D

Being snarky back at him as a small punishment, “I believe that’s an onomatopoeia.”

He looks up from what he’s doing, “What?”

“‘Shh’, it’s an onomatopoeia, not a word.”

“I wasn’t answering your question,” he frowns, “also… yes it is.”

“Nuh uh,” you refute, “it’s the sound a word makes.”

“Onomatopoeia’s are also considered to be types of words themselves,” he looks over the top of his glasses at you, head tilted down, “it’d be like saying ‘bang’ isn’t a word because it’s also an onomatopoeia.”

Grumbling at him, “You’re wrong because I said so.”

“Oh! Of course, now I see that your argument is valid and correct,” he smiles at you.

Gojo Satoru’s smile pisses you off, not because he’s being a smartass—though that factors in sometimes—but because you find him so attractive that it’s unfair. You pout at him in response, “No one likes a know-it-all.”

“Says the one who started this by being a know-it-all.”

Wheeling the chair to the other side of him, “It’s cuter when I do it.”

“I hate to disagree but I think I’m cuter,” he smirks a little but ducks his head back into his work.

You flop onto his desk beside him, head on your arms as you watch his face, “You hate to do it and yet you do it anyways.”

“What are you looking for over here, sweetheart?” he looks down at you, knowing exactly why you’re bothering him, “What’d you get stuck on?”

Taking offence and muttering, “I’m not stuck on anything…”

He prompts, “…But.”

“But… I’ve reread the rubric so many times that my eyes hurt and I’ve decided it’s a tomorrow me problem.”

Gojo hums, “I feel like I’ve heard this before.”

“Mingling with the other students I see.”

“Yes, it’s certainly not that I heard that exact phrasing from you barely a couple weeks ago,” again his eyes leave yours, “maybe my age is messing with my memory but I also could’ve sworn that was right around when you put that same work off for another few days until it was the night of.”

“Okay but—”

“—You know… I think I also recall you getting so stressed about it that you cried to me about it and cursed out past you.” Flicking a page over, “That was you right? Or am I going crazy?”

You deadpan back, “You’re going crazy.”

He pinches your cheek and tugs, “Do your work and leave me to mine, this is my actual job… you know that right?”

“Who cares about you, this is about me right now,” you bat his hand away, “and right now I want to procrastinate by bothering you.”

“Lucky me.”

“You should feel lucky,” you poke his arm.

His brow quirks at you, “That’s what I said, isn’t it?”

A few beats of silence go by and then you’re rolling yourself over to the other side of him, proposing with a coy, “You know… maybe if a certain librarian helped me with my work… I wouldn’t end up crying about it in a few days.”

“Trying to get me to do your schoolwork now?”

“I’m very nicely asking for your help.”

“Hmm…” he thinks on it for entirely too long, clearly just trying to put you on edge. He spins to face you, “What’s in it for me?”

You sit up and lean in towards him, incredibly serious when stating, “The feel-good feeling you’ll get from helping me.”

He stares you down, waiting for you to better your terms but all it does is make you self-conscious over how close he is and think about how pretty his lashes are. You refuse to back down though, now locked in an intense staring competition with him.

Good news for you, he cracks first, “Alright, fine. Show me what you need help with.”

A huge smile breaks out on your face, “Yay!”

“Be quiet,” he chastises, “you’re still in a library.”

Glaring at him a little, “I was gonna give you a hug but now I don’t wanna.”

“No, go ahead,” he opens his arms for you and even though you genuinely consider it, you choose to flick his forehead instead. “Ouch,” he rubs where you flicked him.

“No hug for you,” once again rolling to the other side of him and pulling out your laptop, “maybe if you help me…”

Gojo only laughs at you, smiling as he scoots closer to see your screen. “Can you guarantee that hug?”

You retort, “Can you guarantee your help?”

“Don’t have such little faith in me, especially when you’re begging for my help.”

“I don’t remember begging,” mouth pulling sideways at his comment.

He pulls your laptop closer to him, “Let’s agree to disagree.”

Despite his attitude, it’s thanks to him that you’re able to start your work and stop pulling your hair out.

────── .✦

Required readings… your enemy. Not only is this library a mess—sorry Gojo—but everything you need is too high up to reach. So, you have to spend nearly twenty minutes looking for one book, only to struggle to obtain it when it’s found. Fingers just barely tapping the shelf it’s sat atop. You’re glaring at your enemy of a book from below when someone is right behind you, warm body pressed to yours.

Your immediate thought is that some stranger is simultaneously, far too close to you and stealing the book you need. Before you can act on your first thoughts, the familiar smell of Gojo graces your senses and your face heats up. Feeling warm at his body pressed to yours, conscious of just how much taller than you he is.

His free hand is on your head as he reaches up above you, hand on your book, “This is the one, right?”

You nod back at him sheepishly, feeling far too shy to turn to look at him when he’s this close. Always knowing that Gojo is tall is completely different from feeling it when he’s pressed up against you, the height difference put into blaring perspective.

His body against yours prompts your brain into spewing out all kinds of images of him and how he might use his size to his benefit. If he were to touch you… would he be gentle? Your pussy drips into your panties at the idea, growing needier the longer he stays behind you. It’s an active effort for you to not rub your thighs together and beg for him to touch you.

Gojo finally takes a half-step back and taps the top of your head with the book, bringing you back to the now, “You all there?”

You turn and take it from him bashfully, “Yeah, sorry and thanks.”

“Feeling okay?” He tilts his head at you and blinks, his glasses slipping down his nose a little.

He’s sweet and now you’re feeling bad about having perverted thoughts about your very nice and helpful librarian. Stumbling over yourself a bit in your embarrassment, “I’m fine, I… I’m good, just– your library is hard to navigate.”

“If you’re getting lost, you could always ask for help,” he seems so close.

Your gaze averts his, feeling exposed under it, guilty about the material of your wet panties clinging to you, “I didn’t wanna bother you.”

“That’s never stopped you before,” he grins because it’s true.

“Maybe I felt like being benevolent,” you grumble. “I need another book, so if you could take another step back.”

“Do you know where you’re going?”

“Of course,” walking past him, and saying with a playful tone, “I know this place like the back of my hand.”

He follows along beside you, waiting to see if you mess up, “So… how’re your classes?”

“They’re fine,” you pause and scan the aisles, thinking for a moment and ignoring the amusement radiating off of Gojo. Deciding to indulge the conversation with something that’s been bugging you, “well actually, lately some guy keeps sitting next to me during lectures and talking my ear off.”

“Oh?” suddenly sounding interested, “what’s he talking about?”

Finally in the area of the library you were looking for, all the way in the far back corner. Eyes ready for the tiring chore of looking at the spine of all the books.

“Stupid shit I don’t care about,” you recall his babbling and how you tried your very best to filter it out, “himself mostly, I think he just likes the sound of his own voice.”

You can hear the way Gojo clicks his tongue, like he’s growing frustrated, “Have you told him to leave you alone?

“I’ve tried,” you bend down to look at the lower shelves, “he’s annoyingly persistent, I don’t even know why he talks to me when I don’t engage him.”

His voice grows closer, “Have you always been oblivious?”

“Excuse me?” you stand up again and face him, “I am not oblivious.”

“He’s been flirting with you and you haven’t even noticed.”

“You don’t know that,” brows pulling together, “plus, you’re way more oblivious.”

He scoffs a little, “Name one time.”

Face hot and voice a little shaky, blurting out, “Just before!”

“What are you talking about?”

You’re annoyed and feel like sticking it to him, answering pointedly, “I got all wet because you just had to be all pressed up against me before and you had no idea.”

Heart hammering in your chest as he steps closer to you, his voice low, “Prove it.”

Your mouth drops for a second, “And how am I meant to do that?”

He points at your lower half shamelessly, “Lift up your skirt.”

“I—”

“—Should I do it for you?”

“No,” you drop your book and bag, “I’ll do it.”

Nerves running wild as you hold the hem of your skirt and lift it, exposing your underwear to your surprisingly perverted librarian. He stares at you for entirely too long before dropping to his knees in front of you, eyes glancing up.

“Can I touch you?” he asks a little breathlessly, pupils dilated.

It’s probably not a great idea—any of this—but you’re needy and he’s showing interest in you. Plus, it’s a little hard to have a rational state of mind when he’s on his knees and patiently waiting for you to answer his very simple but loaded question.

You’re eventually nodding your head slowly, “Please—”

His finger presses into the damp spot on your panties and your knees buckle, the grip on your skirt loosens making him grumble up at you, “Keep your skirt up.”

Huffing a little at him but gripping the material tighter and pulling it back up, he seems content with that if his hum is anything to go off of. His finger is delicate as he traces between your folds, digit sliding with how wet you’ve gotten. All he’s doing is making you needier, whatever slight pleasure you’re getting not enough.

“Well, you weren’t lying,” he states, amused. “You always get this wet when someone stands a little too close?”

Making a point not to answer him, “So, you know you were too close.”

“Looking at your crying pussy right now, I have no regrets.”

A soft sigh pulls from your lungs at his finger flicking your clit, “Ah— and here I was feeling guilty about my perverted thoughts about the sweet librarian.”

Gojo scoffs a little at that and looks into your eyes, “You mean, the grown man who indulges you despite being on the clock?” He grins wide, and focuses back on your cunt, “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.”

Your reply is kept to a soft moan as his finger presses into your weeping hole, he’d be able to penetrate you with it if your panties weren’t in the way.

Distracted by the sight before his head snaps back upwards as if realising something, smiling like he’s charmed by you, “You think I’m sweet?”

“No,” you deny, breaths coming a little faster.

“Mm, you think I’m sweet,” he sing-songs back at you, leaning in while he gloats.

“I do not— ah!”

A short cry coming from you before your teeth dig into your lower lip to stifle it, he’d leant in and stuffed his face to your covered pussy while you were talking. Crudely inhaling deep and sighing happily. Eyes heated and barely focused on yours as he sucks on your wet panties, making the damp spot grow larger. He whines at the taste of you, a pathetic and needy sound that sends sparks through you.

You huff out at him, “I don’t know what you are but it’s not sweet.”

He lets go of your underwear and answers, “I may not be sweet but you sure fucking are,” always finding himself to be hilarious, eyes full of mirth as his tongue lolls from his mouth lewdly. Pulling your panties to the side quickly as he leans in, tongue warm and wet on your exposed cunt.

Butterflies erupt inside your tummy, the direct contact making you wobbly. Unable to even really recognise this as real life but the way his tongue slithers inside your hot cunt feels far too real for it to not be reality. Little mewls spill from your lips, beyond turned on by the sight below you. This big man on his knees for you and desperately slurping at your leaking pussy.

Groans rumbling in his chest as he greedily laps at you, messy in his pursuit. Almost feral, like it’s not about you but about how much he enjoys this instead. Nuzzling even closer, as close as he can possibly hope to get and still you know that if he could, he’d be getting closer to you. His tongue pulls from your hole and is replaced by two of his large fingers, stretching you open obscenely.

Deliriously happy as he watches your legs shake from under you, your hands unsteady as they faithfully hold onto your skirt and keep you exposed for his viewing pleasure. “You’re already such a mess,” he comments, “it’s real cute.”

“Shut— hnn— up,” embarrassment prickling at your skin and somehow adding to your arousal, walls trembling around his fingers in a telltale way.

Gojo’s a lot of things but he’s not oblivious, especially not to the way your body reacts at such a small hit of degradation. It has his cock twitching in his pants, humming knowingly at you and wondering how far he could push it. You have a lot of pride but you also seem weak to pleasure.

“I meant it as a compliment, pretty,” he coos, again catching your reaction. Now he’s confused, either you just like when he talks or you like both praise and degradation. It’s certainly piqued his curiosity, and for you? he can definitely do both. Hell, he wants to do both.

“Don’t—”

“—Don’t?” he crooks his fingers into your g-spot and chuckles at how you falter, “but, sweetie, you’re drooling everywhere.” You whine out to him and he feels the need to add, “Your pussy, I mean your pussy is dripping wet, twitching around my fingers like crazy.”

“Ah!— are you evil or something?” You pout at him, eyes sparkling with unshed tears.

“Aw, don’t look at me like that,” he mutters, “just makes me want to bully you some more.”

And then he’s tipping forward and latching onto your swollen clit, so sensitive and needy as he licks and sucks at you. You’re completely wrapped around his fingers at this point, literally. All whiney and desperate, head feeling light as he fingers you to insanity. Squeaking suddenly when he’s stuffing his tongue in with his fingers, full to his knuckles as he grinds against your inner walls.

It's too much, the feeling of being so full and having all your sweet spots attended to at once. You’re weak to it and cumming pathetically quick, walls quivering as your cunt floods with fresh slick. Leaking around his fingers, even with his mouth drinking at you obscenely. Jolting through it, every slight touch has your nerve endings on fire and he’s not stopping.

He’s apparently got his own ideas on how this is going down because instead of rushing this—like he should because you’re in public—he’s taking his sweet time. Withdrawing his tongue from your cunt and opening you up with another digit, grinding the pads against your g-spot. The grin on his face pisses you off and you’d do something about it but you’re so close to being forced into another orgasm.

Legs shaking violently under you, your hands are finally giving way and your skirt is dropping back down. Immediately, you’re reaching behind and gripping the shelf. “Gojo— hnn— you gotta stop— hah— it’s too much.”

His free hand pulls your skirt back up, eyes hungry as he watches how you’re swallowing down his fingers, “Just gimmie one more and I’ll stop,” his voice has an excited lilt to it.

You whimper back at him, “I can’t.”

“Sure, you can,” answer coming a little dismissive, “you wanna be good for me, right?”

There’s a sting in your lower lip from how you’re biting down into it, cutting off the sounds you’re making. Your pussy outs your reaction though, trembling as you cream around him. Cumming hard for a second time, it has your eyes rolling, so much more sensitive and feeling it so much more.

Gojo lets you ride it out until you’re twitching away from his touch, then he pulls his fingers out and watches how your cum coats them. No self-control in how he sucks them into his mouth and licks them clean. Even less self-control when he leans in and licks your drippy cunt, groaning into your plush skin as he gently laps at you.

A hand in his hair has him pulled back forcefully and he whines at you, his eyes sulking at your cruelty. “I was just cleaning you up,” he tries to reason with you.

“Too sensitive, you’re making me crazy,” a small aftershock runs through you and you try to ignore how hot he’s made you all over, “I’ll end up screaming in your quiet library.”

He stands to his full height and crowds you in, his mouth right over yours, “I don’t mind getting caught.”

“I do!— mmph,” his lips on yours shut you up quick.

The kiss is messy and wet and impatient, his thumb pulls on your chin just so he can open your mouth more and slip his tongue against yours. It’s mind boggling how a kiss can feel this good, your head is spinning and you’re so far out of it you can’t tell if he’s just that good or if you’re delirious from your orgasms.

You’re looping your arms around his neck lazily and holding on, his hands move to your hips and grip you tight. You need it, you need his hold because your legs were already so weak and now they’re feeling much weaker with how hotly he’s kissing you. And it is, so hot, his tongue against yours is practiced and frustratingly enticing.

His kiss goes straight to your core, pussy tingling with arousal. It’s been all of a few seconds and you’re already feeling neglected and painfully empty. You must be greedier than you thought because you’re aching to have your cunt stuffed by him again and this time you want more than his fingers.

“Gojo— hff— I— mmh—” it’s hard to get his attention when he’s hellbent on kissing you, threading your fingers through his hair before pulling him away. His eyes are all glassy and he lets slip a little whimper, you ignore the way it makes you feel. “Gojo, I want…” your thighs rub against each other, suddenly feeling embarrassed about saying out loud that you want him to fuck you.

“You want…?” He coaxes, knowing exactly what you want but playing dumb. His lips kiss along your jaw and down your neck while waiting for you to be upfront.

It’s completely distracting and has you fumbling over your words, “I— uh— hum— well I… I want,” you huff out a small moan when he sucks on your neck, “stop that!” you push him back again.

He giggles at you a little, enjoying your reaction, “Sorry, what are you trying to ask me for, sweetheart?”

“Well, now I don’t wanna say,” you grumble.

“Don’t be like that,” he bites your cheek before leaving a chaste peck on it, “I’ll give you what you want, you just gotta ask for it.” His smile is crooked and a little evil because he knows you’re embarrassed and shy.

You’re glaring back at him, “Like you don’t know.”

“Oh, I know,” he whispers against your ear, licking it just to make you shiver, “I really wanna hear you say it though.”

“Fine,” you look through your lashes up at him, “I want your dick inside me.”

“That’s all you had to say, sweetie,” both his hands grab your head and he moves down to plant a full kiss on your lips.

Mumbling, “Oh, is that all?”

“Stop pouting so much,” he moves his hands to his pants, beginning to undo them, “my dick can only get so hard.”

“You’re such a freak,” you say that but your eyes are trained on where he’s unbuttoning his jeans, waiting for him to pull his cock out.

“I thought I was your sweet librarian,” his smile reaches his eyes, a mischievous sort of look. “Now, turn around because I’m like ninety percent positive that if I fuck you like this your legs are gonna give out.”

“No please?”

“Pretty please…” his hands grip your waist and encourage you to spin, “turn around so I can stuff my dick inside you, like how you asked for.”

He’s so annoying, so annoying in how he’s already understood exactly what has you tripping over yourself for him. Not like it was hard to begin with, you’ve been crushing on him for a while now. Why else would you bug him to high hell when he’s meant to be working?

You turn around for him and he places his lips beside your ear, purring, “So good at listening.”

“Don’t patronise me,” you grip the shelf in front of you, arching a little at his touch pressing into your lower back.

His laugh is airy, “I was being genuine.”

“Why don’t I believe you— ah!”

He’d waited until you were talking to slip the head of his cock inside you, “You should have a little more faith in me.”

You can feel his lips pressing a gentle kiss to your temple, his breath shuddering slightly, like he’s struggling to hold back. It’s agony, how slow he’s entering you. He’s torturing the both of you in one fell swoop, you’re whining back at him, “Hurry up.”

“Fuck— thank god,” he sighs at your plea and slams his hips the rest of the way.  

His dick is bigger than you expected and you’re about to let out a loud moan when his hand clamps over your mouth to stifle the sound. Mewls and whimpers tumble from your lips freely as he sits deep inside you, pulsing hot and heavy in your gooey walls. You can feel the way you’re bulging around the length of him, the emptiness you were experiencing not moments before completely gone.

Gojo’s almost gleeful when he huffs out, “I— hff— I thought you didn’t wanna get caught.”

You can’t even say anything back, still moaning about his cock inside you and he’s not even moving yet. And even then, his hand is over your mouth, any words you try to speak right now would be a garbled mess.

Frustrated, you wiggle your hips back, hoping you can entice him into moving. You somewhat succeed, he twitches forward and his head drops to your shoulder, a pitiful sound leaving him. “Hah— so impatient.”

An angry mumble vibrates through his hand from you and he laughs at it, mocking you when he asks, “What’s wrong? You need something?”

Opening your mouth, you nip at his palm and he groans breathlessly.

“Stop moaning so much and I’ll pull my hand away.” You force your mouth shut and swallow down your sounds, Gojo waits a moment and then pulls his hand back. Sliding it down to your throat where he grips you gently, just holding you, “What have you been trying to say, pretty?”

Gritting out at him, “I’ve been trying— hnn— trying to tell you to move!”

“Greedy,” he hums out.

It’s the only word you get before you’re wrecked by the thick drag of his hard cock pulling out and slamming back in. It has your world spinning, his tip knocking against your womb and making your head all dizzy. You’re almost screaming out about it but he’s quicker than you, hand on your mouth again.

Delirious giggles bubbling from him, “Ooh, that was a close one, huh?” He doesn’t stop, hips setting a devastating pace now as he fucks into you repetitively, “I think your pussy might give us away though.”

And now your brain is registering the filthy sounds of him pounding into your sloppy cunt, completely debauched and loud. He’s right, if anyone gets even remotely close to you they’re going to hear the telltale sounds of your insatiable hole being filled by the hot librarian.

Gojo wraps his other arm around you, pulling you back closer to him and nuzzling his face into your neck. He’s letting slip little moans and whines and before he lets out a louder sound, he latches onto your skin. Biting down into you and making you mewl, cunt drooling around his cock and leaving a creamy white ring at the base of it.

It’s messy and desperate, the way he’s fucking you. All rushed and sharp thrusts, messy moans and hushed whines. You’re both supposed to be quiet but are completely failing, this corner of the library filled with nothing but the sounds of the two of you losing it.

“Fuck— you’re so fucking— god— you’re so fucking tight and warm and—” he’s licking over the spot he bit into, “you’re such a fucking mess.”

He genuinely means it as a compliment even if it is degrading, and even though it’s degrading it has your stomach fluttering and voice cracking with a whimper. Cumming ridiculously easy around him, spurred on by his ruined voice.

“You’re cumming? Already?” he’s excited, hugging you tighter, “you’re gonna make me— fuck you’re gonna make me cum.” The way your walls tighten around his dick and try to milk his own orgasm out of him drives him insane. Through his foggy brain, he manages out, “Can— hnn— can I cum inside you?”

You limply nod your head back at him, heart hammering at the idea of it. Turned on by the thought. Gojo doesn’t let that go, commenting on it, “Seriously? I can feel how you got wetter and you’re already drowning my dick in your own cum.”

The urge to tell him to shut the fuck up doesn’t escape you, muttering it out against his palm even though it can’t be deciphered.

He absolutely catches it though, chuckling. “Don’t be so mad, you’re about to be stuffed full of all my cum so it hardly matters.”

A sound half-way between grumpy and fucked out passes your lips and he finds it so fucking cute that he’s finishing. Slamming his hips close to yours and grinding his tip against your uterus, biting into the same spot on your shoulder again to keep his pathetic noises to a minimum.

The two of you stand there panting for a moment, you’re completely boneless in his hold and barely hanging onto consciousness. So deep in the pleasure that all you want is to lay down and sleep, held up only by Gojo’s arms.

He pulls his hand off your mouth and it’s coated in your saliva from how you were drooling into his palm, briefly wondering if he should lick it but deciding not to in case you get mad at him. He settles for turning your head to the side and sticking his tongue into your mouth, kissing you urgently.

You can feel that he’s still hard inside you and it has you weak, confused on how he’s still so ready to go when you’re sensitive and lost.

Gojo pulls his mouth off yours, “Could we?” He asks, pulling out the tiniest but before thrusting back in.

The sound you let out has his balls pulling tight and his brain melting, not muffled and completely clear to him. It’s like music to his ears and he desperately wants to hear it again, going to rut into you for a second time but you stop him, weak hand pushing back on him.

“We are still in public,” you huff out, “we’re in public and I think you just killed me.”

He lets out a controlled breath, holding back, “If I take you home, can we do it again?”

“If you’re lucky,” you purr before adding more humorously, “and if I’m alive.”

“So dramatic,” he leans away, “now, get ready?”

“For?”

He doesn’t answer, you find out really quick what for. He’s pulling himself out of your fucked hole and just before all of his seed leaks down your inner thighs, he tugs your panties back into place but that just means you’ve got a limited amount of time before it’s seeping through the material.

“We better move quick,” he pats your ass.

You finally turn around and face him, giggling lightly because his glasses are all crooked. Reaching up, you straighten them and say, “I’m not going anywhere quick, my legs feel like jelly.”

“We are gonna have to move quick because I cannot be sane while knowing you’ve got my full load held inside you by nothing but your panties,” his eyes glint deviously at you.

Worried he might take you in the library again, you concede, “Alright, we’ll move quick.”

𝒂ﾉ𝒏. thanks for reading! this was completely self indulgent of me but i hope you guys liked it too ଘ( ᴗ͈ ᴗ͈)ഒ

You have to be dreaming. Hallucinating. Something.

Managing to weakly push to your feet, you stumble through the halls of the ship on a weak gait. It’s a small vessel, with a science bay through a sealing door just outside the medical bay where you awoke, four bunks and a washroom in what you assume is sleeping quarters, and the bridge itself. It’s small, but clearly designed for more than one crew member. Your heart drops at the thought, because that’s when it truly comes flooding back.

Your work. The project. The disease. The creature.

Several pieces of the same puzzle, but each one troubling in its own right.

Still groggy from the induced coma, you force yourself to take a seat in the hall, grateful for what you can only assume is artificial gravity. You might have been sick if you had awoken in zero gravity.

Taking a breath as you sit in the center of a large octagonal hall, you force yourself to breathe. Long breaths, drawing each one out in an effort to keep yourself from boiling over when memories of the very thing that put you here feel fresh in spite of your ten year induced coma. It shouldn’t be you here. You, some entomologist they found online for a paper suggesting beetles are smarter than people think.

You weren’t even really good with people. Just bugs. You spent most of your time alone with your stag beetles, attempting to bring out the very intelligence you’d written about. You never minded being alone. Maybe it’s sad that you spoke to the beetles, but they kept you company in their own way. Yet here you are now, onboard a space ship by sheer coincidence, if it can even be called that. And it’s not the loneliness you fear.

No, you’re content to grab a marker and draw a face on one of the many white walls, call it ‘Wilson’ and name yourself the next Tom Hanks, even if your acting credits are undeserving.

What scares you is the narrow hallways holding you hostage in a vacuum. Once you reach the supposed ‘destination’ that the ship’s programmed voice spoke of being imminent, gravity will cut out. The ship will rely on your ability to navigate yourself through its halls and hell, even navigate the damn hunk of metal through space yourself to send the mission target back. You’re a fucking entomologist. A bug scientist. What the hell are they hoping for from you?

With a sharp inhale, you push back up to your feet, navigating through the cramped hall until you reach the bridge. There are a number of screens and what feel like countless buttons and switches, all labeled with tape. You suppose that’s meant to be for your convenience given that you’re no pilot, but the amount of labels is a textbook in and of itself. Frustrating.

Slipping past the second of two chairs on the bridge, your eyes are glued to the first window you’ve seen. Your lips part as the marvel of space itself comes into view when you slip into the nook by the window.

It’s beautiful. Stunning. It’s full of twinkling stars and the far more consistent shine of distant planets. There’s debris of various different kinds of space rock meandering endlessly through a void. There’s a gorgeous mildly yellow-green planet not too far away with pink and blue accents. Its surface is probably unlike everything you’ve ever seen.

Seeing a planet from space is another kind of beast. Space travel is relatively new to humanity as far as the general public is aware, and you certainly never envisioned yourself aboard a spacecraft. In another world, under other circumstances, it might even be a dream.

The nearest sun has you staring down at your fingers, wondering if the faint heat you feel might be from its rays or if you’re imagining things already, hardly a few minutes into your trip. That is, if you don’t count the several years in which you were in an induced coma.

Flexing your fingers again as you stare at them, it’s not until a shadow takes away the sun’s distant rays, that you notice something incoming quickly. Your eyes widen at the sight of a ship, alien in appearance. Long, slender, dark grays in sharp and jagged angles all come together to build a ship that makes yours look not entirely unlike the very bugs you study. Very, very small. Insignificant.

“Oh shit,” you gasp in wide-eyed disbelief as something straight out of a sci-fi movie moves in a line straight towards you. “Oh shit” you gasp again, racing to push yourself to your feet and clamber for the pilot’s chair as though the labels will push you into action. Paralyzed on the chair, the most you can do is skim each word in hopes that one might magically say ‘turn one hundred and eighty degrees and get the hell away from the giant evil-looking alien spaceship’.

Unfortunately, you never find that button. With your hands hovering over the controls, you find yourself watching in horror as you’re swallowed whole by the other spacecraft. “Oh shit.”

Your ship is harshly jostled as all of a sudden the hull drops like a stone onto something hard and metal, screeching as it slides across what you can only assume is a bay of the other ship as you stare into the darkened corridor of the inside of an alien spacecraft. You grip the chair for purchase in an effort not to get thrown aside while your ship blares warning and lights flicker.

“Oh shit,” you breathe when the lights outside your ship flick on and flood the bridge with the harsh lighting of a warehouse. There doesn’t seem to be any other ships aboard if this is a bay or hangar, but it certainly looks like one… Though you suppose you’re basing that off of movie knowledge, which is probably stupid. Especially for a scientist at the top of your field.

Slowly descending from your chair, you approach the window in awe, staring out into the metal box. It’s largely human, with pipes running up the walls and across the ceiling, lights in long bulbs overhead and lower lighting from small circular vent-like structures. The structure seems rougher than the smooth metals of your ship, almost as though it’s made of an unpolished mineral, with a luster that dictates something akin to quartz or obsidian, but it’s slightly off. The only thing inhuman about the entire thing is the text. It’s not entirely unfamiliar, the sort of thing that you wager you could decipher in time, but when you spot movement at the far bay, you figure time isn’t exactly on your side.

What a way to wake up after ten years.

The alien figure that approaches your ship isn’t human. But… they aren’t inhuman either. You know they aren’t human, with an extra pair of limbs attached to their upper torso and an extra pair of eyes aboard a plate of some sort on the right side of their face, but otherwise the only thing inhuman about them is their massive size, standing at what must be ten feet tall.

A tight shirt clings to their upper torso, some sort of spacesuit loosely draped from their torso in an off-pink that matches their short hair. Markings line their jaw, coming up just beneath their eyes not unlike tattoos, though you can’t be sure whether or not that’s what they are. The most inhuman feature of all, however, is the blood red gaze they fix your ship with as they walk in an even, calm stride towards the door.

A creature with a calm like this is one that knows it’s powerful. It’s the type of confidence befitting of someone who far outclasses everything they’ve ever come across and doesn’t fear the beyond like you do. “Oh shit!”

It’s just about the only words you can manage as you clumsily navigate towards the small porthole of the door where the alien has deduced they may find you. Peering out the small circular window, you can only pray you aren’t about to be probed or something similar.

