saying…you just stuttered.” His breath hitches at your response- “So victory might be closer than I thought.”

“I…”

“Awww. Is the big, bad Toji Fushiguro speechless for once?”

“Oh, fuck you.”

But, truly, he could feel the pressurized build-up at the base of his cock. Starting off small. Starting right above where his balls were twitchin’ and aching - and then moving up, up, uuup every single inch to angrily throb at his tip.

Furious, furious.

It had barely even started yet, and somehow Toji already knew that it was something different from all those orgasms that came before it. And so he’s clenching his eyes shut and gritting his teeth as he feels it overcoming him—

“Fuh-fuck.” He’s out-of-breath just from the first wave. And desperately - pathetically - Toji’s hoping to anything that’d listen that it wasn’t a dry orgasm. He’s pleading. He’s mentally on his knees and begging-

And then…with a sudden buck of his hips Toji’s round, blushin’ cockhead strikes the bottom of your pussy. It’s then that he’s realizing that perhaps manifesting really doesn’t work for some old bastard like him- because he doesn’t even have to feel the contrasting wetness of your cervix to already know. 

To realize that though his bliss was searing through his body in waves-

His cock was dribbling out absolutely nothing.

Six rounds and he’d finally lost it.

The rush of his orgasm coursing through him, accompanied by the inexplicable emergence of nothing more. His achingly hot tip can do nothing more than stick deep into your pussy n’ swerve around the bundled-up wads of cum there. Not adding. Not taking.

Horny embarrassment mingles with his broken pride; and Toji clenches his jaw as he peers up at you—you and that damn accomplished smile.

You’re fluttering your lashes innocently down at him- “Yes, Toji? Got anything else to say about cumming dry?”

“No…” He reluctantly admits. Before spitting out -“What else does that TV show have?”

♡ NANAMI KENTO - 10 rounds.

You didn’t expect your husband to be anything but a gentleman.

Who would?

Nanami Kento was the epitome of everything one would want their partner to be; he was sweet, he was patient, he was intelligent in many ways—but most of all, emotionally. He loved you at your best and he loved you when you didn’t feel so - and thus, he was the man that stood before you at the altar. 

Donned in a dark hakama. Blond hair slicked back. 

Rose-gold ring glistening on one hand. 

Stating vows to love one another from here onwards and forevermore; and he’s never meant anything more. Nothing has been truer in his entire life.

The celebrations were uproarious- not from Nanami’s end, but rather from your elated friends. Your new husband sat beside you silently during the reception, making sure you were eating well and that the air conditioning at the venue wasn’t too cold—though when he did get a few beers in him, he kept whispering from a scandalously close proximity how beautiful those robes looked on you…how much better it might look off—

You remember during this time that Shoko had tottered by - held up by weary Utahime - and blessed the two of you ten times over. Ultimately clapping Nanami on the shoulders and telling him to take good care of you.

And to not disappoint you on your wedding night-

But that was around the time that Utahime had decided that your brown-haired friend had taken one too many vodka shots. No chasers. 

And she’d dragged her away whilst you and Nanami sat hot-under-the-collar in your seats. Avoiding much eye contact - because surely most could guess what was bound to happen at the end of the reception, the farewell. 

And so had come the wedding night.

.

.

.

The two of you had barely made two steps into your five-star wedding suite before the expensive wedding clothes were falling to the floor.

And Nanami’s gotten you pressed into the most delicious full nelson on top of the rose petal-covered mattress. Cock heavy and hard. Those crimson flowers forming a heart underneath your two tangled bodies, and Nanami’s cock echoing the most lewd slurps n’ squelches.

It’d only gotten louder throughout the night- as Nanami swabbed the droplets of his creamy white cum inside you. Just married and he was already stuffing you full—

Four hours and hours. Making you cum through each one. 

As a gentleman should, of course.

You think it’s around the tenth or so round when your head’s tipping stupidly backwards - resting against his firm collarbone - as Nanami’s burnished red cocktip rams into your g-spot again. Glued using a few webs of his seed, it’s a carnal sensation that sets your teeth on edge, and the blond-haired man crushes you close—

“Sh-shit…” You’re keening out, voice taking on a shrill pitch. “Kento- oh, ngh—” Barely able to speak through the loooong, thorough thrusts that he was planting inside you. “I n-never knew you could be so…”

Another hard slam! that leaves your ears ringing. And Nanami’s tone husked to almost nothingness as he asks, “Yes, my love—?”

“Rough.” Crying out.

Though they were cries of utter pleasure- of wanting him to continue. Because in the years that you’ve known him, Nanami Kento has never fucked you like this—has never fucked you the way he was hammerin’ mean strokes into you on your wedding night. Harsh plap! after plap! of skin-on-skin.

Of his stinging pink pelvis pushing into yours.

And your husband moves at a carnal pace - muddled brain unable to process anything more - once he feels your limp hips slippin’ out from above him. Covered in a thin layer of sweat and slick leaking like a waterfall between your glossy pussylips. “Sh-shit, Kento, m’gonna…”

“I’ve got you, my love.” Nanami wraps his bulky arms underneath both legs and hauls you upwards. 

“Oh…” Your jaw drops, “You’re just moving me so easily.”

He merely chuckles at your cuteness- were you cockdrunk already?

And once you’re in proper position, laid out on top of the toned line of Nanami’s abdomen, he gently removes his arms. You’re almost disappointed at the massage of his flexing muscles- but before you can miss him too much, your newly-wed husband has them latched onto you again.

This time, in a headlock. 

Left arm looped around your pretty throat.

Right arm slithered between your legs and squeezing your clit immediately.

You buck up at the sudden burst of pleasure- stars behind your eyes. Moans ready at the tip of your tongue—

“Shhhh shh shh, I wouldn’t want whoever’s next door to hear my- haaaah, beautiful wife’s sounds. I’m a protective man, darling.” He murmurs throatily behind you, “Unless it’s that new last name of yours.”

So gone by the way his round, throbbing tip was bulldozing into you until your toes curled- “N-new last name…?” It’s taking you a little while to register it.

But Nanami Kento always was a patient man, wasn’t he? And so he’s simply nodding, leaning down and spittin’ straight between your pretty lips to claim that mouth as his own- and his as yours. Of course. “Your last name.” He responds. “Mrs. Nanami.”

The mere sound of it is enough to make you shudder—“Oh.”

“Or…your last name is mine, too.” Nanami hums to himself- now so utterly gone on the idea of it all. Of marriage. Of the fact that you’re his wife - his wife. He tightens his headlock and kisses your temple gently, “It’s actually why m’a little more…rough, today, my love. You’ll have to forgive me.”

“I l-like it.” You’re replying, “And this is all because of- hngh, our wedding night, Kento?”

“Not quite.”

And you’re feeling cum glue to your cervix as you’re bucking downwards- but of course, your husband would never keep you waiting long. With a simple kiss to that wedding ring you were wearing, he raises your left hand up, up, upwards—to grip at his golden tresses. You’re going to need it.

Because in the next few seconds, Nanami then plants his feet further flatly on the mattress and drills his cock up into you. Tunneling. Mazing. Bashing his ruddied tip against every sweet spot.

He was fucking you like he hated you - and the creaking bedsprings would agree - but oh, how he loved you so.

The sheer amount of pleasure that courses through you was almost numbing.

And without further ado, you’re babbling out the sweetest whimpers n’ whines of his name. Nanami’s breath fanning your face hotly as he leans in and whispers—“It’s because you’re my wife.” 

Lightning strikes you to your very core.

You could feel your high imposing. 

Nanami’s honed canines nip at your earlobes, “It’s the same but not-” He continues, throat growing more n’ more ragged with grunts, the more the thrusted inside. “It’s what I’ve been dreaming for this entire time- fuck, but it’s…so…so much better.” Voice shattering at this very moment. “Darling, it’s like I can’t stop.”

And he fully meant it.

You’re clawing at the beefy expanse of his forearms as he accelerates, your high starting to shoot and crackle with no end-

“I’ve tried.” Nanami’s voice sounds hollow, echoing with something far more primal than you’ve ever heard of him. And hit thrusts- oh, his strikes were so toe-curling. “I’ve tried—but I just can’t seem to. I’ve told myself, I’ve made myself…” The most sinful squelch! wrenches from your pussy as he rolls over your clit and makes you cum once more, “But no matter how hard I try…I just can’t seem to stop wanting to cum inside my wife’s pussy.”

“K-Kento—” Your back arches- lights flashing behind your eyes. “Inside- please.”

“That’s exactly the problem.” He sounds like a man maddened. “I need to see this pussy drippin’ wet with my cum.” You’re shivering as he runs the flatness of his thumb between your cunt’s folds, just so sensitive that the barest graze leaves electricity zapping through your body. “Nine time- nine fucking times-” He rarely swore. “-and I still feel the urge to watch her try to gulp me up. To watch her overspill. To feel her soppin’ wet right down to the womb—”

Breathless with need. “Then do it, husband…”

“I can’t help myself.”

And then Nanami’s cumming.

Like he’d always planned to, of course. But the only problem was that this time - the tenth - he’s feeling nothing but the smallest trickle of cum. Just the faintest few ounces.

And then nothing more- although it feels like he’s still pouring out as much as it takes to flood you. 

It hits him instantly that he’s cumming dry.

And Nanami’s mouth drops, blond lashes fluttering just a bit as he takes in the situation. No matter how many times he was draaagging his vein-covered cock in and out of your channel, it only left him as dry and overstimulated as ever. 

Tears pricking behind his eyes, Nanami gasps. “This feels like a-a premonition…”

“Of?” You blink.

“The fact that this night’s not over yet.”

♡ GETO SUGURU - 8 rounds.

“Please- ngh—” The sound that leaves you is far too pitiful for your reputation. How could you have ever thought…“P-please, I beg of you-”

“Oh? You beg of me, hm?” Geto’s words were just dripping with amusement, and his smile presses up against your throat. Clammy. Pulse thundering. That beautiful long hair of his was completely untied and falling over the sides of your body, strands tickling down your arched back- it was like a cloak of night. And so was the firebending master.

You’re throwing your head back and keening—“More.”

“You beg more of your enemy?”

What treason. What treachery.

How did you even get here?

You could blame all the training; all the long nights and the countless days spent by the water, the feeling of power rippling through your body as you mastered it. It was no secret that the Fire Nation and the Water Nation were at war.

These were the days that would end up as history, after all.

But you just wondered whether this battle would…between one of the best of the Water Nation - you - and the Fire Prince himself. Geto Suguru. 

Announced as next-in-line to the throne. The man your age with a fear-striking reputation that ran far and deep. And treacherous. 

It was a siege planned by the group of rebels you were a part of, and it was simple: attack the Fire Nation’s Royal Palace and end their bloodline once and for all. And for that, you’d have to take care of the prince himself.

Little did you know that what had begun as a one-on-one fight between the two of you at highly close quarters would turn into something….else entirely. As you’d straddled him during combat and prepared to call upon your powers - chest heaving, eyes locked - you had no idea who leaned in first. You had no idea which one of you was the first traitor.

And so here you were…

Knees digging into the hard floor of the Fire Nation’s Imperial Dojo, mouth slobberin’ out lungfuls of moans. Your head throwing backwards and hitting the prominent collarbones of none other than your sworn enemy—Geto Suguru.

Who was fucking his hard, red-hot cock into you like he hated you.

And he probably did.

And yet…and yet- he can’t stop himself from lunging his needy hips forwards and slamming French kisses into the back of your cervix. Those nice, gooey depths that welcomed him with such fervour it almost made him laugh. But despite how bemusing it might be, Geto knows he should stop. He knows he needs to adhere to his duties…but here he was again.

And again and again.

Runnin’ on his seventh round, where he’s ruggedly pulling his vein-covered cock in and out of you. He fucked mean. And he was only getting meaner as he cranes his neck forwards, digging his pearly white canines into the crook of your neck.

Harder and harder.

“N-ngh…” It’s just barely-there. Sneakily, Geto muffles that broken noise emanating from the back of his throat - meanwhile, you’re left moaning once his hot sap starts to fill your cunt up once more.

Just the cutest few drops - drooling - before he immediately pulls out and sprays those satiny ribbons down your outer pussy. Coating a few milky-white layers on top, he then rubs his swollen n’ sap-glossed tip uuuuup and down your pussylips; a few times before plunging back in again. “M-more…”

It’s so quiet and pitchy that he barely hears it. But Geto Suguru wasn’t the nation’s fiercest warrior for nothing- “Pardon?” Those amethyst eyes of his widen at your request. It took a lot to surprise the Fire Prince, but now…he’s leisurely blowing the jet-black bangs out of his face to peer at you. “Repeat that.”

“Is that a command?” You bite.

And what you’re getting in response is a quick swat on your left ass cheek. Geto’s trained fingers were purposefully increasing their body temperature, leaving his imprint sizzling on your skin—“It is.” That chiselled body of his leans his weight even further down on you, massaging you with smooth, perspired abs. His long tendrils tickle your neck, “And what do you have to say to that, smallfry?”

“I say…” You’re whispering.

Leaning down even closer- practically pinning you beneath him. “Mhmmmm?”

“Fuh-fuck you.” 

You weren’t repeating a single thing.

Turning your head ‘round to spit at him. Right across his face.

Except; Geto Suguru anticipates this very moment to leave his unfairly pretty lips ajar and let you spit in his mouth. Straight into his mouth. You’re watching in slow-motion as the glittery wad enters past his maw, getting smeared as the firebender then crashes his lips onto yours.

Such a filthy, filthy kiss. 

You’re moaning deep into his mouth Geto roves his hips back n’ starts prodding even harder. Even harder. With the red, spherical tip of his cock—he enters your womb and lingers for a bit. “Now…” Another slap. “That isn’t a very nice thing to say, princess.”

You gasp. He knew. 

That lineage you’d fought to keep hidden, for years upon years as you trained and grew stronger, noticed so easily by the prince himself…

Two royals tangled in something you couldn’t discern from passion and a fight.

Geto’s smile spreads against your mouth, and his hands come pummeling down in a rapidfire smack-smack-smack on your ass cheek. Temperature raising at the tips of his fingers. It’s practically sizzling- “What? Cock got your tongue?”

Another smack on your cunt. “Shut up.”

“Tha’s alright- you don’t have to answer me.” He croons. Dragging out with the tip of his tongue- and his cock, the sheer sensitivity of your pussy means that now even the slightest hit at your g-spot makes you jump—

Only for Geto to drag you backwards with a single arm wrapped around your throat. His bulky forearm bulges as he traps you in a headlock; and you’re just starting to ogle his muscles as he rams and rams his trained hips into you. Accelerating. Dragging it down your walls even faster- “But there is just one question I need to find out the answer to.” And that hand of his comes spankin’ down even harder. Smoothing along your ass cheek, “Can the Water Princess squirt—?”

“Fuh-fuck.” He was ruthless. If you thought that Geto was fucking you mean earlier, then you weren’t ready for right now. Your hands claw at the flooring before you, “No sooner than the Fire Prince can cum dry.”

It was the eighth round now and the both of you were gone.

With his hips pinning you down to the dojo ground. His headlock tighter than ever- veiny and muscular. The plump head of his cock drills into you so rapidly that it was nearly nothing but a blur of pink—in and out. In and out. 

Geto’s making it a few more sharp thrusts before he feels pleasure coiling at the pit of his stomach. And he can’t have that - of course he can’t cum before who’s supposed to be his mortal enemy - so he squeezes his hand between your legs n’ rolls over that oversensitive nub with two fingers. Powerful fingers—his heat was sizzling, a carnal sensation that you couldn’t even begin to describe.

You yelp.

And though you couldn’t exactly call on your waterbending at the moment, you’re still able to jerk your hips back n’ meet Geto’s thrusts. 

Fucking him just as angrily as he was fucking you.

Again and again.

The dojo grounds around you two rumble as though the most passionate fight, before your head throws back and you’re feeling your orgasm hurtling into you. And without thinking twice, you’re reaching underneath your body and grazing Geto’s aching, pistoning cock- just the slightest wisp of your waterbending power…being used to make your fingertips cold.

Cold to the touch.

Cold to contrast against his furiously hot cock.

With a flinch- you’re both tumbling into your highs.

“Fuck- oh…fuck.” You—with your cunt soakin’ itself in the excess of your orgasm. Dopamine coursing through your veins and your eyes fluttering shut- your peripherals sprint to the back of your head. And your toes curl…“I can feel you cumming dry, Suguru.”

“Sh-shut up.”

And so he was—his cockhead was flinching like he’d been spurting out ribbony wires of cum, his balls were clenching…and yet there was nothing. It wasn’t like the previous rounds when you had your deepest depths splashed in a sudden warmth- Geto, this time, was simply emptying out nothing.

Still fucking you ravenously through it-

“Cumming dry.” Elongating his wave of bliss. Rammin’ into your g-spot like a button, just so you could feel the slightest bit of the overstimulation he was. Almost laughing to himself, “You really fucking made me cum dry-”

“Problem, Fire Prince?”

“Not at all, Water Princess.”

And once he’s finally feeling it bate - his shaft having pumped out nothing throughout its entire duration - Geto presses his face into the crook of your neck and moans.

“Best of three then?”

♡ CHOSO KAMO - 3 rounds.

“Baby, I just…” Choso’s tone quivers, something deep and dark seeping into his words. They seemingly erupt from the back of his throat, against his own will, and hang in the air like a sudden spritz of perfume—

Wait…you swear you’re smelling actual perfume.

Brows furrowing. Turning your nose upwards, you take in the fleeting flowery scent; before looking over your shoulder at where your boyfriend was standing.

It was a slow, sleazy weekend: time for just the two of you. The honks of cars were winding down, and sunset dripped from Tokyo city’s roofs and foliage. The only time when Choso was allowed to refuse the missions that the higher-ups foisted upon him, and when you could decline your manager’s calls without feeling even the slightest bit of guilt.

Instead. He was supposed to help you bake cookies today, he was supposed to be padding into your shared kitchen n’ press a sweet, sweet kiss to your cheek - then insist he take over as he always does. He was supposed to be…not this. Whatever this was. 

Leaned against the dooframe. Head dropped. Hair loose. Breaths coming out in gusts. Choso had his Brother Bear t-shirt off and his bare chest flushed—damp with perspiration. It’s as though he’d been taken over by a sudden fever, ravaging through him, radiating heat through every single pore. Making his rosy cheeks flush even rosier as he jerks his dark, glazed eyes up to look at you.

And a sudden jolt goes through the both of you-

“Choso…?” You’re cautiously taking a step towards him- to which he’s surprising you by taking a step back. “Baby, what happened?”

“I-I just—” His voice hatches and cracks. Urgently clawing at himself. “Remember how I wasn’t feeling too well in the morning?”

You nod, taking another step closer.

He scratches behind his neck - movements torrid and heavy. Lethargic. “So I took a nap, and when I woke up it was just feeling…” Almost subconsciously, Choso’s hands snake down to the drawstrings of his sweatpants- fuck. And it’s just then that you’re registering the throbbing, aching bulge between his long legs. “-hot.”

Wordlessly, you’re looking at the calendar propped up on one end of the kitchen counter. Ah—the realization makes your lips part. Today’s date sticks out like a jagged nail, or - more accurately - like a…

Your gaze flickers back down to where Choso mindlessly paws at his erection. Breathless. Heating up.

“Cho, baby.” You’re catching his attention once more. Chocolate brown eyes glisten with tears- “I think you’re in heat.”

A shiver crawls through his body.

And his jaw drops, “Oh.”

Soon enough, you’re crossing the sizzling distance between you both and taking your agonized boyfriend by the hand. He flinches - just a little - as his skin touches yours- before you’re pulling him into a kiss and he simply melts—moans your name.