When the alien approaches your ship with some sort of technology in-hand, you tap on the glass to get their attention. The large alien’s head rises, their brow lowering to a scowl of sorts as they examine you. This close, they look startlingly like a human man. Like the kind of man you might see in a gladiator movie given his sheer size and musculature, sure, but human enough to reason with. He speaks some sort of language, but you can’t understand a word he utters.

The language is a mix of huffs, growls, clicks, and what you would otherwise consider sounds not unlike the languages found on earth. Between each noise that reminds you vaguely of an echolocation sort of noise is a very human syllable. If you were to put the syllables together without the clicking, you might even get something akin to human vocabulary.

By all accounts, this is an intimidating encounter. His gaze is sharp, almost grating in looks alone. His pupils have rings surrounding them that give him a formidable appearance. His mother tongue is so different from any language you’ve ever encountered– human or animal– that the only thing you even can compare it to are films. Some part of you is wired to expect a Xenomorph to uncurl from wires and silently drop to the ground, acidic saliva dripping from its mouth, and yet the man remains still, awaiting your reply before he answers in kind.

Maybe it’s your poor instinct for danger, but you’re far more intrigued than you are concerned.

“Uh– Hello!” You attempt to reply in an effort to keep the peace, further perplexing the alien whose eyes narrow. Your heart pounds behind your rib cage as you give your best effort to not get eaten. Or examined. Or whatever this species does. “I come in peace!” You offer, making a peace sign through the door with a wide grin.

His gaze slides to your hand, his deduction of the action clear in the way his narrowed eyes regard the action. He frowns like you’ve caused him an inconvenience, gliding his finger along the device in his hand briefly as he looks away. You almost wish he was more animalistic. You’re a better read on animal behaviour than human.

“Okay, um– hold on!” You hold up one finger, clumsily dashing back through the ship to the science bay. You grab a white board and marker, making your way back to the porthole. The four-armed alien is tapping on what you assume to be the screen of the device he brought with him, though his attention returns to you once you reappear. You draw a circle and the general outline of the continents, presenting the image to him. “I’m a human. From Earth,” you say, pointing to your drawing.

The alien’s gaze lowers to your drawing, then he taps on the screen of his device, growing more frustrated by the moment. When the device doesn’t seem to give him the results he wishes for, his shoulders visibly fall in frustration as he faces you again. His gaze fixes the drawing, then you once more.

When he doesn't reply, you quickly erase the drawing of earth, and draw something that might be more familiar. You draw the very thing you’re here in search of as clearly as you can from memory.

CRM-12. A creature so foreign, the scientists never even gave it a name. Beetle-like in appearance in spite of its size, which begged your attention, one of the heads in entomology. A creature intelligent beyond any credit they were willing to give it, treating it as lesser than even rodents. It was no more than an experiment, and your reason for being in the middle of uncharted space.

You present the drawing of the creature, a metallic brown beetle with accents that resemble an oil spill, iridescent pinks visible in the sun. Its eyes, however, are completely unlike any insect. Cat-like, they follow movement like the eyes of a higher being. Like they know. You hope that comes across in a crude drawing with a black marker.

The alien looks at the drawing you present, seeming to recognize it. He stares at you and chuffs, almost like a tiger, followed by a syllable unrecognizable to you.

“You know it?” Your brows raise eagerly at the reaction that you’re fairly sure is a yes given the way big cats so often use the first portion of the sound.

Another chuff in reply, then the syllable. You can work with that. The recognition in his gaze tells you that it isn’t a no, which means you’re communicating, even if it’s preschool-level communication. Even if he seems frustrated by the whole ordeal. Or maybe by you. Or the device. You really can’t say.

“Oh my god, you know it? I’m looking for it!” You point with a grin, intrigued by the alien life that seems to be as advanced, if not more than humanity.

He watches your eager movements with hooded eyes, all four following the way your body almost seems ahead of your mind as you attempt communication. In a far more languid movement, he lifts an arm, simply tapping once on the door as he stares at you, awaiting.

You purse your lips, fairly confident you understand. “Oh– I can’t leave my ship,” you glance down at the door’s handle. “Um– hold on.” You raise one finger again, drawing another picture on your whiteboard. This time, you present the alien species with a poorly drawn version of your ship, an ‘X’, and a stick figure of you, with your tongue out and an ‘X’ for either eye. “I would die in your atmosphere. I mean, probably. I guess I don’t know.”

One of his brows raises at the crude demonstration before he looks you up and down once through the porthole. He huffs, something of disbelief or maybe annoyance, before looking around the bay. He replicates your motion, raising one finger in a ‘hold on’ type of manner, disappearing for a minute. When he returns after a few moments, he lifts a lower arm to present to you a new device. From the device comes a hologram far more advanced than anything earth has managed thus far.

Your eyes widen at the sight of the very beetle-like species you’re here for. You nod, giving a thumbs up. “Yes! Yes, that’s it!” You loudly proclaim with a grin.

He recoils, though you can’t quite place why. He watches your reactions, the smile, the thumbs’ up, the nod, and chuffs in reply. Alright, communication. 

“Hey, um, there’s–” You stammer over words, before giving your signal for ‘hold on’. Quickly and crudely attempting to draw your best version of the window by the bridge. You hold it up to the person opposite you, pointing in the general direction of the much larger window across the ship.

His sharp gaze follows the direction you point, his head moving in that direction altogether, before chuffing and surprisingly disappearing. You blink, before quickly moving in that direction as well, cables and tubing still drifting listlessly behind your clothing from when you awoke. You stare down briefly at the ordeal, at the mess you’re sure you look, and figure that’s a problem for when an alien isn’t staring you down.

You’re just grateful he isn’t looking at you in the same way humanity looked at that beetle. That stupid, god forsaken alien beetle. Even if he does seem a bit annoyed with you.

Dragging the cables along with you, you slip past the chairs in the bridge to the larger window where your new alien peer is curiously examining the circuitry within the bridge. “This is the bridge,” you explain, pointing behind you. “For the captain.” You turn to face him again, unsure if he understands a word you’re saying, but the need to fill the air is unfortunately at the forefront of your mind. Slipping into the nook of the window, you watch as his crimson gaze tracks your movements, dropping to the cables that he examines for a moment. “These are just cables,” you explain, holding them up.

He grunts through a deadpan expression as though he has that figured out already, and it’s at this moment that you realize how grateful you are that there’s an atmosphere at all in his ship right now to carry either of your voices so that you can communicate. The entire thing is fascinating beyond any kind of entomology you’ve ever been witness to. Of course, you’d have an easier time grasping his behaviour if he were a bug, but you suppose you didn’t get much of a good understanding of CRM-12’s behaviour anyway in light of the events that took place with the species on Earth.

CRM-12. The thought makes you wonder. “Do you have a name?” You glance down at the whiteboard, but you aren’t sure how much it’ll help. “A, uh–” You point to yourself, stating your name, then to him. “What’s your name?”

He straightens, and in a very alien language gives you a series of growls and hisses, along with a series of somewhat more human-sounding syllables. You attempt to replicate the sound, you really do. The problem is that your vocal chords simply can’t shape the same noises that his can. He frowns as you can’t reach one of the clicks in your vocal range, and surprisingly offers something more familiar.

“Sukuna.”

Your lips purse as you stare out the window at him. It’s shockingly close to the syllables that sit intermittently between the clicks and growls in his name, like his language might not be as far off as you originally hypothesized.

“Human.” He adds, then replicates your name, shockingly nearly perfect.

“Yeah!” You agree with a grin. “That’s my name. I’m human.”

“My name,” he forms the words, copying them in his deep baritone voice. It sounds somewhat foreign after you’ve heard primarily chuffs and hums, but he doesn’t struggle to form the words. They’re clipped, like his tone isn’t intentional and there’s a rasp to his words like his throat wants to add the clicking to the words, but doesn’t.

You have an itch to write and document everything you can, but your lab is a few light years away and your journal is… yet to be found, since you awoke. You do what you can to catalogue every detail for later in your mind.

“Okay, okay.” Beyond interested and excited by the ordeal, you make a wild motion with both arms towards– well– everything. “This is my ship.”

Sukuna’s gaze lifts to the exterior of the ship, then returns to you. An upper arm lifts, muscle that’s inherently humanoid rippling beneath what looks to be something similar to a performance long sleeve clinging to his arm. He taps twice on the window. “Ship.” Then directly in front of you. “Your ship.”

“Yeah,” you breathe in disbelief. “Is this your ship?”

He points back, chuffing. “My ship.”

The velocity of his ability to learn is stunning. In fact, you would wager a bet that not only is he so far advanced that he outclasses Humanity by miles, you would be willing to be there’s more to it than that. The scowls, the grimaces, the huffs. Could he be annoyed that you’re not capable of picking up his language? “Are you–” you point to him, then the chair behind you, “the captain?”

His gaze examines you as you point towards the seat on the bridge behind you. Understanding your gist, he chuffs.

“Holy shit,” your breath. Looking eagerly past him into the rest of the hangar bay, you press your hands to the window. He straightens, taking a step back as he stares at you with a raised chin. “Where are the rest of you? Do you have a crew? Do you have scientists?”

He growls, but it doesn’t appear to be a warning. Your limited knowledge of his language tells you it may just be a vocalization that’s within his language, but you can’t say for sure. You can’t be sure whether he’s answering in his own language or simply frustrated with your onslaught of questions. Maybe both.

“Are you alone?” You offer the option. “Just you?” You point.

To that, he straightens slightly, his gaze dropping as he evaluates your stature. He must determine you aren’t a threat, because he finally replies with a chuff. “Alone. Just Sukuna.”

It’s unbelievable, truly. It’s not the fact that there’s other intelligent life that baffles and equally excites you, but the fact that not only does he seem to be far more advanced, but it’s clear you’re both studying one another’s behavior. More interestingly, he’s making sense of your language so quickly without so much as forgetting a word that you’re fairly sure his species can outdo humanity’s feats in an evening. You watch him pick up words before you’ve even used it in much more than a sentence to yourself. He adjusts so quickly that it has you questioning everything you know about life outside of Earth. About life on Earth. About behavior, intelligence, and everything you’ve studied so hard when it comes to entomology.

Much of the… day? Is spent going back and forth, focusing primarily on language using the whiteboard, and you’re surprised to find Sukuna doesn’t just keep up, but clearly surpasses your intelligence. He’s offput by noise and moves at a much slower pace that gives you the impression that he wouldn’t know the expression ‘life is short’. You wonder how many years he’s wandered the universe.

He primarily listens and learns, letting you yap about tenses and grammar with little more than an aloof frown. He rarely inquires, but as his knowledge grows, he becomes more at ease. The rigidity in his upper and lower shoulders releases, and his expression shifts from one of skepticism to intrigue. Before you can inquire about his species or language, however, your ship comes online. With a robotic timbre, an announcement comes across the speakers. “Please report to the lab for documentation.”

You stare back into the ship for a moment before facing your new companion. “I need to go make a report,” you explain. “The humans back on Earth want a video of how things are going.”

You can’t be sure how much of that he understands given that he’s largely a closed book, but he chuffs his general understanding.

“Do you… sleep?” You make a motion of sleeping. “Or eat?” And point to your mouth.

The mere suggestion has him yawning, revealing primordial fangs behind his lips. He doesn’t grace you with a reply otherwise.

In a series of clicks and hisses, he says something you’re unable to translate and turns on his heel. Your best assumption is that he’s wished you a goodnight, so you opt to do the same. “Goodnight, Sukuna!” You call loudly from your side of the glass.

He tilts his head slightly, then shakes it, but doesn’t look back.

You watch the spot where he disappeared for a long moment. In the barren bay, the lights click as one by one they shut off until you’re left with only the ambient light of the interior of your own ship. Stepping back from the glass, you blink to yourself. He’s unlike anything you could have imagined when it came to aliens. It’s not like you haven’t met one, given that your assignment on Earth was studying CRM-12 and your assignment now is simply to retrieve more of them, and while you know even that creature’s intelligence was largely underestimated, you never imagined another planet like Earth could exist.

Maybe the atmosphere doesn’t match your own. Maybe there’s no oxygen. Maybe his planet is overruled by dinosaurs. You wouldn’t know. But somewhere out there is a planet with architecture and entire civilizations that you don’t know the first thing about.

As you make your way to the lab, a small camera prepped for you to record, you swear you’re still jittery with excitement. The scientist that swims in your veins can’t wait for tomorrow to come, ignoring every natural instinct to exercise caution. You don’t see yourself sleeping well in spite of the fact that your body remains heavy with the weight of several induced years of sleep.

Without thinking twice, you flip the camera’s screen to look back at yourself and begin recording. You recount your ship being engulfed, describe Sukuna, and explain your findings in largely scientific terminology.

“I know he’s not what I’m here for, but– This could be… I mean…” You shake your head. “I’m not giving up on this research,” you steel yourself, staring into the camera. Chewing on your lower lip, you reach for the camera, shutting the screen and effectively stopping the recording without signing off.

You take the extra time in the evening to put yourself back together. You’re not trained for space, or even for the use of this vessel as a whole, but you track down a sponge bath and washroom, before finally managing to find a small compartment with your belongings.

Dragging the compartment out from the netted area in which it resides, you open it slowly. Within are some clothes– some your own, most provided by the company responsible for your launch– along with a few general sanitary items. It’s largely impersonal, which you suppose you expected. Having prepared for this, you reach into the pocket of a hoodie and pull out the one thing you hoped to keep with you.

You breathe out a sigh of relief, unfolding a photo. The lines through the center block out only a modicum of the happiness held within it, but at its core it’s everything you wanted to hold onto. You’re holding the camera with a huge grin, an Extatosoma Tiaratum, a large stick insect, climbs along your shoulder, and your beloved Lucanus Elaphus, an Elk Stag Beetle, is in your hand. To your left is your best friend Shoko and her German Shepherd puppy, a month after she adopted him. She’s holding him like her pride and joy in spite of the fact that throughout her entire veterinary medicine degree, she swore she’d stick to an animal with less genetically pre-disposed health problems.

You had just gotten back from a research trip back then and were meeting her pup for the first time while she cared for your bugs while you were away.

It’s strange to think that she’s ten years older now. Your bugs are surely dead, and Shoko hasn’t seen you in over ten years. Your heart pangs as you pull the familiar hoodie on over your head and tuck the photo back in your pocket as you make your way back to the bed that didn’t exactly do wonders for your neck as you make way for the second day in uncharted territory.

–

The morning greets you in the same way it did yesterday. Cold, sterile, and controlled. The white lights flick on without asking, deciding your schedule before you ever do. You blink away the sleep in your eyes, grabbing a dehydrated granola bar sort of thing to bring with you to the bridge as you dress yourself in white pants and your own hoodie.

Sukuna still isn’t there when you arrive at the bridge, so you do the only thing you really can do in the enclosed ship bay. You come prepared this time, with a model of your ship, your whiteboard, some snacks, water, and a journal and pen to note your findings. Not necessarily for humanity’s sake, but out of habit, for you. With everything spread out around you, you reach into your pocket, pulling out your photo with Shoko. Your thumb smooths along the fold lines before you set it off to the side in front of you. Then as you would on any other day, you note your findings with small drawings in the column of your journal.

After a short wait, the bay’s lights flick on one after another with a metallic clang as each one begins pulling electricity to the large hangar. Sukuna has also come more prepared, with another new device in one of his many hands and what looks to be a spacesuit draped over another arm. He’s wearing much the same top in a slightly deeper tone of gray and baggy pants this time around, with that same overall neutral expression on his face.

Neutral is generous, given how grumpy he looks in human terms. Given how grumpy he is. Maybe it’s just his species, you can’t be sure, but he gives you the impression you frustrate him.

You perk up at the sight of him regardless as he approaches in the direction of the door’s porthole, changing his stride when he spots you at the window.

He clicks and grunts, which you assume is a greeting of sorts.

“Hi, Sukuna! Did you sleep good?”

He doesn’t beat around the bush. “Sleep bad.”

“Oh. Why?”

He approaches the window, dropping the suit on his arm into a pile on the floor. “Human loud,” he states, pointing accusingly at you with a finger to the window.

“Me? This ship is huge, there’s no way you heard me. I don’t even snore!” You pout first, but your mind doesn’t give you the time to be offended as something occurs to you. “Wait, is your hearing really good?” You ask, pointing to your ear.

He chuffs. “You loud.” He makes a motion to his chest, demonstratively inhaling and exhaling in kind. “Like that.”

“Oh my god, you could hear me breathing across the ship?” You instinctively bring up your fancy space pen and journal, scribbling down messy notes as your mouth gets a few steps ahead of your brain. “Wait, but the ship is on. I can’t be louder than like– Is your engine not loud? Or the life support systems? You must breathe some sort of gas or–”

He huffs, tapping the glass with a subsequent growl. Much like yesterday, it’s not a warning but something entirely else. “Ship my design. No sound.”

“No sound? Your design?” You gawk, sitting down at the window. Sukuna follows suit opposite you behind the glass. His movements are heavier in nature and far more languid, one corded muscular arm keeping him upright as he takes a seat. In spite of his constant aloof expression, you note that he does still seem intrigued. “Wait– oh my god, are you an engineer?”

He shifts his jaw, eyes narrowing thoughtfully as he attempts to use context clues to put the word engineer into place in his mental dictionary. He says something in his own language, reaching for the device he used yesterday to show you a hologram of CRM-12. This time, he flicks it on into some sort of 2D image, a screen of sorts. In concise, easy strokes, he pulls up a blueprint of his ship. “Engineer?” He queries, confirming the term.

“Yeah,” you breathe in disbelief. “Yeah, you’re definitely an engineer. Holy shit,” you laugh, tone wrought with disbelief. “The photo you showed me with that yesterday, the uh– beetle species?”

His gaze narrows and he grunts, almost a low growl.

“Um–” you lower your gaze to your whiteboard, drawing a quick sketch of CRM-12 again, writing its name beside the image. “This guy.”

The confusion rife across his features dissolves as he chuffs. “Kerm.”

“Kerm?” You blink, unsure where this word has come from.

He points to ‘CRM-12’ like it’s the most obvious thing he’s ever pointed out, blatantly frowning. “Kerm one two.”

You laugh, airy and light, grinning. “Yeah, Kerm. Yeah, okay. Kerm. Um, you’re looking for them too, does that mean you’re a scientist too? Like, um–” setting the whiteboard aside, you tap your fingers listlessly along your thigh. “You study life and elements? And learn about creatures?”

That clicks with him and he chuffs again.

“Holy shit,” you practically bound to your feet, quickly sitting back down at the revelation with a multitude of further questions.

Sukuna’s brow tents as he watches, disdain dripping from his expression as though you’ve offended him in your bout of excitement when he shuffles back slightly. He leans back on one arm, the other three held as though you might present a threat to him. Still, he remains silent.

“Wait, so you’re the captain, engineer, and a scientist? Oh my god, that’s incredible. Human life is so short we could never even dream of studying all three things and exploring space.” You don’t even pause as your thoughts simply spill from your lips. “You must be able to live so much longer than us. Or maybe you’re just that much smarter. Wait–” Your hand presses to the glass. “Where are you from? What planet–”

“Human.”

“–are you from? How long are your years? How old are you?”

“Human.” Sukuna’s hand presses to the glass with a jarring bang as he leans over you in spite of the barrier, the size difference growing apparent. His voice booms, stopping your endless trail of words in their tracks. Once he has your silence, Sukuna proceeds to click and growl in a series you’ve heard once before, though you now recognize it as displeasure.

It doesn’t take an understanding of his language to put together that he’s calling you ‘too much’. He’s telling you you’re annoying.

Your cheeks heat up and you take the opportunity to sit back, sucking in a breath.

Sukuna’s hand peels from the glass, his prints remaining in the spot where it was. He sits back with a loud huff, rubbing at his temple with one hand as he leans back on another. “Planet is–” he states the name in his language first, then pauses to think before providing something you understand. Removing the noises between the syllables, he lands on a simple name. “Simuria,” he starts, choosing one of your questions and going with it. “Age–” he glances down at the hologram, waving his hand through it to erase the blueprint. He makes ten markings through it like a whiteboard, then clicks, his word for ‘ten’.

“Ten,” you nod your understanding.

He points at the markings. “Ten tens.”

“One hundred,” you nod your understanding.

“Ten one hundreds.”

Your lips part. “One thousand?”

He chuffs, staring blankly at you. 

“You’re over one thousand years old?” Your disbelief is palpable as your jaw hangs slightly ajar, taking in the details of his face and overall physique. He looks to be in his late thirties or early forties, but if there’s one thing you’ve learned in your time interacting with aliens, it’s that you don’t know the first thing about them.

He chuffs again, like it’s plain to see and his age is obvious. “How old you?”

“Um, three tens,” you hold up three fingers. “And a five,” you demonstrate the next number. “But I, uh, spent the last ten years sleeping to get here,” you offer a tight-lipped smile. His eyes narrow as he attempts to decipher the emotion written across your face, but you train your expression back to neutral before he can. “We only live to be about nine tens, though.”

“Nine tens?” He recoils at the mere thought. “Weak.”

You let out an airy laugh. “Weak, yeah. Humans tend to be.”

“Three thousands. Or more.”

“You can live three thousand years?” Once again caught up in the sheer difference in time you’ve both experienced, you’re forced to sit back, leaning on your arms. “Holy shit.”

That’s not even beginning to touch on the fact that his planet’s years could also be longer than Earth’s.

Sukuna has come to recognize your exclamations as disbelief and puffs out his chest. You can’t be sure whether it’s pride or a sort of bragging right he holds over your head, but it’s heartwarming to bond with someone so similar, and yet so different.

“Where your crew?”

“Oh–” You push a hand over your neck, staring back into the ship. “No crew. Just me. Just a scientist. I’m an entomologist. I study bugs.”

His brow dips as he attempts to put together what he understands based on your statements. “No captain?”

“No. No captain,” you reply coolly, the most calm he notes you’ve been since arrival.

“Captain?” He points to the photo of you and Shoko as he peers closer.

“No, that’s my friend Shoko. Another human, on Earth. And these are my bugs. I’m a bug scientist.” You point to the beetle.

“You study bugs?”

“Yeah!” You grin, followed by the familiar feeling of information running through your brain as your most passionate subject arises. “There are thousands and thousands of them on earth. Like, a thousand thousands. More than that. We’ve barely scratched the surface of what we know about them!” You pridefully explain.

“Scratched the surface?”

“Like, we barely know anything about them. So I study them to learn more.”

Leaning back on one pair of arms, he crosses the other pair over his chest, fixing you with a perplexed expression as he clicks and chirps out a word, followed by ‘human’.

You smirk, lopsided but wholehearted. It’s yet another of those familiar moments where you recognize the word from context alone. Weird human, he called you.

“Do you not like bugs?”

“Bugs on Simuria big.”

“They’re big? How big?”

He tilts his head to either side, casting a quick glance off to the side as some sort of debris hits the hull of the ship. His gaze returns to you, unbothered otherwise by the noise. “Big like that,” he presses his finger to the glass separating you.

Following the direction in which he points, you whirl around to find he’s pointing to a duffel bag of sorts. “Oh, we have some like that. Most are smaller though,” you explain as you turn back. “These two are my friends, like Shoko. That’s Spike,” you point to the stag, “and Stipple,” you point to the spiny stick insect.

“Stipple like Simuria bugs.”

“Really?” Your eyes widen, filled with wonder, and Sukuna’s head tilts as he lets out a pleased chuff. The revelation only brings up more questions. “Simuria,” you breathe the word like something sacred. Were the circumstances of your trip to reach CRM-12 any different, you might even be racing to document this beyond messy scribbles in a journal. “Do you all have four arms and eyes?”

Sukuna follows your gaze before he growls, which you take as a no.

“Is it based on region? Or– oh, maybe modification or–”

Sukuna huffs loudly, staring intently at you. “Human weak and loud.”

Ah– insults. The default when you’re bothering him or going too fast. “Sorry Sukuna,” you laugh, still lighthearted and chirpy in spite of his grumpy demeanor.

“Simurians all different,” he explains, waving his hand through the hologram still sitting off to the side to erase it. He draws a stick figure of sorts with horns and an eye on its forehead, then another with a tail that seems prehensile from what you can tell, like a monkey.

“All different? So, it’s not based on regions?”

He growls, confirming your thoughts. “I need four arms for science and making ship,” he points broadly around him.

You blink in complete and utter disbelief, the buzzing of the bay lights audible even over the gears turning in your mind. “So you… grew two extra arms? Like, your body made them yourself?”

He chuffs, pleased once again by your disbelief with a hint of what you might call a smile. You’re coming to notice that he seems to like that. He enjoys praise, even if it’s of his species rather than himself. He enjoys being above you in any way he can. It’s probably one of the most human things about him, in a roundabout sort of way.

“That’s incredible,” you shake your head regardless, watching as he puffs his chest out again, his chin tilted up. You can’t help a smile at the sight of him, the boyish pride on his face is something of a marvel. “What other adaptations do you have?”

He considers this for a moment, before running a hand through his hair and presenting a second ear hidden under pink strands over his humanoid ear. It’s far less human than the first pair, you would consider it closer to an owl. Your lips purse as you near the glass, leaning with both hands splayed across it. He then lifts the hem of his shirt and you damn near choke.

You can’t even decide which part it is that actually chokes you. The fact that he’s sporting a six pack like no other and a second pair of pecks that sends heat to places you do not want to think about while trapped in a box in space, or the huge mouth plastered where a belly button would otherwise be. You cough to distract him from the way your throat seizes, then sit back in an effort to disguise how you’ve reacted to an alien you hardly know.

Sukuna tilts his chin up slightly as he regards you. You want to chalk it up to nothing more than a natural reaction to your cough, but there’s a gleam in his eyes that you recognize. You’re then unfortunately reminded that his hearing is like nothing you’ve ever experienced and he can likely hear your pounding heart. It puts an idea in your head that his sense of smell may… also… be better on that note, too. Breezing past the moment as quickly as you can, you cough once more. “What’s, uh– what’s that for?”

“Eating large food.”

The sensation is jarring, but it occurs to you that you’ve never once asked what he eats. “Like… what?”

To your surprise, he smiles. Actually smiles. “Noisy food. Good food.”

“Are you joking with me? Are you joking about eating me?” You sputter.

His toothy grin is replicated on his stomach mouth as he lets the hem of his shirt drop and for the first time you hear him rumble in laughter.

You don’t even have the instinct to wonder if he’s lying when you’re too intrigued by the whole ordeal and just shake your head. “Oh, so you have jokes now?”

“Always have jokes,” he grins, wide. “You not understand, weak human.”

You scoff. “I see how it is,” you tease, curious about his ability to pick up not just language but the deeper meaning behind it. With a sigh, you cast a glance back at the spot where he revealed the stomach mouth, focusing back on your mission. For as curious as you are, at the end of the day you’re trapped in a box in space with a limit on time and supplies. “How quickly can you evolve?”

He tilts his head from side to side, something he’s seen you do when you reply with ‘maybe’.

“Does it depend? Is it based on how your surroundings are?” You make a motion to everything around you.

“Yes,” he replies affirmatively for the first time in your language, rather than his usual Simurian response.

“How fast are we talking?”

His brow tents, head tilting like the question is stupid. “We talk at normal speed for you.”

You bark a laugh at the realization that he’s now completely misunderstood. “No, it’s a saying, sorry. How fast can you evolve? One planet rotation around the sun? Two?”

Clearly displeased with your laughter, he takes a moment to fix you with a glare before replying. “Not one planet rotation. Smaller time.”

“Less than one planet rotation around the sun or less than one planet rotation?”

“Less than one planet rotation.”

You swear you need to pick your jaw up off the floor. “Less than a DAY?” You shout in disbelief, hand raising to the glass in a slam that echoes over the metal bay.

Sukuna growls, recoiling away from your reaction. It’s not out of fear, but rather that you’re being noisy again. “Human. Weak human. Stop.”

Sitting back down, you offer another apology to the begrudging man sitting across from you. Pieces of the puzzle all suddenly begin to click into place. That’s why he picked up your language so quickly. He didn’t just learn, his throat adapted to the sound. His vocal chords changed in less than a day to work around the fact that humans can’t. His species is advanced in the kind of way you could only dream. Hell, you never even realized he lost the strange rasp to his vocalizations in your language. “Sukuna, I–” you pause, raising a finger as you become aware that you’re about to get ahead of yourself when you go dashing back to the lab.

You gather a space meal, several beakers, pipettes, gloves, and a sterile handling box. When you return and dump it all on the ground beside you in a cacophony of glass, Sukuna still seems displeased with the noise.

“Humans sent me here because of this,” you present a phial of liquid to him. Held within the small glass container is a dark red, almost black liquid with yellow separation. “These are Alveoli. Normal ones. They’re cells in our lungs,” you point to your chest. “And this,” you present another phial, but the color of the liquid is off, almost more of a brown. “Is Alveolarium. It appeared on Earth I guess ten years ago now and we can’t find a cure. Around the same time it showed up, I got called to an island in the middle of nowhere to research a new discovery,” you explain. “They sent a ship somewhere around here back then, and picked up a CRM– um– a Kerm.”

Sukuna doesn’t move, but you have his attention.

“I was sent to research behaviour since it looks like a bug, but they also discovered that Kerm have cells in their shell that are really similar to the pathogen causing Alveolarium which was spreading a lot, but Kerm cells seem to carry properties that might help or stop or kill the disease or something,” you explain, shutting your eyes tightly as you search for vocabulary he’d know. “Basically they have similar cells,” you explain.

Sukuna inhales, long and slow as he sits up. Interestingly, his gaze splits as he looks over both samples at once. His languid movement makes sense when you consider that he’s well over a thousand years old and still has two thousand to go, if not more. Of course life isn’t short for a creature like him.

“We had one Kerm,” you continue. “But it died.”

“Died. Gone?” Sukuna confirms the meaning of the word.

“Yeah.”

He grunts. There’s no real emotion behind it, it’s nothing but sheer acknowledgement.

“So I need to get more Kerm. It’s…” You stare down at the sealed contaminated cell sample. “It’s bad, Sukuna. A lot of humans died. Probably way more since I’ve been gone.”

He stares at you for a long moment, his jaw moving as he evaluates your expression and every little micromovement of your body. He has a way about the manner in which he moves like he’s above life itself, everything in his mannerisms is lazy and unbothered– that is, until you grate on his nerves, anyway. There’s something almost kingly in the way he carries himself. After a long pause, he sets a forearm on his leg, leaning forward. “You want cells. Mine.”

Your jaw hangs open as you attempt to explain yourself. “I mean– you might be able to save us, but obviously only if you’re okay with it! I just– We don’t actually know anything about the Kerm, and I can’t guarantee if it’ll make it back alive or even at all, and–”

“Human.” There’s less heat in his voice as he shuts you up with the low rumbling of his timbre. “I help. You get suit,” he speaks like he’s ordering you, pointing.

“Suit?”

His eyes narrow as he gets to his feet, offense dripping from the very click of his tongue he gives you. “You scientist. You help.”

Your jaw hangs open as you glance back between him and the ship. You seal your lips into a tight line, staring down at fidgeting hands. “Sukuna, I–” You shake your head.

“Your atmosphere weak, humans weak. Use your second heart, my ship pressure not crush you. Stop scared movement,” he points mildly at your twiddling thumbs.

Before you can explain the truth, you’re perplexed by his words. “Second…? I only have one heart.”

He huffs. “Then I help reinforce oxygen tank to survive pressure of sulfur gas atmosphere. Weak human. Foolish weak human.”

You’re left in utter disbelief and mild shock, frozen in place as he turns on his heel to, you suppose, make you a new tank fitting of the pressure of his ship. When the hell did he even pick up the word foolish? Did you say that? Shaking your head of the thought, you need to focus on what matters here.

“Sukuna!”

He stops a short distance away, his gaze thrown over his shoulder.

“Sukuna, I can’t– I can’t leave.”

He crosses his arms– all four of them– unimpressed. “Why?”

“This was always meant to be a one-way trip. I don’t get to go home. I’m sealed in here. I have no depressurization pod, no suit, no way to unseal the ship without losing the oxygen in here. No portable generators, nothing. When the ship loses power, that’s it.”

Slowly, he turns towards you, straightening as he regards you. He doesn’t just look displeased, he looks downright offended. His usual go-to doesn’t seem to cut it either as he spews out something more than just ‘weak’. “Wrong.”

It likely doesn’t convey what he wants, but you get the gist anyway. “Yeah. It’s stupid,” you agree.

“Your stupid.”

“Yeah,” you laugh half-heartedly. “My stupid.”

Clearly realizing you’re butchering your own language to appeal to his limited use of it, he turns on his heel again, muttering something under his breath. Your hand slips away from the glass keeping you safe and trapped in tandem as you watch Sukuna disappear. You find yourself staring at the photo of you and Shoko again. What you wouldn’t give to check in on her right now. Or ever again.

This will be it for you. Your food supply is limited to what it was deemed was a reasonable amount of time to– somehow– procure not just one but multiple specimens of Kerm or CRM-12, or whatever you’re meant to call them. Your power will fizzle out. Your oxygen supply will end. Your ship’s fuel is already near its limit. You’re sealed in a death trap as a final sentencing. You shut your eyes tightly, rubbing your hands over your face in an effort to reset.

When Sukuna doesn’t return in a couple of minutes, you move around the ship in an effort to clear your head and get some exercise. Anything that stops reminding you of just how trapped you are in a void of uncharted territory with an alien that far exceeds any of humanity’s feats.

You grab a bite to eat, rehydrating some macaroni and cheese in a flimsy bag. It’s unappealing as all hell but it’s better than starving. Eating straight out of the bag, you meander back towards the window, blinking when you find Sukuna setting up a mobile science lab of some sort just outside the bridge. You jog closer to the window, taking a seat to watch as he sets out largely similar and recognizable equipment, although the shape and build of much of his technology is infinitely more advanced. Bigger, too, given his size.

One set of eyes glides to your movement, an eerie feat of having an extra pair, while he continues to set up. Your mind goes into overdrive trying to figure out just how much that sets apart his biology from yours to have the energy production and sheer brainpower to manage so much at once.

His nose wrinkles when he watches you spoon food into your mouth. Chuckling, you approach the nook by the window, presenting the bag to him. “It’s macaroni and cheese.” You tilt the bag in his direction.

“It’s bad.”

“Hey!” You chide with a grin. “It’s better than it looks. You can’t call it bad until you try it.”

With an unusually pompous huff, he turns back to the mobile set-up and picks up a box-like device, connecting it to the window by suction. He runs his thumb along the edge like a dial and it comes to life, seeping a sort of caulk onto the glass before it begins drilling through the window. Your survival instinct recognizes the structural instability. Your curiosity chooses to ignore it as the device uses some sort of nanotech to recreate its shape on the inner glass, sealing itself.

You purse your lips, your spoon held in mid-air. “A mini pressurization chamber.”

He chuffs. “Give macaroni and cheese.”

“You need to learn manners,” you mutter more to yourself than to him as he literally holds his hand out to bluntly demand your lunch with that unnatural edge to his voice that never quite fits his genuine intrigue.

“Manners?” He queries, though his hand never moves.

Chuckling to yourself as you give in and offer the small bag and spoon of food to him, you watch as your door closes and the pressure within the device changes. “We say please when we ask for something and thank you when we’re given something if we want to be polite or nice to someone.” When his side opens, the bag and food as a whole are crushed under the pressure of his differing atmosphere, presenting him with a dripping mess of squished pasta.

Admittedly, it does look bad now. As it begins dripping melted cheese that’s entirely too watery out the other side straight onto his shoes, he stares at you with the kind of tight-lipped expression that transcends any language barrier.

He’s not thanking you for this.

“Sorry,” you wince, offering an apologetic grin.

He growls, trudging back across the large expanse of hangar bay to get something to clean up the mess. By the time he returns and cleans up the cheese, he finally opts to take a bite of the crushed food, fixing you with a glare.

“Bad. Bad food for weak human.”

You can only smile, because it figures that he would hate it. “Fair enough,” you laugh, watching as he sets it along with the dirty rag he used to clean the cheese. Your eyes widen a fraction at the thought. “Wait, what do you–”

Rolling his shoulders, he points to the small chamber that connects you. “Give Alveolarium.”

Your thoughts are already long forgotten as you pick up one of the cultures, chewing on your lower lip as you examine the glass. “I think your ship’s atmospheric pressure might crush the vial.” You hold it up to him. “It’s pretty thin.”

With a hum, Sukuna offers a box through the exchange to put the phial in. As you exchange materials and Sukuna begins separating the infected cells into smaller cultures within an oxygen-controlled box with barometric pressure equal to your ship’s, it occurs to you that in spite of your life being cut short, some part of you is happy for this experience. Even if your notes and findings get stranded out here, you can say you found companionship in a grumpy ten-foot-tall genius alien, and that’s pretty cool.

With your plights long forgotten as you watch Sukuna work with your face practically plastered to the glass, the technology and rate at which he’s able to work grabs your attention. Your chest practically rattles in excitement as he moves through practiced motions like he already knows what to do.

“What’s that?” You query, watching eagerly as he injects something into a lower arm.

One pair of eyes flicks to you. “For cells.”

“For stem cells? Like from your bones?”

He chuffs, pulling out a rubber band as he restricts his blood flow to take a sample.

“It’s that fast?” You gawk as he already begins drawing a sample.

His brow twitches as you break his concentration, but he chuffs to give you a reply regardless.

“Oh my god. We have a drug that does that too, but it takes a while before it produces any neutrophils– um– stem cells. You’re so much more advanced than us, I never imagined how much different life could be!” You watch as blue blood is extracted from his arm, and he begins separating the sample in order to work with it. “Your blood is blue? Is that because of the differing atmosphere? Or maybe it’s an adaptation somehow–”

“Human,” Sukuna groans, disenchanted with your rambles. He fixes you with a tired expression, pointing to the experiment in an effort to get you to focus. “Stop. Noisy.”

“Right, sorry!” You apologize with a wide grin.

A series of clicks, syllables, and growls escape the brutish man as he mutters something to himself, undoing the band from his arm and flexing his fingers a couple of times before pulling a sleeve back down. As he introduces his cells to the Alveolar cells that are infected in the controlled environment, he moves a small device over the culture slide, projecting hologram of the microscopic cells. His cells are so different from anything you’ve observed on Earth that you have no issue telling which belong to him in spite of your differing major.

The cells collide once, the Alveolarium attempts to attack Sukuna’s cells, then simply… backs off. “They’re incompatible,” you state dryly, your shoulders dropping. 

Sukuna grunts. “Alveolar cells still functional. My cells not see issue.”

“That could be it.” You shrug.

He hums, tapping a finger twice along the table. “Then we change environment.”

“Create artificial stress until your cells react,” you breathe, your hand snapping down to the ground beside you with a metallic clang that has Sukuna flashing you another glare.

“Loud. Loud human.”

“Sorry, I just– I’m a bit overexcited,” you offer with a smile.

Sukuna continues to stare for a moment, then adjusts the pressure within the glass box where the experiment is taking place to something more dense. He attempts to alter the environment enough that his cells recognize a threat, while not outright killing yours. Striking a balance between them proves to be a multi-day endeavor. In the moments where you can only wait, you slowly begin to unravel the enigma that is Sukuna.

You can’t count how many times Sukuna huffs or makes his disdain known with a very dramatic look in your direction when you suggest something altogether dumb, but you also note that he tells you you’re noisy less often. He picks up on more scientific terms, and even begins to pick up on prepositions purely from your use of them. He teaches you about Simuria, how the Simurians all have extra eyes, two hearts, and are fairly large compared to humanity, though they largely don’t resemble one another. He teaches you about one with horns, who you assume is a friend. He, on the other hand, refers to the horned Simurian as a neighbor.

You get the feeling Sukuna isn’t the friendly type.

“You’re invasive,” he gruffs out in reply to your question.

Your head falls back as you stare at the ceiling with a groan. “I literally just asked if you choose to be alone!” You retort lightheartedly. “You don’t even have to give me a reason!”

“You’re invasive. Like Kerm.”

“Like–” You gawk at him, watching a slow smile curl at his lips. “Like Kerm?”

“Loud like them too.”

“Hey!”

His head tilts as you exclaim your displeasure with that statement, but it’s one of the rare moments where he does seem pleased, which brings a smile to your face regardless. For whatever reason, nothing seems to get him boastful quite like belittling humanity. And since his only knowledge of humanity is you, that puts you at the center of his jokes.

“You know,” you meander back to the topic of Kerm, pulling the smile straight from his lips when you change the subject. “You never did tell me why you’re here. You know the Kerm too, so is it for them?”

He chuffs. “I did tell you. The Kerm are invasive.”

“That’s not really a reason. That’s just like– a statement.”

Seated on the floor with his back against the glass that separates you, he rolls his head along the rigid surface, his gaze finding you. “Kerm are smarter than you humans think,” he grumbles out a baseline explanation. He utters something in his language, then puts together a few sounds until he has a new word for you. “Methalonian weapons. They aren’t natural. They’re–” he taps his fingers on the bay’s floor briefly in thought. “Created by another species.”

“Methalonian,” you test the word. “Are they artificial? Or are they mutated? Like, completely not real or mutated from something that already existed?”

He taps his finger decidedly. “Mutated. Another species mutated them. I’ve been circling this planet for a while now to find where they come from,” he explains. “There are no other species here. They ate all of their resources. Now they invade.”

“How do they even leave? Are they that smart?”

He growls. “They attach themselves to ships and invade.”

“Oh. What are you planning on doing to them, then?”

He sucks in a breath. “Killing them.”

You freeze, staring at him as he examines your expression. You’ve never been much good at training your emotions, your pupils narrowing to mere pinpricks. You swallow, gaze averting to the photo of Shoko. “You were never gonna let me take any.”

“... No.”

“That’s why you trapped me. You knew I was here for them.”

“Made a guess,” he agrees with a hand motion that you’d equate to a shrug.

Slumping back against the bridge’s floor, you stare at the ceiling. Your alien counterpart watches in silence as you process what you know of the Kerm, your current situation, and your species’ survival. You consider Shoko back home, and the rest of your family and friends. You consider your nights out together ten years ago and what that might look like now if you ever make it back. You consider the failing government, and how it’s possible everything has completely fallen apart since your launch. But what really gets to you is that if this doesn’t work, there’s no world where Sukuna lets you send a Kerm back.

Maybe you shouldn’t care. You’re physically welded into a ship in the middle of nowhere. Yet here you are, even after everything, still being hopeful. It’s the most human thing you could possibly do. “What did The Kerm do to you?” You quietly murmur, still staring at the ceiling.

He inhales once, long. His eyes shut. “They’re mutated to kill,” he grunts. “The cells your scientists found in their shells…” his jaw ticks as he clicks, something you can’t decipher as syllables follow it. “It is not your cure.”

You lift your head, leaning on two elbows to look at him.

“It is your cause.”

Your lips part, brow furrowing. “But– I– That’s not–” Your chest tightens, emotions betraying you as you feel your waterline wet. Quickly wiping away the evidence, your fingers curl against the metal floor beneath you.

Sukuna doesn’t budge, his fiery gaze pinning you to place.

“But Alveolarium has been around longer than the Kerm was on Earth.”

He moves a knee, tilting his head. “Has it?”

“I… Don’t know, actually.” At last, you admit it, but things don’t fully add up from what you know. You let yourself fall onto your back again. “The company that sent me here, we had a bit of a disagreement. I guess… Maybe they were right, but still.”

Sukuna’s eyes narrow, minute, as he attempts to decipher the vagueness of your statement, but by nature of a language barrier, he can’t make out what emotion it is that you’re so graciously dancing around.

You swallow hard. “Did… Did they kill a lot of Simurians?”

“Yes. Humans?”

“If it’s them then… yeah, I guess. Millions. Like, thousands upon thousands.”

Morbidly intrigued, Sukuna shuffles to get a better look at you, his face closer to the glass than ever. “How many humans are on Earth?”

“Um–” You quickly pull up the whiteboard, demonstrating a number for ten, then a thousand, then a million, then a billion. “There were eight billion.”

This is the most baffled you’ve ever seen Sukuna, who physically recoils at the mere thought. “How do you keep distance? How do you celebrate the union of humans?”

“Union of humans?” You laugh. “Weddings? I don’t know, you invite a hundred people and call it a day.” But the question sparks something in you as you sit up to face your baffled friend. “How many Simurians are there?”

“Seventy nine.”

“WHAT?” You gape, noting that he doesn’t complain about your noise in spite of his narrowing eyes and defensive posture. “Are you guys close to going extinct? Like, being gone? Are you not worried?”

He simply growls in reply. “No, human. Things are…” He hesitates, his gaze averting. “We all have space and resources, it isn’t cramped.” He rolls his shoulders back. “We celebrate all weddings every year. Then stay alone with our partners.”

There’s a pit of jealousy in your stomach that you cover with a smile. “So you have someone you’ll be going back to, hey?” You grin, prodding at him through the window. You equate the unsettling feeling to a yearning for having someone like that back home, or even the option to return, but it would be ignoring the bigger picture that you’ve both been sitting in this bay for several days together and you’ve grown fond of him. You may not have a choice in being here, but he does. And he chooses to help in spite of his own goals. Your heart likes that he chooses you a bit too much.

To your surprise, your question irks him and his eyes narrow. A harsh hiss erupts from his throat as he suddenly turns back towards the pressurized box where your experimentation is taking place.

Your shoulders fall, watching the muscles over his back pull taut as he busies himself with little more than prep work for a next experiment as you continue to wait.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist (hah) to realize that Sukuna has no partner. The thought trickles through the pockets of your mind. Seventy nine people on a planet total… You can only imagine how lonely that gets. Even you, who chooses to be with bugs a majority of your life, always returns home to Shoko and your bugs at the end of a trip.

Seventy nine. That’s thirty nine weddings. Is he the only Simurian with no partner? “Sukuna…” You watch him work, his movements unbothered as he dilutes samples and ups heat to push his cells to react. “Are you lonely?”

He freezes. A muscle in his cheek twitches as he flexes his jaw, choosing not to reply when he continues in his motions.

Your shoulders fall as you watch him silently work, pulling the rug out from under you on the reality of your relationship. A working relationship, really. He’s always chided you for being invasive, and you suppose this is why.

“I’m lonely,” you offer, quietly. His movements don’t freeze altogether, but they slow. He moves as though any noise might distract him from what you’re saying, in spite of the fact that there’s no keeping secrets from a man with ears like him. “I wish I could go back to Earth. Or maybe meet the Simurians, or see more of the universe. I wish I could study bugs again.”

When he still doesn’t reply, but his movements slow to a crawl, you pick up the photo of you and Shoko, presenting it to him again. “I’d love to tell my friend what we’re up to.”

After an extended moment’s silence, he removes his hands from the box, resting them on the table he rolled in. The dense metal protests his weight, even though it was designed for him. Likely designed by him, too. He still doesn’t face you, choosing to protect himself from your prying eyes by continuing to face somewhat away from you.

“It’s not so bad up here though, you know. I mean, I met you. That’s pretty cool.” You scoot closer to the glass, hoping to find common ground through friendship, if you can call this such a thing.

Your movement grabs his attention. His gaze flickers towards you, the only sign he’s heard you at all. He continues to face forward, his shoulders hunched over the cool metal table.

“Why are you alone?” He finally speaks up, unmoving otherwise.

“I’m uh– pretty noisy,” you offer with a grin in terms he knows well, deflecting the question. “So I guess it just never worked out with other people.”

Sukuna straightens, turning to face you. “Not what I meant.”

You smile, half-hearted. “I’m a criminal, Sukuna.”

“Criminal?”

You nod, pulling your knees into your chest as he slowly nears the glass again. He takes a seat, cross-legged as he leans over his forearms to give you his full attention. “I did a really bad thing. Other humans got hurt and I’m here as a punishment. Our technology isn’t as good as yours and the crew that signed up for this mission knew they wouldn’t get to go back to Earth. The choices I made landed me here instead of them.”

“What did you do?”

Your arms tighten around your legs as you settle your chin along your knees. “The Kerm, you know how I told you we had one?”

He chuffs.

“We put it in a cell, a big cage or room,” you explain to the best of your ability. “I was told they just caught it and I was brought in to study it, because it looks similar to our bugs so people in charge made assumptions,” you haphazardly point at the photo where your bug pets are crawling on your clothes. Their features are close enough to the Kerm that you can see the train of thought that led to you. “In my time studying it, I realized it was smart. Like, way smarter than any bug on Earth. Maybe even smarter than any animal. It was listening. It was learning.”

“You opened its cell.”

With a drawn out sigh, you bury your face in your folded arms, muffling your words. “I opened its cell.”

“It ate them all.”

“It ate the crew for this mission. Every last one of them. And then the people in charge killed it, too.”

With two arms relaxed in his lap and two holding him up, Sukuna watches in relative silence as emotions swim through your eyes. He doesn’t have a name for most of them, but he’s seen them in himself. Over a thousand years of life will do that to you.

Your voice is a mere whisper. “It was so smart, Sukuna. I just couldn’t watch it live out its life in a cell.”

“Now you live your life in a cell.”

You lift your head, gaze flickering across the buttons you never bothered to figure out and the white walls you never quite grew accustomed to when all you ever see is Sukuna. “Yeah, I guess so. Funny how that works, huh?”

“It’s not funny,” he hisses, his brow furrowing in such a way that actually has you curious.

It’s not as though you didn’t consider yourself acquaintances at least with him by this point. You've spent several days together and he chooses every day to return when he could have dropped you off at any point and cleaned up his scuffed hangar, but he doesn’t. Every day, he pushes his own goals and mission back another day into the future and chooses to help the trapped little entomologist residing in the back corner of his ship. The whole thing is funny if you’re grim enough about it.

In spite of his frustration, you shuffle forward, pressing a hand to the glass. “It’s okay. I’m glad we met before I’m gone.”

His brow twitches not once but twice as he stares at your hand like it’s a personal affront. “My ship can get you home.”

Your fingers curl just slightly against the glass. Your body inadvertently winces at the thought. “Maybe. But if I go home, I’ll still be arrested and live life in a cell down there. That’s… worse.”

“Even if you bring back a cure?”

“Humans are… complicated.”

“Stupid.”

A puff of air leaves your nose. “Yeah. Humans are stupid.” You do what you can to mask your underlying sadness as your lips curl up into a smile.

You can’t read Sukuna’s expression as his intense crimson stare burns into you. You know there’s a level of disbelief and maybe even frustration at your self-sacrifice in his eyes. Whether you want to admit that an alien could feel something like that for you is another story.

You can see the internal battle raging within him, although you can’t identify what battle it is that he fights. In spite of his troubled scowl, you’re shocked when an arm slowly lifts from where his elbow rested on his thigh. He brings it to the glass, his fingers pressing first over each digit, before his palm splays over yours. The heat he radiates is warm enough that you feel it through the glass, befitting of a ten foot alien that expends far more energy than you. As if you weren’t already aware, it makes it apparent just how much he dwarfs you.

You peel your gaze from his hand, examining the way he refuses to look at you. Softly, you pose a question that might answer some of your own. “How many Simurians were there before the Kerm?”

His frown deepens, his head falling. “Over one thousand. I evolved. Most… did not.”

Something briefly occurs to you of the whole ordeal. You wonder if maybe there was someone that even he– a scientist and engineer clearly capable of incredible feats– could not save. “Your family?” You query, your voice a near-whisper that you know he picks up on.

His eyes slowly drag across the glass, staring straight through you as his reflection startlingly pins him in place. He swallows hard, refusing to confirm when it’s not you staring him down, but his own misplaced guilt that reflects back at him.

His jaw locks, teeth grinding as he pulls back suddenly, on his feet in an instant with an expression you can’t place. He’s scowling with wide eyes, turning on his heel as he excuses himself with nothing more than an “I’m tired,” trudging away with footsteps that echo throughout the bay.

Sitting back, you let out a sigh as you’re left alone once again.

–

The somber tone of that day never fully recuperates itself into something easier. There’s a constant pressure looming overhead that unfortunately isn’t barometric. It’s that of a ship set to fail and a man who treats revenge like a cure for loss. But on the other hand, one thing does change. Sukuna opens up.

He shows you a hologram with images of Simuria that leave you wistful for the greater universe. Space was never your forte, but the dense petrified wood forests and gaseous craters and mountains have your brain tripping over itself in curiosity of what insects could exist in those biomes, much to Sukuna’s dismay as he brushes you off as noisy.

As the days pass and your food supply begins to run short, you’re left with no option but to eat less as you quietly enter survival mode upon realizing Sukuna eats… well, rocks. So you’re left only with what was packed for you.

You were intended to have sent Kerm back by now. You weren’t intended to find life like Sukuna. You weren’t intended to bond. You weren’t intended to be left with a yearning to explore the universe and see the things he’s seen. You weren’t intended to slowly begin to wither. There was an out for you, as morbid as it is. A single dose ready to take once your mission was complete.

And yet, every day, Sukuna brings something new for you to see or experience. It’s small, but it’s surprisingly meaningful. He shows you the vast cliff faces of a Simurian coast that’s a famous vacation spot. He tells you stories of the gaseous craters within the planet that make much of it uninhabitable, hence the far smaller population across it, even before the Kerm. He demonstrates the use of four arms to their full extent and how his brain adapted. He shows you his tattoos. God, the tattoos.

He tells you all about how they each have meaning. How in Simuria, they’re a mark of life events. His wrists were banded when he finished an equivalent of elementary school at twenty-eight. His upper arms were an equivalent of high school at thirty-six, and something akin to university marked his shoulders at sixty-two. It’s a wonder to hear someone graduating university at sixty-two with their life still ahead of them.

He lifts his shirt and points to stripes along his shoulder and back. You swear you’re paying attention. You swear. He smirks, but he tells you nonetheless that they were from what you might consider a bachelor’s degree equivalent.

“What about your face?” You ask, tracing the ink on his jaw along the glass as you leave behind a smear.

“That,” he states, “was my choice. We all choose what our face will look like.”

“No special event?”

“Just me,” he breathes.

It makes you smile.

He hates how much that very action sits under his ribs. It pokes at him, prods at him like it belongs there, reminding him that this won’t last forever.

One morning, he arrives with dark circles under his eyes. He notes that you both look tired. He knows his reasoning, but he can’t place yours. Your energy is largely spent, yet you just awoke. You’re not noisy anymore. He places a circular device on the ground. A holographic device, you recognize it right away, but it’s far larger than the usual one.

“You wanted to see the mountains,” he states simply, ignoring the failed experiment to his left, in spite of the fact that he needs to start a new one with time of the essence. “You will.”

Awaiting him in your usual nook by the window, you’re wrapped up in a blanket, smiling in spite of yourself. For the first time since you met, weak feels as though it properly describes your appearance, but you refuse to give up despite your body’s shortcomings as your stomach rumbles. Sukuna never points it out.

He runs his finger along the outer dial that his machinery tends to run on and it springs to life. You bring a hand up to block the light protruding from a high-lumen-count projector, squinting as the hologram doesn’t just project something in a controlled, small environment, it extends to every wall as though you’re there. The bulb remains bright as Sukuna steps away from it, allowing you to see a mountain as though you’re there.

It’s not a rebuilt landscape either, you realize as you press your hands to the glass to get a better view. It’s a video. It’s a bit shaky, and you’re certain that if it played audio, you might hear the camera operator panting. Every time it shakes and the hologram can’t make sense of what it’s projecting, you squint, but it comes back in a moment. When it flashes suddenly, you catch a glimpse of Sukuna, following along behind the camera operator. He looks young. In human years, you would guess his twenties. Maybe three hundred for him. You can’t help a smile as you note that he doesn’t seem to have four arms. You wonder if they came later.

The camera flashes again as the operator moves it, revealing his own face along with Sukuna and four laughing Simurians. Sukuna still bears his usual aloof expression, but the joy in his eyes is palpable as they all pose for a photo. The camera operator looks largely like Sukuna, though he bears no facial tattoos and only a simple set of extra eyes. A twin, perhaps.

To Sukuna’s left is a Simurian with shoulder-length white hair who’s much shorter than the rest of them with an eye in the center of their forehead, a tall and slender Simurian with horns and the same third eye, one with shaggy white hair and six striking blue eyes, and one with silky-looking black hair and four eyes, purple beyond your wildest beliefs.

“Are those your friends?” You query, covering a cough in your elbow.

Sukuna intently watches the action, chuffing when the camera turns away. “We went on a trip after my fourth tattoo.”

“You look young.”

He steps around the projector, moving closer to your window. “I was.” He’s never been the most talkative, but he does ask more questions. You chalk it up to scientific curiosity. “Are Earth mountains like this?” Were you more keen, you might realize he’s deflecting you from the subject of the friends of which he’s mostly lost.

You stare around at the landscape. Simuria is largely rocky with giant craters. It’s covered in iridescent minerals that seem to form under the far more gaseous and toxic-leaning environment. “Some,” you decide. “The more harsh environments get colorful like this. Mostly, they’re gray with trees. Kinda spiky green ones with pointed tops. We get snow, too, at the tops where it’s colder.”

Simuria is warm, from what you’ve gathered, and his head tilts curiously at the thought of snow.

“You know when you bring a liquid to a cold temperature and it freezes?”

He chuffs.

“Like that, but tiny shavings of it. It’s white and cold. It falls from the clouds.”

“Fascinating.” And he means it, too. It’s the most intriguing part of all of your interactions with him. You don’t learn through questioning as scientists anymore, you learn through sharing as friends.

“It’s beautiful,” you murmur to yourself, watching the video clip play out. It cuts off without so much as a sound of warning, the room returning to the usual bright and barren metal appearance you’ve grown accustomed to. “Snow doesn’t have much friction, so humans would go to the top of mountains and slide down.”

“You have no cliffs?”

“Not really on the snowy mountains.” You scoot forward, leaning your shoulder against the window as you pull yourself into a tight ball with a blanket draped over your shoulders. “Mostly in deserts. Desert mountains look more like Simurian ones, but mostly one color. They’re warmer, too. Most of the time.”

Subconsciously, Sukuna leans against the glass, his shoulder warming you enough that your eyes flutter shut. “What color?”

You yawn. “Orange. It’s kinda like a darker version of your hair. If you squint.”

Absently running a hand through said locks, he stares out at the hangar’s walls, where the hologram projected mountains mere moments ago. “I think I know the color,” he murmurs mostly to himself. Rising from where he leans against the glass, his lips part to speak when he finds you sound asleep slumped against the glass.

His jaw tightens, a sharp pain rising behind his teeth at the sight of the tiny Human he’s grown fond of curled into a little ball aboard her ship. His friend. Slowly, a hand rises to the glass as something in his chest twists painfully. He recognizes the feeling, he’s no fool. He’s spent over a thousand years alive and isn’t a stranger to the pang gnawing at him as the noisy stowaway he picked up passes out in his presence.

To you, he’s safety. To him, you're more than just company.

And you’re wasting away in his hangar bay because some species he’s never come across decided that would be the case simply for having compassion. It brought about a mistake, sure, but you had compassion nonetheless where they did not.

He sucks in a breath, taking long strides over the metal floor to continue experimenting until you rise again. He works quietly, although he knows your hearing doesn’t compare to his. He moves with silent ease in spite of his lumbering form and watches with a frown as every environmental change he puts either of the cells through doesn’t bring out the result he wants. His cells adapt to the environment, but never recognize the Alveolarium as a threat.

Stepping back as he attempts to re-evaluate, he casts a glance back at you. Even if your energy wanes, your heart still beats steadily in his keen ears. He can get you back to Earth so long as he can figure out a solution to get energy back into your system somehow given that his food doesn’t fit within your diet.