The two of you aren’t making two steps towards the bedroom before Choso hugs you from behind n’ crushes his red-hot, sensitive erection into your back. Breathing out a barely-audible plea. And then you’re both crashing onto the floor - the half-curse’s hands tugging on your panties, your hands flying to his cock.

He’s gotten you kneeled and arched into his scorching body temperature- before he reels backwards and funnels his cock in.

Just the very curve of it. Just the very tip—blushed red like a strawberry and twice as thick, he’s letting his eyes flutter shut as Choso cums instantly - instantly - at the feeling of your soaked pussy. The half-curse glues his hips to yours and starts spraying out satiny ropes of cum, “F-f-fuck…” His bottom lip quivers so cutely.

“Already, Cho?” Your purr.

It was just so cute. Because in the next few seconds he’s almost sobbing- “I…I can’t help myself.” Pretty face coming down to press in the junction of your throat, plastered with hot sweat and tears.

“Awwww.” You’re turning around to place a kiss on his cheek, “That heat’s made my poor boyfriend so sensitive, huh?”

And Choso simply nods and nods- “But m’not done yet.” Then you’re feeling the buzz of cursed energy- Choso’s cursed energy. You’re feeling your breath hitch as the technique of blood manipulation courses through his veins and renders his cock as hard as ever, flushed so hot you could feel him scorching between your swollen pussylips.

He just whimpers at the sensation. Blood manipulation always did leave him a little dizzy…

Then his hips are hammerin’ away into yours as though he was hungry to reach every pulsing spot and nerve inside. Every ounce of space. That spongy layer of your cervix felt like fucking heaven to him, and he didn’t know why but…but something was calling at him to keep on pushin’ his bundles of cum even deeper down there. To keep hitting it over and over.

To give you looooong, textured drags from his tip to his foamed hilt.

To let the most sensual grunts emanate from his throat every time he’s feeling your soaked walls attempt to clench around him. Chasing after the sensation of him stuffing you full.

In more or less of a doggy position, you’re steadying your hands on the lust-red carpet beneath you- and bucking your hips up. He was sizzling hot. 

Once.

It makes Choso’s doey eyes widen—and he’s staring at you with bated breath. “What are you…”

Twice.

The globes of your ass cheeks reach backwards and smack! his toned pelvis. That sugary scent in the air only seems to grow even stronger- “Fuh-fuck, baby, that’s dangerous. If you do that, m’gonna…”

Eyes glazing over twofold. A slick line of drool on the corner of his mouth. 

Your own twitches in amusement- you had him absolutely wrecked in nothing but a few bounces. In nothing but a few figure-eights making his pupils run to the back of his head. You’re bucking your hips back n’ forth to milk him even more—

“B-baby…”

And that seems to be the last straw for the heat-struck Choso Kamo: who’s lurching his needy body forwards. Pressing one large hand on the upper area of your spine, it doesn’t take much for him to lean his hefty weight down and make you collapse onto the floor- 

As you’re toppling - your boyfriend following closely behind as though stuck to you by superglue - he’s placing a forearm underneath your face. A soft cushion.

Making sure you don’t knock yourself on anything- it’s the last act of kindness you’re getting before Choso drills his hips down and pumps out hot, glutinous cum into you again. Head throwing back. Adam’s apple bobbing at the sharp electricity shooting through him—so much of it. And so soon, too.

It must be an effect of the heat, he’s thinking…or at least he would have had it not been for the state he was in.

Utterly ruined. Utterly pussydrunk.

Choso Kamo has his maw pressed in an open-mouthed kiss against the column of your throat, deep shivers wracking through his body as he whines n’ bucks. “B-baby, it just doesn’t seem to stop-” His slippery shaft sticks into your g-spot and you gasp- “I don’t know if it even can stop—”

Both in cumming- and in fucking you.

Without him even calling upon it, his blood manipulation rushes through his body n’ straight to his now-upright cock. Your poor, powerful boyfriend isn’t given a single split-second to let himself go flaccid before his cursed energy takes over again. 

He’s rutting and rutting his body forwards. Mouth gaped open at the sensation, and his wet pants synchronizing with the even wetter plaps! of skin-on-skin. They were getting even louder, even sloppier, by the second as Choso’s cum seeps out of your pussy n’ kept getting smeared between your legs. 

Hamstrings aching. His abs massaging your back-

Your eyes kept fluttering shut at the sheer pleasure- it was just about past the second round and you still haven’t gotten used to Choso’s sheer size. Only growing and plumpening himself out even bigger as he kept tunneling between your legs—and you swear that damn heat of his left you even more dickmatized than usual, too.

Letting out the prettiest music to his ears as his curved cock slams into your g-spot once more. “Maybe I don’t- hngh, want it to.” You babble out. “Maybe I need you to cum inside- oh, again.”

“Ohhhh, don’t say that.” Pelvis pressed up so harshly against your body that his happy trail scratches you in a way that was so carnal. And any time you’re shifting - Choso has his right hand wrapped around your throat and haaaaauling your weakened body backwards, “P-please don’t say that.” It all comes out in a rush. “If you do then…”

You’re shivering as his nose runs down your throat- drunk on your pheromones. “Then?”

“Then m’gonna cum again.” He whimpers, “And this time I don’t know if I can stop.”

And, truly, Choso could feel his next orgasm building and building at the pit of his stomach - and at the tip of his shaft. It was different than the two before—just a bit stronger, just a bit more electric- he was feeling zaps of electricity shooting to every point in his body; every blood vessel and axiom inside him. 

His mind was feeling foggier. His eyes were having a hard time keeping open just from the sheer pleasure of your velvety, wet pussy. Engulfing every inch of him. His hips were rammin’ sloppy strokes into you again and again and again until he-

“I-I—fuck.” 

Until he finally explodes into his high.

Tears streaming down his flushed face. Mouth glued to yours. 

One hand at your waist n’ swervin’ your hips around so that you can gobble up every ounce of seed he was streaming. Except…

Choso’s eyes shoot open once he realizes-

Except he wasn’t cumming at all.

“Baby, wait.” Because the half-curse surely felt like he was cumming, he surely knew that he’d reached the peak of his pleasure n’ was stretching out that dopamine every time he plunged into you. 

And he also knew that your wettened walls were squeezing out every drop like you knew, too, yet he just couldn’t feel a single thing dripping out. Not a single thing.

Choso grips the base of his cock with furrowed brows, “I think I’m…”

“Noooo, don’t pull out.” Needily, you’re reaching behind and clawing at his wrists as he attempts to. Only for Choso to shake his head and replace his engorged cock with a few fingers - it wasn’t as good as his entire length, but it was something.

And then he pumps and pumps his cock- if he couldn’t fuck deep into you then maybe he could coat your pretty pussylips with his glittering sap. But the only thing he’s able to let out is nothing. Cumming dry.

“Dry?” You’re looking behind in interest, and it’s just then that he’s realizing he must’ve said that out loud. Fuck, he’s so gone. “Three times was too many, huh-”

“No.” Choso interrupts, “No- no, baby. Don’t even think of that.” And he’s so tearful—he’s so apologetic at the fact that he couldn’t…

Cooing, “There’s nothing wrong with that, Cho-”

“I know, but…” And he hesitates, but the words disrupt from his throat anyways. “-something in me says I need to stuff you full of my cum until I can…hck- see your tummy bloat with it. Now.”

Your jaw drops at the sight of your innocent boyfriend uttering such words. Such dirty, dirty words.

And before you know it, you’re laid flatly on your back with Choso’s handsome face looming over you. The air between you two charges with cursed energy once more, and his red-hot cockhead sliiiides between your pussylips.

Blood manipulation leaving him harder than ever.

He hisses, “Th-this time, I promise to you m’gonna cum…”

“Whatever you say, baby.” Arms flinging around his broad shoulders.

♡ RYOMEN SUKUNA - 21 rounds…?

You most definitely weren’t going to survive, you think.

The Sukuna Estate has been in an uproar; though this time it wasn’t by reason of an attack, a duel, or the King’s torrid temper. Surprisingly. This time, it was because Ryomen Sukuna had returned from a far-off journey - he’d heard some relative of the Kamo Clan was spouting nonsense about being able to match the four-armed sorcerer in terms of cursed energy, and had gone to put that to the test - and he was victorious.

Of course, he was victorious.

There was no time that he wasn’t. In the few years that you’d volunteered yourself as one of Sukuna’s concubines, you’ve never known the King to lose to an argument let alone a duel. 

And of course, it must be said that Sukuna had numerous - if not hundreds - of women and men housed in his Estate. None coerced; the accepted concubines were more residents for his reputation, than anything. Stories had spread far and wide that he accepted those searching for pay, food, or simply a place to stay—and no intimate relations were a prerequisite for anything that they wanted. You could come at any time, you could leave at any time.

He’d long since tired of mortal desires.

Except for the ones you stirred up, of course.

The stories of the Kamo sorcerer’s pitiful defeat had also spread far and wide- and it’d been the subject of much laughter in the concubine quarters lately. In addition to the fact that - in his woeful attempt at snagging a win and a name for himself - the opponent had called on the help of several different clans (the Abe, the Zenin, the Fujiwara traitors) to ambush and attack Sukuna. 

Though of course they were fallen. As were their men.

And according to the whispers, the death toll had reached the hundreds before Sukuna made his path back home. Back to you…if you were to be so presumptuous.

It wasn’t a secret that you were his favorite- and the ministers of the Estate are coming straight to you to personally announce that the King was nearing. You’re nodding sagely.

You knew what that meant - as it always did after a battle - that Ryomen Sukuna was hungry. The more struck-down opponents, the hungrier. Not for anything to consume or to refresh, but rather a starvation much more carnal and deeper within—the primal taste for flesh against flesh.

You were sitting in perfect poise and your smile hidden as the door to the master bedroom slams! open. The sliding door splinters on one end- and you shiver as you realize that this was going to be one of those nights…he was famished. The King removes his sokutai robes and lets them drop to the tatami floor with a heave, and then his deep footsteps pad over to you.

“Master.” You start to bow-

“You are aware I have a distaste for when you do that.”

Before you’re peeking up at him with a sly grin. “I’m aware. I just like how it riles you up so much, Kuna.”

His second mouth opens in guffaw.

And Sukuna raises one pink brow, “And I expect you are well-hydrated? For this night shall be long and merciless.”

You smile even wider.

.

.

.

One round.

Two.

Three.

Four—

It was just one round after the other. So many and so often; so many vicious slashes of Sukuna’s hips that already made you lose count- again and again. Your hands cascade down his thoroughly-built front to hold on for dear life. The windows were pulled shut, though you could feel the glowing of daylight behind it. The King was laid back against his oak headboard and helping you straddle his hips - your thighs crushed against the muscular, ridged area of his obliques as his cocks drilled into you twofold.

They were one after the other.

Thrust after thrust.

Stacked on top of one another—the upper length was slightly longer than the bottom one. Numerous inches long. Tufts of dark-pink hair. Getting your inner thighs wet with globs of sweet, sweet cum that dribble out every time he’s pulling out-

And then ramming deeply back in again. Ravenous.

He’s been cumming so many times this night—but he still wasn’t done. He was still throbbing at his heavy balls, no matter how many puddles of sap swashed inside of you. He was still rock-hard and running on his monstrous stamina. 

So many times that you’re swearing you feel your eyes sprinting to the back of your skull-

“Ah ah-” One of his four hands lifts up to cup your gorgeous face…or so you think. Instead, Sukuna’s straightening his hand out and swatting the side of your face- jolting you back to your senses.

You’re whining as you’re pulled back. Nose crinkling in irritation, you’re looking at him: and oh—was it a sight to behold. Sukuna’s incredible muscles were pumped up to be even bigger n’ bulkier as he manhandled you on top of him, sweat dripped from in-between his pink brows, and his second mouth stuck his tongue out and laps at his cursed lips with them. Before moving to yours…

Fervent moans crack at the back of your throat as Sukuna’s tastebuds glide-glide-gliiiiide along the sensitive inner parts of your thighs. Before spreading apart your pussylips and rolling over your clit.

As you’re shattering on top of him - your nth high coursing through you like a tidal wave - he chuckles. Both greedy mouths. “Not givin’ up so soon, are you, brat? Do not be like all those other humans-” He spits it out like acid, “-I’ve had to defeat today.”

“B-but…” Babbling out stupidly. Your tears stream down your cheeks, your bottom lip quivers as his hips accelerate. “But I am, human—”

“With a distinct difference.” He answers.

A few more merciless strokes and you’ve given up all hope of attempting to meet his pace. His plap-plapping cadence. His hips against yours, causing such a searing sting that makes your spine arch into his sweaty body.

Into his cursed mouth that wraps its unbelievable length around one of your thighs and uses it like a lasso- tugs you closer to him. Like a ragdoll.

The very tip of his tastebuds start ticklin’ at your clit once more, and you’re feeling your body droop limply into Sukuna’s toned front. Your chin rests between his plush pectorals; and he reaches two beefy arms behind you to guide your hips. To perk you up n’ down, up n’ down, up n’ down—

And with a third palm, the King shuts your drivelling maw- “Besides your…slobber, you are above the title of just any human.” Those mean lips of his dip down to whisper into your ear, “You’re my human. And I expect you to be my future Queen- the future mother of my children.”

A fourth and final one of his hands comes down to press on your cumflated tummy. Just the slightest pressure enough to make hot, white seed foam out of your pussy- 

“This royal pussy shall have to drink my cum up until we have an heir, yes?”

And you nod- you nod. You’ve spoken on the matter with the King of Curses before - a somewhat surprising occurrence - and both of you knew you wanted this.

Both of you were weakly pushin’ your hips firmly against his to milk out whatever ropey ounces of cum he was giving. He was flooding your insides. More and more; orgasms crashing into one another—Sukuna cums deeply inside you again with both cocks and it still wasn’t enough for him. “B-but how will we ever…oh, how will we know it’s even taken, Kuna?” Sobbing.

You’re looking down and it’s just an utter mess of creamy cum n’ the glossed-over tufts of his pink hair. Both bulbous tips twitching as they rammed inside you-

Sukuna smiles as he answers, “Oh…good question. Heh.” The inches of his tongue probe between your legs once again, though this time you’re feeling the ridges of his tastebuds enter your stuffed hole instead of merely grazing over your cunt. That prickly sensation glues to the back of your throat. “If my counting is correct, this is about the 21st- ah, round.” Looking down at his muscular stomach for confirmation, his cursed mouth squelches! outward and hums in confirmation. “How about…”

“N-ngh—” And you think if you’re about to cum, your body prevents you from it. Too pushed to its limits, you can only whimper and writhe on top of him-

And as you’re cumming with a mere few twitches, Sukuna’s cum seeps something hot and sticky in the back of your cunt. “Human, milk your King until he can’t cum anymore.”

Until he’s cumming dry?!

Your heart races as you wonder just how many more rounds that would take out of you-

Just how much more stamina does the strongest sorcerer of all time have? How much could he possibly—

It’s as though he was expecting a far stronger fight from his sorcerer counterparts, so any and all pressure was being placed on your cunt now. With Sukuna’s driveling tips so hot n’ ruby-red—plummeting and plummeting between your swollen pussylips in search of drenching your pretty cervix white. He empties out a few more beads of pearlescent white before snickering, “Don’t worry too much for your mortality, brat…”

Your eyes flutter open- and he’s pulling you into a deep kiss. Through that, his reverse cursed energy courses through your own faltering body. 

“I’ll be done in one more round…two…five…” He murmurs, “Perhaps another twenty-one.”

♡ INO TAKUMA - 3.5 rounds.

“N-no, I promise…” Ino’s hiccuping hitches were just so cute- they interrupted him mid-sentence and made him sound as though he was pleading. “I promise- this time- now-”

“Baby, you don’t have to force it.” You’re cooing gently.

And he all but sobs- “No- no, no no…I promise I’m not too- hck! overstimulated to cum.”

Though…you’re getting the sense that he really was.

Your proud, stubborn boyfriend was on his knees and begging—his chocolate-brown eyes wide, his brows furrowed, his bottom lip quivering in just the slightest way that was just the cherry on top. Ino gasps as he fists his cock even harder, dragging his palm down its left-leaning curve; again and again.

And you’re peering down at the man as he grows more and more frustrated with himself- at the fact that no matter how many times he’s jerkin’ his cock off…he still refused to cum.

Or, at least, he did cum - just without the creamy white mess that’d usually accompany it.

Three (and a half) rounds and Ino was cumming dry. Cumming nothing. With his body kneeled before you, with his mouth hoverin’ over your glistening wet pussy—he’d been making out sloppily with your pussy- all slathered in wads of his seed from rounds prior. Clenching and warm. And it was just the hottest thing he’s ever tasted.

So you really couldn’t blame the guy for pulling on his reddened cock as he did so…but that was precisely when disaster had struck.

When Ino had quirked the edge of his thumb underneath his sopping wet slit - just how you do it - and out came…absolutely nothing. Absolutely nothing and he was devastated—

“I-I don’t understand.” He’s babbling to himself. His gaze flickers between his angry cock and his even angrier hand- not smeared with cum. “I don’t understand, I always…”

Softly placing a hand on his slim shoulder, “Baby, I told you s’okay.”

“But it’s not okay…” Ino mutters, tone practically a pout. He averts his face from your gaze, “I never last the rounds and rounds they do in books. And lately I’ve been going to the gym n’ everything more to increase my stamina, too.”

“Is that why you’ve been buying dumbbells for the house, too?” You laugh, “And here I thought you were on some strange decorating spree.”

He juts his lower lip out, “Don’t make fun of me, sweetness…”

“I’m not, I’m not.” You’re insisting. And without further ado, you’re holding either side of Ino’s sunkissed shoulders and helping him get up, standing his lanky body before you. He’s dragged to your every whim and want; as you’re taking him by the hand and guiding him to the bed- before long you’re laying back in it with Ino hoverin’ above you.

Wrapping your feet around his small waist, you let his blushin’ cockhead kiss your pussylips. He shivers. “Oh, fuck.”

“That’s what I’m doing.” Slyly, you’re letting him ease inside you- your poor boyfriend’s seeing stars at the sudden stimulation. His hips coming down to hammer his cock into you—

But you’re stopping him with a leisurely hand at his hips, shaking your head with a smile as he stares down at you with teary eyes. A plea on his lips- “Now now…” You’re cutting that sweet noise of his off with a tut, spreading your thighs apart even further n’ letting his rotund cock maze its way inside - sloooowly. “Take it easy, Taku. Easy—don’t worry, we’re gonna make you cum this round, m’kay?”

He’s nodding jerkily- uncertainly. “Y-you can really do that, pretty?”

“Of course.” Raising one brow, “Don’t trust me?”

And he’s hastening to shake his head. Urgent and alarmed. “What- no.” And as though to prove this point, Ino leaves his hips at a complete standstill. Painfully so - for him. “No, no—I would n-never not trust you, sweetness. I was just-”

“Shhhh, I know, Taku.” Soothing him. You push away a tuft of chestnut-brown hair from his sweaty forehead, “I know…”

Sinking his teeth into his bottom lip, you’re both staring down at the place where you were connected. His throbbing cock. Your glistening wet pussy.

And then you’re breathing out in a tone that’s low and slow—practically hypnotizing him the more of his inches he’s sweepin’ inside. “Just need you to fuck me, baby.”

He’s shuddering as he bottoms out.

Deeeeeep; those inches are red-hot and vein-covered, massaging your walls as he’s sliding in. The crown of his cock is a circumference you could feel at your very throat- and Ino’s head throws back prettily as he’s hittin’ your cervix a few times. “Sh-shit—”

You’re holding back your giggle, “Everything alright, Taku?”