You stir with a yawn, seemingly roused by his glance. You press against the glass, sitting up and blinking a number of times. When you meet his gaze, a spark of energy ignites that has Sukuna wincing. You clamber against the metal, some sort of button or zipper on your clothes clanging hard against the metal. “Sorry, Sukuna! I didn’t realize I fell asleep.”

He growls, rubbing absently at his second ear tucked within salmon locks. “It’s fine,” he grumbles, although your company is more welcome than he gives off as you sit upright to watch his experimentation once more.

You offer suggestions that get you deadpan expressions and a dramatic roll of the eyes given your lack of knowledge on the subject of medicinal chemistry is lacking. You figure you’re better at telling stories anyway, and even if you lose your place here and there when your tiredness catches up with you, Sukuna always offers a guiding suggestion when you falter.

The following day is when he starts to notice a trend that doesn’t greet either of you with warmth.

You drag yourself to the bridge later than usual without your morning granola bar. Sukuna offers you a mineral, but he knows it would break your teeth. He also offers meat, but you both already know your system rejects it. The blanket you’ve been dragging around with you for the past few days is bundled so tightly around you that Sukuna would wager a guess that you’re colder than usual, too.

When you make a motion to point at something on the table, his gaze lingers on your trembling finger. He can hear your stomach. He knows you’re starving. He’s watching your spirit fade, completely helplessly.

Sukuna, a man who’s spent over two hundred years coming to terms with the past and adapting to being alone, finds himself completely at a loss and frustrated beyond his means when he finds you the following morning. Or– more accurately– when he doesn’t find you.

His footsteps are even as he makes his way across the hangar. Your belongings remain at the glass, but you aren’t there yet. He tilts his head, catching your heartbeat as a slow, steady thump that keeps him at bay, and moves to check on his most recent experiment. He frowns as he finds after the allotted time, his cells remain by their lonesome, still unable to identify your Human disease as a threat.

Truthfully, it perplexes him. You determined early on that you share enough DNA to potentially be susceptible to the same diseases. Hell, by all means this is something Simurians have already overcome. It came from the same source, so he can’t figure out why his stem cells have yet to take to yours.

Carding his finger through his hair, he lets out a forlorn sigh, eyes shut for a long moment. Your heart is a steady drum in his ear, a reminder of what it is that he’s working towards. Had someone told him two weeks ago that he’d be helping such a pitiful little species overcome a disease of their own doing, he might not have believed them. But there’s more to you than your brittle bone structure and weak muscle mass. You’re smart. Perhaps not as advanced as he is, but you’re smart far beyond your thirty five years.

You’re smart in the kind of way Sukuna can only dream. He’s seen the way your mind works, how thoughts pour out before you even have time to put them together. He’s seen how resilient you are in the face of certain death. But what really gets him is your attitude. You grin through every shortcoming. You ensure him that if you keep trying, eventually your minds will come together and you’ll figure it out. You never acknowledge that breakthroughs like this take centuries. You didn’t even blink when he revealed that he’s been searching for the source of the Kerm for over a hundred years.

You’re unlike anything Sukuna’s ever known. And something dark crawls beneath his skin when you don’t rouse by the time you’re usually eating. Noon, you called it once.

With his experimental cells set in an extremely cold environment, he leaves the workspace to round your ship. His head tilts as he listens for your heartbeat as though it ever left his periphery, but it’s as sound as it’s ever been. Slowed by sleep perhaps, but sound. He comes to a halt when it grows louder as he nears your sleeping bay. His hand drifts across the scraped metal where your ship tilted on its axis when it scraped the ground as he scooped you up, resting along the damaged hull.

He hones in on you, and finds you’re still breathing. Still there. Still alive. But shallow. There’s no wheeze, no sharp inhales. It’s simple and shallow.

His brow furrows as he turns to fully face the ship. You aren’t just malnourished anymore. Something is wrong. His gaze lifts, traveling along the mechanics that keep your ship in one piece, far more primitive than the smooth and compact design of his. He doesn’t know what he expects to find, but when what he’s faced with isn’t an easy explanation, he turns on his heel.

He moves with more severity than he has in a century, no longer silent as he pads over extended corridors of metal that leave him questioning ever having a ship of this size. When he reaches his lab, he reaches for a scanner and jogs back to your ship.

It only takes a moment to calibrate its sensor to search only for organic matter. He lifts it to your ship. Alveolarium, as expected. Blood, and healthy stem Alveolar cells, as expected. All in small quantities.

Until everything lights up red. Immense amounts of blood, of musculature and tissue, along with a high volume of water. He’s found you. And along with everything he expects of an organic creature, a revelation that makes his blood run cold.

An uncontrolled quantity of Alveolarium. You’re infected.

Somehow, between the multitude of items you’ve exchanged and the experiments you’ve run by your lonesome, you must have been exposed. Your energy is being sapped because your body is fighting a disease engineered to kill.

He harshly clicks and growls to himself in a series of muttered curses, as he stares at the reading. For the first time since the bioweapon you call Kerm was found on Simuria over two hundred years ago, he finds himself completely and utterly helpless yet again. Control slips through his fingers like the sands of time as he raises the scanner once more as though it might reveal a different fate, but it never does. 

His chest rises and falls heavily, his arms falling to his sides as he stares blankly. His mind takes a moment to wrap around the reality that you’re not Simurian. You’re human. You’re noisy and weak, your mind can’t keep up with your thoughts, and you’re invasive as hell– you won’t adapt to the illness. And god, is it quiet without you.

Urgency kicks in like a long-dormant volcano coming to life as he moves back to the table, evaluating how many samples he has left. He draws more of his cells, ignoring the tingling feeling in his arm as he injects himself with a drug to draw stem cells from his marrow. He drags more of his lab to the hangar, setting out tables and creating extra boxes able to pressurize to the same barometric pressure as that of an oxygenated atmosphere.

He lowers incubation times to do more tests, changing the parameters so often that his notes become a mess.

You don’t move. He hears you shuffle once on the first day. On the second, he grits his teeth as he listens to your harsh breaths. Your moans, your groans. You move at one point in what sounds like a drag of your feet and he hears water, but he’s not even positive if you make it back to your quarters.

As he watches one of his cells back off from Humanity’s infected lung cells, he leans over the table on two arms, sucking in a long breath. He doesn’t know how long he has. He doesn’t know how long you can survive without food. He doesn’t know if you have more water.

His second pair of hands ball into fists at his sides as he shuts all four eyes tightly. He didn’t know what to do two hundred years ago watching something so similar take out his entire species. He doesn’t know what to do now, stuck in the same situation. His knowledge is far more advanced than everything he knew back then. His technology and abilities exceed everything from back then. So why the fuck can’t he figure it out?

Is it that your suggestions were more useful than he gave you credit for? No, is it that he simply misses them? That they kept his mind from running off-rails into mania?

He works himself to the bone until he’s leaning with his back to your window. With one knee pulled up, he rests his elbow atop it, using his hand to block the light from his pounding head. He absently rubs at the bridge of his nose, eyes shut as he runs through formulas in his head until his mind begins to give in. The only thing he can bring his mind to hone in on is the sound of your heart. The steady reminder of the noisy human he’s doing this for in the first place.

Just as he begins to drift off, the gentle buzz of lights in your ship comes to a halt, a mechanical voice brought to life by necessity.

“Backup power activated. Life support systems online.”

The alien jolts, his slumber interrupted as he stares up at your ship with wild eyes. They flick all around the bridge as he takes in the red light and the way the buttons along the navigation board have dimmed, many shutting off altogether.

“Backup?” He states the word as though the program might respond to him. “Online?” Neither word is in his vocabulary, and as he gets to his feet, all four hands pressed to the glass, he searches desperately for meaning. “Human? Human?” His mind is too worn out to fill in the gaps with context as panic coats his movements like a snake slowly seeping its venom into its prey.

With a final call of your name, his fingers squeak as they drag along the glass. He turns back to his work station, dragging his hands violently over his scalp. He clicks and growls to himself, slamming a lower hand down over one of the sealed pressurized boxes. It cracks easily from his strength, putting his experiments immediately at risk. His eyes widen, two hands raising as though he might be able to stop it with his bare hands. He rushes back through his ship, racing through corridors to find something capable of stopping the crack before it shatters altogether.

Returning with a handful of options, he opts to melt a stone element from his planet into the crack. It’s the safest option he can think of. Sitting back from the soldering gun, he collapses onto the floor in a flurry of exhausted limbs. His stomach mouth parts as his body expends much of his energy on his mental state, only furthering his trouble.

In an effort to gather his thoughts, he leans over his knees, dragging his hands down his face. Backup. Red lights came on, some systems shut down. Using context clues, he can put that together. He pushes down his panic as he works on the second word. Online. He can still hear your ship whirring. He can hear your breathing. Life support must be working.

Okay. One problem down.

No matter how he changes the co-culture or adjusts the selective pressure, no matter how he adjusts his hypothesis or the duress he puts his cells under, the results remain the same. His cells adapt. But never to the disease. They co-exist in separate worlds.

Two eyes flick towards your ship, reminded of you, stuck on your own in a cell of your own doing. His fingers curl into his palm as he drives his focus back to his makeshift lab.

He can’t figure out why his cells won’t recognize yours. You may be different species, but his cells should recognize the pathogen in the Alveolarium as similar to the same illness that took out a majority of Simuria. He’s already adapted past it, and the cell structure isn’t that different.

He drags his nails over his scalp while his lower arms remain in fists. How much power do you have left? How much longer can you survive without water? You’re largely compounded of it based on his scan, can you survive without intake?

With a harsh growl, he pushes to his feet, ignoring the way his muscles protest. Pain simmers as he pushes them, keeping the reins on his control over this situation with an iron grasp. He pushes through the burn, pushes his mind to its limits as he works out chemical compounds with what brain power he has left, all the while continuing to alter the cells’ environment until he has nothing left to give.

–

Your ship doesn’t do its usual chime come morning. What’s worse is that your coughing startles him awake. Your heart stutters, a deadly sound for any species.

Hunched over in an odd position on the floor, Sukuna cracks his neck, rubbing at it as adrenaline pumps through his veins.

You’re dying. For all the tireless work he’s doing, you’re still dying.

He reaches out for the window where you once sat, dragging his fingers over it like your very ship might fall from his grasp at any moment. His breathing accelerates, his chest leaden with the gravity of the situation. Resting his entire body against the glass, all four arms settle along the panel. His head rests unevenly on the panel, off-kilter at the whim of the plate that resides over the right side of his face. A low rumble starts from deep within his chest, erupting in a full-blown furious fit of hisses, clicks, Simurian syllables and roars.

He curses in his mother tongue like he did over a hundred years ago. He’s spent over a century learning, advancing, and searching the damn stars for a bioweapon only for the very same thing to be his demise once again.

Peeling himself off of your ship, he reaches back to rub at a kink in his neck. His first issue was a lack of understanding of your ship system. He fixed that. His second issue is the cells. He can’t fix that without trial and error. His third issue is you dying, which is made up of two issues. The pressure of his ship would crush you, but your own life support systems are failing. When your ship depressurizes, the hull will be crushed, your oxygen will flow out into the sulfuric compounds that make up his air, and you’ll suffocate.

And then there’s the dehydration. And he doesn’t know which one is a more immediate threat. Regardless, his immediate problem is your ship. He stares at it in an effort to figure out how to remove it from the equation.

He could create a new box for you, something smaller than your ship, create his own life support systems for you and pressurize the box by pumping in oxygen and out carbon dioxide, similar to the box he uses for experiments. It’s not impossible in theory, but he doesn’t have the materials on-board to build a box of that size, nor does he have an extra generator capable of creating oxygen at that scale.

The only materials aboard are from your ship, the very thing he can’t tear apart right now. 

He drags his hand back through his hair, tearing it straight from the scalp as he fails to find a way to guarantee containment while also pressurizing whatever he can work out. On a small scale, he can manage with what’s in his lab. On a large scale, all he can truly manage is his ship itself. His shoulders fall slowly. His ship.

The pressure of your atmosphere wouldn’t be a big deal on a creature like him. His ship could handle that without question. His muscles would survive. He could wear a suit, pump the sulfuric components through it. He could save you from the immediate threat. For a moment, the thought sits with him. It slips into his chest along his ribs, curling around his pounding hearts. It almost doesn’t feel real.

But when the dust settles and he’s left simply staring at your window, it becomes suddenly, startlingly, real. He turns on his heel like a man on a mission, moving through the ship as he heads for the mechanical room. He wrenches the small metal door with too much force, causing it to bend as he slips down into the tight space.

Machinery hums and breathes around him, worn pipes humming on every side as he shimmies through the space you might think was built by someone else given how much Sukuna is forced to squeeze through it. A whirring tank brushes his skin– hot– burning him in the process, but it’s barely a distraction when he’s aiming for the back of the room.

Sure enough, the sulfuric gas generator residing at the back comes into view quickly. The generator currently keeping his ship pressurized could be repurposed for oxygen through chemical reactions similar to what’s currently generating his sulfuric gasses. He can suit up, and–

His hands come to a halt as he finds himself scanning his surroundings like it might change his fate.

]He only has one generator. He can only create sulfuric compounds for his own atmosphere on a small scale with what he has onboard his ship, but not enough to support him long-term, and what’s currently stored won’t last forever. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg, when he considers that he still has to kill the Kerm, on a planet whose atmosphere he knows nothing about, with creatures built to kill whether through sheer violence or illness. He can’t risk using what sulfuric compounds he has stored while aboard his own ship.

In the cramped space with the generator’s hatch open, he presses the ball of his palm against his temple. There’s an answer. One that he’s already considering. But the cost could be his life. He could make the change to oxygen and pray his body is forced to adapt and maybe save you, should he survive. It’s either that or sit here and listen to your heart and breathing weaken until you’re nothing but a shadow in his hangar bay.

On the flip side, if he doesn’t adapt, then you’re both dead.

Sukuna has always been a man of certainties. He chose science because it makes sense. He chose science, because variables don’t react without reason. He chose science because it gives him control of his outcomes through error and studious attention. But this decision isn’t about science or reason.

This decision is about the hundreds of Simurians he feels responsible for losing. It’s about his revenge against the Kerm. It’s about the noisy human wheezing in his hangar bay who told him she wanted to see Simuria. It’s about the stupid girl whose heart stuttered as she solemnly lied to him about being okay with her fate. It’s about how cold your hand felt, even through the glass.

He barks out a Simurian curse, reaching for the tools necessary to begin generating a different gas.

He wrenches on a cable, giving it a harsh twist to unlock it from its position. The ship comes alight with warnings that he opts to block out as the pressure of the hull begins to shift. It’s not painful to begin, even as the ship’s very structure complains with harsh moans and groans. He floods the chamber with sodium chloride and ups the heat until it begins producing oxygen. As the remaining sulfuric gas runs into a reserve chamber, he shuts the generator and continues to ignore the creaking and warnings his ship spews.

Getting to his feet again, he slides through the tight space, sucking in every last breath he can of sulfuric gasses as they begin to dissipate.

Oxygen hurts. He pushes through the pain, trudging through the halls as he fails to catch his breath, certain that the generator is working when his muscles feel loose as the pressure of the ship adjusts to the new gas flowing through its chambers. He turns down a long hall, ignoring the flashing lights along every wall while the hull groans. When he finally reaches the hangar, his chest doesn’t ache or burn, it sears like something is clawing at him from within, begging to be let out. It’s not his first brush with pain like this, but there’s something different when it’s his lungs. Tears form along his lash line as he lacks sulfuric gasses to his brain, the compounds unable to pump blood to his most important organs.

When he reaches your ship, he stumbles into it, still upright through sheer willpower alone. He slams his fist into the panel nearest where he last knew you were, loosening the edge. His fingers curl around the newly revealed edge and with all the might left in his body, he tears it off. Along with it comes a series of mechanics as your ship begins to beep and protest in tandem with his. Only once he tears through some wiring with a series of flashing lights does your ship finally shut off.

This is it– the test of his own scientific capabilities. Whether or not you survive in the environment he’s artificially created within his own ship.

The blaring alarms mitigate his ability to find you, his head whipping one way or the other. He drags himself through the pain, through the mind-numbing brain fog, picking up a half-finished bottle of water he spots on a counter along the way, until he finds you.

You’re sitting awkwardly in a corner, shivering, but conscious. Alive.

Your eyes are harshly lidded when you stare up at him, clinging to your blanket like it’s a lifeline. Your dry lips part, a look of sheer confusion falling over your expression like you doubt what you’re seeing in the dark corridor of your ship whose systems have completely failed.

Sukuna’s chest struggles to rise and fall evenly, every breath furthering the pain behind his eyes as his lungs fail to pump sulfuric compounds into his bloodstream and his brain function falters. He doesn’t let his knees give out until he’s able to hand you the water bottle.

“S’kuna?” Your voice sounds as though it’s been scraped against the very compounds that make up Simurian mountains. You sound as though you don’t trust your voice, let alone your mind.

Close enough to leave the water within your reach, the giant alien’s body finally gives out. The water hits the floor beside you just within reach as one arm attempts to grab the counter that you lean against. His palm brushes the surface, but his body drops like a stone to the floor beside you, scraping his palm. His vision is narrow as he uses what little strength he has left to envelop you in his arms, acting as a blanket for your shivering form.

The moment he touches you, clarity shoots through your mind like lightning. This is no fever dream, you’re not waking up out of sheer necessity of needing water or a way to warm up. It’s a shock to your system in more ways than one. He’s not just warm– his body runs like a furnace in comparison to yours. He’s so warm that curling into him isn’t a choice, it’s survival and he knows it.

The very thing that kept you apart for so long hits you harder than the shock that Sukuna is beside you. “Wait–” the word comes weakly as you give his arm a shove. It barely affects him. “You can’t–” A cough settles at the back of your throat, interrupting your thoughts. “What did you do?” You rasp out between the kind of coughs that wrack your body and send spikes of pain to every receptor that will listen.

But he doesn’t respond, any semblance of consciousness long gone as his arms go limp. You can’t move him. You can barely move yourself. The most you can do is hope that his body takes to oxygen like it did to science, or whatever it was that truly gave him an extra pair of arms. You assume that’s his hope too.

The flashing lights and warning buzzers continue to blare outside the hull. Your ship offers very little cover from the noise, but enough that your already-foggy mind is able to drown out the noise with the static of illness. Unable to fight the heaviness held over you, you shakily grab the water. You may be too delirious to grasp the true gravity of the situation and what Sukuna’s done, but you know better than to overlook the gift of water.

The massive alien wrapped around you on the ground makes it easy to lean into him, basking in his warmth as it quells a modicum of your shivers. The longer you sit there in the flashing lights and blaring sirens, the more your body gives in to the grasps of the sandman. Subconsciously, you lean into Sukuna– passed out beside you– until your head leans against his shoulder. It doesn’t rise and fall, but you find comfort in the fact that when you press a hand to his chest in search of something, anything, that might give you hope, his heart pushes a single beat through. One after another, each of his two hearts continues to push through the unlikely situation.

That reassurance makes it easier to give in to the forces pushing you to unconsciousness. Because you recognize Sukuna’s actions as more than just kindness in the face of danger.

This is a species you’ve never witnessed whose primary goal was revenge, brought to his knees by the very stowaway he huffed and puffed over being noisy. Not by manipulation or force either, but by choice. Sukuna didn’t just choose to save you. He chose pain, he chose to bet on low odds. He chose to put off his mission, and he chose to endanger and expose himself to disease, all for you.

He isn’t just asking you to live. He’s commanding it.

–

Sukuna doesn’t stir for forty eight hours. You aren’t much better, but at least your body faces wakefulness in the face of dehydration. You don’t know how long Sukuna can survive without food or water, but you have no other option but to hope it’s longer than you.

Midway through the third day is when he finally stirs. It comes in twitches at first. It’s not dramatic, but in the few moments where you’re awake and delirious and you spot any semblance of movement, you cling to him like your life depends on it. Because it does.

Next come the wheezing breaths. Then groans, and sharp inhales that sound unnatural. You feel his pain deep in your ribs like a stabbing sensation. His fingers drag so harshly against the metal floor that his fingers break through it, the metal proving to be little more than an ant to his elephant strength.

Consciousness is dramatic for him.

Like a switch being flicked, his body comes to life and with it, his pain and confusion. He flies back, head ramming harshly into the cabinets you had been leaning against. He huffs out his displeasure, but the sensation is harsh in his chest. His lungs may have adapted, but oxygen is a harsh forced change to sulfur. The compounds shred within his chest, something that has one of his many hands flying up to grip at his chest.

He mutters a harsh curse under his breath in his mother tongue that sends pain back through his throat like a ricocheting bullet. In the cramped confines of your torn-open ship’s hull, he rests his head back against the door to the lab. Every breath is fire in the large expanse of his chest, his lungs accepting the oxygen not out of desire, but need.

He mutters a curse again, recoiling far less as he pushes through the pain. Ignoring the deliriousness of pain and the cramping in his gut, he cards a hand through mildly oily locks, pushing them away from his forehead. When his gaze glues itself to you, blearily watching him from the floor in a state of suspended wakefulness, he freezes altogether.

You’re alive.

His chest finds a new way to deliver pain as he hunches forward, sliding back to the spot where he had clearly been your pillow if your odd position is anything to go off of. He glides over the floor, taking a seat where he had been in an effort to provide a pillow.

The sensation of his returned warmth has your lashes fluttering as you stare up at him. He can see the gears physically turning in your mind as you make sense of him being there, awake, and alive as well.

For a moment, his brain betrays him. He moves on instinct, brushing his thumb over your collar. Only to be met with a weak smack to the chest. He blinks, staring down at you with confusion woven within his fondness.

“You could–” you cough, “have died.”

A series of growls and clicks between syllables you don’t recognize fall from his lips like he’s giving you a full scolding in a foreign language. It almost brings a smile to your dry lips as you recognize only two words.

“Noisy human.” His muscles are fraught from disuse as he hoists you into his lap.

The alarms may have stopped blaring, but the lights around him continue to flash in warning, reminding him of the reason he underwent this in the first place. Under the duress of having very little energy after evolution and his chest protesting his every movement, he groans as he pushes to his feet with you cradled close. He pulls you into his chest, casting a glance down at you as even in sickness, your eyes seem to shine as you watch your environment change. You never fail to bring wonder along with you, no matter the circumstances.

He treats you with the fragility of a flower as he brings you to his lab, moving over a panel that has no identifiable buttons, yet as Sukuna moves his hand over it, you hear the shift behind you. A bed reveals itself from the wall, not entirely unlike that of a human, though it’s a far harder material that he makes adjustments to in order to conform to your body as he lays you down.

His medical equipment isn’t unlike yours. He gets you started on an IV without hesitation, preventing the first of his major worries, and watches as your body shuts down, grateful for the new fluid intake. Every time you fall asleep is no easier than the last. One of his hearts skips, then the second one, but he takes the opportunity to continue his work. He moves the samples back to the lab, no longer bothering with the oxygenated box as he’s able to work faster now.

Waiting is the hardest part. It leaves him feeling powerless, pushing himself to his limits to distract himself from the fact that you look weaker every time his eyes glue themselves to you.

“Dabura’s anniversary was yesterday,” he mutters one morning, standing between you and his experiments where he can monitor both.

His lower hands rest on his waist, the upper arms crossed over his chest like twisting wrong doesn’t still send a shock to his system as his lungs continue to mold themselves to their new dual-purpose. He pushes through, idly taking a step towards you and the pile of blankets he stole from your ship that keep you from shivering.

“You would like the celebration,” he remarks, meandering to the side of your bed. He lowers himself to take a closer look at you, before sinking to his knees. His upper arms rest along the edge of the bed, chin seated atop them. “We have a–” he pauses, glancing aside at the realization that he frustratingly can’t even tell you about the celebration because he lacks the words. He growls, his expression pushing into a scowl as he utters the Simurian word for ‘fire’. “A heat light. It’s big,” he presses on. “We use chemicals to create oxygen vacuums,” he continues. “Everyone comes from across the planet. We eat a lot. Drink.”

You don’t stir.

“You would have liked Satoru. He was noisy, too.” His gaze rises from where he sits to sweep your face. You don’t have the gentle look he’s grown accustomed to anymore, your features sunken and permanently pulled into a pained expression. It wrenches at his chest more than the pain of evolution somehow. “He studied the Kaliyans. Some Simurians have deep ties to them. Neither him or I did, so he chose to study them. We never did find answers before…” He huffs, muttering a curse of clicks and growls. He lets his cheek fall to his arms, at a loss. He shuts all four eyes at the sound of a timer going off, sucking in a breath as he wearily pushes to his feet.

He stares at the hologram emptily. It irks him to see the Alveolarium still rampant, but he expects no less at this point. He doesn’t know what exactly he’s expecting to get out of these at this point when experiments like this don’t just take days. They take years. They take materials and vigorous testing and… He throws his gaze over his shoulder, noting how shallow your breaths are now.

He doesn’t have years. He might not even have days, yet again. He bought himself more time, but he’s back to square one with control slipping through his fingers yet again. He grits his teeth so harshly it sends a sharp pain straight to his brain. One would only catch his wince if they were paying attention, as his bottom left eye twitches from the sensation.

Padding out from the room to give himself a break to eat as he overthinks every equation until there’s no semblance of hope left, he sits casually at the bridge, staring out at the planet below. Green clouds and space debris make up the remnants of the species that created the Kerm, long extinct by the hands of their own bioweapon. Below those clouds are the pinks and blues that make up the largely crystalline surface where the beetle-adjacent species now resides, hungry and in search of new prey.

Kerm. The thought settles between his ribs alongside the pain of his evolution. He always envisioned his arrival at their planet to be more triumphant. He envisioned traveling to its surface to ensure that his hypothesis was correct and they’ve eaten beyond their means, invasive to their own planet and destroying its very ecosystem until all that remains are themselves. Then leaving without a trace of the Kerm, the planet, or his own actions.

Yet all this trip has done is resurface every scar he buried a century ago. He scratches at them until what remains are no longer just scars, but open wounds. Forcing down what food he can manage, he drags a hand down his jaw, staring out at the planet, Methalon. It’s silent for a long moment as he inhales and holds the breath.

In Simurian, he finds himself muttering to himself. “What if you’re right, human?” Another extended silence as the thought lingers. “What if… Kerm are more than your cause? What if they’re your cure, too?”

He taps his finger along the panel in which controls reside as he mulls the thought over, before springing into action. He doesn’t have the luxury to consider the consequences, pressing a palm to the controls as they react to electromagnetic pulses emitted from his brain and read through his fingers as he brings the ship to life for the first time in a couple of weeks, disturbing the spacerock that’s settled around the ship.

With a groan, the ship’s nose shifts as he points it towards the planet’s surface. The pressure surrounding the ship shifts as he nears the atmosphere, far more dense than what you would be accustomed to, so he thanks the stars that it’s him going in place of you. He stops the ship a short distance from the planet’s surface, setting it to hover within the densely gaseous atmosphere. It’ll keep you out of reach of the Kerm, which he hypothesizes shouldn’t be able to reach you with their stubby wings.

Should he be wrong, he supposes you’ll both succumb to his stupidity. He almost cracks a morbid smile at the thought. Not that you both might be a lost cause because of his decisions, but because he so often chides you for being stupid, when he’s recklessly allowing himself to be stupid now, too.

But he’s certainly not noisy. No, he talks to you because you like it. Not because he does. He’s quiet.

Suiting up, he drops to the planet’s surface with his limited sulfuric compound supply, his tank unsuited for oxygen. Gravity pulls him down like nothing he’s ever experienced as he drops heavily to the surface. He expected the dense atmosphere, but it still presses down on him like a weight.

Crystallic compounds crunch underfoot, and he shouldn’t consider himself shocked when he comes across the first series of Kerm, or as he knows them, Methalonians. He supposes the name isn’t very fitting, however, given that they’re unnatural. They killed whatever species was more befitting of the name.

The first one turns towards him, its head swiveling as its iridescent shell reflects the gorgeous light of the crystalline environment aiding it to blend in. It regards Sukuna with an entirely animal head tilt that might fool someone who doesn’t know their methods, but Sukuna isn’t fooled. He grips his EMP gun tighter, preparing himself for the inevitable. While the Kerm believe he’s fooled, he sets down a heavy containment pod, opening it with a hiss.

When he faces the group again, all fifteen or so creatures are facing him. Their wings buzz and hiss as they communicate, their antennae twitching through the air as they coordinate what Sukuna already knows to be an attack.

This time, however, he’s prepared. The first one approaches him slowly and curious, feigning a kindness they don’t possess. The brutish alien keeps up the facade in an effort to keep himself from being buried by a sea of Kerm.

He reaches a suited-up and reinforced hand out to the creature, watching its mandibles click together. It approaches slowly, peering up at Sukuna’s outwardly non-threatening demeanor. Its head tilts as it nears, nudging his fingers like it might provoke him.

But it’s not Sukuna that breaks the facade first. The creature zips forward, smashing its mandibles together where Sukuna’s hand just was, giving him enough time to lunge back. As the rest of the group moves in a coordinated hive towards him, he unleashes a small EMP attack that temporarily disorients the Kerm, sending them in more varied directions.

One that approaches him meets the fate of a heated vibrating dagger to its thorax, while another leaps at Sukuna’s shoulder. He spins, wrenching his shoulder in an effort to dislodge it from his suit, but its mandibles dig into the material. The material is impenetrable by their mandibles, but fuck if it doesn’t hurt anyway.

Hissing, Sukuna throws an arm around the Kerm to prevent it from leaving as he pulls the gut-ridden blade from the previous Kerm to lodge it into the next one. He remains largely in control, throwing one off to tear another from its own thorax with the blade the following moment until the smaller crowd re-coordinates itself. Sukuna launches another small EMP attack, throwing two of the group off, while the remaining four all leap at him at once. Mandibles clamp down on one shoulder, while another clings to his abdomen, choosing to methodically jab at the spots where his organs are.