“No- yes.” And after a few more sloppy strokes, he whines. “No…”

Because how could he be? Less than a few minutes ago, he’d been ruttin’ against your calves and cumming dry into his fist. Right now, he was feeling as though the pearly gates of heaven had opened up wiiiiiide between your legs n’ was sucking his soul with every passing second- even the tiniest slurps of your pussy meant his brow was furrowing. 

The tips of his ears growing red, “I-it’s just…I feel like m’gonna cum again.” Ino babbles into your mouth- capturing it in a sinful kiss. “And I think m’gonna cum dry-”

“How’d you know if you haven’t done it yet, hm?” You ask, bouncing your hips up to meet his own. The smack-smack-smacking sounds between you two was all but deafening, “C’mon, baby. Cum inside- hah, fill me up again.”

“Shit- now m’really gonna cum soon…” He’s echoing out desperately. Pelvis rammin’ into yours- and it was already torturous enough for his aching shaft - pistoning deeper and deeper - without your body greedily pushing up into his.

And he feels his heart race as the grin stretches across your face, “Good.” Kissing the soft nape of his neck, it makes his tip ooze out just a little more milky drops of precum. They glue to the pulsating area of your g-spot. “Because I really, really—mmpf.”

And before you know it, your sorcerer boyfriend has reached behind you and clasped- at the discarded ski mask that he was usually known to make.

The soft, fluffy cotton of it glues your mouth shut. 

Muffling your lewd words to the back of your throat - you don’t have a chance to get out whatever it is you wanted to say. Whatever it is you knew would drive him over the edge. 

And yet, Ino Takuma was still completely and utterly ruined as he punctures his ravenous cock between your legs-

Over and over and over.

“Oh- ngh.” The cutest little whimper leaves his throat, and Ino turns his big, tearful eyes towards you. “O-ohhh, please…sweetness, m’really not joking. M’really gonna cum this time.”

“Mmmm—” Nodding fervently.

“I swear m’gonna do it.” Kissing your forehead in apology for the gag- though he could feel just how wet you were getting between your legs. The sheen of your slick soaks his pelvis, his v-line, and the upper parts of his own thighs. Burned slightly red with constant. “I s-swear m’gonna cum.”

“Do it-” You just barely manage out. Before getting cut off- with both the ski mask being pushed deeper into your mouth, and the squeeze of Ino’s slender fingers on your clit. 

Making you see stars-

Toes curling. Back arching. As though a feverish sensation is taking over your body, making your skin perspire and your head throw into the pillows.

And just as your orgasm rages through you, Ino’s does, too.

This time…he’s pumping and pumping his ruddied cock—dragging the luscious curve of it across every single sensitive spot and dip. Those bundles of nerves that he was mapping out. And it’s as if Ino was trying to milk himself - to drag out the wetness of his orgasm if it kills him.

And luckily for him, he doesn’t cum dry. 

Somewhat.

He’s beading out a single drop of seed that gets pushed right to the back of your womb- smeared by the rotund curve of his tip.

And then Ino looks at you with watery, content eyes. “I-I did it, sweetness.”

“That you did, Taku.”

“D’you think I can cum again?”

♡ GOJO SATORU - INFINITY.

“Honey, I’m home~”

Which would have been a completely ordinary greeting from your husband, of course. Which would never have made you think twice before you opened the door for him, of course.

Except…there was one little issue. 

The Gojo Satoru you’re married to was wide-eyed and crazed on your television screen; Mei Mei’s livestream of the Shinjuku Showdown was playing in 4K on your 115-inch TV. And from your standstill in front of the locked door, you could still see your husband’s black t-shirt starting to tear through once he increases his Hollow Purple to 200% and bursts it right in the direction of Ryomen Sukuna—or more like…the Ryomen Sukuna that was inhabiting the body of your honorary son.

But that was semantics. Or so you liked to think to keep yourself sane in here.

It had been Professor Yaga’s idea to keep you home whilst the battle raged on - there was no telling where the King of Curses would go or attack to gain an upper hand on his opponents. Evil never fought fair. And it was here - in the humble…but not-so-humble abode of your’s and Gojo’s penthouse apartment - that he’d cast the strongest veils.

Talismans and protective omens from far and wide. Around the world.

Over the years, Gojo had taken it upon himself to make your house the safest place in the world - a home for his home—you. He knew the burden that came with being loved by The Strongest, and this was the one thing he could do to alleviate it. 

And it was perfect.

But there’d be no home here without your husband. And your stomach twists as you watch the white-haired sorcerer break out in a grin when his compression shirt gets completely torn and his throat nearly slashed.

Sweat glimmers across his defined muscles, and you’re finding it so hard to look away. The battle was reaching a climax- you could tell by the wild look in Gojo’s eyes.

A blur of movements and another explosion of candescent purple- 

And then the door clicks! open.

This can’t be.

Surely, this can’t be.

Gojo was still on-screen.

Gojo was crouching over the King’s chosen vessel and watching as the marked tattoos disappear from what is now - and hopefully forevermore - just…Megumi’s face. He seems to be sleeping peacefully, and the victorious sorcerer on-screen presses two fingers to the poor boy’s pulse.

Brows furrowed in concentration- or concern?

Before a brilliant smile breaks out across Gojo’s face- and he nods to some of the others off-screen. Then you’re seeing the livestream falter on a sudden rush of white coats and stretches, a few of the paramedics reaching for your wounded husband as well—

Before you blink and he disappears. The only evidence of ever existing at the Shinjuku site being the bewildered faces of the doctors- and you.

And the fact that that very same Gojo Satoru was before you know.

Chest heaving. Those cloud-white tufts of his hair were messy - a far cry from his usual updo. 

And his eyes…oh, his eyes were harrowed.

Empty. Unfocused. As though his mind was still in the midst of battle- though his body’s natural instinct was to come to you. And though power still radiated off of him in waves, it’s nothing of the calm river of coldness that normally layered his body. This was a torrential rain—drenching your living room, drenching the entire apartment. 

Pure uninhabited cursed energy; the dam had broken now. The very space he enters drops a few degrees in temperature. 

The very same man you’d kissed goodbye before his battle- now with a simple layer of debris and dust covering him. It left him almost ghost-pale, and you wanted to brush it off as though discarding such an omen - he’d won.

With nothing but a few cuts on his brows and his lip, some already healing across his arms, he’d won. And he was standing right before you.

Unsteady on his feet. 

He slowly raises his eyes to the livestream behind you and comments, “Ah- that’s a little delayed.” And then his gaze drops down to you - finally, finally drops down to you - and he breaks out into a smile.

Brighter than any sun.

Gojo had escaped the arms of death and run straight to you. 

.

.

.

“Mmmm-mmpfg—” The blindfold muffles your mouth perfectly - which should be ironic, considering that all Gojo was thinking about during that damn battle was hearing your voice. At least one last time.

One last time.

And perhaps then, he could pass…peacefully. 

But he hadn’t; for who could be stupid enough to underestimate Gojo Satoru? Especially not Gojo Satoru himself. And so here he was: with his hot blindfold gift-wrapping your mouth, and his cock drivelling into you like he was a machine—

In the lewdest doggy position possible; and you only wanted more.

Unable to vocalize, you’re fisting at the sheets- then behind at Gojo’s toned body. Clawing at those rippling obliques of his to try and draw him even further forwards. “M-more…mmmpfore.”

Forwards and forwards.

Even deeper in. 

The sudden change in angle makes Gojo’s puckered tip kiss up at your g-spot - even harder than before. And by now you’ve memorized the exact length n’ circumference of him—the exact measurements that were swabbin’ aside your wettened walls and tumbling into every spot you loved so much.

He knew every single one. Every single one.

And he was welcoming himself back- he was making sure you’d never forget him again and again and again—

Gojo’s long since lost track of time- and he doesn’t care. Hours could have passed, days could have passed - but the only thing that really mattered to him was finally having his hands on you—and his cock glued to the back of your pussy. 

It was almost concerning how many times he’d stuffed your greedy orifice full - and yet, still kept on cumming. Cumming so long and hot inside you. 

“Oh…mmm.” Moans muffled. Lashes flickering shut. And your hamstrings ache with fatigue he couldn’t feel because of his training - the man had just fought history’s strongest sorcerer, for heaven’s sake. 

And yet, Gojo wasn’t feeling the slightest bit of lethargy as he loops one forearm underneath your hips and scoops your droopin’ hips back up. Plastering them against his own. Sweat and slick sizzles between your clashing bodies—and Gojo’s voice cracks just a little as he asks. “More…?” Breathless. Higher than usual. Your husband’s eyes were wide and piercing- begging you for an answer.

His red-hot tip was just so ready to explode, and that syrupy white cum was already beginning to drivel out. To smear. To stuff inside. “T-tell me what you want, sweetheart.” He gusts his breath down your spine; absolutely scorching. “Is it more—?”

“It’s more- it’s more-” Sometimes, you wonder if he could read minds. And at the state that Gojo was in right now - you wouldn’t be surprised. Just barely, you’re managing to utter coherent words through those merciless restraints, and oh, how he loved watching you gagging on his blindfold.

Filthy.

Tears flooding your gorgeous eyes. Your spittle cascading down in two streams- either side of your mouth.

Hot cum spills between your legs, and you’re still begging for more.

Hah…Gojo can’t help but plant a loving peck on the side of your messy face. Humming, “Then m’gonna give you more.”

“Yes—” Nodding, you plant your hands on the patch of mattress before you. Attempting to haul yourself up just a lil’ so that you could at least try and match his ramming pace-

“Nuh uh, sweetheart.” Had this been anyone but Gojo, then you would’ve found that smug tone of his oh-so-irritating. Just then, Gojo’s leaning his hefty weight over and pinning you down even further onto the mattress—rubbin’ his blossomed cockhead across every inch of your cunt.

You’re getting cut off mid-gasp.

You’re fucking collapsing. And Gojo’s just colliding into you from behind.

Tangled up into such a mess; he’s drunkenly buckling on top of you and crashin’ and crashin’ his hips into you from above. Nose-deep into the crook of your neck. Mouth parted with constant sensual grooooans—“Wh-whatever my wife wants…” He’s easily massaging your g-spot back and forth a few times, and then pulling all the way out with a resounding pop! “-your husband- The Strongest is gonna get it for you.”

“Yes- yes, Toru…”

“M’serious.” He says in a jagged tone. “You wanted more?” The sudden confrontation of his words make you startle- and you’re giving him a quick nod. To which Gojo runs his buzzing fingertips between the sopping crevice of your folds, “Then m’gonna give you more. Hah, careful not to squeeze too tight.”

At that exact moment, you feel the air…stiffen around the two of you.

It was the same sort of tension you’d felt when Gojo had first entered the apartment: the presence of the world’s most powerful cursed energy. It coiled around your bodies and set your skin alight- before focusing on one particular spot—

Shockwaves run up your spine. And your husband reaches down to pat your stuffed pussy- “Unlimited void.”

You freeze. “M-mmpmf…?” You’ve already talked about such uses of Gojo’s powers with him before - you just didn’t expect it now—but you sure as hell weren’t complaining. 

It seems as though Gojo’s cursed energy was coursing through every axiom of him and supercharging it - he didn’t control it. You didn’t know if he could. It was seeping from his body into yours, and turning your slick channel into…that. Whatever it was. Something he could reel his hips back from and rut n’ rut and rut - without it ever getting stuffed too full.

Instantly - and because of the overuse of his powers - Gojo’s feeling his warm tip dribbles out a few more ropes of cum.

And it’s almost like a…challenge at this point: just to see whether he could properly fill that gaping hole of yours. Gojo’s catching his pretty rose-pink lip between his teeth when he gazes down between those tremblin’ legs, “Fuck- see?” Voice growing more ragged by the second, “See—?”

Nodding and nodding. 

“Th-this pussy wanted more, and n-now she’ll never get full. Now she’s flooded with me right down to the womb-” Pressing his second palm on top of your stomach. “-and she still wants more. Hungry girl. Now she can take so much more that- hngh.” Getting cut off with a ruinous moan himself - he’s pumping out pearlescent webs once more. Another orgasm. 

“That?” You’re choking out.

Breathed between clenched teeth, “That you’re gonna milk The Strongest dry, sweetheart.”

“O-oh…” A jolt of pleasure runs through your body at the notion- or maybe it was just Gojo’s slender fingers tightly grasping your clit. Those digits of his were coated in so much thrumming cursed energy that it drove you mad—“Is that even possible?” That expensive blindfold finally loosens its restraint ‘round your mouth, the constant jostling to and fro causing it to unravel. 

“Hmmmm?” Jackhammering hips. Interest piqued. Bolts of lightning shooting from the edges of his eyes as he smiles.

Again and again and again, his shaft scours your insides and stirs every sweet spot up. “I just mean-” Making you feel lightheaded. “How many rounds has it- oh, already been? Are we even sure you can cum dry, Toru?”

“Dunno.” He answers, and your jaw drops. 

Just then, you’re sure that he’s hit with another orgasm—and you are, too. 

Yours starts out in-between your legs with a sudden twitch- before suddenly the pleasure’s setting your body alight. Your heartbeat thrums in your ears, and Gojo’s humming softly to himself as he fucks you through it.

As he’s letting a few sloppy draaaags out before gritting his pearly-whites and dropping his head forwards. Deeper into the crook of your neck; Gojo lets out moan after moan as he dribbles out squelchin’ cum for the nth time tonight.

One after the other.

Loooong and luxurious. Those satiny ropes are emptied out into the deepest depths of your channel, and he was so thoroughly overstimulated by the charged euphoria that he sobs-

And a lightbulb bursts in the distance.

“M’not cumming dry yet.” Gojo’s heavy balls twitch once he’s plasterin’ them to the forefront of your pussylips. And you can feel them swelling and throbbing after every trickle- “But we have the whole night for that, don’t we?”

“Night? I think s’been days.” You retort, sneaking a glance at the daylight-shimmered curtains. 

“Ah, semantics~”

♡ HIGURUMA HIROMI - 5 rounds.

“I just don’t understand, angel.” Higuruma leans back in his faux leather-bound chair and sighs, his gold-tipped pen coming to tap between his eyebrows as though searching for some button hidden in there - one that would preferably jumpstart the rest of him into normalcy. He continues, “This Fujiwara case has just made me lose all my stamina.”

Because it’s always a long, hard day in the courtroom.

And Higuruma Hiromi knows that - he’s the best defense lawyer Tokyo ever did see. There’s a reason he graduated at the top of his batch, there’s a reason he started his own law firm at around half the age that most of his colleagues do. 

There’s a reason that Higuruma Hiromi, criminal defense attorney, makes the tension in courtrooms thicken until they’re almost stifling the second he walks through those polished pews.

But this case…

It was the usual- some poor sap blamed for a white-collar crime that he clearly didn’t do. And though Higuruma had half the brain to eye his bosses strangely, the nature of this case also meant that the prosecuting team was the best of the best—being that they knew how to twist their words.

And Higuruma was left haggard after a single session. Not that he didn’t think he stood a chance - he knows he does, he knows that guy’s getting out scot-free after this - but it’s just that…he had to do this for months.

He had to walk into the courtroom and feel his mind becoming more n’ more fossilized by the second- that damn prosecuting team was abhorrent. 

And so here he was.

11:41PM. Cooped up in his office room at home; Higuruma was slumped down at his desk, whilst you stood concerned beside him. As he lets out another prolonged sigh, you’re stepping behind the chair and starting to massaging his firm shoulders - surely knotted to hell and back. 

Higuruma shoots you a grateful smile, “It’s awful. I had to sit there and try not to throw my chair at those prosectors for-”

“Five hours.” You’re finishing his sentence.

He’s gazing up at you lovingly, “And even for lawyers they’re insufferable- and that’s coming from me.”

You’re furrowing your brows in humor, “Hey—you’re only half-insufferable.”

That makes him let out a laugh, “But I’m telling you, angel-” And almost as quickly as it came, it disappears. Higuruma’s pinching the bridge of his handsome nose for the nth time this night, “I’m not at that age just yet, but it seems I must work on my stamina. Today was absolute hell.”

“Five hours, huh?” Even saying it out loud made you feel weary, “Y’know how long that’s about?”

“Hm?” He looks at you, “How long?”

Leaning down to whisper in his ear, “That’s about as long as a…” And even before you’re saying the words, you’re sensing the goosebumps that skitter down Higuruma’s neck and even further down his collar. Just how far…you wonder. “-marathon that we have, hm, Hiromi?”

“Yes…” He breathes out. Long, dark lashes nearly shuttering.

He’s been so caught up with that damn case lately- so caught up, he hasn’t had enough time to spend with you. And just the mere mention of it…of being between those pretty legs n’ fucking you for hours and hours is enough to leave him a little heated.

And Higuruma’s meeting your eyes like two magnets that have finally met- first, his lips are on your neck. Then he’s tugging you onto his lap.

.

.

.

“Yes—” Higuruma hisses out- voice pitched into a tone so utterly unlike him. Something so botched in his words, something so ruined—

He’s been fucking your perfect cunt for hours now, and was showing no signs of stopping.

Your attorney husband has a steadfast hold on your hips; from the luxurious chair you’ve moved onto the edge of his desk. Pressed on your front over the mahogany table, hands clawing out haplessly in front of you, ass archin’ up into his vicious thrusts.

The skin ‘round Higuruma’s pelvis has turned red by this point, and he was hissing between his teeth every time his hips came in contact with yours—smack! 

So hard that you’re flinching just a little bit.

And that makes a few streams of cum dribble out from between your clenched pussylips- the pure-white sheen of it coating your thighs. Higuruma doesn’t let a single sweet ounce of it go to waste before he’s snaking a hand down and thumbin’ off just a few drops.

And then you’re finding it stuffed between your lips- “M-mmmm…” Your tears form a lacquer down your cheeks, “Hiromi, you’re so filthy.”

“You married me for it, didn’t you?” He grins. Head tipping back just a little once you’re clenching your sopping wet walls in confirmation, “F-fuck, ngh—keep doing that. Just a little tighter, sugar.” And if you were in any clearer of a state of mind, then you’d have noticed that his husky tone was cracking—voice breaking at the tail end of his sentence.

Higuruma was feeling his sanity drip away every time he entered your pussy- but so were you.

You moan, “Need more-” 

He pats at your pussy adoringly, feeling the wetness of your slick mixed with his clingy white cum. “More, huh? Sure you can handle it, angel?” Darting a look at the clock, “We’re already on…a few hours. Round five.”

Nodding and nodding. 

And you’re all but keening for more as you feel him edge his ravenous cock away - just a few inches. It honestly wasn’t even a movement that should impact the sheer carnal streeeeetch he was bestowing upon you.

But with your needy senses, you’re turning your head over your shoulder. About to mouth off to your husband about pulling away when you were hungry for him the most when-

When you’re seeing that he’d been reaching for that scrap of fabric thrown over his chair.

A stray discardment in the heat of the moment earlier.

His tie.

Your restraints now.

Because in a split-second, Higuruma loops the jet-black fabric around your dangling wrists. It doesn’t take him long to fasten it and tighten it—testing it just by giving it a little pull- he finds himself grinning as your body’s able to be lifted and moved ‘round just by this.

Perfect.

The semi-coarse cloth was strangely sensual against your skin- almost biting. 

Higuruma himself leans down to give a small nip at your right shoulder, before he’s leaning back and hauling you—inches off the table. Two hands clasped around your wrists, the cold hiss of his wedding ring matching yours, the red, rotund head of his cock swipin’ inwards and making your walls bulge with the size of him. “O-oh, fuuuuuck-”

His dribbling divot navigates straight to the bottom of your pussy. “Yeah- yeahhhhh, you’ve got this.” Higuruma whispers as your orgasm wracks through you - and his own fifth one was nearing ever-closer. “You can take it. You can take me-”

“Should I be concerned about the- ngh, amount of space I have left?” In unison, you’re snapping your head down at the area between your legs. Limp.

“Concerned?” 

Cum was seeping out of you in what looked like bucketloads- in all the physical stamina that Higuruma was determined to prove that he still has. And he sure does - or at least your thoroughly-stuffed pussy seemed to think so - but your husband was still pumping away even harder. 

Rougher.

Splatterin’ patterns of syrupy sap on your skin- where contact was being made constantly. Higuruma laps at the gentle leaking with his thumb once more, “Sugar, this pussy was made to take my cum.”

Manhandling you backwards using the restraint of his tie, and slammin’ a final French kiss into the back of your cervix. You feel him start to twitch—in the way that Higuruma always does before he’s about to coat your walls with a layer of cum. “I-inside…” You whine. “All of it- inside.”

“Mhmmm, your husband has you, angel.” And then he’s holding you close- 

Tip thickening at the very flared edge, the crown of it, he’s pouring out a few glittery ropes of…nothing. Absolutely nothing. Higuruma’s dark eyes shoot open as it sinks in: he was cumming in every way, shape, sensation, and form—except for the absence of cum. The absence of gooey white cum seeping out his shaft- and he’s feeling it. 

But he isn’t drenching your pussy in the way he’s expected to.

And Higuruma seethes- “Angel, I…” Lower lip trembling as he takes in the cum that’d frothed out of you and was now being pushed back, “I-I believe I didn’t-”

“Hiromi, did you cum dry—?” Wonderment seeps into your tone. “I didn’t even know you could do that-”

“I didn’t, either.” There was something akin to…disappointment in his tone. Something akin to sadness, something akin to determination- “I can’t believe I…angel, my stamina is fucked-”

“Baby, you just went five rounds without stopping-”

“And if I don’t cum on the sixth…” That ruby-red tip rubs up against your g-spot, ready to splurge out cum at least this time. 

“Mhmmm?”

“Then I’m not Tokyo’s best lawyer.”

A/N. Something something something milkshakes-

Plagiarism not authorized.

[tldps-beautiful-boy]

Somewhat proud enought to repost it, DEFINITELY WOMAN ENOUGH TO REPOST IT (can you tell I'm ovulating) (or do you just think I'm a freak?) @tonycries do you want my firstborn bc this was beautiful

[thediktatortot]

Fandom is so different now and it’s becoming un-fun with how quickly shit moves.

I just want to enjoy things. I don’t want to have to play a game of Artist-Race that seems to be afoot lately.

Ya’ll eat up fandoms, leave artists and writers bone dry and then move on so fucking quickly then fucking wonder where all the Good Fandom Stuff is.

Idk Maybe cherish some things for longer. Reblog stuff. Interact with people. Comment and share.

Fandom is Capitalism now and I’m not being nuanced.

[marzipanandminutiae]

people also seem obsessed with only Doing Fandom about currently active works?

“oh, I’m so sad that show ended! I really miss the fandom!” who said you have to leave, coward

[vector-be-silly]

Fun fact: You are part of keeping a fandom alive. Every interaction, every person in a fandom has their own part to play. If that’s reblogging art, fanfics or making cursed edits, that’s good enough.

[couldntbedamned]

Fandom is for community, not consumption.

Fandom is for community, not consumption.

Fandom is for community, not consumption.

[heart-of-alex]

Late night drunkeness

⟢ Carmen "Carmy" Berzatto x gn! reader ⟡ Carmy drags his feet toward his apartment, awaiting the same scene than usual after coming home from a late shift. But you have decided to make this night way more interesting and sweet. ⟡ Reblogs ⇄ & Likes ♡ are heavily appreciated ! ⟣ Word count: 1 212

Carmen struggled with his keys, as usual after a difficult shift. He could already imagine the scene inside his apartment. Lights left on, his usual messy floor covered in his stacks of cooking books, and you, asleep on the couch, fallen to exhaustion as you waited for him to get home. He pushed the door with a silent breath out and frowned brows from the day's pressure, the old bulbs casting their yellowed rays through the small opening. He pushed the door slightly more and furrowed his brows even more as he stared to the candles on the (apparently cleaned) dinning table. "Love?" he called out as he faced back to close the door, not too loudly in case you were already asleep, which wouldn't surprise him. But you responded with a soft hum from the kitchen. Carmen let his bag fall unto the floor and slipped off his shoes as he walked soft step by soft step toward the kitchen, only to be met with a domestic-as-can-be vision.

You were standing, a pair of pyjamas under your stained apron. Carmen asked what you were doing, a look of confusion on his face as he tried to look at the different pans where the oil swiveled. With a chuckle, you covered his face with your hands, "Carmy, it's a surprise." He frowned more, still very confused with the situation. But, he also understood you desired to make something good and the chef liked the sweet gesture. "And it's my damn kitchen," he answered back, his hands over yours. You let out a full throated laugh as you guided him to a chair. In a slow movement, Carmen was seated in front of a dressed table with wine glasses and candles.

You filled his glass up, "I took the first bottle I found," you admitted softly, putting a kiss on his cheek. "And I'm almost done," hands moving away from Carmen's shoulders as you headed back in front of the fire.

Carmen's eyes locked on your figure as you cooked, a small smile as he remembers from how far you were coming from when it came to cooking. His shoulders relaxed, feeling at home, safe and loved at the sound of your soft hummed song. His gaze followed as you brought the stuffed pasta shells to the table and sat down. Dinner was lighthearted conversations, soft and warm grins even a few that showed teeth, bottle emptying along with food, and a lot of hand holding as the other ranted about the day they had lived. "You didn't have…"

You immediately cut the sentence, "I wanted to." The chef shook his head, and passed a hand through his greasy hair as you held his other one in yours. "I swear." The knots in his trapezius loosened slightly as the words reassured him. You stood up and invited Carm to follow you, which he did (not without a confused rise of eyebrows). Quickly you turned on the shared playlist you had made during your first year together. With a chuckle you grabbed his hands, placing one on your hip, "Humor me for a second," you begged softly as you started to sway him.

Step, step, step, spin… Carmen is so focused on not stepping over your feet as he follows your twirls, head down, eyes on the floor. "Sweetie," he tried as you spun him, getting a chuckle out. "I'm terrible at dancing." You gasped as he inevitably did walk over your toes, but as warmth filled heads and bodies, the lighthearted mistake simply earned a giggle. The apartment felt like home, it did the moment you've stepped in. He remembers your comment about how messy it was, how it felt more like a storage. You spin him again, with that laugh which lit his life, he smiles in reaction before looking at the pictures you've put on the walls. Souvenirs of your moments together, of your dates, of some of Carmen's most elaborate dishes, his prize, your diplomas. He couldn't deny it had never felt more like home.

Step, drag, step as the sounds of your voices fill the atmosphere alongside the old rock notes coming out of the abandoned phone on the dinner table. The world around you kept spinning, from the dancing and the drinks, even after you had stopped in a laughing fit at two to fall onto the couch. Now seated close, his head resting over your shoulder as your hand stayed on the couch's top back rail. The adrenaline of the drunkenness had dissipated, leaving both of you exhausted from the day and out of breath. Carmen looked up at you with a soft smirk, "Where would I be without you?"

"Not dancing at 1am for sure."

"Ahah. Very funny," his voice dripped with sarcasm while his eyes gazed at yours lovingly. The warmth of the blanket helped him to ease into the embrace as your hand moved to rest over his shoulder. It felt calm as the silence stretched, a nice silence, far from the ones at work where it always announced a storm (usually himself). You tugged him closer, fingers squeezing the shoulder in silent reassurance, a way to say you were here without words. The TV stayed off , like the phones left away, the remote sitting on the armrest. There was no need for background noises to overwrite thoughts, because you quietened the nagging voices in the back of Carmen's head.

He was loved, he could feel it through your comebacks, your touches, and the way your iris drowned in his. And that, made his stomach untie the knots to let butterflies in. You went to make some comment about not knowing what to put on the TV, interrupted by your own yawn. Carmen immediately perked his head up, hands moving to your shoulders, "Hey, you good?"

"The bed's calling me," you said softly, accompanying Carmen as he stood up. Hand in hand, you let him guide you to the bedroom. You watched him change from the greasy shirt, eyes following the lines making his tattoos. Carmen caught your stare in the mirror, shaking his head at your shameless behavior. Arms wrapped around his hips, you swung him side to side, laughing, "Come to bed," you dragged the last sound as you made both of you fall down in a giggle on the messy mattress. He rolled you around to be on top, rolling his eyes, acting like he was disappointed but he could never truly be. Soft kisses covered your face as you tried to playfully fight him. Cheeks, lips, forehead, neck and even to the bits of shoulders showing under your large pyjama shirt, cold hands creeping up the shirts making you shiver, Carmen made sure to leave no skin unkissed and unloved. With a chuckle, you pulled the covers over you, trying to hide the warmth of your cheeks and to stop him. In vain, he was settled on making you feel as loved as you made him, he didn't mind if he needed all night, he'd take his sweet time too, wanting to make the feelings and the pleasure last at least as long as you could be together before the outside world dragged you apart for one more day.

Author note: ⟡ I genuinely cannot wait for Season 5, and I'm so sad that it's the final season. I watched Gary recently and it motivated me to finish this.

Credits: ⟢ Images: Pinterest ⟣ Divider: @saradika-graphics

[tldps-beautiful-boy]

Don't mind me, just my blood sugar spiking from how sweet and fluffy it is!!! I absolutely love this!

[tldps-beautiful-boy]

She Knows It

Pairing: Robin Buckley x Fem!Reader

Desc: Robin likes you. A lot. And knows she could treat you better than your crappy boyfriend. You love your best friend. As a friend...right?

Warnings: Swearing, sexism, allusions to smut, 80s slang that makes no sense

A/N: We should all go watch some Robin thirst traps because I listened to this song right before walking an edit so I brought you this. Also you have no idea how much googling I did for this 80s slang.

Robin was completely and utterly screwed. No, not because she forgot to practice her music for marching band or because she accidentally stained that sweater she borrowed from Steve. Robin Buckley was screwed because she'd broken the first rule in the book. She fell in love with her best friend. Her best friend who was in love with her crappy boyfriend, Jake Miller.

She didn't even realize it was happening. She just woke up one day and started noticing things. Like the way your eyes would crinkle around the edges when you smiled. How you'd tap your feet while listening to a song, not doing the specific drum line, but still on beat. How you had a bazillion different accessories that always matched your outfit which in turn matched how you were feeling that day. But what she really noticed was how horrible your boyfriend was.

Now, she didn't wanna be like a man-hater lesbian who hated men for the sake of it and she definitely didn't want to hate your boyfriend because she was in love, or rather in like with you, but it was disgustingly obvious how terrible your boyfriend was.

Every other week, you'd be on your bed, shoulders touching Robin, which she was painfully aware of, complaining about how your boyfriend never called you back or didn't compliment the outfit you chose for him or was checking out other girls. Robin would be breathing in the mix of perfume and shampoo and trying to sympathize with you. All the while, she'd be saying in her head that you should just date her instead, trying to work up the courage to say it out loud, maybe even kiss you to get it over with. To open up your eyes to the person that genuinely gave a crap about you.

But she didn't do that. Instead, she stayed quiet and let you vent. She held you when you wanted to cuddle, like all friends did. She helped you style your hair, even if she had no idea what she was doing. She did whatever she could to be near you, even though it killed her to be so close to you and not be yours.

Because, in the end, she knew your friendship was too strong to risk ruining it all. You two had been friends since kindergarten. Robin and you. You and Robin. Voted best dynamic duo when you graduated middle school. Though the ballots were more like you and that other girl. Nobody ever really saw Robin but you did. In fact, you were the first person she came out to. Mainly because, you noticed how she would stare at Tammy.

The only other person she was close to like that was Steve. And Steve was nothing like you. He was funny, kind, and a bit stupid but he wasn't you. So, Robin bit her tongue and kept quiet as you ranted on and on about how much you hated Jake, knowing you'd never actually leave him, much less for her.

Even with that knowledge, Robin couldn't help but let herself pretend that maybe you did like her back. When you'd kiss her on the cheek as a hello and goodbye, she'd pretend you were her girlfriend. When you would say you were going to hang out with your girlfriend, Robin, she'd forget what the word really meant to you. Especially when you'd be on her lap, having just convinced her to let you do her makeup even though she didn't need much convincing when it came to you, and your lips would be inches, centimeters away from hers. In those moments, she'd zone out, imagine kissing you, imagine you feeling the same way. Then you'd back up and smile at her, say she looked beautiful. That's when her little fantasy would shatter and she'd be forced to be your friend again. Just your friend.

⁀↘‿↗⁀↘‿↗⁀↘‿↗⁀↘‿↗⁀↘‿↗⁀↘‿↗⁀↘‿↗

"I just think that he's hot. Just look at him." You reasoned, trying to convince Robin about the gift of god that was Ralph Macchio.

Robin bit into a Twizzler. "I bet he is. He's just not my type."

"What is your type because I swear you only comment on the girls. Like I get it, these movie stars are 'gag me with a spoon' pretty but I swear I've never heard you talk about any boys." You put your head onto Robin's thighs, turning to face the TV in your room.

"I like boys. But...I think we need to empower women."

You craned your neck to give her a sideways glance before turning back to the TV. "Right, well, whatever. Did I tell you about what Jake said?"

"No, what did he say?" Robin hovered her hand over your shoulder. Was it weird to put her hand on your shoulder. She sighed and eventually settled it onto you.

"He said the skirt I was wearing tonight was...I can't say it."

"It's okay, you know I'll never tell anyone. It's not like I have anyone to tell."

"You and Steve are like besties though."

"Well, like yeah, but we're not as close as you and me. Please, tell me."

You had completely turned to look at her. "He called my skirt 'slutty'." You whispered.

"That's crazy. He's such a wastoid."

"I know but was he wrong? I knew the skirt was short." You sat up, wrapping your arms around your body.

"No, what! You should be able to wear whatever you want. Screw Jake and his old timey taste."

"Don't say that. He means well. He just doesn't want me to act slutty or look slutty."

"You don't think your boyfriend calling you a slut is a problem?" Robin tilted her head.

"He's not calling me a slut. He's helping me not be like..." You whipped your head around before leaning in. "Katie."

"Do you think you're a slut?"

"No!" You launched off the bed, standing to face Robin.

"Then why are you letting him call you one?"

"I'm not! Robin, stop. You always do this? I tell you something that Jake did and you take it too far. I mean, you just called me a slut!"

"I didn't– I'm not trying to–" Robin leaned forward.

"I know, I know you didn't mean it. I get it, just stop." You deflated. "I'm tired. It's been a long day. Let's just...call it."

Robin straightened up. "What, no! I didn't mean to call you a slut. Come on, let's just keep watching the movie. I'll even call Ralph Macchiato hot." Her voice has climbed higher like it always did when she started panicking.

"It's Ralph Macchio." You caught yourself before you could go on. "It's not important, Robin, just go. Please."

Robin got off the bed to face you. "No, come on. This is our thing. I'm snarky and you're beautiful. I'm weird and you're you." Tears shone in her eyes.

You pulled your arms closer to yourself, stepping back from the worried girl. "I'm not asking you to sell your kidneys, I'm just asking you to go home. Jake always said we were too close."

"Jake?" Robin just barely squeaked his name out.

"I think he's right. I think we need space."

"Space?"

"I don't know. I don't know. I just– We spend hours together. We're super close all the time. He said we act like we're dykes. I didn't tell him about that time we kissed," Your voice lowered. "You know, on the lips, in Grade 6 and 9 and last summer. But maybe we just need space. Maybe it'll fix all the weirdness between us."

⁀↘‿↗⁀↘‿↗⁀↘‿↗⁀↘‿↗⁀↘‿↗⁀↘‿↗⁀↘‿↗

Robin sighed heavily in the car, forcing Steve to glance at her. She was doing her hair, angrily wrestling with her curls.

"What's going on?"

"We haven't talked in a week?" Robin lamented. "She had a fight with her loser boyfriend because he thought her skirt was too short — it wasn't — and now she's trying to win him back or something. She was venting to me about him and I said the wrong thing. Now she's mad at me!"

"It can't be that bad. Friends fight all the time."

"What if she leaves me? I can't lose her! Without her, I'd just be Odie"

"First, you guys have been friends for years, since kindergarten, so she's not going to leave you. Especially not for some guy. Second, why would you choose Garfield and Odie? Why not a girl duo." He switched lanes, turning onto Peridot Way.

"Because it's the first thing I thought of, Steven!" Robin flailed her hands, dropping her hairbrush. "That's not the point. The point is what if she never talks to me again? What am I supposed to do?"

Steven turned into the school parking lot. "I think you should go to that party you mentioned."

"What?" Robin asked, having grabbed her hairbrush.

"You said there was a party tonight, right?"

"It's a Friday and Tommy H. is trying to win over all the kids he bullied when he thought he was going to graduate."

"So go to that and get your mind off of her. I'll cover your shift tonight." Steve reached out to fix a strand of her hair.

"Drunk teenagers blasting loud, bad music and having thinly veiled sex aren't really my scene."

"What is your scene? Wallowing in self pity, waiting for the phone to ring or fighting Demogorgans?"

Robin glared at Steve. "Bye. Love you."

Steve waved, watching her walk away. "She's screwed."

⁀↘‿↗⁀↘‿↗⁀↘‿↗⁀↘‿↗⁀↘‿↗⁀↘‿↗⁀↘‿↗

Robin walked into Tommy H's house. Smoke clouded her vision and music abused her ears. How had she let Steve talk her into it? Robin reasoned with herself that all she'd do was drink or replace the horrible memory of her fight with someone doing something stupid. It probably wouldn't even take an hour.

She managed to find the kitchen and was now fumbling with a beer bottle. She didn't even like beer that much, she just wanted something to calm her down a bit. Flipping the cap off, she cheered to herself about her relatively minor win. Robin, then, realized she was in a kitchen full of beer bottles with zero bottle openers. She scowled at the thought before taking a swig of her brew. She scowled, again, this time at the taste.

She floated over to a barstool at the kitchen counter and watched the people around her. Watched as they danced, flirted, drank and did many other scandalous teenage activities. She got quite comfortable in her spot, enjoying her little show.

She noticed the blonde hair from a 6 foot tall guy before she noticed you. Jake's arm was around your shoulder and you were leaning into his chest. You were in the same skirt from last week which irked Robin. Why was it slutty before but acceptable now, Robin had no idea. Still, she found herself slipping off her seat and turning to face the other way.

"Hey, Robin." She turned to look at Jake. "Been a while, huh? Well, thanks for backing off. Would've been kinda bitchy if you didn't. See ya,"

Robin watched Jake walk away with two beers in his hand. He handed one to you and you kissed him as thanks. Robin swallowed her vomit and found her way upstairs. It was definitely easier to cry alone in some strangers guest room, assuming it wasn't being used.

Taking another sip of her beer, she took the stairs two at a time, unaware you were watching her climb the stairs. Jake shook your shoulder.

"What're you looking at, babe?"

"Nothing, just some grody painting. I'm gonna powder my nose."

You slipped out of Jake's hold and followed Robin in the guest room. She was looking at the nightstand, leafing through the drawers.

"Snooping or stealing, Buckley?" You attempted to joke with the girl.

Robin whipped her head up, blush on her face. She sighed when she realized who asked the question. "Snooping, I guess. I'll go if you and Joke want the room." She stood and closed the drawer.

"God, no! I wanted to talk to you." You took a tentative step forward. "How are you doing?"

"Good. I'm good."

"I missed you. I'm sorry for what I said."

"Thanks but you don't need to do this." Robin put her hands out, all but denying your apology.

"I was stupid. Jake isn't everything to me and he sure as hell doesn't get to make decisions about me. About me and you." You took Robin's outstretched hands. "Forgive me?"