Smart little asshole.

Sukuna recoils, hissing as pain rips through his stomach just beyond where his second mouth can reach. It momentarily disorients him, knocking him to the ground long enough that the remaining two Kerm are able to pile themselves onto him as well. They separate him from both the EMP and dagger, the sound of the vibrating tool over the crystalline earth grating on his nerves.

He shuts his eyes tightly, attempting to reset himself as he evaluates how much he’s been stamped down. He grits his teeth, grunting as he manages to lift an arm and throw one creature off with enough force to disorient it. The freed hand allows him to get enough leverage to flip himself over, slamming one hand straight through the creature’s shell. With one fierce glare, he flips the fight back in his favor, grabbing an incoming Kerm by the head and crushing it in one hand.

With a majority of his movement freed, he picks up the EMP again, blasting the remaining three insects and smashing them too, leaving only the one he tossed aside earlier. He grabs it by the thorax, wrangling it between two arms as he shoves it into the containment box with his spare set of hands. Once it’s inside, he lets out a huff, staring down at his gut-covered suit. He’ll need to be sure he carefully washes himself and his suit after this, given that he doesn’t want to expose you to more diseases that the bioweapon could have hidden beneath its shell.

Getting back to his feet, he better evaluates the surrounding environment. There’s evidence of trees, of civilization and buildings in the distance now turned to rubble and ash. He doesn’t have much sulfuric compounds left to breathe, so he figures he’ll do a once-over of the planet from within the ship, focusing his efforts back on a cure for you as he returns to the safety of his ship.

–

Splaying the Kerm’s insides across his workbench proves to be a disgusting feat. Even within a containment box, the smell permeates the damn room. He ends up moving it into the hangar, which by some grace has better filtration, but Sukuna finds himself further beaten down by the smell. As if his failures weren’t enough.

Unlike his cells, the Kerm’s stem cells do attack the Alveolarium… Unfortunately, no matter how he attempts to alter them, they only ever seem to act as aggressors.

For as smart as Sukuna is, he finds himself missing your curiosity. Your stupid questions. You challenge him. Not just because you’re noisy, but because you’re far more willing to approach the unlikely with an open mind. You lack the knowledge he has, specializing in natural biology where Sukuna excels in chemistry, cytology, geology, archeology, and engineering, but he’s also had a few extra years. Your lack of specific knowledge allows you to excel in general knowledge that Sukuna found himself praising you for.

Mentally. It’s easier to show fondness through actions than words, after all.

Bringing a hand up to his eyes, he presses a thumb and forefinger into them, yawning as every continued failure sets him back not just physically, but mentally too.

He collapses at the base of your bed, your breathing setting his nervous system into a furious rage of emotion as he realizes for the first time how close he truly is to losing you, with no cure in sight. Your species is weak in every sense of the word. Your muscles lack the build that Simurians have, your brain’s capacity is low, your immune system could be knocked over by a harsh wind, and yet Sukuna can’t help but find you endearing. Your lifespan is barely a smear in the grand scheme of his life, and yet the brutish alien, a species who mates for life, finds himself wondering how many ways you might be able to throw his life into disarray.

He wants your annoying quips. He wants your too-loud rambles. He wants to feel you warm in his arms, your eyes bright and wide as he shows you a Simurian mountaintop in some dumb-looking suit of his creation.

He slams his head back against your bed with enough force to rattle the very stone that makes it up. Dragging his hands down his face, the most he can do is stare at the experiments as one by one the timers go off and he’s left with one failure after another. His gaze splits as he looks between not just one, but four separate failures. Pushing his hands back through his hair, he balls his fists within the strands, eyes shut tight. Sitting so close to you, he still feels far. He finds himself mourning something he has yet to lose.

You haven’t awoken in several days, and as much as he wishes he could equate it to illness, the fact is that you’re dying. He can pump as many nutrients as he wants straight into your body without allowing your stomach the opportunity to reject his food, it’ll only do so much when it’s not your stomach fighting you anymore. It’s your lungs.

Every round of failed experiments is another scathing tear at his wounds as he leans against your bed on the floor. His gut aches where the Kerm attempted to strategically puncture his suit and beneath his performance longsleeve are several mild puncture wounds that only serve as annoyances in the grand scheme of things.

“I’m the foolish one,” he states simply out of the blue. “Not you.” He doesn’t follow it up with a long-winded explanation or flourish, it’s as simple as he makes it. You only ever did what you thought was right, giving every living creature the benefit of the doubt. It landed you in a cell, parked in his garage, but god damn it. You gave life your all. You lived without regrets. Sukuna’s lifespan trumps yours, and yet he lives with every weight he’s ever conjured still boiling under his skin.

He’s spent over a hundred years building himself into an impenetrable wall. The kind of man that doesn’t let his past haunt him. Yet here you are, under his skin like a leech and wrapped around his mind with roots that dig straight for his hearts.

He’s so wrapped up in his thoughts that he doesn’t feel your hand at first, as it slips into his hair. He jolts when at last he feels movement against his head, whipping up to face you. He meets your eyes from barely over the bed, heavily hooded as you regard him with a small smile in spite of yourself.

His shoulders fall as he approaches the side of the bed again, resting his head atop his arms. His lips press into a thin line as he doesn’t just let you reach back out, but leans into your touch against his cheek.

“You know,” you rasp, unsurprisingly coughing. “I was wrong about Kerm, but I wasn’t–” another cough, “wrong about you.”

His brow furrows, a deep scowl overtaking his features. Your words sound startlingly like the kind of thing that one might say when they’re coming to terms with the decisions they made in life, further wrenching his hearts.

“Thanks for trying to help Earth.”

He growls and clicks his displeasure with your words, earning a laugh that feels warm even in sickness. When you quiet down, his muttering is nearly unintelligible. “I don’t care about Earth.”

“I know,” you smile, your thumb trailing down his cheek as one lower eye flutters shut. “I like you too, Sukuna.”

He allows himself the peace of shutting his eyes, kneeling beside your bed with his cheek in your hand until his legs go numb and you pass out again. Pain spikes through his knees when he finally rises and straightens them, sighing as he wearily looks over his experiments again. His gaze passes over a hologram displaying one of his cells idly standing by as he considers what the hell he could possibly be doing wrong when something finally hits him like the full force of a jet engine as something dangerous surges into his chest– hope.

His cells are part of a system. A system capable of sending electromagnetic pulses like thoughts to his cells in order to trigger mutation. Sure, the cells will mutate on their own no matter what you put them through, but could the reason they aren’t accepting your cells be because there’s no system to indicate to his cells that there’s an issue?

He’s been approaching the whole situation under the lens of his cells being anti-pathogens, when in fact they’re closer to mutagens. They aren’t a cure, they would never be accepted as a cure. In fact, he’s willing to wager a bet that you’re right and there is a cure that could be pulled from the Kerm, but he doesn’t have the time to figure that out.

His cells could very well re-write your DNA. They could overwrite important information, they could make you more sick. He doesn’t know. His experiments will never work without a live test subject. But on the flip side, they could save you. They could mutate your cells into something capable of handling Alveolarium. Quite frankly, when both alternatives are death, he’s willing to give it a shot.

He moves across the room quickly, hitting a dial that brings to life a hologram in order to act as a whiteboard. He takes your weight and general body size, measuring the exact quantity of his cells that would need to be injected in order to fight a full system infection without the dose being lethal, or possibly mutating beyond control. Gene therapy is a risky move by all means, but he doesn’t have any other options.

He moves through the lab with ease as he extracts a new sample from his lower arm, moving it in a box to ensure his cells aren’t contaminated. He isolates the cells necessary at a dosage he prays is non-lethal and injects them into a sample of healthy stem cells you provided before you got sick to act as carriers.

With a final check of his calculations, he moves to your bedside, praying the healthy cells trick your body into accepting his cells. Sucking in a breath, he injects the gene therapy, and pulls up a chair to wait.

There’s nothing ceremonious about the wait. Sukuna busies himself by continuing to search for a cure, something you can send to Earth assuming he didn’t rip through the return vessels in his effort to get to you. After every pair of gloves he tosses aside, he always returns to the same chair to wait, resting his head on the edge of your bed.

On the second day when he wakes up with his hair glued to his forehead by sweat and drool dripping down his cheek, he moves to wipe it when he finds his head weighed down. He blinks, unable to see past the arms crossed under his cheek, but when he lifts his gaze just slightly, he finds you’ve shifted for the first time in days. Your hand is settled on the back of his head, fingers curled into his hair.

When he tries to tilt his head, your hand falls away again. You’re still asleep, but the hope in his chest surges.

Your face fills out properly over the next couple of days. He seems to miss your waking hours whenever they do happen on his horribly varied sleep schedule, but your coughing fits begin to die down and your breathing evens out.

It’s almost a week later when you wake up with an ache in your muscles like no other, but relief in your chest. The ceiling should be unfamiliar, but even within your fever dreams, you knew glimpses of him were real. Your head lolls to the side, the bedding beneath you rough in spite of its conformity to your body. Across the room, Sukuna moves around the ship in a frantic bout of quick movements. There’s a crudeness to his movements that doesn’t fit the put-together Simurian you’ve come to know. You catch a glance of the side of his face, noting the dark circles under two eyes that rest in a familiar fashion on his face, while those that sit angled along flesh are simply squinting more than usual.

He yawns, betraying the obvious. There’s a slight tremor to his hand as he uses a pipette to transfer cells. He sets a phial down, his lower arms heavily leaning over his work table. It’s obvious weariness plagues him to his marrow, but he doesn’t stop for a second.

“Sukuna?”

Crash!

In the flurry of his limbs leaving the table as he whips around, he sends an empty flask to the floor. Not a single one of his eyes shifts to follow the mess, frantically flickering around your face as he searches for signs of illness. Rather than the dull look he’s faced for the past week, he finds a gleam that he mentally pockets for later. He moves towards you in slow, lumbering steps like he doesn’t quite believe what he’s seeing, before lowering down to a kneel. His skin is deeply calloused, far denser than human skin, as his hands come to rest on your cheeks.

You find yourself biting back a smile as the stoic alien you’ve come to know keeps his intense gaze on you as he nuzzles his nose against you. You may not know Simurian, but you know animals. In some species, that’s a kiss.

“Sukuna?”

He hums.

“Was that a kiss?”

His lips press into a line, nudging his nose slightly against yours again like action is easier than a reply.

“Humans kiss with their lips,” you explain softly.

He doesn’t move immediately, his face a breadth from yours. Something cocky and knowing gleams within his gaze. A laugh bubbles from within your chest but it comes out as a cough, which you attempt to stifle, pulling back momentarily. Sukuna drags you back like he can’t stand the mere thought of distance.

Your laughter subsides quickly as you try hard not to grin.

The stoic Simurian’s breath comes out in an eager puff against your face. “Lips are usually for other things,” he offers with a suggestive tone. But he doesn’t know how to deny you anymore. The corner of his lips quirk up as he surges forward, engulfing you in a claiming kiss. You don’t know what exactly a kiss means for a thousand-year-old being that spends their life with one person when you only live a fraction of his lifespan, but in spite of that you don’t think you mind finding out.

Everything about the kiss is all-encompassing. His smell floods your senses first, the sort of sterile musk that comes with a man working himself to the bone in a lab. His taste doesn’t match it, though. There’s a spice to his taste that isn’t Earthly in nature, but it’s pleasant like a warm herbal tea. It’s intoxicating and addicting all the same, the kind of taste you could get drunk on, should he let you.

His grip doesn’t let up, hands sliding up the base of your scalp as he tips your head back to deepen the kiss. Your hands fly up to his collar, curling into the thick material of his muscle-tight shirt for purchase. It’s dizzying, and not just because your head is spinning with the sheer amount of thoughts bouncing around your overactive mind like ping pong balls. His lips move against yours in the kind of rhythm that doesn’t just insinuate passion, but something far deeper. A desperation that can only be conveyed through actions.

You can sense his resistance as you pull back, but you find yourself laughing as your hands splay across his broad chest. “Sukuna,” you tease. “I’m feeling better, but you still need to give my lungs a break.” You laugh airily, chest rising and falling heavily as he refuses to break contact.

The lumbering giant’s shoulders tense for a moment, then relax, his hands gliding down the column of your neck to rest on your shoulders. He takes the opportunity to envelop you in all four arms, grateful to find you’re no longer shivering. You don’t hesitate for even a moment, arms snaking around his neck as you bury your face into his neck.

“How’d you do it?”

He inhales, letting out a breath of relief as he relaxes into your grip in spite of his awkward hunched position over your bedside. “My cells aren’t like yours. They react to neural oscillations and signals sent through electromagnetism. We were trying to use them like anti-pathogens, but they aren’t.”

“They’re mutagens,” you finish the thought in an excited burst, pulling back to face him with those wonder-filled wide eyes he’s come to adore. “You did gene therapy.”

He chuffs proudly, puffing out his chest under your hands. It’s somehow far more endearing up close.

“Wait, oh my god–” You proclaim suddenly like you’ve come to the greatest realization on earth. “Do you think that means I can breathe sulfur? Or– Or maybe I can grow extra arms,” you murmur, wiggling your fingers over his chest.

His expression deadpans. “No.”

“But if you changed my DNA with alien DNA–”

“That’s–” He breathes out a sigh, amused with your overactive imagination and how fast your mouth moves before your mind can catch up. “That’s not how gene therapy works.”

“Bummer,” you pout. It’s clear the word perplexes him as he narrows his eyes, but he cracks a hint of a smile. He gets it regardless.

You let the moment hang, laughing airily as the reality of your last two weeks truly hits you. Sukuna doesn’t handle the situation with the same lightness as you do, pulling you back into his chest and muffling your laughter altogether. You wrap your arms around his torso once more in reassurance. “I’m still here,” you promise.

“Stupid human,” he mutters, his chin dipping over your shoulder as he locks you tightly against him with a squeeze. When you bury your face into his broad chest, he winces, hiding it behind another squeeze as he attempts to ignore the meager injuries left behind by the Kerm. “Stupid, weak human.”

“I know,” you murmur into his chest. “I know. But I’m here now.”

–

The difference between Human and Simurian traditions turns out to be greater than you think. Not in the sort of grand way you might expect, but in the sense that Sukuna doesn’t quite seem to know what to make of being close. Of course, Humanity aims to choose a person for life, but not without trial and error. For Simurians, there’s some sort of instinct. Something Humans don’t possess that has Sukuna uncertain how to navigate the idea of courting you. In particular, while you’re still recovering.

Your pulse increases to a steady waking beat as your lashes flutter open. You’ve gotten accustomed to the strange way the stone bed conforms to your shape, but you have yet to grow accustomed to the way you’re greeted every morning, even a week into your recovery where– by and large– you just have a cough.

You’ve barely roused when Sukuna’s hand is firmly planted on your jaw, tilting your head left and right. “Nngh, Sukuna,” you sigh, fingers wrapping around his wrist. He doesn’t budge, not satisfied until he’s determined that you’re still on a steady road to recovery. His fingers loosen once he lets out a steady breath, his palm sliding down to your cheek. He doesn’t hesitate for so much as a moment to lower himself to his knees and brush his nose against yours. The Simurian nuzzle is something you’ve grown fond to waking up to and even in your half-asleep state, you find yourself unable to hold back a grin.

“You haven’t coughed yet.”

“I just woke up,” you reply groggily, amused.

“You’re better.”

“Getting there,” you chide, staring down at the mountain of a man on his knees for you. Every morning gets easier, and every morning you have a menacing-looking puppy greeting you at your bedside. It makes recovery easier, especially when you’re forced to eat some sort of alien vegetables he cultivated for you upon converting his compost room to a garden as the only food your body won’t reject, alongside nutrients he continues to inject into your bloodstream.

Slowly pushing up to a sitting position, you suppress a cough that comes across as a personal affront to the bulky alien, who stands upright with you. “How did the experiment from last night go?” You query, your vision still mildly blurry from sleep as you look over the holograms opposite you.

“We’re close,” he murmurs, long strides taking him across the room. “Your hypothesis was right. The Kerm cells react to heat, but not too much heat. I was killing them before.”

Rubbing your eyes, you smile. “So we’re close to a cure that we can send back?”

He pauses, facing you. He’d been unwilling to send his own cells back to the very people who sent you to your death, but at your request, he’d continued experimentation for a cure that didn’t require gene therapy. “I don’t understand why you care.”

“There were eight billion Humans, Sukuna.” Your head tilts in sympathy for the fact that he resents a whole species for their treatment of you. “The hundred or so involved in sending me here shouldn’t be responsible for punishing the rest of the species.”

“Punishing,” he repeats the word, though he doesn’t need an explanation when he can use context clues.

Pushing to your feet, you walk on weakened feet to join him, sidling up to his warmth. “You know, I never got the chance to thank you.”

Two eyes flicker down to you, questioning, while the other two evaluate the weakened state of your muscles.

“You’re breathing oxygen.”

“I am.”

“And you risked getting Alveolarium from me.”

He stubbornly looks up. “I did.”

If there’s one thing that remains the same between your species, it would seem it’s embarrassment. Sukuna is over one thousand years old with no partner. You can only assume he never found someone, or prefers solitude. Or, more aptly, preferred. It’s safe to say he doesn’t know how to navigate your healthy return to his life.

As you jovially grin at his side, Sukuna adjusts the temperatures of his experimentations, each by a fraction of a degree, before he turns to face you. The tension in his shoulders has released upon seeing you eagerly facing him with clasped hands. “Yes, human?”

“Can I see the rest of your ship?”

“Not until you’re well.”

“I’m literally fine!”

He crosses both pairs of arms over his built chest. “You coughed.”

“There was something in my throat,” you counter.

His lip curls in haughty frustration. He clicks with intermittent syllables that you’re unable to put together. Missing the word, he goes with the simplest train of thought. “No.”

Stepping towards him, your palms settle over his lower veiny forearms. Your thumbs rub small circles into his tough skin, the hair on his arms noticeably standing on-end. “Please? I promise I’m okay.” His eyes narrow a fraction. “I wanna see how you keep your food, and where you’re growing those turnip things. Oh–! And the bridge, and– Wait, your ship is so big, what else do you even have here? Do you–”

He huffs loudly, but you note that in spite of the scowl pulling his brow down, relief floods his gaze and his lips fluctuate wildly between a frown and smile. It doesn’t take much for him to give in, loosening an arm as he wraps it around your shoulders in an effort to steady you as he leads the way through the ship.

It’s massive beyond anything you could ever comprehend. Metals you’re not even positive exist on Earth line the walls and natural bioluminescent amoebas are used to light long stretches of hall where wasting energy is unnecessary. Light only exists where needed, like bathing a large medical bay with a missing bed and several bottles and boxes thrown astray as though the room was flipped upside down in search of supplies. Your heart surges with something dangerous at the sight, as you know the stoic creature beside you– who doesn’t so much as bat an eye at the mess– did this for you. He tossed aside equipment and tore through supplies in order to keep you alive, who barely lives a fraction of his lifespan.

Hell, he’s almost twice your height and keeps walking at your unsteady and slow pace without so much as a peep. His hand shuffles from your shoulder to your back as he briefly points out a food hall complete with a garden and a large freezer for overgrowth and cured meats. There’s a pungent smell to the room befitting of what was once a compost bay.

“Is this what I’ve been eating?”

He chuffs, lifting a heavy arm to point at what you would otherwise describe as a radish. He states its name in his mother tongue, not bothering to translate given that the syllables thrown in between each click sound painfully like ‘engine’ and he’s heard you use that word before, so it simply doesn’t translate into a word you can both use. You nod your approval as he continues his tour with little fanfare, his hand gliding from your back to your elbow.

“I’m lucky,” he states, “they’re the only plant that will grow in oxygen from what I tried.”

Next, he leads the way through an exercise hall, a gravity converter, and a communications bay. His ship dwarfs yours in every possible way and it’s all intended for just one person. The real enigma, however, is the way his hand keeps shifting on you, like he isn’t quite sure what to do with himself now that he has you back and you’ve kissed.

“I didn’t think you’d be so awkward,” you blurt out without a care in the world, pleased as you tilt your head to find his expression narrowing just slightly.

“Awkward?” He searches for confirmation despite being able to put the context clues together.

“You keep moving your hand. Seven times now, Sukuna,” you tease, your grin widening.

“I’m guiding you,” he grumbles dismissively.

“I don’t need a hand to guide me through a ship. I’m a good follower.”

His gaze glides to the side, teeth gritting as he clicks his disapproval. “Noisy.”

Laughing, you give him a nudge that pulls his attention back. His usual aloof gaze briefly flickers across your face like he expects signs of sickness before fixing on your chiding grin. “You’re allowed to be nervous, Sukuna.”

“I’m not.” He growls out some sort of curse word in Simurian, continuing on the walk through the ship as he finds the explanation he needs. “I don’t know Human traditions. I don’t know how to move forward.”

You bite back a smile at the sweet admission. “Well, humans are a bit different.” You give him a thoughtful peek from beneath your lashes, catching the way it disengages the tension in his shoulders. “We try to stay partners for life, but we’re complicated. Emotions get in the way, people change–”

“You would separate from your partner in such a short life?” Sukuna sounds utterly shocked at the thought, his nose wrinkling as he stops dead in his tracks. He turns to face you, staring at you like he wants to shake the mere idea from existence by your shoulders.

“We try not to. But sometimes it’s inevitable.” You shrug. “Sometimes you fall out of love with the person you marry or date, or sometimes things change or distance gets in the way–”

“Then you talk about it. Or visit.” His voice comes out clipped with edge. You can’t tell whether he intends it to.

“Our transportation isn’t very advanced. The ship I was in,” you explain, pointing over your shoulder, “it’s the tenth one capable of space travel beyond our own moon.”

The brutish alien’s scowl lessens as something of far greater importance occurs to him suddenly. You allow the silence that stretches on as you recognize his troubled expression. He’s grappling with something he doesn’t know how to address. The ship stands by idly in the moment where Sukuna straightens, settling a pair of hands on his hips while the others cross over his chest. He doesn’t move as he speaks with a flat tone that almost conveys solemnity. “I can take you back. To Earth. Along with the cure, once it’s ready.”

Somewhere between the kiss, the illness, and the acceptance that your fate was to die, you forgot that there was another option. “What if I don’t want to?”

Sukuna’s gaze travels listlessly left and right. It’s clear this is something he’s considered. After all, imprisonment awaits you on Earth regardless of the cure. What point is there in returning? And yet, Simuria would be imprisonment in a roundabout way, too. You can’t breathe the sulfuric gas. He isn’t even confident in your ability to withstand the barometric pressure in one of the suits in his ship.

He doesn’t answer immediately, either pretending something caught his attention by tilting his second ear towards something, or genuinely listening to something. Regardless, he glances aside as he considers your question before proceeding to completely ignore your query. “How do Humans wed?” He mutters, as though the concept that he doesn’t know makes him mad.

“We date first,” you chuckle. “We impress one another. We go out and do fun things together. We give gifts and spend time being intimate. Like, cuddling and kissing. Oh–! And then if things are going well, one person presents the other with a ring with a pretty stone in the middle and if things are right, that person says yes and then they wed and there’s a big ceremony, and then both people get rings, and friends come visit, and–”

Sukuna bends down to your height, nudging your nose once, then kissing you. “What’s a ring?”

Giddily, you can’t help a giggle as he shuts you up without complaint of your noisiness, simply backtracking to the portion of your rambling he doesn’t understand. “It goes around your finger.” Instinctively reaching for his face, your finger traces along the edge of the protruding plate from his face. One of his eyes twitches, but he allows you to do so. “It signifies to humans that you’re in a committed relationship with another human.” Your finger traces the side of his face as he stays bent to your height. “Do Simurians have something like that?”

“Tattoos.”

Your eyes brighten. “Humans do that sometimes in place of wedding rings, too. Basically, you present one ring when you want to get married, and then when you do get married, you get matching tattoos around your fingers instead of matching rings. It’s actually really–”

He kisses you again, that familiar spice of tea flooding your senses pleasantly.

Undeterred, you inquire about Simurian traditions. “What about for you?”

“We simply… Know.”

You pout at the mere thought. “Like love at first sight?” You whisper eagerly.

He nudges your nose, growling his disapproval. “Instinct.” He straightens. “No rings. The date of the ceremony is decided based on when other Simurians are available.”

“Oh right, they’re like holidays.”

He chuffs.

“Were they always, though? You said… I mean, you–”

“There used to be over a thousand of us, yes.” He doesn’t bother skirting around the question. “No, we didn’t always do things this way. We used to be selective.” He sucks in a breath, pushing past the question with little fanfare. “The ceremony has a fire,” he states now that he has the word after some experimentation involving it, “and a ceremonial dance.”

“I can’t picture you dancing,” you giggle.

His eyes narrow. “I don’t. The dancers dance.”

“Of course, of course, my bad,” you grin.

“Then, we braid one anothers’ hair, and an elder tattoos us.”

You smile at the differing culture. “That sounds beautiful.” Your gaze slowly rises to his short, pushed back hair. “Your hair isn’t very long, though.”

“Our hair has to be long enough to braid before Simurians can be wed. Or in some cases, exceptions can be made.”

“So you’d have to grow it out?” When he chuffs, you tilt your head with a grin. “That’s kinda hot.”

Catching the compliment in your tone, Sukuna shifts, a rare smirk crossing his features as he tracks the way your hands rest on your hips.

“Are we talking like a braid in your whole hair or just a small portion?”

“A small portion.”

Your grin widens. “That’s kinda cute. You’d be like a Jedi apprentice! Only, I don’t think it’s fitting to call you an apprentice, you’re more like–”

“Human.” Sukuna’s chiding carries far less annoyance since your recovery. “I don’t know ‘Jedi’.”

“Oh–! Right, yeah, I guess you guys don’t have Star Wars. Well, at least you avoided the sequel trilogy,” you mutter more to yourself than him when he lets out a huff as you turn to explore his ship again. He no longer leads the way, allowing you to explore all on your own, only keeping a hand on you to ensure steadiness as though your dwindling cough might blow you over. At least, that’s what he would tell you if you asked why he insists on keeping a hand on you.

His ship is vast. It could be compared to several acreages where your ship is barely the equivalent of a small apartment. The size is staggering, and you begin to realize exactly what he meant when he said Simurians enjoy having large properties to themselves.

“So, do your instincts just like… line up with the other person?”

“Generally.”

“How do you tell one another that you’re in love?”

Sukuna is silent for so long that you stop at the precipice that leads down into a storage and whip around to face him. He’s scowling at you with that kind of look that has you realizing your bug-based brain has missed a very Human– or in this case, Simurian– social cue.

“We nuzzle.”

You purse your lips as you’re faced with an intensity that’s oddly sweet given the frown it’s accompanied by. It’s not like you haven’t figured out by now that Sukuna is fond of you, but the reality of Humanity and Simurians is that he’ll outlive you. You’ll be nothing more than a distant memory by the time his hair goes gray. Assuming it does that, anyway. That’s not even beginning to address the planetary differences, atmosphere issues and dietary needs amongst other things.

Or the fact that you’ve known him for only a few weeks. Unusual by Human standards to be in talks of marriage, but by Simurian standards, you suppose he’s implying he chose you already. As much as the very Human part of you wants to call him yours, the scientist in you knows only compatibility. He’s a Thorny Devil Stick Insect to your Isopod Cubaris. Everything about the situation is absurd and your brain and your heart are fighting for keeps– Sukuna, or the reality that you should return to Earth and let Sukuna find a Simurian that allows his instincts to kick in.

As you stare blankly at him with pursed lips, he steps closer into your space, examining the way you fiddle with the hem of the hoodie draped over your shoulders. His movement kicks you back into the present.

“O-oh–! The nose, uh– The nose thing? The kiss?”

He huffs, shockingly cross as he averts his gaze. “Yes, the nose thing.”

You swallow hard, the reality of your harshly pounding heart bringing to light every issue you’ve already gone over in your head in spite of the fact that you’ve spent so long craving the touch of this ten foot tall man you have no right to. “Sukuna, I barely live like a thirtieth of your life span.”

The noise he lets out is something between an affirmative chuff that he knows and a grumble of sorts. He lets the moment hang, unsure what to make of it before brushing it off with something too simple. “Instincts,” he grumbles, nearing you again as his face lowers to yours. Without knowledge of dates or Earthly traditions, the most he can do is press his lips to yours. There’s something pleading in it that melts every reservation your brain screams at you.

His lips are never soft, neither in texture nor movement. He’s a being that lumbers around and his strength is beyond obvious. You feel that, too, in the way he aims to claim you, should you let him. When he leaves the ball in your court, you press forward, wrapping your arms around his neck as the kiss deepens.

Your tongue slips against his lips like an invitation that he doesn’t hesitate to grasp as he takes charge again. He still tastes of something with an overall spicy tang that you can’t place, but it’s no less pleasant now than it was the first time. No longer weakened by illness, he takes the opportunity to lift your thighs with his lower arms while his upper arms support your torso as he hoists you up, straightening. His lower hands knead your thighs in what feels like a subconscious manner, thumbs gliding over the stretch marks and scars of a life not yet fully lived.

He stumbles towards the wall, caging you between him and it, the strange coarse texture of the metals that make up his ship cool against the spot where your hoodie’s ridden up. He presses in, his lips moving faster, his body pressed against yours so tightly that you can feel the fact that his stomach mouth is panting.

The things that does to your body should be studied. Just as you grip him tighter, fingers curling into fists in his hair, he pulls back with a strange rigidity to him. “You never– I can still bring you back. To Earth,” he offers through pants in a tone that doesn’t suit his usual clipped and formal one. The uncertainty swimming in his gaze is unbefitting of him.

“Wh–” You look around like someone might be around to share your incredulous stare. “You’re asking that now?”