Ignoring the pounding in her heart and screaming in her head, Robin nodded. You pulled her into a hug. "Good, cause I really love you, Robin. Like so much. This week was hell without you." You admitted, pulling away from your friend. "Rob, you're my everything. I don't even know why I'm dating him. I should date you instead."

Your face was inches from hers and it was annoyingly obvious. She fought to not look at your lips which left her to notice how you looked at hers. Robin couldn't tell if she leaned or you did, but somehow, someway, you two were kissing.

This felt different. Not like the joking kisses you had shared before when you laughed through it. It felt like what kissing Jake should feel like. Completely addictive.

Robin's hand rose to cradle your face, rings cool against your face. You tilted your hand to give her a better angle as you pressed your body to hers. Robin's heart rate was sky rocketing and she felt like she was soaring. Then you ripped your lips from hers.

Your mouth was agape. Lipstick was smeared on Robin's lips and the surrounding area. Her pupils were blown and her cheek flushed. You tilted your head, never breaking eye contact with her.

A silent deal was made then. A deal to never tell anyone of this. Never tell anyone about how that kiss with your best friend felt better than ever. How all the past kisses felt the exact same but you shoved it down because you were just joking then. That deal was made with yourself just as you reached a consensus inside yourself.

You loved Robin, no denying that, but you couldn't love her. Because your friends at school would hate you, Jake would hate you, society would hate you. They'd hate you both.

"This is wrong." You admitted, voice layered with sorrow and guilt. "I can't do this. Jake'll kill me. Everyone will kill me! I'm sorry for forcing you to kiss me, I'll go."

This time, you were the one leaving. This time, Robin wasn't going to let you go. She caught your wrist in her hand.

"I didn't hate it. It was nice. Didn't you like it?"

"I– I can't like it. We can't like it, Rob."

"It's the eighties!"

"We can't."

"Do you love him? Do you really, actually, love him?"

The question had caught you off guard. In all honesty, it caught Robin off guard too. The words escaped her mouth like always. Your eyes darted around the room while Robin's stayed on you. You bounced from foot to foot, chewing your lip.

"I don't! I really hate him. He's mean and a slob and lazy and sexist and he is the worst!" Your voice began to crack. "But I can't dump him for you. Robin, I love you so much but we can't."

"Don't do this."

You took her face in your hands, rubbing your thumb on her cheek. Robin's hands came up to your waist. You kissed her slowly. Pulling your head away, your lips stuck to hers for a second. "Can we just...I don't know. Can we just be a secret?"

"What?!"

"Think about it. I date him in public and you in private." You shrugged, genuinely convinced this might work.

Robin couldn't stop her face from contorting into a shocked expression. Pulling away, she let out a huff of disbelief.

"You want me to be your secret."

"And I'll be yours. Rob, I love you. I can't live my life without you. Just consider it for me, please." You pressed a kiss to her cheek before stepping towards the door. Giving her a limp wave, you pressed your lips to your teeth and left the room.

This time, you were the one leaving. This time, Robin let you go, even if she felt horrible about it. She ran a hand through her hair and sighed. She was so screwed because she knew she was going to choose you, no matter what, it was always going to be you.

She ran to the door and swung it open, causing you to fall backwards. You'd been caught in the act of waiting at the door. Straightening up, you closed your open jaw and looked at her.

Robin grabbed your arm and pulled you in, her lips smashing onto yours. You shut the door before tangling your hands in her hair as she walked you towards the bed.

Tonight, Robin had decided to be your secret. In the grand scheme of things, she'd made progress with you. You could miss Jake in public all you wanted because in private, you were Robin's. Your heart was hers and vice versa. Yes, Robin was still screwed but she'd think about that after she screwed you.

[tldps-beautiful-boy]

I adored the Langdon x reader piece you just published! Could you reverse the rolls and write a one shot about Langdon comforting the reader while she’s crying?

Frank Langdon and His Girlfriend's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Pairing: Dr. Frank Langdon x Reader

Summary: Did you read the request?

Warnings: Dead dads, intense whump, barely proofread, technically the title calls you his girlfriend but I don't think I used any specific gender pronouns so it should read like a GN!Reader,

A/N: First request! So excited. Hopefully I did them justice. Sorry it took so long. I got very very sick. (P.S. Did you get the reference in the title?)

The call came in the early morning. Five minutes before your alarm. That was the first thing that pissed you off. After you rubbed away the sleepiness from your eyes and blinked through the flashbang from your phone light, you realized a hospital was calling you. Not Pittsburgh's, one from back home.

You furrowed your brows, swiped to answer, and put the phone to your ear.

"Hello?" Your voice was barely higher than a whisper. The caller asked you to confirm your identity. "Yep, that's me."

"I'm sorry to tell you this but your father has passed."

Your father had died. He was still pretty young. He was old enough to be a year away from retirement but not old enough to die. He did have a scary low regard towards his cholesterol and you couldn't remember the last time he went to the doctor for a physical but he wasn't supposed to die. Not yet.

Your eyes had affixed to a spot on the wall in front of you. The early morning light had granted you a morsel of light but the light wasn't necessary. You didn't even care about the wall. It was just a comfy eye couch for you to zone out on. Of course, now that you realized you were zoning out, you were in this weird meta space of acknowledgement.

"Excuse me, did you hear me?" The nurse on the other side of your phone brought you back from your weird little moment. "It was a heart attack. His cholesterol was very high. I'm sorry for your loss."

"Thank–" You stopped yourself. Does one thank the nurse for such news? You did, only because you had nothing more to say. "Thank you."

You lowered your hand and cut off the call. Throwing your phone on the table, you flopped your head back on your pillow. Unfortunately for you, your backup alarm started ringing. Which meant you did not get to make up the five minutes you lost from that phone call.

You slid out of bed, taking your phone with you. It buzzed in your hand, the light catching your attention. It was a text from Frank. He wanted to know if he was still able to come over tonight.

A sigh escaped you, though it was not in anger. You had completely forgotten about it. Not that you didn't want him over, just didn't mentally plan for it. You shot back a text, confirming the time and closed your phone.

For the second time today, you remembered your father had died. A part of you couldn't believe you had forgotten your father's death. You found out five minutes ago and in that short amount of time, the entire devastating event had been forgotten.

A different part of you hated yourself for forgetting your father had died. It was so recent and you couldn't remember it. What a horrible child.

You pulled out bread and placed it in the toaster. A yawn reminded you to make your morning coffee. Pulling open an overhead cabinet, you grabbed a coffee pod and placed it next to your Nespresso Machine. You set your water tank down on the counter, pulled your nozzle head over to balance on the edge, and turned on the tap, filling your tank.

The toaster filled the air with the smell of fresh toast. However, toast wasn't meant to smell that bad. You rushed to stop your toaster, spamming the button.

"No, no, no!"

You grabbed the blackened toast, burning your hand in the process. You never changed your toast setting but you had been playing with the wheel last night while waiting for the microwave to heat up your leftovers. You threw the bread onto the counter and rushed over to your now overflowing water tank. This morning was going well, you snarked. Then you remembered your father's passing. Yes, this morning was going very well.

At work, it took you twelve tries to type in your password. The computer locked for five minutes after the first five attempts. Then it locked for thirty after your tenth attempt. In the ten minutes, it took for the computer to reset, you thought about your father's passing. At the end of the day, you didn't really finish work, just left when it was time to leave. The entire day passed by like that. A constant cycle of remembrance, realization, hatred and finally acceptance.

When you finally made it home, you just wanted to melt into the floor. But you had dinner to make for you and Frank. He was back at work for the first time in a year. His day was probably harder than yours. Leagues harder. Which meant there was no time to wallow in your own feelings. Burnt toast and locked computers were nothing compared to what your boyfriend had gone through.

The door opened just as you were cutting onions. You knew you should've smiled and felt happy in some way but you were exhausted. Still, you forced a smile and looked up to greet him.

"Hey," You called out. He echoed back a greeting, turning the corner to see you. "How was it?"

"Good, good. Kind of weird, but I missed it, you know. I did this amazing procedure. You should've seen it, babe." He explained, leaning on the counter.

"That's great! See I told you it'd be fine. You're still Dr. Langdon, you just had to take a year." The smile on your face grew less forced, more natural as you took in the environment Frank created just by being in your kitchen.

"How was your day?" He asked, scratching the back of his neck.

"Uh, good. I messed up my password like ten times but that was really the only blunder." You pushed the peppers into a bowl and got out your carrots. "Oh, I also burnt my toast and over filled my Nespresso's water tank. So there's that. God, I hate cutting carrots. And I got caught in traffic coming home."

You ended up having to put your body into every chop. Frank watched, waiting for the finger to be sliced off. You finished with the carrots and tossed them into the pepper's bowl. You grabbed peppers and started on those.

"Sounds like your day hasn't been good. It sounds pretty bad, actually."

"No, I mean it's fine. You know, I got a call this morning. It was from the hospital back home, the new one, not the old one. The nurse, he said my dad had passed this morning." Your chops grew rougher.

"Honey..."

"He was in his late sixties. He never went to the doctor my entire life and he did not give a crap about cholesterol but he was young. You know what really pisses me off?" You looked down at your board, right before you cut your finger.

"Honey, just slow down. Give me the knife."

"I didn't get to sleep fully. They called five minutes before my alarm. I lost five minutes! Five whole minutes, Frank!"

The knife had fallen out of your hands and your eyes had filled with tears. You raised your hands to wipe your tears, stopping right before they could make contact, due to the onion juice on your hands.

"I lost him." You wailed. "Frank."

He moved to your side of the counter, wrapping his arms around you. You folded your hands into yourself and pressed your head into his chest. His hand cradled your head and he kissed the side of your head.

Once your sonorous sobs subsided, Frank corralled you over to the couch. He, then turned, grabbed the ice cream from your freezer, and brought it over you, along with your favourite small spoon. Settling next to you, he handed you the ice cream and put his arm around your shoulder.

You leaned into his chest, shovelling ice cream into your mouth. He smelled like himself. You didn't really know how to describe that scent but you didn't need to. He was safe and warm and Frank and that was enough. That would always be enough.

[dcstandsfordefinitelycrying]

Shane's jersey number is 24. If you flip it around, you get 42.

Ilya's is 81. If you take the 80 and divide by 2, you get 40. Now take the left over 1 and multiply by 2. Add the 40 and 2 together to get 42.

I'm not just doing math for the fun of it. According to A Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy (great book btw), the meaning of life is 42.

So, because you can find 42 in both jersey numbers, this means that for Ilya, the meaning of life is Shane and vice versa. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

[nicksolemnlyswears]

THE BEAR AND THE BEE HIVE

summary: in which carmy falls for the sweet café owner that supplies him with endless americanos

pairing: carmen berzatto x fem!reader

word count: 14.4k

warning: it's a little bit of a slow burn. sorry. i'm a sucker for it and i feel like carmy is a slow burn kinda guy. 18 +, cursing, smut, p in v, oral (m. receiving), fingering, they use protection guys! i deserve a pat in the back. nothing too wild. oh, and very brief mention of suicide.

a/n: i started writing this way back in october and then it was nearly done and i abandoned it. well i finally got around to completing it tonight!

this is my first time ever writing for carmy and i tried my best writing this. i love carmy and the show but i didn’t expect it to be hard to write him as a character. i wanted to get him right so i took my time with it and didn’t rush it. hopefully you guys like my carmy. enjoy!

i think i've had this stored in my drafts for like 4 months and it's time for me to set it free.

The cigarettes were not enough anymore. No matter how many smoke breaks Carmy took, he still felt the edge on his shoulders. A fear laced with anxiety that overtook him.

After deciding that blowing through yet another wall in his restaurant was the way to go, Carmy took a break. He needed it before he used the sledgehammer to destroy the restaurant in its entirety, along with his dream.

He remembers a coffee shop only a block away from The Bear and thinks he could use a coffee right about now. Maybe the mixture of caffeine and nicotine will be able to relax his shoulders, if only for an hour.

As soon as he opens the door, the smell of ground coffee beans greets him. He looks around, taking in the cozy ambiance the decorative wood brings to the place and the splashes of warm yellow that lighten it up.

Then he sees you, and his focus shifts entirely. His eyes only see you.

"Hi, welcome to Bee Hive!" You chirp with a small smile.

Carmy freezes, forgetting why he's there in the first place. He slowly steps up to the register, where you patiently wait for him. It's just after the lunch rush, so you're in no hurry.

He finds he's acting like a teenager who has just seen a pretty girl. Only he's not a teenager, and you're more than a pretty girl.

"What can I get for you today?" You ask, not noticing the effect you've had on him. You take a sharpie out of your yellow apron, preparing to scribble down his order in a cup.

Carmy has perfected the empty on the outside but screaming on the inside face. Strangers don't tend to know he's almost always losing his shit.

"I-I don't…sorry," Carmy looks at you briefly before diverting his eyes. He apologizes in a flurry, looking for an excuse for his weird behavior, "Uh, it's my first time here. What do you recommend?"

"It's not a problem," you say softly as if to calm him, "I'm a simple girl. I love the latte, but if you're looking for something stronger, the americano is one of the favorites."

Carmy nods as you ramble about the drinks, where the coffee beans come from, and the different notes of each blend. He hangs onto every word that slips from your lips. The static in his brain clearing up for the first time in hours.

It ends too soon as you realize you're talking too much and probably overwhelmed him. You sheepishly smile at him and trail off, but he continues to stare, waiting for you to continue.

"I'll take the Americano," Carmy nods, giving you a tight-lipped smile. Although he had been hanging to every one of your words, he was too focused on the shape of your lips and the sweet tone of your voice.

"Good choice," you nod, grabbing a cup from the tray beside you, "What's your name?"

Carmy looks up, slightly alarmed, as if you've asked for his social security number. "What?" He thinks you'll be forward and ask for his number next, seemingly forgetting how coffee orders work.

"Your name? For the order?" You explain, trying to ease his worries. He's odd, but in an endearing way. You believe this is his first time here because you're confident you would've remembered him.

"Fuck, right, yeah," he nervously says, pinching the bridge of his nose, "My name's Carmen."

"Your Americano will be right out, Carmen," you tell him, capping your sharpie back up.

Carmy quickly pays and stands to the side to wait for his order. He forces himself to not look at you or in your direction as you take other customers' orders. He just knows he's made a fool of himself already. Not that it matters. Why would it matter? He's there for the coffee. Nothing else, no one else.

As he walks out of Bee Hive, he sips his coffee. His shoulders instantly drop, and his fear-induced anxiety starts to dissipate for the moment. He's unsure if the effect is because of the caffeine or the thoughts of your pretty smile.

Visiting your coffee shop becomes routine for Carmy. Whenever things at The Bear become crazy -or he starts to lose his fuckin' mind- he makes his way to Bee Hive with a cigarette hanging from his lips.

For twenty minutes, he's free of Richie's constant hounding, Sugar's struggles with the permits and scheduling, and Sydney's disappointment because the menu is still extremely underway.

Each time he's stopped by, you've been there to greet him, and each time, you've left a little heart by Carmen's name, which makes his heart race in a peculiar way. His hands would touch his chest to check if it was heartburn, but it didn't feel like that. It's not anxiety either cause he knows pretty well how that feels.

All he knows is he hasn't done anything to deserve such a gesture. He's convinced himself you draw little hearts for everyone because he's not special.

One Thursday afternoon, Carmy realizes he doesn't know your name. He looks for a name tag, but you're not wearing one on your yellow apron. He should know your name if you insist on making small talk despite his short answers.

He can't help it. He gets too in his head to answer like a normal person, so his answers come out choppy and dry.

"Alright, Carmen, your order will be right out," you say, handing his cup to one of the baristas. You always hold out and ask him what he wants to order. He has the right to change his mind anytime, but for now, he's stuck with the americano, which he drowns in sugar.

As curiosity eats at him, he gathers the courage to ask. "Thanks. Hey, uh, I've-I’ve never gotten your name…” Carmy says, cursing at himself for not formulating the question correctly. His hand comes up to grip his hair instinctually.

Your smile widens when he asks your name. The silly crush you've developed for your customer fluttering to life. It's just a crush over a stranger, nothing to write home about.

You tell him your name but follow it with "-call me Honey. Everyone knows me by that name. I'm sure if you ask my friends about me with my real name, you'll throw them for a loop."

You're rambling, hoping he doesn't think calling you by your nickname is weird. Then again, how can he judge when he has a sister people call 'Sugar' and he and his siblings also don the nickname 'Bear.'

"Honey." Carmy repeats your nickname, smiling as he finds it fitting. "In that case, call me Carmy."

"Nice to properly meet you, Carmy," you say, grinning.

Like all the days before, Carmy steps aside and waits for his coffee. He doesn't let himself continue the conversation or ask more about you even if it’s everything he wants to do.

It's rare for Carmy to be in a good mood, and whenever it happens, it doesn't tend to last. His goal of opening a restaurant in 12 weeks makes it impossible for him to relax and enjoy the ride. To prolong this unusual feeling, Carmy stops by Bee Hive on his way to The Bear.

"Have you made your boss angry, Honey?" He asks as he pulls out his wallet to pay. He ordered the americano as he always does.

"No…why do you ask?" You ask, tilting your head in confusion.

"Uh, 'cause you-you're always here. Do you not take days off? Not that I'm complaining. I-I like seeing you here." Carmy's words get quieter as he speaks, red creeping up his neck. So much for trying to make a joke.

You look around the room and tell him, "Imma let you in on a little secret."

Carmy follows your hand, waving him to get closer. The smell of cigarettes invades your senses as you get close to him. You'd never admit that the mix of his cigarettes and your coffee is addicting. As both lean over the counter, you whisper, "I'm the boss. I can't run away even if I wanted to."

"You own the coffee shop," Carmy pans in shock.

Carmy is more than surprised at your words. Especially now that he knows how expensive it is to open a business. You can't be a day over 25 and own a successful coffee place. There is hope, after all.

"I do," you nod, standing straight once more.

A couple of years ago, you had inherited a hefty amount of money from an estranged aunt. Fresh out of college and with no real plan, you thought it would be a good moment to follow your dream and open the cozy café.

"How do you do it?" Carmy asks, amazed at the girl smiling at him. "I don't know if you know, but, um, I-I'm opening the restaurant around the block. Used to be The Beef?" He finishes grimly as he points to his side of the block.

"Oh, yeah. The guys who worked there helped me move some equipment when I first opened two years ago," you reveal, "Tell you what, whenever you have a break, come around. I'll give you a free americano and tell you all about it. Neighbor to neighbor."

Stuffing his hands in his pockets, Carmy agrees. "I'll take you up on that."

Weeks go by, and Carmy seemingly forgets about Bee Hive and your pending conversation. You try not to overthink about his absence or how you might've scared him away. He's probably just busy remodeling his restaurant. You know better than anyone how much time that takes.

Still, his presence has become part of your routine, and you can't help but look at the door each time the bell rings. You expect to see him walking up to the counter, the remnants of cigarette smoke coming out his nose as he breathes.

You're pretty close to your assumption because Carmy has been dealing with the fire suppression test. They didn't fail the test once but twice, and if they didn't pass it on the third try, their plan to open the restaurant in 12 weeks goes out the window. Fak has tried everything, and nothing works.

He'd sent Richie once on a coffee run, but the fuckin' idiot went to the nearest Starbucks. Carmy had been looking forward to tasting your coffee and seeing his name in the cup with the little heart because he's 100% sure he's the only Carmen you know. It's not a common name in these parts of town.

One very early morning, he's walking to work, and as he passes Bee Hive, he sees you inside, wiping tables down before you open at 6:30.

Impulsively, he knocks on the glass, not giving himself the time to overthink things. You turn to look at the window and see him standing outside, his hands stuffed in the pockets of his familiar plaid jacket to protect himself from the chilly March air.