He swallows hard, the movement betraying his embarrassment. Good to know he’s capable of that, truly. “I want to give you the option.”

“Is it greedy of me to ask for both?”

He tilts his head curiously, something of a clicking noise coming from deep within his throat as he places just enough distance between your faces to take in your expression.

“It would be nice to make sure the cure gets delivered to the right people when we get there,” you admit, “but I’d like to say bye to Shoko and my family.”

He sucks in a breath. “You lost ten years getting here. You would lose another ten returning, and–” his hands dig into your thighs, his shoulders tightening as he calculates distance based on where you identified the Milky Way in your many scientific discussions prior to your illness. “Seven more, at least, on the trip to Simuria.”

Your gaze falls. “Oh.” Leaning back against the cool wall that suddenly feels nice on the back of your head, your fingers curl into Sukuna’s multi-sleeved compression shirt. “So I’d be over fifty,” you murmur. It shakes you to your core, and you lean into Sukuna.

He adjusts his arms to embrace you, nuzzling his face into the crook of your shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

The silence that follows is a welcome one of mourning. You had accepted death sealed in a tin can in the void of space. You had accepted death faced with illness, grateful to have met such a wonderful otherworldly being. You had been satisfied knowing you fell for someone, even if it never came to fruition. It had all been enough.

Until Sukuna came barreling through the hull keeping you imprisoned, unwilling to let death be an option.

To say you fell harder would be an understatement. If the option ever presented itself, there was never a question what you would choose. There is no question what you’re choosing.

After an extended period of silence, you lift your head from Sukuna’s shoulder. “The pods aren’t too damaged to make it to Earth?”

He blinks a number of times, questioning your decision-making. “I didn’t damage them.”

“Then… As long as my friends and family know I made it to the cure, that’s enough.”

Slowly, Sukuna sets you back on the ground, a surprising amount of conflict in the way he runs his tongue over his teeth, casting his glance at the makeshift garden whose artificial sun has set.

The low bioluminescence of the hall light glows softly over his features as you watch his expression pull taut. “You don’t seem happy.”

“I am,” he argues, flashing you a glare as he mutters something under his breath in Simurian.

“Then what’s wrong?”

He sucks in a breath, stepping forward as he leans his massive form down to your height. “You’ll be stuck aboard this ship until I can figure out something better.”

“I could use a suit!” You offer gleefully. “Actually, that would be kinda cool if you think about it–” you begin, your mind wandering. “It’ll be kinda like all the movies and shows I watched growing up and then I can come back to my little– no, actually this place is huge– my huge ship, or I guess our huge ship–”

Sukuna doesn’t interrupt you for once, chuffing not in affirmation but amusement. There’s almost a purr to it as you prattle on about how every kid on Earth dreams of being an astronaut and here you are on an alien ship. He casts you a sidelong glance as you make commentary on the hot alien company you’ve found, sidling up to him with a grin as you compliment him.

“Hey, um– Do you wait until marriage?” You query with warmth in your cheeks, sending the conversation in a complete one-eighty.

“For what?”

“Sex.”

Sukuna’s jaw shifts as he regards the small being beside him. “Sex?”

“Um–” Your gaze averts as your cheeks warm further. “Like reproduc–” you pause when you narrowly catch his lip quirking up out of the corner of your eye. “You know what I mean. You’re fucking with me.” You face him with a deadpan expression.

The creature rumbles in amusement. “Noisy human,” he chides. “I’m not having sex with you here. My ship is meant for one. We don’t wait, but this is unsightly.”

“Oh, so now you have decorum?”

Using context clues to put together the meaning of your retort, he straightens. “When have I not?”

“You call me annoying all the time!”

“I call you noisy. And I’m right,” he puffs his chest out as he crosses his arms over his chest as he continues your little tour.

–

The long-awaited day comes far sooner than Sukuna could have imagined. After countless temperature adjustments and endless suggestions from you that may have had him rolling his eyes weeks ago, the fresh Kerm stem cells attack the infected Alveolar cells, curing them.

He straightens, watching the immediate reaction under the duress of an exact temperature, and replicates it once more. Then again. And again.

You’re already watching, on the edge of your seat as you set aside the roasted turnip you were eating. You both wait with bated breath as the fifth experiment comes out as a success.

“It worked,” you breathe, getting to your feet. “You did it.” Disbelief coats your tone, the dimmed lab lighting reflecting off of Sukuna’s gloves as he discards them and steps back, staring at all five successes.

“A cure,” he states. His disbelief is plain, but there’s something far greater woven within the way his fists ball up at his sides and his shoulders rise.

He failed once and his species suffered for it. Maybe it’s not Simuria, but Earth means something to you. And this time, he didn’t fail.

As control weaves itself back into his grasp, he stares down at his hands, sucking in a breath. Blinking as tears prick his waterline, he stays put so as to not reveal his vulnerability to you.

But you’re already bounding towards him, practically whipping yourself around his immovable form to hug him with unmatched ardor. “You did it!” Your whole body trembles with relief at the thought that just maybe Shoko is still out there, and this might save not just her, but your entire home. Your family.

With a sharp inhalation, Sukuna’s arms curl around you, lifting you effortlessly, as he hides his relief in your shoulder. “We did.”

But as you put together instructions for cell breeding and duplication and prepare the cure to be sent to Earth, so too comes the day Sukuna has been dreading.

Staring out the window after sending off the cure, you lean over the control panel, wide-eyed as the stars twinkle back at you. You whip around to face your companion, but your question is met with a solemnity you aren’t expecting. “What now? To Simuria?”

Sukuna’s lips are drawn into a frown. It’s not unbefitting of him, but the dullness of his cerise eyes tells another story.

The pieces fall into place with every ounce of tension in his musculature. The gleam in your eyes burns out like a solar system’s light at the realization that faces you. “You’re gonna destroy the planet.”

Two slanted eyes turn to face you, followed by the two more humanoid ones, his arms crossed over his chest as his heart pangs at your disappointment. He’ll never fault your compassion, but this is something he can’t let go.

“It’s a sacrifice,” he admits. “A few to save many.”

“I know they’re the cause of so much destruction but… do you have to? It feels… wrong. Even if they’re artificial.”

The alien’s voice is a low rumble. “You’re kind, little human. I like that.” The warmth in his compliment echoes over hard stone lining the interior of the bridge. “I flew over the planet’s surface while you recovered,” he explains as he stares down at the stark green gas buildup around the planet that’s been increasing the longer the ship sits just outside of orbit. “There are no other species on the planet. No flora, no fauna. Where there were cities, there are now ruins. Trees are shredded. There’s nothing left. If I leave them, they will evolve. Someday, they will escape, or another unsuspecting species will do what Simuria or Earth did.”

When he puts it like that, you can understand his reasoning. After two hundred years of searching for the Kerm, you can sympathize with his need to follow through.

“This decision doesn’t need to involve you. This would have happened regardless.”

You turn to face him with your arms around your middle, hugging yourself. “I know, but after letting that one go on Earth, I feel like I’m involved now.”

“You had no way of knowing. Then or now,” he excuses your action, something you’re grateful for, as much as you’ll always harbor that guilt and the vision of a creature tearing through a crew.

After a moment of silence as he allows you to grapple with reality, he moves towards the control panel, sliding his finger along a series of sensors as his ship turns to move further from the planet while more systems come to life as he prepares a laser.

The planet looks beautiful from a distance. Pinks and blues scatter the surface, while a gaseous blue-green surrounds the planet. You don’t doubt Sukuna told the truth, but your heart pangs to know that the gorgeous sight will dissipate in mere moments at the hands of someone you care for. Hell, maybe even at your hands, if you think too hard about it.

Guilt bubbles in the pit of your stomach as the whirring of Sukuna’s ship ramps up, a bright light beginning to form somewhere from the side of the bridge where you can’t see. The brutish alien glides his hand over a few sensors, pressing something with finality before returning to your side. His palm settles along your shoulder, pulling you into him as his chest rises and falls, his own guilt palpable in the air between you.

The whirring of the ship comes to a sharp halt, the laser’s light suddenly brighter than the sight of the sunlit planet itself. Sukuna’s grip on your shoulder tightens as he moves deftly, pulling you face-first into his chest and wrapping you tightly in all four arms to prevent you from seeing the blast. With one hand on the back of your head, he prevents you from turning your head.

Even in your peripherals, you see the light. You shut your eyes tight, Sukuna’s grip on you increasing as the blast goes off. Some part of you expects to hear something, forgetting that space is a vacuum, and you’re met with nothing. But nothing is worse. An entire species eradicated, and you’re met with nothing.

Sukuna’s heart pounds hard as he watches the planet splinter. His curse to live with, but never your burden to bear. He won’t let it be. He holds you tight until the planet’s remains are little more than debris floating every which way. You’re far enough away that whatever else was blasted into space isn’t visible, and for that, he’s grateful.

He holds you so long that he isn’t sure whether it’s for him, or for you.

“It’s done,” he murmurs, allowing you at last to look out over the wreckage as his ship’s whirring slowly winds down.

“They won’t hurt anyone else,” you murmur as your brow tents when you look over the wreckage of stone and crystal that floats where Methalon–as Sukuna referred to it– once was.

“Let’s hope that’s true,” he murmurs in return, his body hunching over as he drops his face to your head, eyes shutting tightly.

–

It’s a wonder you make it to Simuria at all. Not because of any extenuating circumstances, but because you have so many questions and queries and noisy impulses that Sukuna seems to perpetually scowl at you. On equal grounds, however, you catch him with a longing stare when you least expect it.

In the midst of a full explanation on the reproduction of Scorpions. When you’re desperately trying to yank a Simurian radish’s roots from the ground while it protests you, sweat dripping down your spine. Even when you’re sifting through the remnants of your belongings from Earth. He trails after you with nothing short of zealous loyalty.

When you arrive on Simuria, you’re trapped on the ship as you expected, only able to experience the planet from the bridge’s window. Still, it’s more than you ever could have hoped. Not unlike Methalon, Simuria is primarily crystalline in nature with petrified trees growing crooked from mountains. You’re able to expand your diet to more vegetables, supplementing your vitamins with injections that Sukuna is damn-near overbearing about.

“Sukuna, I can do it myself!” You try to insist as he nuzzles you, intermittent with kisses.

“It’s my job to take care of you,” he insists into your neck, nipping at the sensitive skin to distract you before pulling back to inject your daily supplement into your thigh while you’re distracted.

“You’re a menace!” You insist through giggles, and the injection becomes nothing more than an afterthought.

Still stoic, you see his warmth within that familiar four-eyed gaze. “You chose me without instincts,” he points out in a teasing manner, pride held within his straightened back. “Now come.”

Rolling your eyes at his shockingly witty retort as he gets too good at your language, you let him lead the way through the ship until you reach the exit door. You’ve only seen the planet’s surface through glass as he promised you an oxygen tank to withstand his atmosphere someday. It had been taking so long that you figured he ran into a snag, but as you stand at the bay and watch his hand glide along the sensors, you realize just how foolish you had been.

For the first time, the bay opens up and you find yourself instinctively trying to search for a way to protect yourself from the sulfur.

“Sukuna, I–”

“Give me your trust, ange.” He holds your bicep as you begin to back away, his gaze insistent.

Ange. The syllables that, intermittent with clicks and growls, make up the word ‘angel’ in Simurian, and french–the language of romance– and his favorite nickname for you. He had explained that when he takes you to meet the rest of his kind, it would be helpful for you to understand more of his language, and that if you paid attention to– and spoke– in only the syllables of the words, you would largely be able to communicate with his kind without issue. The clicks and growls come out of necessity of Simurians having broadly low voices and living in craters. The second ears and extra sounds in each word allow them to communicate from longer distances without the necessity for the syllables, but the same is true for communicating without the clicks. The syllables can also stand, mostly, on their own.

Your jaw tightens as you stop resisting his grip, allowing him to lead you through a small bay door where you’ve often seen him leave through the pressurized chamber. When he leads the way through it, there’s shockingly no change in barometric pressure. Or oxygen.

Off to the side of the ship where you aren’t able to see from the bridge, Sukuna has built out a massive domed biome with oxygen production within, allowing you to touch the surface for the first time. Your lips part as your feet scuff over the crystal-threaded dirt beneath your shoes.

You take small steps at first, glancing to the left where petrified trees protrude from a cliffside within the barrier of the biome, hanging over the mild seafoam that coastal waves leave behind. You tread towards the beach, your shoes sinking into the sand as you take in the smell of the salt water, your mouth still agape at how massive the space is.

To your right is a cavern that you know to be partially artificial, Sukuna’s home held within. You turn to face him, the shock of it all pinning you in place, when you’re met with another surprise.

He’s not down on his knees, but in his hand is a ring crafted from metal with a gorgeous off-pink crystal in the center, clearly carefully procured. It’s simultaneously gorgeous and obvious. The jewel matches his hair. It’s romantic, but it’s claiming too, something you’ve realized of Sukuna over the months that you’ve resided within his ship.

Your hand raises to cover your lips as you stare down at it. “Are you…?”

He runs a hand through his locks. “My hair’s not long enough yet for a ceremony,” he states, the strands falling through his fingers, “but I think your traditions are different.”

“I–” You breathe, staring down at the stone. It’s not like you didn’t know this would all happen in time, but to wrap your brain around being proposed to by an alien who made a barometric dome of oxygen for you is still a feat. Slowly, you reach for the gorgeous stone. “Yes. I’ll marry you.”

His brow scrunches as though there was no need for an answer and he already knew such a thing, but he hands the ring over regardless, watching as you slide it down your ring finger with a gorgeous grin.

“This is beautiful, Sukuna,” you breathe.

He chuffs pridefully, four palms finding their place along your body– two on your hips and two your waist. He doesn’t hesitate to pull you in, his fingers kneading your skin as he nuzzles you hard. His hooked nose rubs against yours before he dips down to kiss you passionately.

Given that kissing in its Simurian form is so different from Humanity’s version, it’s almost unfair just how good he is at it. Your body goes warm as you grip the Simurian robes he’s begun wearing now that he’s home.

Kisses with Sukuna are never slow and sweet. There’s intention behind every swipe of his tongue as he invades your mouth, pleasantly flooding your mouth not with the usual herbal tea you’ve come to expect, but something more minty, like there was thought behind this kiss that makes you smile into it.

He swallows your smile as he deepens the kiss, tilting your head up. There was a point where you were convinced you would die alone in the darkness of a welded ship without feeling the warmth of the sun on your skin again, and by some miracle, the very man who held your life in his hands now holds your heart instead.

When he pulls back, his thumb brushing your waist softly, he inhales, long and deep. “It isn’t Earth,” he concedes, a rare vulnerability within his baritone voice. “But I hope you’ll be happy here.”

Reaching for his cheeks, your thumb brushes the plating along the side of his face. “Sukuna, this is everything I could have hoped for.” You smile softly, turning around in his grip to stare out at the ocean as you shed your shoes and wriggle your toes in the sand, his hands never once leaving you. “I could live here for a lifetime.”

“Good,” his chest rumbles behind you as he chuckles, watching the tide swim ashore to your feet. “Because you very well might, ange.”

You grin up at him, wading further into the warm water. The planet is so much warmer than Earth due to the heavily gaseous atmosphere that the water isn’t cold like much of Earth’s oceans, pleasant around your ankles. “I’m kinda like Sandy Cheeks, if you think about it.”

“What?” Sukuna’s nose wrinkles, perplexed.

You laugh heartily, staring down at the stone around your finger. “Don’t worry about it.”

–

“Are you sure I look okay?”

“You,” your fiancé heartily purrs, “look like my dinner for tonight.”

The worst part is that you can see the maw on his stomach grinning from under his white robes.

You whack his arm softly, earning a playful chuff in reply as he looks you up and down, already mentally undressing you of the traditional Simurian wedding gown that Sukuna had an elder Simurian make for you, giving your measurements and no further details as he perplexed the poor elder on just who his bride-to-be might be.

The robes drape over your shoulders elegantly, the pale green accents of the off-white robes complimenting your traditional makeup. The sweet young (in Simurian years, anyway) woman doing your makeup and using traditional natural skin dyes hadn’t stopped gushing the entire time about Sukuna finding a mate, something you had picked up through broken understanding of their language.

You had even caught on that as it would turn out, he was the only Simurian adult who lacked a mate of those remaining.

“Have you picked out your tattoos yet?” She excitedly inquires, sure to slow her speech down so you can piece together what you can.

In extremely broken Simurian, you reply, “Yes! He chose design and I chose placement.”

She squeals in excitement, going on to tell you about how a Simurian named Dura recently took up tattooing, and you two would be his first wedding tattoos. There’s a certain solemnity in knowing that, with dwindling numbers, you very well may be his last, too.

Your nerves hit hard as you grow closer to emerging from Sukuna’s home where you’ve been prepping.

“If you’re still worried,” Sukuna offers as the young woman heads off to prepare herself for the ceremony, “just remember you and I are the only ones that can breathe oxygen. They’ll all be in suits.”

You’re pretty sure he just told you to picture them all in their underwear essentially, but it helps ease some nerves regardless.

“You’ve got a point,” you breathe out a sigh of relief before sucking in a breath. “Remind me how this goes again?”

Sukuna steps towards you, lowering himself to a knee to speak with you. His hand raises, his fingers gliding along your palm as he takes a moment to stare at your palms pressed together. To think that glass once separated you feels like another reality now. His gaze moves from your hands to your eyes as he intertwines your fingers. “You will wait in a tent by the beach as I am readied,” he explains, referring to his own traditional makeup that needs to be applied, his hair shaggy and a complete mess now that it’s much longer and ready to be braided. “Dabura is to wed us, as he’s my closest ally. He’ll come get you. There will be a ceremony with dancers and a large bonfire, then Dura will tattoo us.”

“And then?” You chew on your lower lip eagerly.

“Then,” he nears you, his fingers delicately brushing your robes. “The night is ours.”

You let out a breath, biting back a smile at the thought given that you had chosen to wait to have sex after all when it took so long to get you out of the ship.

“Are you nervous?” He gruffs, tilting your chin with a calloused hand.

“For the sex, or the wedding?”

“Either.”

It takes you a moment to consider the thought. “Yeah, I guess so. Both.”

“No one can understand your language. If you need something, just say so. I’ll be here the whole time.”

“You know, you never would have had me thinking you were so sweet when we first met.”

His brow twitches, his gaze averting. “I’m not.”

Stubborn.

“Noisy.”

Your eyes narrow. “Just curious, can you hear my thoughts?”

“No, why?”

“No reason.”

The night carries out as he promised. Seventy eight Simurians gather from far and wide, of tribes from a bygone era, of all ages and appearances. A fire is stoked and dancers do what you’re sure was once a much more elegant dance without the added bulk of spacesuits beneath traditional outfits.

The Simurians are kind to you, regardless of your broken ability to speak their language. They pick up on the occasional word in your language too, not unlike Sukuna.

Once the grand part of the ceremony is over, the rest of the Simurians take their seats on the beachside surrounding you and Sukuna as you both take small portions of your hair and braid them for one another. Your husband’s fingers are surprisingly deft, and upon finishing the braid, he gets the rest of his hair cut back down to his preferred length. Once the ceremony is complete, you’re met with cheers as Dabura declares you officially wed.

The horned alien is somehow more aloof than your husband, and the largely disinterested looks he shoots everyone you come to realize is his neutral. Were you not surrounded by far more boastful Simurians, you might even think they’re all like this.

Following the cheers of the ceremony, as things begin to quiet down, you’re approached by a Simurian with long, flowing white hair tucked into his spacesuit. He has a friendly look about him as he grins at you. “Dura,” he introduces himself, extending his hand.

Your brow raises at the realization he’s given you his name in your language, keen to the fact that your ability to speak is broken. Sukuna seems to respect that, taking a step back from the protective shadow he’s been all night with so many people so close to you, wary that someone might disprove his choice to wed a Human. You shake Dura’s hand in turn, offering your name as though he hasn’t been hearing it all night.

“Have you chosen a design?” He asks in his mother tongue.

He speaks slowly, allowing you to keep up. “Sukuna chose design, I chose– um–” your brow furrows as you attempt to place the syllables for the word in Simurian.

“Placement?” Dura steps in.

In a harsh tone, Sukuna steps forward, his lip curled into a snarl. “My wife is talking,” he snaps, the growls and clicks far more bitter than you’re used to hearing.

Dura’s hands raise. “I was just helping with words, Sukuna,” he smiles easily, waving the white flag before anything breaks out amongst the Simurians still lingering from the ceremony. “I wasn’t interrupting.”

You exchange a sympathetic glance with Dura, setting a hand on your husband’s arm. “It’s okay, Sukuna,” you murmur. “I just didn’t know the word, he was helping,” you agree.

Your husband’s shoulders fall slowly into something less aggressive, his gaze immovable as it glues itself to Dura. The tension between the two men is brief, before Sukuna gives into your sweet touch and softens, describing the design and placement to Dura. The white-haired man proceeds to prepare a table for you, sanitizing everything and pulling out what, by Earth’s standards, would be traditional handpoke tattoo materials.

Once ready, Sukuna goes first. The design is small, two zigzags mirroring one another with a simple tear in the center right where you chose– on the ring finger. He’s completely still throughout the process without any complaint, and you find yourself embarrassed when you wince at the first tap of the stone tool. Dura does what he can to distract you, attempting to speak with you– though at you is probably more apt given how broken your Simurian is. Still, you’re proud of yourself for your proficiency with the language and your ability to sit through the tattoo, which isn’t so bad once the first few punctures are through.

Once it’s complete, you hold your hand up to Sukuna’s, comparing the ink to one another with a bright smile before Dura bandages them. Your husband leans down to nuzzle and then kiss you, succinct but meaningful.

As the night winds down and the attendees begin to take their leave in ships of varying sizes, you sit by the entrance to your now-shared home with Sukuna. The stars twinkle overhead as you marvel at how different they are from Earth’s. In spite of everything, you stare out at the same vast expanse of space as your family back home does. You wish they could see that you got married. Pulling your knees to your chest, you rest your chin on them as you stare up at the sky, only able to wonder.

A bulky shadow leans over you after saying his goodbyes to Dabura and shutting the dome for the final time of the night. He blocks your view of the stars, pulling your attention to his ever-intense gaze. His chest rises and falls evenly as he regards you fondly. “I’m sure that was a lot.” Sukuna doesn’t often apologize, and you’re fairly sure it’s what he intends when he speaks.

“I liked meeting everyone,” you shake your head, relaxing as you lean back on your splayed palms. “I just wish my friends back home could see.”

“See how well the robes compliment you?” He comments in a smooth tone, although his expression remains unchanged.

You scoff, shaking your head. “The ring. The tattoo. That I’m married. Here, Simuria. All of it, really.”

Sukuna’s fond smirk fades as the moment hangs. The waves washing ashore have an ambient white noise that barely manages to hide his small sigh. “I’m sorry,” he starts, kneeling down to your level in an act that reminds you just how big he is. “But Humanity doesn’t deserve my ange.”

You let out a breath through your nose, offering a lopsided smile. “Thanks, baby.”

It took him a moment to get used to that nickname, but now he fondly chuffs. “But,” he tacks on, a little more chipper than you’re accustomed to. “I do have something for you, too.”

“For me? Is that something we were supposed to do?” You worry. “Oh god, I didn’t get you anything– I don’t even know what I would–”

“Always so noisy,” he jeers, growling out what you recognize as a Simurian word for ‘mouthy’ even as he offers his hand to help you to your feet.

“Hey!” You smack him playfully, earning a grin as he casts a glance at you, his gaze dipping down to the portion of your leg that protrudes from your robes as he helps you up.

He’s quiet as he leads the way into your shared home, strings of lights and domed bulbs decorating the walls at your request given that your then-fiancé lived largely in the dark aside from bioluminescence, much like his ship.

It seems to be the Simurian version of when men just put a chair and a TV in a room and call that decorating. Despite living in a cliffside, the rest of the house is well-decorated, just not well lit. It isn’t largely personal by any means, something you hope to change with art and photos, but at least you can say he does have furniture.

When you reach your bedroom, the most expansive room in the house, decorated with plants and a small bug-like creature you found within the dome that you’ve been studying– to Sukuna’s dismay– he reaches within a closet and pulls out a large box. Blinking as you stare down at what you recognize as a device, you slowly approach the box as he sets it atop the bed that you requested he make plush, rather than the conforming stone he was accustomed to. With a glide of his thumb, a hologram comes to light.

“What is it?” You ask your engineer husband, nothing immediately giving it away as the light displays nothing.

“Your species uses frequencies to speak from long distances on Earth, right?”

You straighten, staring at the brute in disbelief as he continues fiddling with the machine. “Sukuna, you didn’t.”

It’s all you can manage as you watch Sukuna fiddle with a dial, tapping his nail along the smooth surface of the machine as he makes calculations to figure out how many parsecs the signal will need to travel and at what speed in order to allow you to speak to your friend in real time. Once he’s finished fiddling with it, he turns back to you like this is just another day, handing you what, effectively, looks like an old phone hooked up to the box.

“You use numbers, right?” He chuffs for the latter portion of the sentence, completely ignoring your slack-jawed expression.

“I don’t– I can’t– You did all of this for–”

“Ange.” He chuffs, nuzzling your nose as he pulls you close. “Dial the number.”

A lump sits at the back of your throat, but no amount of swallowing will rid the feeling as you stare at your husband. Tears prick your eyes as slowly you find yourself needing to set the device down in shaky hands, curling into his chest as warm tears trail your cheeks. “You did this for me?” Your voice is hardly a whisper, frail in its delivery into his chest as your makeup inevitably stains his white robes.

“Obviously,” he clicks in his mother tongue, positive you know the meaning.

“You didn’t have to,” you sniffle, muffled. “I brought a bug into our room and I know you think I’m loud–”

“Human,” he growls, his voice clipped as he pulls back. The ceremonial red makeup streaking across his forehead and nose has smeared with the day’s activities, a sheen of sweat over his skin as he lowers himself to your height, holding your cheeks. “You are loud. You are noisy. And you are my wife. I want you to be those and more.”

“Even the bugs?”

A pair of eyes swivels across the room to the beetle-esque creature in a large glass enclosure. A grumble begins in his chest. “I’m less fond of those,” he admits. “But, yes.”

You smile. Lopsided, but genuine. “At least you’re honest.”

“Put in the number for your friend.”

Given that it’s not common to memorize numbers anymore, you’ve never been more grateful in your entire life that you actually know Shoko’s off the top of your head. Your fingers betray your disbelief by trembling as you turn back to the remote of sorts that he gave you, typing Shoko’s number with no regard for what time it might be. It rings once, twice, three times, and a final fourth before your friend picks up.

“Hello?”

Your voice breaks into something between a sob and a gasp the moment you hear her. She sounds older. There’s a rasp to her voice that betrays the weariness of her trade, but she also sounds well. Not sick. Alive. “Sho?” You breathe her nickname in sheer incredulity.

The shuffling on the other end is immediate, a flurry of static as you can practically imagine her flailing out of whatever chair or bed she was slumped over in. “You’re alive?” More static follows, a distraught shout for someone, then, frantically, “oh my god, I thought you were dead, or– I mean after the cure got here, I just had to assume you had taken the drug and I just– where are you? Can you facetime or something?”

It brings a smile to your face to hear your friend again, tears continuing to silently trail down your face in disbelief as tremors ripple through your muscles like waves. You laugh airily at just how much she sounds like you, her mouth at least ten steps ahead of her brain. Turning to Sukuna, you wipe your tears with the back of your hand. “Sukuna? Is there a way to connect to video?”

Standing idly behind you, his gaze lowers to the glimmer of fresh tear trails, his adam’s apple bobbing as he steps forward. He lowers himself to nuzzle your nose first, undoubtedly wiping tears along his own cheek, before fiddling with the box. “What frequency are your videos run on?”

Shoko is practically vibrating on the other end of the line. “Oh my god, who is that?”

“I don’t think Facetime uses frequencies, I think it’s on like… internet. Or LTE, or something.”

Sukuna hums, though he doesn’t seem confident.

“Google says two point four gHz to five gHz!” Shoko much more helpfully adds on the other side.

“Tell Google that helps,” he gruffs as he fiddles with frequencies until the blank hologram gains static.

There’s a brief silence on the other end as Shoko attempts to process how strange that sentence comes across to someone on Earth, but she doesn’t have time to question it when at last a video is displayed for each of you.

It’s clear when the video connects that life has been harsh in far different ways on each of you. Neither of you are the spry twenty-five year olds finishing up degrees and putting out papers that put you at the top of your fields at young ages. Smile lines adorn the corners of her mouth and her eyes have an ever-lidded look to them that only time and exhaustion could bring about. To your surprise, you recognize another acquaintance in the background in Utahime Iori, Shoko’s biggest crush at the time and a big rock on her ring finger.

A wide smile crosses your face and if she were right in front of you, you would surge forward to hug Shoko. Utahime, too.

Shoko’s gaze flicks around your surroundings as she holds up her phone. “Where the hell are you?” She queries as Sukuna rises from where he was fiddling with the long distance radio, popping into the frame behind you.

“Simuria. It’s gorgeous, and the people are so kind, you would love it here.”

“What’s on your face?”

“Oh–! Right, it’s ceremonial makeup,” you explain as you hold up your ring finger to display both your engagement ring and wedding tattoo. “I got married like two hours ago,” you giggle, bubbly.

The sight has your husband closing in on you, unable to stand so far apart when the very sound of your happiness draws him in like a moth to a flame.

With her jaw already on the floor at the revelation of your marriage, she can hardly contain her next question. “Who is that?” Shoko exclaims again, her image a blur as she nearly drops the phone at the sight of your husband.

“This,” you hold a hand out to the brutish alien, “is my husband. Sukuna, this is Shoko.”

It’s not often that Sukuna greets others in your mother tongue, so as he leans into frame, revealing four arms and four eyes, he simply waves at your gawking friend.