"Hey stranger," you greet him, opening the door and inviting him in.

"Hi," he breathes out, staring at you, "you're here early," he tries to casually mention.

You roll your eyes dramatically and say, "It's a downside of the job. Did you know people want coffee at the crack of dawn?"

You try acting as nonchalant as possible. It's not like you missed seeing one of your favorite customers, his beautiful blue eyes, or the way he rocks a simple white t-shirt.

"I had no idea," Carmy smiles, bringing his tattooed hand up to his lips, "I, uh, usually drink mine at night." That much is true. On those sleepless nights when insomnia takes over him, the best remedy is coffee.

"Would you make an exception and join me for a morning coffee at the crack ass of dawn?" Anxiously, you play with the rings on your fingers. It feels like you're asking the guy on a date when it's just a friendly coffee.

"As long as you have some business advice to spare?" Carmy responds shakily. He briefly looks down the street to glimpse at his restaurant. It's too early for anyone to be there yet.

"Deal."

Throwing the towel over your shoulder, you make your way behind the counter. Carmy attempts to make small talk with you as you prepare both drinks.

This is the first time he's watching you in action since you tend to stick to the cash register when he's around. It's not a coincidence. After the first time he came to Bee Hive, you wanted to see more of him, so you stationed yourself at the register where you'd be sure to see him, and he'd see you.

"Here you go." You place his coffee mug on the table along with yours before disappearing momentarily and returning with an orange soufflé coffee cake. You're pulling all the stops for Carmy to leave a good impression.

Carmy thanks you and sips his coffee, "Wow, this is fire!" He expected to taste an americano, but what you prepared was entirely different. He can make out hints of hazelnut and caramel in the coffee.

"Thanks. I took the liberty of changing your order. You can always come back to the americano, though…" you shrug shyly, looking at him over the rim of your mug.

"I-I appreciate it. Thanks." Carmy throws you a nervous grin. He gestures with his tattooed hand to dig into the cake you brought out. He shouldn't be the only one eating.

You and Carmy share the cake as you talk about yourselves and the crazy businesses you own. Somehow, talking to you comes easy to him. He's still nervous and scared to fuck things up, but the warm coffee and your even warmer smile ease him into it.

"How do you do it? This place is always packed, and you seem like you run a tight ship," Carmy wonders, playing with the fork. The cake is long gone, although the notes of orange remain on his tongue. Would you taste the same?

"It wasn't without mistakes. I had to learn a lot from my fuck ups and listen to my team because although I'm the owner, they are the ones doing most of the work. Whenever there's a flaw, they are the first to know," you speak softly, afraid of ruining the calm ambiance you've set up, twirling the small amount of coffee left in your mug.

It's your favorite part of morning coffee. When you have just the smallest bit of coffee left, and you know you'll never drink it because it's cold, but it gives you an excuse to remain where you are.

"So, all I gotta do is listen?" It's funny you say that because Carmy listens, but his friend's voices get muddled somewhere along the way. As much as he tries to focus on them, they merge together and form a cacophony in his head.

"A lot of listening and a lot of experimentation. I've been open for two years, and it's only been in the last six months that I can confidently tell you we found our groove," you admit with a grimace.

Bee Hive is your baby, but bringing it to life was everything but easy. You messed up so many times, costing you so much money. You didn't know shit about owning a business or building one from the ground up. Doing research and putting your pride aside to ask for help got you through it.

"I've only been doing this for, like, less than a fuckin' year, and I already want to pull my hair out," Carmy admits with a pitiful laugh.

"I'm sorry I can't tell you it gets better soon," you say apologetically, reaching for his hand that rests on the table.

Carmy freezes, glancing at your hand on top of his. He hasn't got a clue what to fucking do with the display of affection. Was it a display of affection? He doesn't fucking know. "It's, uh, it's, uh, it's alright. As-as long as you give me coffee, I think I can make it through," Carmen furrows his eyebrows as he stutters through the sentence.

"I can't wait to see what the award-winning chef does," you say, bringing your hand back to your lap, none the wiser to Carmy's internal struggle.

He should've done something to keep your hand on his. Place his other hand on yours or fucking turn his hand around to grasp it. He liked feeling your warm skin on his. It hasn't been a minute since you pulled away, and he's craving it already. It's ridiculous. Is he really that touch-starved that he's seeking affection from a near stranger?

He coughs and darts his eyes between the wooden table top and you, "Fuck. You-you know about that?"

"I might've done some research after finding out you're opening the restaurant. I got curious. I'm sorry." Apologizing is your default thing to do. Messing things up is your area of expertise. You really didn't think he'd mind you mentioning it.

"No, no, no, uh, you don't have to apologize. You just caught me off guard," Carmy shakes his head, reassuring both of you.

"Okay, good," you lightly smile at him, averting your eyes when your gazes meet.

If there's a time for you to make a move, it's now. Taking a shaky breath, you speak up, "I was wondering if you'd ever like to-."

A loud knock on the glass door interrupts you. You and Carmy jump and look towards the source of the noise. It's one of your regular clients, waving at you to open up. Looking at your watch, you see it's 6:30 already.

"Shit. I'm-I'm sorry I took so much of your time," Carmy apologizes, picking up his mug and the plate to put away.

You grab his wrist to make him stop in his tracks, "Relax. I enjoyed talking to you. Maybe we can do it again soon?"

Carmy nods wide-eyed. He likes the idea just as much as you do. You take away the mug and plate with a soft 'okay.' He then follows you to the door as you unlock it and turn the sign to 'open.'

"I, um, gotta go work on the menu. I'll probably be back later for another coffee?" Carmen asks you as if he's asking for permission, which you find adorable.

"I'll be behind the register," you say, watching him walk away. He turns his head back for a moment, and you catch the smile gracing his lips as yours turns to mimic him.

"Oh, he's cute," your customer, an older lady, says, watching him go along with you. "It's about time you got a boyfriend."

"Mrs. O'Hara, here for your tea?" You ask her, ignoring the comment about your love life. That woman will set you up with anyone. She does love her tea, though, and expects you to provide it on time.

It's slow, but Carmen warms up to you. Instead of grabbing his coffee to go, he now drinks it at the café, coincidentally around the same time you take your break.

He's been hesitantly opening up. It's not like he's telling you about how fucked up his family is or how his brother committed suicide. More often, it's about the restaurant and his work as a chef, the struggles of getting every permit they need on a tight schedule since they are supposed to open in about four weeks now, or the occasional childhood memory. It's everything you need to know at this stage.

You love listening to Carmy talk, even if you have to coax it out of him sometimes. He's passionate about the restaurant despite all the stress that comes from it, and he adores the people he works with. He's shy but not in a dorky way because he's actually fascinating. Before meeting him, you never knew that collecting denim was a thing.

The smell of cigarettes that clings to him is also tightly laced with his character. When you step outside to get some sun and the scent of someone smoking hits you, your heart instantly speeds up, hoping it's him coming for his daily americano, or to come swoop you away into a sunset.

"-I fell on my ass in the middle of the street. I was freaking out, thinking I was gonna get run over by a car," you exclaim as you tell Carmy about the crazy Christmas you spent in New York last year.

"It's New York. You probably would have been run over," Carmy chuckles along with you. "There was this one time I was running late and-" His phone vibrating interrupts him.

"Sorry, it's just the fridge guy," he tells you with a furrow of his eyebrows. You notice he does that a lot when he's thinking deeply. Carmy silences it and looks back over to you.

"You should pick that up. A busted fridge is the last thing you need. Trust me. Been there, done that." You encourage him to take the call. The restaurant is more important than your story about how you bruised your coccyx in New York.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, Carm! Call him back before you forget," you insist, grabbing his empty cup to trash it. You don't give him any other option, leaving him there to help your employees with a faulty machine.

He watches you closely, closer than ever before. He allows himself to watch how you frown at the machine and how your ringed fingers fumble with the knobs. His eyes keep trailing down involuntarily, and they take in how nicely your jeans hug your ass.

He goes into a spiral into these old pair of Levi jeans popular in the 90s and how they would fit nicely with the shape of your hips and legs. Carmy continues on the tangent, imagining himself peeling them off your body.

The phone vibrating in his hand snaps him out of it. Clearing his throat, he picks up the phone and walks outside. He waves at you through the window as he makes his way back to The Bear. Your frustration at the machine vanishes momentarily as you wave back, except the machine splatters, forcing you to redirect your attention. When you look outside again, he's gone.

Stakes are high at The Bear. There's less than four weeks until Friends and Family, and there is much to do. Marcus has returned from Copenhagen and is working on the desserts. Tina is doing her job as the new sous chef. Fak and Sweeps are helping out wherever they can. And Richie is being Richie, trying to be open but resisting change.

"I need coffee or a pop. Anything with caffeine," Sydney says, throwing her head back. She and Carmen have been working on the chaos menu for hours, and she keeps messing up. Carmy insists that it's okay that they'll adjust and get it right soon, but she's beginning to lose hope.

"Me too. I'd kill for an espresso," Natalie agrees, softly rubbing her hand over her growing bump.

"I thought you couldn't have caffeine cause of the baby," Richie mentions, remembering Tiff's time while pregnant.

"I don't need you to fuckin' tell me what I can or can't eat, Richie," Natalie yells, glaring at him. Although he's right, the doctor told her to limit her caffeine intake. Hard to do when she's up all night thinking about everything she needs to do for The Bear.

"Shit. I'm sorry for fucking caring," Richie screams back, lifting his hands up in defense.

"I can go to the coffee place down the block. Get everyone something," Carmy pipes up, looking forward to seeing you today.

Natalie is quick to shoot that idea down, "You can't. The fridge guy is coming in 20 minutes."

"Fuck, that's right," Carmy groans, digging his head in his hands. His fingers rake through his hair, messing up his curls. He wanted to see you and talk to you, even if it was for five short minutes.

"I'll go," Sydney sighs. She needs to leave the kitchen for more than five minutes, or she'll go crazy, "Just tell me what you guys want to order."

Natalie grumbles about getting decaf, Richie orders a plain black coffee, and Carmy asks for his americano. As Sydney leaves to ask Marcus, Carmy yells after her, "Please, go to Bee Hive. If you get Starbucks, I'm gonna fucking lose it."

Richie and Natalie exchange a look. Richie because he's confused, and Natalie because she knows something is happening with Carmy. He's never been picky over coffee. In fact, they have an old coffee machine in the office that now goes unused because he's always at that coffee shop.

"Sorry, I didn't get the fuckin' memo. Since when is Starbucks bad?" Richie frowns, looking to get a rise out of Carmy.

"I don't think it's about the coffee, cousin," Natalie responds, directing her gaze towards her brother, who is hunched over the counters, chopping vegetables.

"If it's not about the coffee, what is it about?" Richie questions, crossing his arms.

"Shut the fuck up, Sugar," Carmy grumbles, looking at his sister with a glare. He already knows where she's going. She tried to bring it up a couple of days ago after she walked by the coffee shop and saw him being friendly with you.

Natalie smiles and responds, "Carmy has a crush on the barista."

"That's ridiculous. I don't have a crush on her." Carmy shakes his head, avoiding Richie and Natalie's eyes on him. They always do this. They gang up on him if he shows even the slightest interest in a girl. They think they can help, but all they do is embarrass him.

"Come on, Bear. Why else would you go almost every day to get coffee?" Natalie asks, giving him a look.

"Because it's good fuckin' coffee. Jesus, it's not that deep." Carmy grabs the veggies he chopped and drops them into a container to use later.

"It's okay to admit you like a pretty girl, cousin! I'm excited for you! Makes you human and not a lonely hermit," Richie jokes, pushing on Carmy's buttons. "When was the last time you got laid?"

"I swear to God, Richie. Shut the fuck up," Carmy points at him angrily.

"No, I should go with Sydney and see who this girl is!" Richie says, walking out of the half-built kitchen.

Carmy follows him instantly, "You're not going fuckin' anywhere, fuckin' jagoff." He's turning red from anger, seeing Richie with his mocking smile. Natalie follows behind them, amused at the situation. It reminds her of the banters they used to get in with Mickey.

"Admit that you like her," Richie shrugs, giving him a choice.

"No, I won't," Carmy refuses. "You always do this shit."

"Then, I'm going," Richie nods, stepping towards the door.

"Fuck! Shit, alright. I like her, okay? Don't fucking go anywhere," Carmy yells, rubbing a hand on his face out of frustration. It's like he's not allowed to keep anything good to himself.

"Was that so hard?" Richie grins, clapping a hand on Carmy's shoulder.

"Don't fuckin' touch me," Carmy grumbles, walking back to the kitchen. Natalie follows him with a smile, shaking her head at Richie.

Carmy sighs and squeezes his eyes shut. He has yet to admit that he likes you more than he should. He's been avoiding it, afraid of what it might lead to, or rather, what it might not.

He couldn't let Richie go see you. He has a big fuckin' mouth and will tell you Carmy has a crush on you whether it's true or not. Just like that, he feels the sour taste in his mouth, his heartburn making an appearance. Carmy should go look for his pepto before it gets worse.

Unaware of the argument back at The Bear, Sydney walks to Bee Hive. She's walked past many times but has yet to have the time to stop and try it out.

As she waits in line, she reads over the drinks menu. It's clear that it's been carefully curated. Starbucks has nothing on this menu. She can see why Carmy would prefer to come here instead.

When it's her turn to order, Sydney takes out her phone to recite everyone's drink order. She also points to a few pastries, thinking Marcus would like to try some of them and get inspiration. That and she knows Natalie will enjoy them as well.

You're sitting at a table close to the pickup counter. You often find yourself all over the store, ensuring everything goes smoothly. Sometimes, you stop to talk to your regulars and see how they're doing.

You notice Sydney struggling with all the cups she has to carry. It's proving difficult despite the to-go trays your barista put them in. Deciding to approach her, you ask, "Do you need help?"

"Oh, no. I'm fine, thanks," Sydney responds with a nervous smile. She's trying hard to grab everything, including the box with the pastries.

You continue watching her struggle because you know she needs help. You let her try and figure it out for one more minute before stepping in again when she almost drops two of the drinks, "Need some help now?"

"Yeah," Sydney sighs, "I guess I can leave one of the trays here, go to the restaurant, and come back for the rest," she speaks mostly to herself.

"Are you going far?"

"No, just the restaurant down the block," Sydney responds with a sigh, scratching her eyebrow as she tries to figure out the logistics of carrying the drinks. She could get a box to put everything in.

You perk up at her response. The only restaurant down the block is Carmen's. Could she work there? "Carmy's restaurant?"

"You know Carmy?" Sydney asks, tilting her head. Maybe Nat was right. Carmy spends his time here because of the woman in front of her.

"He comes here often. Anyway, I can go with you to help you out. It's not far, and I'd feel bad if your drinks got cold." You offer to help her out because you're a nice person. Not because you want a chance to see the curly-haired man you are developing feelings for.

"You really don't have to…"

"It's really not a problem," you press, grabbing one of the to-go trays and motioning for her to lead the way.

Sydney sighs in defeat and nods, "Thanks. I'm Sydney, by the way."

"I'm Honey," you smile, following her outside.

You chat all the way to the restaurant with Sydney. She reminds you of Carmy in some ways, so you can see why they are friends. Before arriving at the restaurant, Sydney apologizes in advance for any sort of mess there might be, including yelling.

As you near the building under renovation, your palms start to sweat. Maybe you shouldn't have come. You're showing up unannounced, and he's probably too busy to talk to you anyway. You can slip in and out without him noticing. That's the goal now.

You open the door for Sydney, letting her go through first, and quietly follow her into the restaurant. There's no time to escape, as all eyes are instantly on you.

Richie is arguing with Fak when he sees you walk in. He narrows his eyes as Carmy looks in your direction from the kitchen. With just one glance to Carmy's face, he knows who you're supposed to be.

"Guess I didn't have to go anywhere. She came to me," Richie whispers, rushing out the door.

"Shut the fuck up. Where are you going? Don't embarrass me!" Carmy whispers out to Richie unsuccessfully.

"Oh, you'll do that all by yourself," Richie throws over his shoulder.

"Honey, hey, what-what're you doing here?" Carmy speaks, not giving Richie a chance to open his big mouth. He stands between you and Richie, blocking him for the time being.

"Sydney needed help with the drinks," you answer nervously, averting your eyes.

"Oh, thanks for that. You didn't have to," Carmy approaches you and takes the drinks from your hands. His fingers brush with yours momentarily, causing you both to blush.

"I did, or else you probably wouldn't have anything to drink," you whisper to him.

Sydney, Fak, and Richie all watch the interaction amusedly. Richie has a big teasing grin on his face as he makes a plan in his head.

"Hi, I'm Richie! Carmy's cousin," he introduces himself, shoving Carmy to the side and shaking your hand enthusiastically. "I gotta say Carmen right here is obsessed with your coffee. He's banned us from getting Starbucks."

Carmy curses under his breath as Richie does precisely what he tells him not to. He has the urge to throw the coffee at him and run away.

"Is that right?" You ask, amused, looking over at Carmy with a raised eyebrow.

"Oh yeah," Richie answers for him as Carmy tries to find the right words to say. "Cousin, why don't you give the nice lady a tour of the place?"

"It's not done yet. Could be dangerous," Carmy hopelessly says with a gulp.

"Nonsense! You'll take care of her!" Richie insists. He takes the coffee from Carmy's hands and pushes him in your direction. "Go give her a tour."

Richie, Sydney, and Fak all disappear to the office to stay out of the way and try to snoop simultaneously. Fak sends Carmy a not-so-discreet thumbs-up that makes you giggle.

He's internally screaming at his so-called friends but is glad to see you. It was all he wanted before Sydney left to get their drinks. It's strange having you here at The Bear, though. He's so used to seeing you in your own space back at Bee Hive.

Trying to make things better, you say, "Sorry you've been roped into this. You probably have better things to do. I can go-"

Carmy doesn't let you finish. "No, stay. I want to show you around."

"Let's see what you got then, Berzatto," you grin, following him to the kitchen.

Carmy takes his time showing you The Bear. He wants you to stay. He wants to spend time with you but doesn't really know how to say it. So he takes it slow, answers your questions about the restaurant, shows you the front and how everything will be laid out, and introduces you to the ones around, including the fridge guy working on the handle.

Sadly, you get a call from Bee Hive asking you to come back. Carmy walks you outside, dreading having to say goodbye.

"I'm really excited for The Bear to open. You have a great place and team," you tell Carmy.

"I really got lucky with them, huh?" He asks, playing with a dish towel.

"I gotta go. I'll see you later, Berzatto." You don't know where you got the guts to lean towards him and kiss his cheek.

Carmy stays still as his face heats up. You start walking away and throw him a smile over your shoulder. When you're a distance away, he touches the cheek you kissed. Back inside, Richie runs over to Sugar to tell her what he just witnessed.

It's late when Carmy leaves The Bear. As he walks to the train station, he has his hands stuffed in his jacket pocket. On his way, he sees a lone light turned on in your café. Crossing the street to check it out, he sees you're still there with glasses perched on your nose in front of the computer.

He tries the door, and to his luck, it's open. You look in his direction, startled, but relax once you see it's him.

"Nice glasses," Carmy teases, pulling out a chair to sit.

"Are you making fun of me?" You purse your lips, propping your chin on your palm.

"No, I…I think you look cute with them," Carmy admits. After a stern talk from Sugar and Richie, he's realized he should probably make a proper move on you because if what they say is true, you also have a crush on him.

"Thanks," you blush, the light from your screen making it obvious to Carmy, who can't stop the corners of his lips from turning up into a smile.

"Late night?"

"One of my baristas is moving out of state. I have to find someone new, preferably who has experience," you say with a sigh. Glancing at him, you add, "Are you perhaps interested in the position?"

"Poaching me from my own restaurant, nice. I'll let you know I'm an excellent worker," Carmy jokes, tapping his fingers on the table.

There's no doubt in your mind he's an excellent worker. He has to be if he's considered one of the best up-and-coming chefs. Or to work in one of the best restaurants in the world with three Michelin stars.

"I don't know. I'll need references," you speak as if not believing him.

Carmy smiles and softly chuckles, "Fair enough."

There's a moment of silence between the two of you that Carmy is quick to fill, "So, uh, have you had dinner yet by chance?" This is it.

You shake your head no and look at him with hopeful eyes.

"Wanna go grab pizza? I know a place," he asks, finding your gaze on him.

"Say no more," you say, closing your laptop and taking off your glasses. "I'm starving."

Carmy waits for you to lock Bee Hive and grab your things. Then, you both walk to the pizza place. To pass the time, you and Carmy talk about your days and anything that comes to mind. Nothing serious as you get to know each other.

Waiting in line to order the pizza, you tell him all about your nickname and how you were donned 'Honey' to everyone who knows you. In return, he tells you about his nickname 'Bear' and why his restaurant is named as such. For the first time, he dares mention Mickey.

"Best pizza in Chicago," Carmy says, taking a slice of the pie and placing it on your plate.

"I'll see about that," you murmur. You wait until he has a slice of his own and dig in simultaneously.

"It's good, but this is not the best pizza place in Chicago," you say after chewing the first bite, "I'm gonna get your chef license revoked."

"Are you? With what proof? Have you tried all the pizza places to know?"

"I don't have to because I've tried the best," you hum, taking another bite. The cheese stretches as you pull it away.

"Oh yeah? Which one?" Carmy questions you, taking a drink of his beer.

"Mine. The pizza I make is the best," you shrug modestly.

"Wait. You cook?" Carmy asks, giving you a look of surprise.

Cooking is a universal thing. Most people know how to cook up to a degree, yet only some are as confident in their skills as you are. You know you're definitely not up to Carmy's level, but if there is something you know how to do properly, it's pizza.

"Yeah! You're not the only good cook here, Berzatto," you sass back at him, dipping the pizza crust in the marinara sauce.

"Sorry for assuming," he raises his palms.

"You're forgiven," you chirp.

"When will I try this famous pizza of yours then?" Carmy wonders. An attempt to see if you'd like to see more of him.

"I promise I'll make it for you once you open The Bear. You're too stressed to fully enjoy it now," you respond. You were reaching out. Throwing hints that you want this to continue in the foreseeable future.

The conversation continues to flow with an empty pizza box in front of you. Customers come and go until it's only the two of you and a drunk customer picking up his pizza.

"Tell me about your tattoos. Were they an act of rebellion or something else?"

It's an excuse to touch his hands. You reach for them, turning them to see the black ink on his hands and fingers. You gently trace over them with the pads of your fingers. Over the hand that's stabbed, the letters S.O.U. on his knuckles and the forget-me-nots. The one you're dying to touch, though, is the one on his bicep; you'd give anything to feel the hard muscle underneath the rolled-up sleeves of his white t-shirt.

"Uh, my first tattoo is the 773. Got it when I left Chicago for the first time. After that, I sort of became addicted to them. I found they helped my anxiety when it was becoming too much. The pain distracted me and made me feel stronger than I actually was," he says, letting you touch him. He finds that he likes it. Your touch is soft and warm. Comforting.

"So what you're trying to say is you're a masochist," you say, bouncing your eyebrows at him. Your touch goes further up his arm to turn it and look at the fish tattoo on his forearm.

"I guess so," Carmy responds with a breathy laugh, "Do you have any tattoos?"

"Maybe…" You shrug as the pads of your fingers trail back down to his palm until you pull them back towards you. Carmy instantly misses the feeling, opting to cross his arms to retain the warmth you left behind.

"It's bad, isn't it?" He says knowingly. Your reaction told him everything he needed to know.

"The worst," you grimace, shaking your head at the memory of you getting it.

"So, rebellion or something else?"

"Rebellion. For all the wrong reasons," you groan, burying your face in your hands, "Growing up, everyone saw me as a good girl because that's what I was. Breaking the rules terrified me. So, as a teenager, I didn't want to be seen as a goody two shoes, so the summer before I went to college, I decided that getting a tattoo would make me a badass."

"Did it work?"

"God, no. I only got the outline done 'cause it hurt like a bitch. Then I went crying to my parents, fully having a meltdown, apologizing for disappointing them," You scrunch your nose as you say the following words, "They laughed in my face, called me a wimp, and told me to suck it up."

Carmy fully laughs at your story. Head thrown back, eyes closing, "What did you get?"

"That's a secret, Berzatto," you purse your lips, avoiding responding. You just know he'll make fun of you for it.

Everyone who has seen your tattoo has made fun of you for it, yourself included. It's so silly and not badass. Carmy will have to wait to see your tattoo, and you hope this continues so he can see it up close.

"Really? That bad?" Carmy stares wide-eyed.

"It's terrible," you nod, leaning on the table. "We should probably get going before the waitress throws a fit."

Carmy looks over his shoulder to see the waitress glaring at them. It's five minutes till close, and they've made no move to go. He turns back to you and nods towards the door. Carmy helps you with your jacket and leaves a tip on the jar for the waitress. At that, she happily calls after them with a 'Good night!'

"Do you live far?" Carmy asks, seeing how dark it is now that most places have closed. There are too many lamp posts that aren't working. He'd feel better if he could walk you home or you called an Uber. Preferably the former.

"Only a couple of blocks away. Why?"

"It's late. Let me walk you home," Carmy says decidedly, not giving you much of a choice.

"Thanks," you respond with a small smile.

The pace you set is slow. You don't want your time with Carmy to end just yet. He's such an interesting and sweet guy. He's a little awkward, but it adds to his charm, and you can see he's trying.

Somewhere along the way, his hand brushes against yours briefly. Then, it happens again, and you decide to bite the bullet. You grasp his hand in yours.

"Is this okay?" You ask when he falls silent.

Carmy doesn't have a lot of experience with girls. He can't even remember the last time he held a girl's hand. All he knows is he doesn't remember ever feeling this good. "Yes, uh, this is okay."

Carmy walks you up to your front door when you reach your house. You unlock the door but stay outside face-to-face with Carmy.

"Thanks for the pizza," you say, fiddling with your fingers. You were about to make one more move for the night. Because as long as Carmy allows you, you'll keep pushing for more.

"Sorry, it wasn't the best," he retorts, rubbing his jaw with his hand. You notice he does that a lot when nervous.

"Your company made up for it," you reassure him, "g'night Carmy." You kiss his cheek goodbye, watching as his cheeks blush.

"Night," he whispers.

As you turn to leave, Carmy stops you by grabbing your wrist, "Wait-uh, can I? Uh-shit. Fuck it." For a second, Carmy shuts out the excessive thoughts in his head and does what he's been dying to do for weeks.

Carmy cups your jaw and kisses you. It's soft and slow. He gives you enough leeway to pull away if it's something you don't want, but you reciprocate eagerly. You've been waiting for this all night.

As confidence surges through his body, Carmy throws an arm around your waist, pulling you closer. You wrap your arms around him, one of your hands resting on his neck, tangling on his curls. The tug of your fingers feels like heaven.

The kiss turns needy and desperate, your lips moving perfectly in sync. His tongue brushes over your lip; Carmy has been dying to test a theory. Are you as sweet as your name?

He's rewarded by a little noise in the back of your throat as he slips his tongue into your mouth. It's endearing, and he finds a way to make you do it again. With heads tilting to deepen the kiss, he concludes he was right. You're pure honey. Sweet and addicting.

When Carmy returns to his apartment, he gets the urge to create, to cook. He wants to bring your taste to life with his cooking. Something with honey.

"I was wondering if you'd want to come to the restaurant for Family and Friends."

You and Carmy are in your little office at Bee Hive. He stands between your legs as you sit on the desk. His lips are slightly red and swollen, and the hair at the nape of his neck is messier than usual.

"Hm, I could be persuaded," you pretend to think as you play with the golden chain around his neck, pulling him towards you.

"Yeah?" Carmy laughs, leaning to brush his lips against yours. When he feels you nod, he closes the small gap between the two of you.

His hands hold your hips, pulling you impossibly closer. He tastes like coffee, which is to be expected from the discarded cup beside you. It's funny how your relationship, if it could be called that, has moved all around Bee Hive from the register to the front and now to your office.

You're at a weird spot where you're not exactly friends because friends don't kiss, but you're not a couple either. It's a situationship for sure. You're content with what you have now, although you'd also love it if Carmy were to ask you to be more. You pin it on him being shy. He'll get around to it.

"What do you say?" Carmy questions as he kisses a trail from your cheek to your jaw.

"Consider me in," you giggle when he kisses a tickly spot.

Carmy brushes a strand of hair out of your face, remaining close to you. This is what he needs. After months of stress and anxiety of having to deal with The Beef, now The Bear, he needed you and your calming presence. Someone removed from the chaos, a safe haven.

He's quiet as his thoughts consume him, and you take the intimate position to fix his gold chain. Turning it so the clasp faces the back instead of the front. "I'm excited, Carmy," you say with a smile, brushing his cheek with your thumb.

"You can bring someone with you," Carmy offers nervously because he realizes he probably won't have the time to spend much time with you. "I-I don't think I'll be around much. I'm sorry. I'd understand if that makes you change your mind," Carmy drops his head as he braces himself for disappointment.

As the weeks pass, you learn more about Carmy and his insecurities. It doesn't deter you from wanting to be with him. Everyone has their issues. "Berzatto, stop. Look at me," you softly divert his attention, "I'd love to go and support you even if it's from the sidelines."

"You sure?" He asks once more.

If reassurance is what he needs, that's what you'll give. "Don't worry about me. This is your moment, Carmy. Enjoy it. I'll be around afterward."

"Thank you for understanding," Carmy responds, stealing one more kiss from you.

When he returns to The Bear, he helps Sydney prep the dishes they finally chose to serve. He notes how everything is laid out and anything they should fix before opening.

Richie struts into the kitchen with a suit on. Apparently, it's his thing now. Carmy figures staging at Chef Terry's restaurant had a good impact on him. All Carmy wanted was to show Richie he had what it takes. That he's not a fuck up.

"Glad to see things are going well with Honey," Richie thunders.

"What are you talking about?" Carmy says in a rush as he plates the lamb expertly.

"That thing on your neck," Richie says, motioning to his own neck. He has a smug look on his face.

"I don't have time for this, cousin," Carmy grumbles, wiping the plate where the sauce might've splattered.

Groaning, Richie grabs one of the new pans and holds it in front of Carmy. "I don't see anything," he frowns, looking at Richie for an explanation.

"Right here," Richie points towards the edge of his t-shirt around his neck.

Carmy pulls it back and finally spots what Richie has been referring to. There is a fading purple bruise on his skin, a hickey. You must've done it when he was back in your office. He'd been too busy touching you to notice.

Sydney, silently watching, pipes up, "No wonder he hasn't been as on edge lately." Carmy shoots her a glare, which causes her to shrug and laugh with a, "What? It's true."

"Ay, yo, Sugar, get in here!" Richie yells down the hall to the office.

"What is it?" Natalie barges in, afraid something went to shit.

Carmy ignores Richie as he babbles to Natalie what he found. His face is red, though, as Sydney nudges his side.

"That's enough about me. We have shit to do," Carmy shouts in his chef's voice.

Everyone in the kitchen, including Richie and Natalie, repeats, "Yes, chef!"

Walking out of the kitchen Richie, 'whispers' to Natalie, "I've always wondered if he likes to be called chef in bed."

"Fuck off, Richie," Natalie glares, but then it falls, and it's replaced with a teasing grin, "He definitely does."

"I heard that! Don't you two have better things to do?" Carmy screams at them.

"Yes, chef!"

Carmy keeps hearing Cicero's 'Uh-oh' throughout the whole day. He understands Cicero, he really does, but to call you a distraction?

His work with The Bear is only starting. They managed to make it to Friends and Family. Now, they have to keep up their best work to fill up the restaurant daily and have a waiting list. His work is far from done. He should listen to Cicero.

Cicero said it with the best of intentions. He doesn't want the Berzatto siblings to fail. He wants to believe they'll succeed and, most importantly, get him his money.

If there is something Cicero has learned throughout the years, it is that girls are distractions. They mean well, but oftentimes, they keep your eyes off the ball. Especially when it's a new relationship like Carmy's. Ultimately, it's up to Carmy to decide what he wants to do. Cicero has played his part by giving him his advice.

One last delivery is made to the restaurant an hour before opening. Richie is the one to receive it and place it in front of Carmy. "She's a keeper, Cousin," he says with a pointed look and a nod. He also wants the best for Carmy, and yet it doesn't align with Cicero.

You knew Carmy would be too stressed and all over the place to eat or drink, so you sent everyone at The Bear a drink and a pastry. One of the cups has Carmen's name with a little heart and 'good luck' written on it.

"Yeah, she is," Carmy sighs, turning the cup in his hands to look at the message. His thumb brushes over your handwriting longingly. Is listening to Cicero the wise thing to do? He's one of the most successful men he knows in his family.

When it's 10 minutes till open, Carmy changes into his uniform and looks in the mirror. His heart is racing, begging for Friends and Family not to be a complete failure. Walking out of the bathroom, Carmy is a man on a mission.

It starts relatively well, but like everything in Carmy's life, the kitchen starts welcoming in the chaos.

They are too slow getting the orders out, which causes Sydney to start doubting herself and asking Carmy to step in. He reassures her she's doing good. They just have to keep up the pace.

Then, one of the new chefs disappears mid-rush. Forcing Tina to work two stations and Marcus to step out of his to help Sydney. Carmy ignores some weird tension between them as he works on ensuring the dishes are good to go.

Next thing he knows, Sugar is rushing into the kitchen, yelling at him about forks. It's wasted time, as he can't do anything about it. A shrill reverberates inside his head as he looks at the ticking clock. It's enough to give him a headache.

With no one to take a dish to its table, Carmy takes it upon himself to do it. There's no time to re-fire or wait for someone. He places it on their table and pours the tea into their cups before retreating with an 'enjoy.'

He looks at his restaurant, and suddenly, the ringing in his head gets louder. Sitting in a booth is his old boss, staring back at him like he did back in New York. Like he was waiting for Carmy to fail.

His voice echoes in Carmy's head. Why are you so fuckin' slow. Hurry up. Go faster motherfucker. Talentless piece of shit.

Right before Carmy spirals, it all goes away. His focus shifts entirely as he sees you taking your seat for the night. The one he chose because he'd be able to see you from the kitchen. You have successfully blocked the mirage he'd conjured up.

You're there with your brother as Richie talks you up, thanking you for coming. As if sensing him, your eyes lock with Carmys. Shyly, you send him a wave, which he returns, thanking you in his head for getting there at the perfect time.

Carmy ducks back to the kitchen with newfound energy. Richie enters shortly after him.

"Chef, your girl is here."

"Thanks, Chef, um, do you have the notepad?" Carmy asks as he continues cleaning dishes and making sure each one is up to par.

"Here you go."

Taking the notepad from Richie, he begins scribbling. I love- No, too fuckin' soon. Thank you for- Nope, it's too stale.

I'm happy you're here, Honey. Wait for me after you're done? -Bear

"Here," Carmy hands it to him without even looking at Richie.

"Keep up the good work, Chefs," Richie yells out to the room before disappearing to the front of the house. The door swinging shut behind him.

"Yes, Chef!"

Something isn't working in the kitchen. They're too backed up, and no matter how hard they try, they're always a tad too slow. Through Sydney surrounding the wheel to Richie, Carmy steals glances out the kitchen window. You're smiling at whatever your brother says, your lips sipping the wine he chose. Carmy can get through this night because, in the end, you'll be waiting for him.

"There he is," you sing as you spot Carmy walking out of the kitchen. The chef's whites back in his locker as he sports his white t-shirt, jeans, and jacket.

Fak, who kept you company while Carmy finished up, speaks up next, "My brother, I'm gonna grab a sandwich and head home. Honey, it was a pleasure meeting you."

"You too, Neil!"

"Thanks for everything," Carmy tells him, giving him a hug and a pat like dudes do.

Carmy turns and grabs your hand to pull you close and kiss your cheek. "What did you think?"

"It was the most delicious thing I've ever tasted," you tell him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders.

There's a reason Carmy has had so many accolades despite his young age. He has a gift in the kitchen. The moment his food touched your taste buds, your life changed. He and Sydney outdid themselves, and the way everything flowed showed how much work they put into the restaurant.

"You're exaggerating," Carmy modestly says, his arms wrapping around your waist.

"I'm really not," you shake your head, pursing your lips. Carmy can't resist placing a small peck on your red-painted lips.

"What about your famous pizza?"

"No, it might be the best pizza in Chicago, but whatever I ate today topped it," you smile at him, scrunching your nose. "Consider your chef's license reinstated,"

"Thanks," Carmy laughs breathily, "Do you mind if we walk? I feel some of the rush still."

"Lead the way, Mr. Berzatto."

Carmy grabs your hand, leading you to the streets of Chicago. It's silent momentarily as the wind cools Carmy's heated face. He places his hand along with yours into his pocket.

"Did your brother like it?" He asks, breaking the ice.

"Oh yeah. I'm officially like the best sister ever," you respond, squeezing his hand.

You had accidentally forgotten that your brother had passed the Bar exam. So, you didn't have time to get him anything in celebration. You figured dinner at a lovely new restaurant would help while you got him a proper present.

"How did you feel throughout, though? It looked intense." You often found yourself looking through the small glass window into the kitchen. They were always on the move, looking for the next thing to do.

"It didn't just look like it. I'm used to it, though," Carmy admits with a sniff. Everyone's best and worst habits shone through for those couple of hours. It's an environment he's all too familiar with, in and out of the kitchen.

"That rough," you grimace.

"It's fine. We have a lot to work on, but it's a start, and it wasn't entirely terrible," Carmy says, thinking back on tonight. Before coming out to meet you, he wrote down a couple of things to go through with Sugar and Sydney.

"Good, 'cause I hope The Bear sticks around the block," you say, bumping your shoulder with his.

You invite Carmy into your house when you arrive. He takes up your offer, holding your hand to help you balance as you take your heels off. It reminds Carmy he forgot to mention how beautiful you looked today.

He follows you to the kitchen, watching your hips sway and your dress skirt swishing. Padding to the wine fridge, you pick out a bottle of red to celebrate.

Carmy indulges in looking at your legs as you stretch up to reach for the glasses of wine up in your cabinets. His blue eyes darken as your dress hikes up, exposing your pretty thighs.

His gaze darts back up at you when you turn around to place the glasses on the kitchen counter. You hand him the wine opener so he can do the honors because you suck at taking the cork out. It's why you mainly stick to cheaper wines with twist-off caps.

"Here is to The Bear and its amazing owner," you say, lifting your glass in front of you.

"Here's to not fuckin' it up entirely," Carmy follows, making you giggle. Your wine glasses clink, and you take a drink.

Placing the glass back down, Carmy pins you against the counter, his strong hands resting on the edge of it. You look at him through your lashes, a hand coming up to his chest to feel the steady thumping of his heart.

"You look beautiful. I like the dress," Carmy murmurs. It's better late than never.

The dress you wear is a pretty shade of light blue. Simple yet dressy. The neckline gives him a good view of your cleavage and has long sleeves to compensate for the shorter length. They currently cover the goosebumps lining your skin.

"Yeah? I picked it out thinking you might," you reveal, biting your lip. The shade reminded you of his eyes.

"You were right," he whispers, cupping your jaw. As pretty as the dress is, he's sure it'll look so much better on the floor.