“Nice to meet you!” She starts, before it devolves into that scientific disbelief programmed into her brain. “He’s– I mean–” Shoko shakes her head incredulously as she attempts to make sense of the situation. “Aliens are real,” she mutters to herself. “Not just beetle things, either.”

“I feel like you’re really breezing over the four arms and eyes part here,” Utahime comments, surprisingly calm given the situation. You were never particularly close, but the way she evaluates you both seems to anchor your best friend. “Also hey,” she greets you by name with an easy smile. “We’re married too.”

Before you can even congratulate them as well, Shoko is already continuing, too many things to catch up on in too little time. “Honestly after CRM-12, nothing comes as much of a shock.” It comes as an observation more than any kind of blame as she evaluates your towering husband behind you. When he hums, you note that his more talkative personality may be reserved for you only.

“Congratulations, by the way! Wait– Sho, did the cure get there?”

“THE CURE!” She cries out suddenly. You grin through a laugh as everything hits you both at once, over ten years to catch up on. “Girl, yes. You saved– I don’t know, billions of people. And you didn’t even need to send any of those fuckass beetle things back. The company was pissed at first, but I swear they didn’t actually want a cure.”

“They still spread the cure out though, right?”

“They didn’t have a choice. One of the pods landed with NASA. We got lucky.”

“Thank god. I was worried about that.”

“Wait, speaking of beetles–” The hologram flashes and flutters as Shoko moves about the room, a clicking noise followed by something snapping and at last the camera faces her again. “Look!”

You stare in disbelief at the Stag Beetle on her fingers. Sukuna curiously leans forward.

“There’s no way in hell Spike survived this long.”

“Meet Spike Thirteen!” She grins as the stag’s antennae reach for her phone, its mandibles curiously snapping together.

Barking a laugh, you lean back into Sukuna’s warmth. Under the dim lighting of the strung up bulbs, he relaxes into your touch as he instinctively reaches for your waist. “Thirteen makes way more sense.”

Changing the subject again with so many things she wants to go over, Shoko sets Spike on her shoulder. “Are you able to come visit?”

You knew the question was inevitable. The one you were dreading hearing, for there’s no easy way to say it. “I can’t. We’re about seven years apart. I’d be almost sixty by the time we get home.”

There’s a brief somber silence, but it surprises you when Shoko smiles, genuine and kind. “Home.” She repeats the sentiment. “Never thought you’d find one. I think I’m okay with that, knowing that you found a home.”

Your vagabond tendencies make her sentiment make sense, and a tender smile graces your features as Sukuna’s remaining two hands find your hips, like he’s grounding himself in his own home. “Yeah. I hope you did, too.”

“Yeahh, Hime and I are doing pretty well,” she agrees, mirroring the sentiment that perhaps home can be unconventional. For you, an alien in a dome (and just one little bug in a tank), and for her, a person.

“Good. That makes me happy,” you murmur softly.

Shoko’s lips part and it’s clear she has further questions and ten years’ worth of stories to fill you in on, but she shuts them with a smile. “I should let you enjoy your wedding night.” She sits back, Utahime’s hand barely in frame as it rests on Shoko’s shoulder, opposite Spike Thirteen. “Can we talk again?”

You swivel towards Sukuna for confirmation. He shrugs. “I built it for you. Use it as you wish.”

Your hand finds his, threading your fingers through the thick ones resting on your waist. “Yeah, I’ll talk to you soon, Sho.”

“You too,” she can’t help her grin as the line cuts out.

Leaning back into Sukuna, you bask in the thrill of seeing your closest friend again. It doesn’t quite compare to your old dinner and ice cream outings where you claimed dessert was for your second stomach and nearly threw up when that proved to not be the case, but it’s more than you could ever have expected. The lumbering form of your husband leans down slowly, nuzzling your neck from behind. His hooked nose nudges your chin. “Happy, ange?”

“Than I ever thought I could be,” you murmur, tilting your head as you allow him access to the sensitive skin of your neck. There’s a level of harshness to just how much he grinds his face into your neck, earning a giggle as he pulls you closer with ease.

“My wife deserves nothing less.” His lower arms anchor you to his chest as his upper hands trail delicately along the green accents of your robe. One hand dips between your breasts, resting on the tie around your waist. In Simurian, he mutters, “may I make you mine?” against the warm skin of your neck.

A shiver runs stark up your spine as you nod. He sets the transmitter aside, effortlessly lifting you onto the plush of the bed.

“I don’t know how you ever had sex on those stone beds,” you comment breathily as Sukuna parts your legs with a knee.

“My skin is denser,” he replies between nips and licks at your skin. “You’re weak.”

“Yet you married me.”

“Weak and noisy.”

“Whatever you say,” you hum when his lower palms press your hips into the mattress, his torso slipping between your thighs. It comes as a shock when he’s wet on his abdomen and you’re damn sure you’re not the reason. You instinctively search for the cause to find his stomach maw must be drooling under his own robes, more emotive than your husband is himself.

Eager to feel him, your hands slip to the tie of his robes where he leans over you, pulling one end until they hang loosely from his shoulders, revealing a toothy smile along his stomach. The maw’s grin widens, his tongue slipping from within teeth so jagged one would almost think your husband were a predator, not that he eats rocks. Along with his drooling maw, you discover something far more debauched that you had yet to come across.

Simurians don’t typically wear undergarments during wedding ceremonies given that it’s typical to give oneself to the other following the ceremony, hence why the party left at a reasonable hour.

So why on Earth– or in this case, Simuria– does this man have two massive dicks?

“Why do you have two?” You query in bewilderment as he deftly unties your robes.

His expression twists as he lifts his gaze to you, searching for an explanation to your perplexity in the fact that–

“Why don’t you?”

“Why would I need two?”

He points to his two throbbing dicks, each with a black band around the base. “Two,” he states plainly.

“Yeah, I–” You chuckle at the absurdity of it all. “I see that you have two dicks, Sukuna.” Covering your face as you can’t help laughing, you shake your head from behind your palms. “But why?”

“Twice the pleasure,” he states, letting out a throaty noise that you recognize as Simurian for ‘duh’. “Where’s your second one?”

“I don’t– Humans don’t have a second one, Sukuna!”

He hums, something of a grumble. “We’ll make it work.”

Left staring straight through your husband as he moves on while you’re still caught up on him having two dicks, on top of the fact that he’s almost twice your size, he returns to his musings. His nose trails the length of your neck, nudging your robes aside and kissing along the red dyes used to mark you for the ceremony, leaving new marks in their place.

“Gorgeous,” he clicks and purrs in his mother tongue, slipping his hands beneath the ceremonial garments as he pulls your mind to the present. Slipping your arms from the sleeves, you let your hands run along the tattoos that wrap over his shoulders, reveling in the way his rough skin still seems to get a rise from your touch, goose bumps following your fingers’ trail. Ten feet of alien bulk and a tiny human still brings him to his knees.

You let out a gasp as drool from his stomach drips to your abdomen, trailing down to your thighs, warm and wet. If he wasn’t already obvious with how hard he is, his stomach mouth gives him away entirely.

“You’re soft,” he comments, the words slipping from his lips like an idle thought unintended to be spoken. A large tongue swipes from the bottom of your slit to your clit, the sensation sending shivers up your spine as you breathe in a soft gasp.

The room is already warm with the anticipation of arousal, the musky smell of the night’s earlier activities pungent around you. Your husband drinks in the way your back arches for him when he gets a taste of you, a languid pace to his movements as he crawls further over you in spite of his eagerness. Once he realizes he has something, he’s not quick to let it go. The size difference between you allows him to lap at your entrance with his second mouth while he delves his tongue between your lips. Your fingers curl into his shoulders as your nails leave stark half-moons in their wake.

When he adjusts the way in which he laps at your dripping pussy, the flat of his tongue puts pressure on your clit as you realize that his tongue has a mildly rough texture as though it’s intended for your pleasure. Your back arches once more, separating your kiss. One pair of hands drives your hips further into the mattress, while the other pair steadies your cheeks, allowing him to swallow your moans once more.

It’s downright euphoric the way he uses his tongue to work you to the edge so quickly. You want to chalk it up to being over ten years since you’ve felt this sensation, but the only thing to blame here is him. Not unlike your language, he’s learning your body. Fast.

“Hah- fuck–” You breathe when he finally lets up for air, his chest heaving as you cling to him for purchase. “Don’t stop, Kuna.”

His chest rumbles as he lowers himself to one pair of forearms, continuing to knead the plush of your hips with the other pair. His fingers run along the imperfections of your skin, committing each and every stretch mark, scar, and beauty mark to memory without so much as pulling his gaze from your expression.

He drags his massive tongue slower against your clit, the barbed texture pulling you closer and closer to the edge and leaving you breathless altogether. Blood roars in your ears as he slows his pace to keep you right where he wants you, crimson irises mere rings as his blown pupils watch whimpers pour from your slacked jaw.

“I like you like this,” he murmurs, his nose nudging your cheek where makeup has already smudged. “At my mercy and begging me not to stop.”

“That’s because you have a superiority complex,” you mutter even through the haze, still mouthy at the worst of times.

His tongue pulls back, your head lifting in disappointment just in time to watch his stomach maw nip at your inner thigh. You yelp, clinging tighter to his shoulders as you undoubtedly leave behind marks. “I like you noisy during sex, but not mouthy,” he coyly remarks.

“You’re such a–” You sharply gasp when his tongue returns to your clit with another long drawn out stripe up your slit.

“Don’t be smart,” he chides in Simurian, although he speaks so fast he’s positive you don’t catch it. Your head’s already in the clouds, thrown back into the mattress as you cling to him for purchase when at last he gives you what you want.

Adding to the pressure of his tongue, he finally throws you over the edge with shorter, faster licks. Stars encroach on your vision, your nails digging into his tough skin as he nuzzles your chin affectionately while your body twitches with each jolt of static to your abdomen that could damn well be slowing time and you would never know.

When your vision begins to even out, you shift against your husband, suddenly very aware of just how much drool and cum has collectively pooled between your thighs. Your movement rouses his attention as he lifts his head to inspect you. The bliss lighting up your features has his chest puffing out, that stupid prideful and boastful purr that you’ve grown fond of rumbling his chest.

Your lips part as you catch your breath, pulling him back into your shoulder. He doesn’t protest, nuzzling into you so hard you might think he wanted to live there.

“I love you too, Sukuna.”

He lifts his head, his slanted eyes curiously narrowing. “Is that how humans express partnership?”

You smile as he picks apart your traditions so scientifically. “It’s one way,” you murmur softly, tracing a finger along his cheek. His left eyes flutter shut, only opening when your nails rake through his hair.

He chuffs his approval, returning his attention at last to your body with kisses to your breasts. He shifts you up the bed, spreading your legs over his thighs as he sits between them. His cocks are heavy against your stomach, twitching, and equally slick with his own drool and your cum.

As he leans over you, kissing you once more with ease given his extra height. Two thick digits gather the mix of cum and drool, bringing it to his mouth. He runs his tongue along his lips, bringing his wet fingers down to your core. Regardless of species, he clearly knows better than to try sex without adequately working you open for him. You’re small and he has no intention of hurting his wife.

One finger eases in without any friction, the saliva coating it acting as a natural lubricant. The second is met with little resistance too, and he uses the opportunity to pump them slowly. He moves his fingers not like a human might, but as though he’s searching. Like he knows, biologically, that you derive pleasure from a specific point. And god, does he find it. Your hips buck for him as he locates your g-spot, a devious smirk curling on his lips. Your nails rake down his back with each slow pump of his fingers, your arms trembling as you cling to him.

A third finger swipes up the amalgamation of drool and cum and slowly he slips it in to the first knuckle. He watches your shoulders tense, allowing you to pull him closer until your chests are slick with one anothers’ sweat. Your walls don’t clamp so tightly around his fingers as you adjust and slowly, he slides the third one in to the knuckle.

The stretch of three fingers from your massive husband is immense as-is. You both know he isn’t fitting the second of his dicks in you, but he seems satisfied regardless as he watches your expression with blown pupils.

“Fuck, that feels good,” you breathe as he works you open slowly but surely, picking up the pace until he’s got you damn-near at the edge again.

He hums, pulling his fingers away with a wet squelch just as your nails dig into his skin. “Keep that feeling going for me, ange.”

When he lines himself up with you, a shudder rocks your body. He’s always been big. From this angle, he looks massive and his cocks are no different. The upper cock is heavy as it rests atop your abdomen, leaking pre-cum and coated in saliva all the same, both of you equally a mess. When he pushes in the tip, you suck in a breath, a hand flying to his chest to stop him from pressing in too quickly.

He hisses at how tight you are, the size difference more apparent than ever. Swallowing hard, all four eyes turn their attention to you. “Relax, baby,” he coos, his voice dropping an octave as he uses your preferred pet name for him on you. Anything to allow you to anchor yourself. His gruff attitude flips on a dime, with no intention of causing you anything but pleasure and the knowledge that it’s not only been a long time, but you aren’t the same species.

He wets his thumb with his mouth, bringing it down to your clit to massage small circles into it. Your lashes flutter, the muscles in your arms slackening as the pain of the stretch twists into ecstasy, searing and hot. His body runs so warm that the sensation of him stretching you open all the while warming you up is nothing short of heady and intoxicating. Slowly, he sinks in past the black band around his cock until he reaches the hilt, heavy balls resting against your ass.

Your walls convulse, still short of an orgasm but grappling with his size, until they finally let up and he shifts his hips slightly, testing how you react. You throw your head back in a searing moan as you grab his shoulders again, the kind that rips from straight in your chest and to your surprise, your husband groans in response. “Fuck, that’s it,” he gruffs with a pleasureful lilt to his tone. He’s only ever heard you curse twice, but it seems he got the gist of its meaning quickly.

He pulls out to the tip, his breath hot on your sweat-slicked chest, gliding back in swiftly, though he watches you carefully. When he’s met only with a louder moan and your hands raking down his back, he takes the opportunity to dive in.

His hips rock slow at first, speeding up as he chases both of your highs. He keeps one finger perpetually on your clit, moving in calculated circles in spite of the fact that his hips now snap into you. Moans, pants, and the sound of his balls slapping against your ass fill the air as the scent of sex fills the room. 

Your head is too hazy to look, but you’re fairly sure his stomach’s tongue is pleasuring his upper cock, if the feeling of pressure on your abdomen is anything to go off of. It’s like nothing you’ve ever experienced before, and just as his hands ball into fists in the sheets where they rest on either side of your head, both begin twitching. A heavy load of cum fills your pussy and coats your stomach all at once. He doesn’t stop once they begin jerking, chasing your orgasm and riding his own out.

The sensation of his cum filling you is enough to push you over the edge moments later like glass shattering as it rocks your body in ways you’ve never experienced before. You cling to him as your vision goes black, the world around you fading into an afterthought when all you can think of is your massive husband, hunched over and finally having stopped his movement. All four of his arms hold him upright and in one unsteady movement, he lowers himself to his forearms.

Both of your chests heave as you ride the highs, eyes lidded when he nuzzles the crown of your head. “I love you,” he murmurs into your hair, a hint of a question to the statement, as though he isn’t positive that he’s using it correctly.

Through pants, you chuckle at his uncertainty, lifting your hands from his back to the nape of his neck. “I love you too.”

He slowly pulls himself from within you, rolling to the side so as not to crush you. As you come back down, you give yourself a onceover, blinking at the mess along your stomach and thighs and coating the sheets.

“Sukuna, there’s drool everywhere.”

“That’s your fault,” he grumbles, eyes shut as he lays to your left.

“Literally how?”

With no words in your language for the matter, he replies in his mother tongue. “You feel too good.”

You can’t help a smile, but you do take the opportunity to turn and curl into him, coating him in every fluid you’ve shared.

“Mm,” he hums as you intertwine your legs, your head resting on his bicep. “You might be right.”

“Just a little bit.”

“I’ll clean us up,” he murmurs, leaning down to nuzzle the crown of your head. “Just give me one more moment of this.”

–

The tides are low as you sit with your bare feet in the wet sand. The water scarcely reaches your toes, coming up to your husband’s calves as he naps in the sun, a hat laid over his head. He stirs every so often as you read a Simurian romance novel with your legs thrown over him, the written text coming easier to you these days.

The couple in the novel are so young– relative to the species– that it has you feeling wistful for days long past.

“Sukuna?”

You know he’s awake, having recently adjusted his hat. His chest rises and falls in a content sigh before he chuffs.

“What will you do when I’m gone?” You wonder about your husband, a species that mates for life.

He moves lazily as he sits up, hunching over you to parse what you’re reading. When it isn’t of interest to him, he adjusts the hat back over his head to block the sun. “I’ll mourn you.” He stares out across the ocean of the dome he’s grown into a much larger space over the years. “But I’ll celebrate your life, too.”

The thought brings a smile to your face in spite of the somber tone of your conversation. “Will you take care of my bugs?”

“That’s what you’re worried about?”

You shrug. “Yeah, a little.”

He sighs. “Not the ones that sting. I don’t like them.” He wrinkles his nose at the thought of them. “But the rest, yes. I like the ones with extra legs.”

“Yeah, the tarantula-looking ones are pretty cool,” you agree, leaning back into his chest.

His gaze softens as he looks over your features. You’ve aged beautifully over the past several years of marriage, and he knows your reservations about the difference in your species’ lifespans, but he knows something else, too.

Your aging has slowed to a near-halt. At around forty in Human years, your body stopped showing the signs of age that you so often describe. He’s more than positive that you haven’t noticed, but every minute change in your features is something he categorizes mentally.

It was never on purpose, but by the will of some God, whether Human or Simurian, his injected cells have slowed your aging. He isn’t sure if he’s gained a lifetime with you, or simply a few more years, but he considers the action the sort of thing you might call star-crossed. Like the gene therapy that saved your life acted as a string of fate too, bonding you together not just for your life, but several Human lifetimes.

One pair of arms holds him up as he leans back on them, the other pair sliding around your waist as he pulls you closer, the feeling of your bare skin familiar and comforting to the lumbering man. His fingers curl into your skin as he watches you happily turn a page, content with his reply. His gaze lingers on the ink on your ring finger that matches his.

However many lifetimes it may be that you’re blessed with, he knows he’ll cherish each and every one.

☾⋆ a/n ; okay so i watched phm and between that, iron lung, and alien earth, i got alien sukuna brainworms. i didn't anticipate it being like 38k 💀 i hope you enjoyed though!! this one was a lot of fun and i'm proud of how it turned out. you may also notice a difference between the tumblr and ao3/wattpad versions of this fic which is because i found tumblr's post limit (1000 paragraphs) and had to do some quick combining/editing. forgive me for any strange pacing on this piece in the tumblr version <3 i also wanna take the time to thank you all for the patience while i deal with some medical issues, i promise my regular series should be coming back soon <33 ☾⋆ taglist ; @lilrosyhaven @tiny-mimi @grimm3r @yujisredkicks @knittybritty98 @sukunahs @saezzi @epicderpface @ynishalee @pandabiene5115 @silibiliballs @ane5e @feyrinnn @jkslvsnella @maomimii @megumuro @beereadzzz @sukunas-one-n-only-peach @beaniesayshi @ryomeowie @suguusatoo

By the time he gets to you, you’re prodding at the battery terminal with pure confusion, clearly out of your depth. He stops by the driver’s side fender, his shadow stretching over the engine bay and swallowing up what little light the morning offers.

"Get in and try to crank it," he rumbles, his voice still rough from sleep.

You flinch slightly, nearly dropping your keys, as you turn to find the massive mechanic who’s just materialized out of the fog. Stumbling through a rushed, embarrassed explanation about how the dashboard lit up like a christmas tree before the steering went stiff, you slide behind the wheel, fingers trembling as you twist the key. The engine coughs out a pathetic, sluggish click-click-click before dying completely.

Sukuna leans over and scans the open engine bay with narrowed eyes. He brings his hand down to the alternator, then straightens and wipes a streak of grease off on his thigh.

"Alternator's shot," he diagnoses, pinning you with a flat stare through the windshield. “It stopped charging your battery while you were driving. That's why your steering went stiff, and all those warning lights came on. Battery's flat now."

He glances down the road toward his garage, jerks his chin in that direction, then flicks his gaze back to you, waiting. "Not fixing it out here. I can tow it in and take a look, if you want.”

You blink at him, hesitation suddenly tightening your chest. He's a huge, imposing stranger with eyes that seem to see right through you. You have no clue what his garage charges, and for all you know, he’ll tow your car a few meters and hand you a bill big enough to drain your entire savings account. Biting your lip hard, you look down the foggy road toward the distant city lights, debating whether freezing out here for your usual mechanic is worth it.

"Really?" you ask, your voice thin and cautious.

"You got a better plan?" Sukuna asks, raising a skeptical eyebrow. He doesn't look like he's got the patience for a long deliberation this early in the morning.

Your eyes flick from the dead dashboard to the shutters of his garage down the road again. Waiting for your own mechanic could mean hours out here, and you’re already running late. Shoulders sagging, you let out a shaky, resigned sigh and nod. "No, not really. Okay, yeah. Please tow it."

True to his word, ten minutes later your car is hooked up to his truck and rolled right onto his hydraulic lift. He works quietly, hooking up a diagnostic scanner and testing the voltage. You stand on the side, nervously watching him work through the tangle of wires and metal, while the smell of old coolant and burnt oil fills the air.

Finally, he wipes his hands on his coveralls. He glances up, meeting your gaze with a flat, unreadable look before speaking. "Alright. It's definitely the alternator. Parts and labor, you're looking at around two hundred, maybe two-fifty if the belt snapped when it seized up."

He braces himself for the usual routine: the hesitant sigh, the defensive wince, maybe a drawn-out complaint about how expensive car parts are these days. He’s seen it all before, a thousand times over.

None of that happens, though. You just blink at him, completely speechless, like he’s started speaking a foreign language.

"Are you..." You swallow hard, eyes darting between your car and the man in front of you. "Are you undercharging me out of pity? Did I really look that pathetic standing on the side of the road?"

Sukuna freezes, and the rag stops mid-wipe against his palm. He stares at you, his brow knitting into a dumbfounded, deep scowl, entirely derailed by the accusation. "What? No. That's the price of the part and half an hour of my time. I don't do pity discounts.”

"Seriously?" A breathless, half-disbelieving laugh escapes you, as your hand comes up to press against your forehead while you try to make sense of the numbers. "My mechanic charges me a small fortune every time I bring this thing in. Like... last year I paid almost three hundred for an oil change, so I figured something that actually stopped the car from running would be..." You trail off, your eyes wandering up to the underside of a different car on the lift. "Honestly, I have no idea. Just… more."

Disbelief hardens his stare, and a sharp, sudden outrage flares in his chest at whoever’s been fleecing you, quickly followed by a heavy wave of disappointment. He can't quite believe you’d just hand over a small fortune for basic maintenance without so much as a second thought.

"An oil change," he repeats in a low rasp. "He charges you three hundred dollars for an oil change?"

"Well... yeah? And..." Shifting your weight from one foot to the other, you wince as your sneakers squeak against the slick concrete. Your hand waves uselessly in the air when you’re trying to remember the items from the invoices you received. "Some other things? He always says there are other things."

Silence settles over the garage, broken only by the steady drip of fluid into a drainage pan nearby, each drop echoing like a ticking clock.

Sukuna tosses the rag aside, leans against the workbench and folds his arms across his chest. His eyes narrow, studying you with a look that grows more troubled by the second, like you’re some puzzle that refuses to make sense.

"You know what those other things were?"

You frown, your shoulders pulling in slightly under the weight of his intense stare. "Not really."

That stare doesn’t budge, flat and unblinking, and it makes you want to sink straight into the concrete floor.

"And you paid anyway."

It's not a question, but a flat statement, paired with a slow, disappointed shake of his head that twists your stomach.

Heat crawls up your neck, embarrassment prickling across your skin. You wrap your arms tightly around yourself defensively, trying to salvage a scrap of dignity. “He’s a mechanic, so like… why wouldn’t I trust him about… mechanic stuff?”

"So you just pay whatever he puts on the invoice?"

After a beat of hesitation, your eyes flick toward the garage exit before you force yourself to meet his gaze again. "I mean..."

The irritation in him doesn’t fade; if anything, it settles in deeper. The more you talk, the clearer it gets that this wasn’t just one bad invoice. It’s a pattern.

"How long you been taking your car to this guy?"

A startled blink, caught off guard by the rapid-fire questioning. "A few years?"

A muscle jumps in his cheek as his jaw flexes. "Christ." His arms drop, one hand coming up to rest flat against the workbench behind him. "You don't know anything about cars, do you?"

You open your mouth, ready to stammer out some flimsy defense, but he cuts you off with a sharp, impatient wave.

"No, don't answer that." He pinches the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut for a long moment. "I already know." When he lowers his hand, his expression darkens. "And he knows it too. That's the problem." He takes a slow step toward you, his towering height making the small garage feel instantly crowded. "He knows you don't know what you're looking at. He knows you won’t question the invoice. He knows you’ll just nod, pull out your card, and pay whatever number he pulls out of thin air."

His words hit with bruising accuracy, uncomfortable in their honesty. Swallowing hard, you feel the bitter reality of years of being scammed settle like a stone in your stomach. Sukuna clicks his tongue, the sharp, dismissive sound echoing off the concrete walls.

"And he's been taking advantage of it, overcharging the hell out of you.” He shakes his head again, his hands clenching into fists at his sides. "It's disgusting."

—

The last clink of metal fades, giving way to the low, steady purr of your car’s engine. Sukuna lingers, listening to the alternator hum, his attention fixed on the sound until he’s sure everything is running just right. Only then does he cut the ignition and shut the hood.

At the sink, he scrubs at the thickest layer of grease on his hands and forearms, while each pass of the soap gives him a moment to stew. The whole time he’d been working on your hatchback, the audacity of your last mechanic kept simmering in the back of his mind, needling at his sense of professionalism and refusing to let go.

He dries his hands on a clean rag, then heads back to where you’re waiting by the office door. The invoice comes off the clipboard, and he holds it out to you along with your keys.

"Alright, you're good to go," he rumbles, his voice level and calm. "It was just the alternator. Parts and labor came out to two hundred, exactly like I said."

You take the keys and the paper, relief washing over you as your eyes land on the total. Exactly what he quoted. No hidden fees, no sneaky line items, no surprise charges, nothing lurking in the fine print.

Sukuna stands there, his large hands settling loosely on his hips. His gaze flicks from your face to the paperwork in your hands, brow furrowing slightly as he hesitates. Then, the words slip out before he can stop them.

“If you want, you can bring your old receipts by sometime. Dig 'em out of your glovebox or whatever." He clears his throat, the sudden offer surprising even him as it leaves his mouth. This isn’t something he does. He doesn’t take work home, and he sure as hell doesn’t do clerical charity for strangers. Still, he pushes through the awkwardness, keeping his tone flat and businesslike. "I’ll look through 'em and write down what you actually should have been paying for that basic stuff. That way you have a baseline reference sheet next time you go back to your guy, and you'll know if he's trying to pull a fast one."

There's no pressure behind his words. He leaves it entirely up to you, offering a casual favor simply because he despises seeing someone get taken advantage of.

You blink at him, completely caught off guard. You look up to his face, and gratitude cuts through your usual wall of caution.

"Really?" you ask, a soft smile breaking across your face. "You'd actually do that?"

Sukuna gives a short, dismissive shrug, shifting his weight like he’s trying to play down the gesture. "Takes me ten minutes. It's no big deal."

"Thank you. Seriously, that’s... incredibly nice of you," you say, genuinely touched by the gesture. You fold the invoice carefully, tucking it into your purse. "What day would work best for you? I don't want to interrupt your business."

Sukuna rubs the back of his neck, eyes drifting toward the calendar tacked to the garage wall as he does the math in his head. "Day after tomorrow," he decides, looking back down at you. "I usually wrap up around six. Come by then. The shop's quiet after hours."

"Six on Wednesday. Perfect," you nod, your smile widening slightly. "Thank you again. I really appreciate you fixing the car so fast, and for... well, everything else. I'll see you Wednesday."

"Yeah," he mutters, his voice dropping a fraction softer as he nods back. "See you then. Drive safe."

He stands in the open bay, watching as your hatchback backs out of the driveway and pulls into the morning traffic. Only when your taillights disappear down the street does he finally let out a low breath, turning back to his tools and wondering what possessed him to volunteer his free time to look at old paperwork.

——

Just like he promised, the shop is mostly quiet when you pull up to the garage on Wednesday. With the bay doors rolled halfway down, the usual street noise is muffled, leaving only the clink of a wrench against metal to let you know he’s still inside.

Pushing open the side door, you’re greeted by the soft chime of the bell overhead. Sukuna appears from the back a moment later, dragging a clean rag over his forearms. His crimson eyes catch yours before flicking down to the stack of papers in your hand and the box tucked securely under your arm.

"You actually found 'em," he rumbles, a faint quirk tugging at the corner of his mouth before his expression smooths back into that usual, unreadable mask.

"Every single one I could find." Stepping up to the high counter that separates the office from the shop floor, you set the invoices down and nudge the box toward him, careful not to jostle what’s inside. "And I brought this. As a thank you."

Sukuna glances down at the cardboard box but doesn’t reach for it. He folds his arms across his chest, and his brow instantly furrows into a stubborn, defensive scowl.

"I don't need cake," he snaps, voice blunt and dismissive. Shifting his weight from foot to foot, clearly uncomfortable, he looks like he’d rather be anywhere else than accepting a gift. "I fixed the alternator, you paid the invoice. We're even. You don't owe me anything."

"It's not cake. It’s an apple pie. And it’s homemade," you counter softly. Before he can get another word in, you reach out and pop the lid open, letting the sweet scent of baked apples and cinnamon spill into the grimy, oil-scented room. You shoot him a small, stubborn look that dares him to refuse. "And you're taking it."