Carmy closes his eyes as he leans down to kiss you. He's always struggled with words, so he hopes it's enough for you to catch what he's trying to say.

You smile into the kiss, blindly leaving your glass to the side to be able to touch him. Your palm presses against his chest and taut abdomen. He hides a nice amount of muscle under his t-shirts, a pleasant surprise.

Carmy easily lifts you up to sit down on the kitchen island. He steps between your legs, never breaking the heated kiss. The hands on your waist trail down to your thighs and under your dress. Carmy's tattooed hands squeeze your ass and thighs, earning him a moan from you.

This is the farthest you've ever gotten, and you're more than ready to have all of him. Carmy knows this, which leads to his thoughts getting out of control.

He has to make a decision now. Does he allow himself to be with you, or does he remain by himself like always? Richie's, Sugar's, Cicero's, and Sydney's voices all shout at him different things. Some are in favor, and others are in opposition. 'Uh oh.'

He can't lead you on and sleep with you if he will back out tomorrow. The voices become deafening in an instant, ripping him away from your embrace. His emotions bubbled over and spilled all over the place.

"Wait, stop, I just-" Carmy breathes heavily, taking a couple of steps back from you. Carmy's hand comes up to his forehead as he attempts to organize his thoughts.

"What's wrong?" You ask worriedly. Did you do something wrong?

Carmen's thoughts spill out his mouth without making much sense as he paces in your kitchen. "I can't stop thinking about it and owe it to my team..."

"Carm?" You slide off the kitchen counter, approaching him slowly.

"-keeps saying it's a distraction," he rambles mostly to himself. His heart is pounding painfully in his chest. If he didn't know any better, he'd think he was having a heart attack.

"Hey, hey, hey. What's a distraction?" Softly, you grab onto his arms, stopping him in his tracks, trying to find his lost gaze.

"You. Whatever this is," Carmy breathes, finally meeting your eyes, which he instantly regrets as your eyes turn sad.

The watering of your eyes is unintentional, as is the knot forming in your throat. "You think I'm distracting you?" You question barely above a whisper.

His response is instant, "Fuck, no, the opposite. W-When I'm with you or-or think about you, things get clearer, and it's-it's when I feel the most focused." Carmy holds your shoulders, comforting you because he never meant to hurt you. He can't stand the sad look in your eyes.

Slowly, you begin to piece together his rambling and conclude that other people have been telling him you're a distraction. You wonder if they don't want him to be happy. The Bear is the center of Carmy's life, and before that, it was the restaurant in New York. He deserves more than this crazy job.

"Then fuck what others tell you, Carmen. You deserve to have a life outside The Bear." Maybe you're selfish because you don't want to lose him, but you hope he believes your words.

"I-I don't. I don't deserve all your attention or your affection. I'm nothing special. I don't deserve you." Carmy says, shaking his head with furrowed brows.

Weeks ago, he had no source of enjoyment. He said it himself at the support group. Now, he has you, yet he can't bear the thought of you wanting to be with him. He feels like he's tricking you into a bad deal. That's what he is, though, isn't he? An overachieving fuck up with tons upon tons of baggage.

Carmen Berzatto is an anxious person with too many problems in his life. He has a fucked up family. His mother is a mentally unstable alcoholic. His brother was addicted to painkillers and decided that shooting himself on a bridge was better than living this life. That's without mentioning all the trauma he has from his job and the terrible people he's worked with.

What good does he have to offer you?

"Yes, you do," you reassure him, placing your hands on his cheeks. The cool metal of your rings soothes him somewhat, grounding him. "You deserve all that and more, Carmy. You're so sweet and kind and hard-working. You've been through shit. You deserve something good in life. Maybe it's me, or maybe it's not, but don't close yourself off."

You're begging at this point. Whatever this relationship is, it's just starting. He's not giving himself a chance. You like Carmy so damn much. He's funny without knowing it and thoughtful, too. There are so many qualities he doesn't realize he has.

His eyes watch you as tears line them. He's silently pleading for you to convince him. To get him out of his own head and forget the expectations others have on him.

"I'm not going to force you into anything, Carm. It's your call, but I've enjoyed our last couple of months together. I know we don't know each other completely, but I want to know everything about you. I have feelings for you, so whatever you decide, I'll support it."

Being honest is all you can do at this point. You pour your heart out and hope Carmy chooses you.

You and Carmy stand in the middle of your kitchen. Face to face, reaching out towards each other. It's clear as day that you want the same thing. It's only a matter of taking the right steps now.

"I can't let you go," Carmy responds, grabbing the hand on his cheek. His thumb brushes over the back of it.

"Then don't."

Carmy's decision is made. Without another thought, he smashes his lips against yours. He grabs the back of your neck, tilting your head to meet his heated kiss.

It's more intense now that the cards are on the table. Nothing to hold him back.

Tongues clash together as your bodies seek each other out. The temperature rises when Carmy lifts you up to wrap your legs around his hips. His hands are on the back of your thighs, holding tight onto you.

"Bedroom?" He asks, breaking the kiss, a trail of saliva between the two of you.

"Down the hallway," you breathe heavily, kissing down his neck.

Carmy makes it to the bedroom, opening the door with a bang. He spots your bed, placing you in the middle with him holding himself up on top of you.

He watches as your back meets the bed and your fair fans around you like a halo. The curvature of your breasts accentuated even more from the position.

Carmy hikes your leg further up his hips as he dips down to kiss a wet trail down to the neckline of your dress. He leaves open-mouthed kisses on the rounded flesh, nipping at the skin playfully when you arch your back to push more into him.

"Carmy," you breathe, cupping his jaw to pull him back to your lips. Grinding your hips, you manage to graze against his bulge.

"Shit," Carmy shakily curses, thrusting his hips to meet your touch once more.

Curiously, your hands wander across his body. Carmy's moans in your ear make your panties wetter than they already are.

You grasp the hem of his shirt, pulling it up and off. You're desperate to have him, your cunt aches for him. Your nails scratch down his firm stomach when he bites into your earlobe, softly calling your name.

"Unzip me," you pant, pushing him away and pulling your hair off to the side.

Carmy grabs the small zipper, pushing it down and exposing your pretty skin. As he slides the fabric off of you, he kisses your shoulders and back, taking note of the goosebumps on your skin.

His mind is in the present, and nothing can take it away from him. It's like a switch he managed to turn off in his brain. No more family drama, no more The Bear. It's just you...and him. Honey and Bear.

You stretch your neck to the side, giving Carmy more space to pepper kisses across the delicate skin. The dress pooling at your feet exposes your chest, and Carmy's hands come up from behind you. His fingers shyly brush up your stomach, tickling you, until they find your breasts.

He draws a moan from you as he squeezes them in his palms, pushing you back to meet his chest; turning your head to the side, you find his lips.

The kiss breaks when he slides one of his hands into your underwear, dipping his finger to feel your wetness. Your arm reaches back to dig your fist in his curls.

"You're soaked, Honey," he moans, finding your clit to tease it.

"Been waiting for so long, Carmy," you whine as your hips stutter along with the flicks of his wrist.

"I'm sorry. I'm here now," he purrs into your ear.

Carmy can hear the distinct 'shlick, shlick, shlick' of his fingers against your clit. It spurs him on as he slips a finger into you. He can't wait to have his cock inside of you, snug and warm.

"Oh my god, Carmen," you gasp when he prods another finger into your entrance. Hanging onto his arm across your chest, you roll your hips against his fingers.

"I got you," he says, digging his fingers deeper into you and curling them.

Your knees buckle as the tips of his fingers curl and hit your g spot repeatedly. If it weren't for him, you'd be on the floor. With your tummy tensing under the weight of the pleasure, you stutter out, "I'm gonna cum."

Carmy's hand is wet from your juices as he ups the ante. Just as your walls begin to squeeze around his fingers, he pulls them out to circle around your clit.

"Oh, f-fuck!" You squeal, throwing your head back onto his shoulder.

The way your clit softly twitches under the pads of his fingers fucks with Carmy. It makes his cock throb and leak into his jeans.

Untangling from his embrace, you place a breathless kiss on Carmy's lips. His slick digits dig into your hips as he prolongs it.

Blindly, you find the edge of his jeans and unbutton them. If Carmy notices, he doesn't say anything. You want to give him one more reason to stay with you.

He moans into your mouth when you grasp his length through his boxers. He's rock hard as he desperately ruts against your hand.

With your hold still on him, you push him to sit on the bed. Carmy looks up at you lustfully. You plant a single short kiss on his lips before kneeling on the floor between his legs. You leave love bites down his chest while looking up at him through your lashes.

Carmy brushes away any hair that falls on your face, his blue eyes focused solely on you. When you reach the waistband of his pants, you pull them down along with his underwear.

His length pops up from its confines, slapping against his tummy. Its tip is a pretty pink shade, with a thick length and a slight curve to it. You salivate instantly at the sight of it.

Carmy's nervous under you. It's been a long since he's been with someone else, and he's never been the most confident.

"Relax," you say teasingly, kissing around his lower tummy to calm him.

Finally, your hand wraps around his cock, lightly pumping it. Leaving sloppy kisses down his happy trail, you feel Carmy's stomach taut in anticipation.

It's been so fuckin' long.

With your eyes staring into his hungry ones, you kiss the pink head that glistens with pre, teasingly brushing it against your lips. Keeping eye contact, you lick his length from base to tip. You alternate between kissing and licking for a minute, enjoying watching Carmy squirm.

"Fuck, Honey," Carmy throws his head back at your torturous pace.

"Look at me," you sweetly say.

Taking mercy on him, you part your lips to take his length into your warm, wet mouth, bobbing your head to a steady rhythm. Prying one of Carmy's hands from the bedsheets, you place it in your hair, encouraging him to use you.

"Good girl," he moans, fisting your hair to force you to take more of his cock. You let your hands rest on his thighs, feeling the strong muscles underneath.

Carmen observes you with hooded eyes as you hollow your cheeks, sucking him expertly. He's obsessed with how your lips leave behind a tinge of red lipstick on his skin.

"Shit-Fuck me," he yells into the room when you swallow around him.

You want him to cum, but Carmy has other plans. He doesn't think he'll last long if you make him cum now, so after the stunt you pulled, he pulls you off his sensitive cock.

The sight in front of him is erotic as a string of saliva connects you to his cock. The tears lining your eyes and blushed nose add to that pretty picture.

"c'me 'ere," he says, helping you up and kissing you as he leads you back to the bed. He tugs off your wet panties, throwing them somewhere in the room.

You lay back on your pillows with Carmy slotted between your legs. It's torture having him so close and yet so far. Now that you've gotten a taste of his cock you need more.

Carmy touches the inside of your thighs, inching his way closer to your cunt. He instantly notices how fuckin' wet you are. You're dripping even more than before.

"Sucking me off, got you this wet, princess?" He asks, leaning his forehead against yours.

"Mhm, Carmy, wish you would've cum in my mouth," you admit, tilting your head up to brush your lips against his.

"You have such a dirty fuckin' mouth," he chuckles darkly.

Where did this side of you come from? You're usually so sweet and delicate. He should've known you would be a freak in bed. To think he almost let this all go.

"Carmen, please."

"Please, what?" Carmen teases, lining his cock against your opening, wetting his cock.

"Fuck me," you moan, kissing his jaw.

"'m gonna fuck you good, princess," he promises, with a shaky nod before he remembers, "Fuck! I-I don't have a condom with me."

"I should have some in my drawer," you mention breathlessly.

Carmy opens the condom in record time but is surprised when you take it from his hands and roll it down his shaft yourself. You just want an excuse to keep touching him.

With your leg hiked up, he aligns himself and slowly pushes in. You both gasp at the sensation. Carmy, for one, is trying to not bust a nut so soon because you're so tight and warm.

Meanwhile, you hold onto Carmy's back as he stretches you out. It's been so long, and your toys aren't nearly as thick as him. You breathily moan in his ear, which he takes as a good sign as he begins thrusting more forcefully and deeper.

Carmy hopes this isn't a dream, and if it is, he hopes he doesn't wake up anytime soon. He has one hand holding onto your thigh and the other holding himself up. His gold chain dangles above you as he picks his head up from its spot on your shoulder. You take the chance to tug on it, returning his attention to your lips.

"You feel so fuckin' good, princess," Carmy groans, squeezing your thigh.

"I love your cock, Carmy," you whine, feeling the drag of his cock on your walls. The pleasure is all-consuming, leaving a fuzzy feeling in your brain.

"You like when I fuck you like this?"

"Yes, yes, yes, keep going."

His hips snap hard against yours, hitting that spot each and every time. His pelvis hitting your clit. He squeezes your thigh, hips, and sides before his hand squeezes your tits, too, playing with your nipples.

Suddenly, he straightens up, pulling you down the bed to have you flushed against his pelvis. He's a sight for sore eyes that forces you to keep your eyes open.

His thrusts are more forceful like this, where he digs his fingers into the fat of your hips to pull you towards him with each snap. It makes your tits bounce, hypnotizing him.

Through your lustful gaze, he looks like a marble statue. His chest glimmers under the lowlights of your room as sweat clings to him, his chain jumping against the blushed skin of his chest, and his fucking hair falling over his pretty eyes. The set of his jaw could've been sculpted by Michaelangelo himself.

Your hands indulgently reach down to touch him in any way you can. You can only reach his stomach, where a nice pair of abs appear due to the effort.

"You like what you see?" Carmy teases. He's entirely lost on you because otherwise, he wouldn't be as cocky to say that.

"You're so handsome," you pitifully say. Your brain not computing as it should, but how can it when it's being fucked out of you?

Carmy doesn't know how to respond. It's not often he's called handsome or looked at as lustfully as you're looking at him. Thankfully, he doesn't need to say much as your eyes roll back and you squeeze your walls around him.

"Carmy, I'm so close," you pant, trying to find any part of him to hold. He offers you his hand, lacing your fingers together.

"Just a little longer, princess," Carmy groans as you clench around him. "Fuck, don't do that to me."

He glances down at the spot where you and him meet to see a ring of white on the base of his cock. He's enthralled with the way you stretch to accommodate him and the way your pink walls drag along his length when he pulls out. Fuckin' beautiful.

Putting all his knowledge to use, he thumbs your clit, making you jolt. He needs you to cum now, or he won't make it. His balls feel like they're about to burst.

"Carmy," you cry out, tightening the hold on his hand.

You teeter on the edge for only a second until you cum, waves of pleasure washing over you. Carmy curses from above you as your tightening walls choke his cock, making him cum too. He stutters his hips a couple more times, riding out his orgasm.

He leans back down again, catching your lips in a small kiss. His body slowly relaxes against yours as his head rests on your neck, breathing in the scent of sweat and perfume.

"That was good," you breathe heavily, rubbing your hands up and down your back. You're just starting to think clearly.

"Fuckin' amazing," he adds.

There's a beat of silence before you both burst out laughing.

A bubble encases you, and it can't be popped as long as you stay in your bedroom. Carmy doesn't want to leave; it's late already, and in a couple of hours, he has to get up and go to The Bear to repeat the process.

For once, he forgets about that and focuses solely on you. He has a couple of hours to spare. Sleep is overrated.

You face each other on the bed, talking in hushed whispers. Your fingers trace the '773' tattoo on his bicep like you've always wanted to do. It tickles Carmy, so he grabs your hand and kisses your palm.

"Now that I'm thinking about it. I didn't see your tattoo," he whispers to prevent disturbing the peace.

Your face warms at his words. You had forgotten about that. He's seen a lot of you in the past couple of hours. What's a bit more of skin?

"You missed my big bad tattoo?" you joke, poking his nose.

"Show me," he says with a lopsided smile.

You make it dramatic, rolling your eyes and giving him a big sigh. Sitting up on the bed, you peel the bed sheets from your body. Carmy props himself up on his elbow in anticipation.

Right there, on your left side and under the curve of your breast is a small outline of Winnie the Pooh's face. Carmy touches it, biting his lip to hold back a laugh. Unsurprisingly, it's precisely what he expected from you.

A few chuckles pass his lips as he pulls you back into his arms.

"Don't laugh. It made sense at the time," you whine, covering yourself back up.

Carmy pulls you to his chest, kissing your temple, "I'm sure it does. Pooh Bear loves his Honey," Just like he does.

"Exactly! Someone gets it!"

And he does because Carmy, aka The Bear, is quickly falling for his Honey.

A couple of days later, Carmy is back at your house helping you prepare the famous pizza you promised him. He lets you take the lead on everything, preferring to follow your instructions rather than let his mind run wild. It's not like you'll let him do most of the work anyway; it's your recipe, and you're protective over it.

"Can you chop up the veggies?" You ask him as you lay down the dough in a pan.

"Yes, Chef," he nods, kissing your cheek as he digs through your kitchen drawers for a knife.

"Oh, I like the sound of that," you muse, shaking your shoulders as you knead the dough to spread it.

"Don't let it get to your head, Hun," Carmy smiles, slicing the vegetables expertly.

Cooking with Carmy is surprisingly easier than you thought. He's not controlling over the kitchen or judgy. He lets you do your thing in peace, following your orders no matter how strange they might be. This is your kitchen, not his.

As you spread the sauce and cheese over one of the doughs, Carmy gets a call. He wipes his hands with a rag and picks it up. You only hear his side of the conversation.

"No, I'm off tonight. I'm with my girl. Call Sugar. She should be able to help you with that. Great. Thanks."

Carmy had promised himself that he would try to balance it all better. He has his team to help each other out. The Bear is a priority, but so are you because you help him keep whatever sanity he has left.

Carmy hangs up, and when he returns to you, he notices the grin on your lips as you put the toppings he chopped on the pizza.

"What's with the smile?" Carmy stands behind you, wrapping his arms around your waist as he props his head on your shoulder. Your hair tickles his nose, smelling the notes of coconut of your shampoo he digs his head farther into it.

"I'm your girl?" You ask, the smile still present on your face. He'd missed your initial reaction when you heard him call you 'my girl.' You almost dropped the container of pepperoni that was in your hands. It's a shock cause he never asked you to be his girl.

Carmy pauses and tenses up against you. "Uh, yes? Hold up. Turn around," he orders, as he places his hand on your hips to turn your body around.

"Yes, chef," you respond cheekily, your arms around his neck, careful not to touch his sweater with your messy hands.

"Aren't you my girl?" He frowns, rubbing a thumb over your hips.

"I could be, but I don't remember you asking," you pretend to think.

Carmy never directly asked you to be his girlfriend, and you never asked him to be your boyfriend. You might as well be a couple since you've been dating long enough. You decide to seize the opportunity now to get it out of him. Having a proper anniversary day would be nice because you hope this lasts.

"I see, my mistake," Carmy nods, catching your vibe, "Honey…"

"Yes, Carmy?" You blink innocently at him.

"Would you do me the honor of becoming my girlfriend?" He finally asks.

You could joke around but decided against it cause the moment is perfect, "I'd love to," you nod, giving him a small kiss.

When the pizza is cooked, you bring it over to the dining table. Serving Carmy a pretty slice. Excitedly, you wait for him to bite into it and taste it.

"What do you think?" You ask expectantly.

"You were right. Best pizza in Chicago," Carmy agrees with an unbelievable laugh. He's got a lot to learn from you. It's the truth, or maybe he's blinded by his feelings. Only time will tell where you and Carmy will end up.

The End?

thank you guys for pulling through and reading! i know it's a slow burn but i hope you liked it! i certainly enjoyed writing it even though it took me like 4 months.

if you liked it, i would appreciate you liking it, commenting or reblogging. if you have some feedback feel free to send it my way too. i wanna get better at this whole writing thing!

thank you! bye xx

[tldps-beautiful-boy]

The tattoo meaning!!! Oh my gosh! I love it!

[tldps-beautiful-boy]

Trinity is Mother. Dennis is Mommy.

...

No, I will not explain further on that.