For a split second, Sukuna freezes, his eyes darting from the warm pie back up to your face, looking completely out of his depth. The tension drains from his broad shoulders, and he lets out a low, grudging grunt, realizing he’s being difficult for no good reason.

"Fine," he mutters, reaching over. He grabs the box and carries it to the small, cluttered desk in the corner, sweeping aside a stack of part catalogs to clear a spot. Pausing, he peeks into the box again, then nudges a metal stool toward the desk for you with his boot. "Sit down. Let me wash up."

While he heads over to the sink to scrub the grit from his hands, you pull the pie out of the box. Only as you glance around the cluttered office does the realization hit you. You look down at the pie, still warm in its baking dish, then at your empty hands.

When Sukuna walks back in, drying his hands on a paper towel, he finds you perched on the stool, mortification written all over your face.

"Um," you manage, cheeks burning with embarrassment that creeps up. "I just realized... I forgot plates. And forks. I was so focused on getting the pie out of the oven and not showing up late that I didn't even think about it."

Sukuna stops, staring at your flushed face, and a slow, amused smirk tugs at his lips. He opens a filing cabinet, rummages through a plastic bin in the top drawer, and pulls out two plastic forks he clearly hoarded from a takeout order.

"Don't worry about it," he says, dragging a second stool over and settling in beside you. One fork is pressed into your hand, while he plunges his own straight into the pie, breaking off a steaming chunk. "We can eat it out of the dish. Problem solved."

A relieved laugh slips out as you take a bite for yourself. The pie is actually good—better than you hoped and the relief from that is almost dizzying. Watching this massive, intimidating mechanic quietly savor a dessert you’ve made in his own garage fills you with a sudden, unexpected warmth.

A few bites in, Sukuna reaches for the stack of invoices you brought along. He fishes a battered yellow highlighter from the drawer, uncapping it with his teeth, and drags the first sheet closer. Instantly, his whole demeanor sharpens, focus narrowing as he scans the lines of text.

"Two hundred for an air filter?" he mutters, jaw clenching so fast you can almost hear his teeth grind. Flipping the page back a little too sharply, he scans the top of the sheet, eyes narrowing. "When was this?"

"Last… three months, I think?" you offer, leaning in to peer over his elbow, the edge of his sleeve brushing your arm.

"Three months ago," he confirms, voice dropping into a dangerously low, tight register. The highlighter clicks against the paper, and a muscle jumps in his cheek. "I looked at your air filter on Monday when I was checking the belt. There is absolutely no way a filter looks that bad after ninety days of city driving. He didn't even change it. He just wrote it down and charged you for the part."

Your fork stalls halfway to your mouth. Staring at the highlighted line, you feel disbelief crash over you, cold and sharp, prickling along your skin.

"Wait... what? He just... left the old one in there?" You shrink down on your stool, while both embarrassment and genuine offense burn in your chest. "I actually remember sitting in his waiting room for an hour because he said he had to go fetch the specific part from the back warehouse."

Sukuna lets out a sharp, cynical grunt that cuts through the room and makes you wince. "Yeah. He was probably back there taking a nap on your dime." He flips to the next invoice and scoffs loudly. "A hundred and fifty for a 'diagnostic fee'? Your car doesn't even have a complex computer system. You plug the reader in, it takes two minutes. He's padding the numbers because he knows you’re not gonna question it.”

You blink, eyes glued to the number on the page, the math slowly ticking through your head. "Two minutes... for a hundred and fifty...?"

He’s working himself up again, but his eyes keep flicking to you, making sure you’re following every step of his explanation on why it's a scam. He breaks down the mechanics in plain English, laying out the real labor time versus what was billed, and you find yourself keeping pace with him, asking about parts, checkup schedules, and why on earth a single fluid could ever cost that much.

Sukuna’s highlighter hovers over a line, pausing as he takes in the questions you’re firing back at him. Whatever assumption he had about you being gullible is gone now. He sees you're not stupid or careless, just someone who did what anyone would: you trusted a professional because you didn’t have the background to know better. The way you’re sitting here, eagerly learning, determined to protect yourself, earns a flicker of respect in his eyes.

"You're tracking this fine," he says, irritation melting away into something unexpectedly gentle. "You just needed someone to actually layout the baseline for you."

"Yeah," you murmur, smiling a little self-consciously. "Nobody ever really explained it before."

Any trace of your nervousness has vanished. Settled into his office, you absentmindedly swing your legs beneath the stool, taking another bite. Eating straight from the baking tin, you instinctively leave the best pieces of crust for him. It’s a small, polite habit that doesn’t go unnoticed, and Sukuna finds it oddly endearing.

Powdered sugar dusts your thumb as you hold the dish steady while digging your fork in again, and without thinking, you lick it off while scanning an invoice. The gesture is so unselfconscious, so normal, but it catches his attention and draws his gaze to your face.

This close, he can’t help but notice the small things: the way your eyes crinkle at the corners when you’re focused on the paperwork, the little smile that appears each time you taste the pie, how small you look perched beside him. For a moment, his mind just goes completely blank.

The realization hits him square in the chest—you’re beautiful. And you went out of your way to bake a pie for him.

All at once, the office starts to smell different. The sharp tang of oil and metal slips away, replaced by the sweetness of apple and cinnamon, and beneath it all, your perfume.

You point to a line on the invoice, but his attention drifts to your hand resting next to his on the desk. His own fingers are thick and calloused; yours look impossibly soft and small by comparison. The urge to see how your hand would feel in his is so distracting he nearly loses track of what you were saying.

For a moment, the usually unshakeable and confident mechanic is thrown completely off balance, his thoughts tangling so fast he almost forgets what he’s supposed to be doing. Somehow, he keeps his face neutral, handling the rest of the paperwork with a steady voice, but underneath, panic is already clawing at him. He has no clue how he’s supposed to get your number before you walk out that door.

Hesitation or tentativeness have never been his style. If he wants something, he takes it; if he likes someone, he just tells them. It’s always been that simple. But with you leaning over his desk, a crumb of crust clinging to the corner of your mouth, something unfamiliar creeps in and stiffens his limbs. It isn't shyness—he doesn’t have a shy bone in his body, and he certainly doesn't embarrass easily. Still, this strange, careful caution settles in his bones, making every movement feel intentional and new.

For once, he actually cares about the reaction he’s going to get, and that shift in the stakes makes his usual straightforwardness feel too rough, too heavy-handed for this. The thought that messing this up could mean never seeing you again roots him to the spot, every instinct to act suddenly tangled up in hesitation. His hands feel too big, his words too blunt, and the risk of screwing this up presses in until he feels almost clumsy.

Ideas tumble through his head, each one worse than the last, none of them good enough. Sliding his business card across the desk? Too impersonal, like he’s just angling for another job. Handing over his phone and asking you to put your number in? That’s too aggressive, too much like he’s trying to corner you in his own shop. Even making up some excuse about needing to text you a follow-up on the alternator warranty feels cheap, and the idea of playing a game just to get your number makes him feel ridiculous.

The whole thing leaves a sour taste in his mouth, every option making him feel more foolish than the last. Frustration builds until his jaw aches from how tightly he’s been clenching it, tension crawling up into his temples. He can’t remember the last time he was this stuck on something so simple.

At last, he forces his jaw to unclench, loosening his grip on the highlighter before setting it down. Glancing around the cramped office, something cuts straight through his frustration. Here you are, sitting in a garage after hours with a man twice your size you barely know, just because he offered to help. You trusted him enough to walk into his shop after closing, carrying a homemade pie as a thank-you that feels so genuine it almost hurts.

The last thing he wants, and the absolute last thing his pride will allow, is to make you feel like he used a professional angle just to corner you. If he pushes for your number now, after spending an hour showing you how vulnerable you’ve been to a scam, it’ll feel like an ambush. It’ll undo every bit of safety you felt sitting next to him and ruin any chance he might have had. The thought hits him like a splash of cold water, cooling his temper.

Drawing in a sharp breath, Sukuna reaches past you for a pen resting on the clipboard. He pulls the top invoice toward him and scrawls his phone number across the margin of the page.

"Look," he rumbles, his voice steady and stripped of the chaos in his head, sliding the stack of paperwork back across the desk to you. "You're gonna have to find a new shop now or keep dealing with that idiot down the road. If he—or anyone else—hands you a quote and it feels even a little bit off, you text a photo of the invoice to that number." He taps his thick thumb against the handwritten digits on the page. "That's my personal cell. I’ll look at it and tell you if they’re trying to rip you off."

Blinking down at the paper, you’re completely oblivious to the war he just waged with himself. The gesture is so unexpectedly kind that warmth blooms in your chest and a soft smile tugs at your lips as you glance back up at him. "Are you sure? I don't want to bother you any more than I already did."

"It's not a bother," he mutters, keeping his face carefully blank even as his pulse hammers a little harder against his ribs. "Just think of it as a backup plan. I can't stand watching people get scammed."

"That… actually makes me feel a lot better. I’ll make sure to save it," you murmur, glancing up to meet his unreadable gaze. The papers fold neatly beneath your fingers before you tuck them into your bag and rise from the stool. "Thank you. Seriously. For the alternator, the invoices, all the explanation and… for the company."

"Yeah," he mutters, his throat suddenly tight as he gives a single, gruff nod. "Don't sweat it."

Once your empty baking dish is tucked back into the box, you offer him one last warm smile that squeezes his chest uncomfortably tight. He pushes himself up to walk you to the door, the bell above your head chiming bright as you step out into the cool evening air.

"Goodnight, Sukuna."

"Goodnight," he calls back, standing entirely still as he watches you walk toward your car.

The warmth lingering in the office vanishes, leaving only a cold, hollow ache in its place. Through the glass, Sukuna watches your car start up, headlights slicing through the dusk as you ease out of the driveway and disappear around the corner. The instant your taillights blink out, frustration slams into him, heavy and relentless.

"Damn it," he barks into the empty shop, slamming his hand flat against the workbench.

Never in his life has he felt this powerless. Control is what he prides himself on—knowing exactly how a machine or a situation will play out because he’s the one steering it. But right now? He’s handed over his only leverage, left the whole gamble in your hands, and the lack of control is enough to make him want to tear his hair out.

He has no name saved in his phone, no confirmation. Nothing. He’s got no way to reach you, which means he’s stuck waiting, and everything now hangs on whether you decide to text. What if you lose that paper? What if the number gets buried in your purse and you forget about it until your car dies again months from now? What if you just think he was being polite and have no intention of ever using it?

The weight of not knowing gnaws at him, driving him to pace the shop floor, muttering curses under his breath for being so damn careful.

Two hours later, fresh from the shower, he sinks into the couch with a cold beer he hasn’t even opened yet. Usually, Sukuna finds the quiet of his apartment a relief after a day spent surrounded by noise, but tonight the silence feels heavy and irritating.

His phone lies face-up on the coffee table. By ten, he’s already picked it up and set it down more times than he cares to admit, each glance met with nothing but the glow of the lock screen and the relentless crawl of minutes. By eleven, frustration curdles into something uglier—doubt.

Doubt isn’t something he’s ever felt before, but alone in the dark, his mind starts tearing apart every second of that hour you spent in his office. The memory of your shoulder brushing his lingers. He can still hear your laugh when you realized you’d forgotten the plates, see how easily you followed his explanations, and how you smiled. He’d been so sure there was something there. He’d bet on it.

But as midnight approaches without a single vibration, his thoughts twist, turning defensive and sharp. Maybe he’d read the whole thing wrong. His brow knots as a heavy, sour thought appears and settles right in his gut. You didn’t feel a connection. You were just being polite, bringing an apple pie to thank a mechanic for doing his job. Sitting on that stool, chatting with him, you were just well-mannered, not interested. He’d blown it all out of proportion, let himself believe there was a spark when, to you, he was just the guy who fixed your alternator and handed out some advice.

—

Sukuna arrives at the shop in the worst mood humanly possible. Sleep barely touched him last night, and whatever patience he might have had for the rest of the world has been ground down to nothing.

Fingers curling around the cold iron handles, he wrenches the shutters up, and metal slams against the top of the frame so hard the glass windows in the office rattle. Not that he gives a damn. His jacket lands carelessly on the hook as he storms inside, and the paper coffee cup hits the workbench hard, sloshing the dark liquid over the plastic lid. It tastes like battery acid, but he drinks it anyway, needing the bitterness to match what’s inside of his chest.

He sets his personal phone right at the edge of the workbench, telling himself it’s just so it won’t get crushed in his pocket while he works. He knows that’s bullshit. Each time he reaches for a tool or crosses the bay for another socket, his gaze flicks back to the black screen, searching for a flicker of light that stubbornly refuses to appear.

Around nine, the shop's cell rings, echoing through the empty bay. Sukuna’s heart lurches, a ridiculous, frantic leap before his brain can rein it in—maybe you lost his number but found the shop’s online. The wrench clatters to the floor as he strides into the office, snatching the phone off the desk with a grip that’s just a little too tight.

“Ryomen’s Automotive," he grunts, his voice a rough, impatient gravel.

"Hey, man, just checking if you got those brake pads in for the pickup?"

Disappointment slams into him right beneath his ribs. His jaw locks, knuckles whitening around the mobile. "Yeah. They’re here. Come get 'em," he snaps, hanging up before the customer can get another word in.

Storming back into the bay, he grabs up his phone and shoves it deep into his pocket, as if that’ll keep the urge to check it all the time. The impact gun roars as he goes after a stubborn lug nut, the booming racket finally loud enough to drown out the chaos in his head. That’s it. He’s done checking. If you haven’t texted by now, you’re not going to. You probably tossed the paper, and he needs to get over it.

By one, Sukuna is elbow-deep in the greasy undercarriage of an old sedan, forearms streaked with black smears, his expression locked in a scowl so forbidding that even the delivery drivers have been giving him a wide berth all day.

He’s just reaching for a torque wrench when his phone vibrates on the workbench.

Bzzzt.

The sudden vibration catches him off guard, freezing him mid-reach. For a moment, he doesn’t move at all, letting the faint clicks of the cooling engine overhead fill the silence. It’s probably just spam, he tells himself. Or some useless data plan alert. Or a wrong number.

Peeling off his gloves, he slides a hand into his pocket, pulls out the phone, and swipes the screen awake. There’s a text from an unknown number—except the first line of the preview makes his chest seize up.

[You]: Hey! Sorry for the late text, I didn't want to bother you last night since it was way too late. Just wanted to send this so you have my contact too. Thanks again for looking through those invoices with me, the pie was a small price to pay for saving my bank account!

Relief hits him in a bone-deep wave, draining the tension from his shoulders. He draws in a slow breath as he stares at the words glowing on the screen. It takes a moment for his brain to catch up and register the gap between his own spiraling and your ridiculously polite message. You were just being considerate, that’s all.

OH THANK FUCK.

Clearing his throat, he uses a clean patch of his forearm to wipe the grease off his thumb before he even thinks about typing. Something clever would be good, something that proves he’s not rattled by any of this, but his fingers feel thick and awkward on the keys. Finally, he settles for something short that won’t give him away.

[Sukuna]: No worries. Pie was great, by the way. Just let me know if you get any more of those invoices.

He taps send, eyes glued to the delivery confirmation, then instantly adds the number to his contacts. Your name appears at the top of the chat, and for the first time all day, a smirk tugs at his mouth, breaking through the hard set of his jaw.

The phone disappears back into his pocket, and he turns to the sedan on the lift, with a jolt of energy running through him. As he grabs his wrench, the reality of the situation hits him from a completely different angle: you texted just to be polite and acknowledge the professional favor, and he just capped his own response by telling you to let him know if you get more invoices, boxing himself right back into being the helpful mechanic. Now what? How is he supposed to ask you out without trampling all over the boundaries you just so carefully respected?

By Friday night, that pitiful text thread on Sukuna’s phone has become a full-blown obsession. Sitting on a kitchen stool, he ignores the bowl of dinner going cold on the counter, his attention fixed on the glow of his screen. The chat is as embarrassingly short as it was the previous day: your polite thank-you, then his own awkward reply about the pie.

With a low, frustrated rumble in the empty apartment, he taps the empty text box. He’s never had to plan a conversation in his life, but suddenly, the weight of actually caring what you think drags every word through mud.

Hey, you free this weekend?

He glares at the six words. The line looks all wrong, like something a teenager would send on a dating app, hovering over his phone, waiting around for a girl he barely knows to throw him a bone. Sukuna is a grown man; he doesn't do vague, open-ended checking-in. And if you say no, or tell him you have plans, that’s it. Conversation over. No way to push back without looking like a desperate idiot.

Worse, you texted him because he'd offered to help with invoices, not because you'd expected him to use your number for anything else. With a heavy, irritated sigh, he holds down the backspace key until the box is wiped clean.

Saturday evening drags in after a brutal ten-hour shift, wrestling with stubborn leaf springs and rusted exhaust bolts. As he’s slumped on his couch with a cold beer in his hand, his muscles ache, but his mind is still stuck on the same loop. He pulls out his phone again and opens the chat. All he needs is an excuse—something car-related, since that’s the only ground you both actually somewhat share.

Let me know if that alternator’s making any noise.

His thumb freezes before he can hit send, and he scowls at the message, a sharp spike of professional irritation cutting through the haze. If the alternator was making noise, that would mean he’d screwed up the belt tension. He knows it’s perfect. He checked it twice before you left the bay. Asking about it now is basically calling his own work sloppy, and his pride won’t let him insult himself just to get a text back. With a shake of his head, he deletes the line and takes a long pull from his beer, trying to rework the phrasing, still clinging to the car angle but making it less about his own hands.

Make sure you check your oil this week.

He drags his hand over his face, catching himself immediately. If he sends that, he’s just barking orders at a customer who already admitted she doesn’t know a thing about cars. It sounds bossy, too gruff, and leaves you nothing to say except a flat agreement. 

"What the fuck am I doing?" 

He clears the text box again and tosses the phone face down onto the cushion beside him, ready to bang his head on the wall.

Monday night is the worst. The silence of the last few days feels like a personal insult. Standing by his kitchen window, looking out at the dark street, he’s completely fed up with his own uncharacteristic hesitation. He’s Sukuna. He doesn’t sit around overthinking a three-line message like some awkward kid. Enough. He’ll just give it to you straight, no games or professional excuses. He snatches the phone off the counter and types, fingers jabbing at the screen.

I'm heading to the diner by my shop for lunch tomorrow. Come with me.

He stares at the message, breathing heavier as his thumb hovers over the blue arrow. For a split second, he almost hits it. But then your reaction flashes through his mind—opening your phone and seeing a blunt lunch demand from the mechanic who fixed your car last week, suddenly wondering whether the man who seemed so put-together had been working an angle the whole time.

"No. That's fucking creepy."

He’s completely trapped by his own respect for you, stuck suffering the consequences of having zero organic reason to reach out. He can rebuild a transmission blindfolded, but figuring out how to move a text thread from professional advice to I want to see your face again without being an asshole? That breaks his brain entirely.

A low, bitter curse slips out as he clears the message. He throws the phone onto the kitchen table, furious that one person has managed to jam his gears so completely without even lifting a finger.

“Pathetic,” he mutters, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

By Tuesday afternoon, the frustration has cooled into a quiet, stubborn determination. Leaning against the workbench during a lull in the shop, he stares at your name in his contacts. One more try to find a middle ground that feels natural but actually gives him an opening.

Found another complaint about that shop online. Thought you’d wanna see it.

Sukuna deletes it before he even finishes the sentence, dragging his hand down his face. Thought you’d wanna see it. He sounds like he’s trying way too hard to find an excuse to talk to you. It’s not a lie, but he’d rather die than let you catch on.

"For fuck's sake."

By Wednesday afternoon, Sukuna’s completely done with himself, and he’s become absolutely insufferable to be around. Leaning against the tool board, he glares at the calendar pinned crookedly to the office wall, his thumb drumming a relentless rhythm against his thigh.

Every scenario he plays out in his head ends with him looking like an idiot. If he’s going to make a move, it has to be on his own terms, in his own space, where he actually knows what the hell he’s doing. Turning back to his tools, he forces himself not to spiral into another round of pointless drafts. Finally, his mind clears—he doesn’t need a smooth pickup line. He just needs a real, professional reason to get you back in the garage. Maintenance. That’s it.

I’m closing up the shop tomorrow around 6. If you wanna swing by, I can show you how to check your fluids and oil so you aren’t just guessing. No worries if you’re busy.

He stares at the message for a moment. There. Completely professional. Nobody in their right mind could mistake that for flirting. Another second passes. Perfectly reasonable text to send a customer.

With that, his thumb slams the send button, heart thudding stupidly against his ribs. The phone disappears deep into his pocket as he turns back to his tools, pulse racing, completely irritated by his own anticipation and already hooked on the slow, torturous wait for your reply.

Meanwhile, you’re at home, finally sinking into the couch after a long day, when your phone buzzes against the coffee table. His name flashes across the screen, and your heart gives a small, unexpected flutter. You read his invitation twice, and a soft smile tugs at your lips. Fingers hovering over the keyboard, you tap out your reply, keeping it light and trying to match his tone:

[You]: I'd love to! Need me to bring anything? (I promise I'll actually remember the plates this time if there's food involved!)

Down in the garage, Sukuna’s been organizing the same shelf of oil filters for the last four minutes, trying to distract himself, when his pocket finally vibrates. He freezes mid-reach. He deliberately finishes placing the last filter on the rack, forcing himself to move at a normal pace, refusing to look like a lunatic to his own reflection. Only then does he step back, dig out his phone, and unlock the screen.

Reading your text, the tight, stubborn knot in his chest unravels all at once. Relief hits so fast it’s almost dizzying, and a rush of heat crawls up his neck. You didn't say no. You didn't find an excuse, you didn't think it was weird, and you explicitly said you'd love to come back. And that little joke about the plates instantly crumbles the remaining walls of his stubborn frustration.

A massive, genuinely victorious smirk spreads across his face, eyes crinkling at the corners as a low, rough chuckle rumbles out of his chest. Energy surges through him, ridiculous and electric, like he’s just rebuilt a blown engine in record time.

Then his gaze snags on that last sentence, and his thumb freezes over the keyboard.

Food. You’re asking about bringing food.

For you, it’s testing the waters for a little more time together. But to him, it's enough to send his thoughts careening straight off the rails of the maintenance lesson and into a chaotic spiral of logistics. Does he buy something? Does he tell you to bring something? If he says no, does that mean you’ll just learn how to check a dipstick and drive away immediately after? He doesn't want you to leave. He wants you back on that metal stool, right where he can see you.

Pacing a short line next to the workbench, he types out a response, frowning as he slams straight into a wall of overthinking that’s completely foreign to him: I’ll grab some burgers. No, that’s too much like a date. Don't worry about food. No, that sounds like he doesn't want to eat with you at all. Or worse, you’ll eat before you come, and he’ll miss his chance entirely.

Frustrated with his own hesitation, he deletes the drafts, grunts, and decides to handle it the only way he knows how: blunt and completely practical.

[Sukuna]: Just bring the car. I’ll order a pizza. Pepperoni alright?

He hits send, tossing the phone back onto the bench with a sharp exhale. The message is demanding, a little aggressive, and leaves zero room for negotiation. Still, it guarantees you're staying for dinner.

A wide grin splits his face as he spins around and surveys his empty shop, eyes scanning the bays with sudden, critical focus. Twenty-four hours. That’s all he’s got to make sure his office looks halfway respectable before you walk through the door.

—

Rolling into the gravel driveway with five minutes to spare, you idle near the entrance just as the side door swings open and Sukuna steps out into the cool evening air. He’s in a plain black tee stretched across his broad shoulders and dark grey sweatpants. The change catches your eye immediately because he looks ridiculously good out of his coveralls. You can’t help but wonder if the wardrobe swap was just a coincidence, or if he actually cared about making a good impression tonight.

He walks over to the front of your car, waving his hand to guide you forward. "Bring it straight into the second bay," he calls out.

Following his gesture, you shift into drive and ease the car forward into the bay. The engine clicks softly when you shut it off, and as you step out, Sukuna’s already at the front bumper, nodding at you.

“You’ve made it," he rumbles, stepping up to pop the latch and lift your hood into place with a practiced, heavy thud.

"Told you I would," you say, glancing over the open engine bay with curiosity. "So, where are we starting? Am I going to get entirely covered in grime?"

Sukuna lets out a low, amused huff, a ghost of a smile playing on his lips, and pivots toward the rolling tool cabinet. "Not if I can help it."

He reaches into a cardboard box on top of the cart and pulls out a pair of thin, black single-use gloves. His size is impossible to ignore when he steps in close, suddenly crowding the space, and hands them over.

"Put these on first," he instructs, his gaze locking onto yours for a heartbeat. "The alternator's fresh, but everything else under that hood isn’t. No reason for you to ruin your hands."

You take the gloves, smoothing the black rubber over your wrists before looking up at him with a playful smile, tilting your head. "Very thoughtful. I didn't think a tough mechanic like you cared about a little dirt."

"I don't care about it on me," Sukuna mutters. His eyes linger on your hands for a second before he jerks his gaze back down at the engine bay, clears his throat, and points into the tangled mess of metal and hoses. "Alright, come here. We’re skipping the basic fluid check—you’re smart enough to know how to read a dipstick. I want to show you more interesting stuff."

Stepping in close, you slide the gloves over your hands, your shoulder brushing his for just a second. It's barely a touch, but enough to make both of you hyper-aware of the space you share.

"See this belt right here?" Sukuna asks, leaning over the grille. His deep voice drops into a steady, confident cadence as he gets into his element. "This is your serpentine belt. In case someone tells you it’s about to snap, I'll show you how to check the tension yourself, and how to spot actual dry rot versus regular wear."

He tugs on his own gloves, then reaches down. He navigates the cramped space around the engine block with ease, and you find yourself briefly distracted by the contrast between the size of his hands, the precision of the movements, and how gentle they look as he grips the heavy rubber belt. Then, with a twist, he exposes the underside to the light.

"Get your hand in right here," he says, glancing sideways at you, his eyes dark and intense in the low light. "Feel the edge of the rubber. Tell me what you notice."

For the next hour, Sukuna guides you through a standard oil change, patiently talking you through each step. He doesn't do the work for you; he has you reach beneath the chassis with a socket wrench to feel the exact point of resistance on the oil pan drain plug, his hand covering yours to adjust the angle, explaining the difference between a secure seal and stripped threads.

When he shows you a spark plug, he holds the tiny ceramic piece beneath the shop light, pointing out the faint color differences that separate a healthy engine from one that's burning fuel too rich.

All the while, Sukuna stays at your shoulder, keeping you grounded. Each time your gloved fingers falter over a stubborn clamp or an unfamiliar valve, his hand is there, nudging your wrist or guiding it with a confidence that makes it impossible to feel foolish. He answers every question thoroughly without a hint of impatience, pleased with your curiosity. By the time you peel the gloves from your hands, the machinery that once felt so intimidating is just a puzzle you’ve learned how to solve, and the satisfaction settles deep in your chest.

A sudden chime of the office bell cuts through the quiet, shattering the spell. Sukuna pulls his hand back from the engine block, his head snapping toward the front door.

"Pizza's here,” he rasps.

He strips off the gloves, tossing them in the trash before heading to the glass door to pay the delivery guy. You follow suit, peeling yours off and grabbing the plates you stashed in your trunk earlier. Stepping into the dim office, you find Sukuna already setting the steaming pizza box dead center on his desk.

"Look at that," you tease softly, sliding the plates onto the desk. "Real plates this time."

Sukuna glances down at them, and a faint, genuinely amused smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth.

"Fancy," he mutters, eyes flicking up to catch yours for a split second before his hand moves to the cardboard lid. “Bringing the good stuff to a garage."

The moment he flips the lid open, the rich, savory scent of hot cheese and pepperoni floods the room, instantly smothering the stubborn trace of motor oil that still clings to the air. He slides a massive, steaming slice onto your plate before grabbing one for himself. "Eat up before it gets cold."

For the first twenty minutes, conversation just flows easily, and to his immense relief, not a single word about car parts comes up. You ask about the shop, how long he’s been running it, and whether he always wanted to be a mechanic. He tells you how he likes working with his hands, how machines make sense in a way people never do, because if something’s broken, there’s always a reason, and always a fix.

After a while, Sukuna starts tossing questions your way. One answer leads to another, and before long you're deep in a story about that trainwreck project at work and the latest chaos your friends managed to stir up over the weekend. He doesn’t interrupt, his crimson eyes fixed on your face, watching your eyes crinkle with laughter, how your hands sketch wild shapes in the air, and the tiny smile that sneaks out when you mention your friends.

Some part of him is convinced this should be awkward. Or, at the very least, harder than this. But it feels completely natural, and before he knows it, he’s talking more than he ever does. And that’s exactly when the invisible trap closes right back around his throat.

Ask her, his mind orders, the thought landing in his chest with a sudden, heavy thud. Eight words. Do you want to go out with me? Just say the damn words.

You finish your slice and lean back a little on your stool, thumb brushing a stray crumb from your lower lip without thinking.

Do it now. She's sitting right here. She likes talking to you. Just open your stupid mouth and ask for a real date.

Sukuna shifts his weight on the metal stool as his large hand tightens around his napkin.

Don't be a coward. It's a question, not a marriage proposal.

He opens his mouth, but his throat locks up tight. He isn't actually afraid of hearing the word no—he has plenty of pride, but a rejection wouldn't break him. What paralyzes him is the fiercely protective boundary he’s drawn around you in his own head.

And then what? She realizes the mechanic who helped her has been working an angle the whole time?

He’s desperately trying not to abuse the trust he’s built with you. The sheer weight of wanting to keep this clean and respectable for your sake completely jams his gears.

"Hey," he blurts out anyway, his voice a little rough, cutting right through the middle of whatever you were saying.

You pause, blinking at him with curious eyes. "Hm?"

Sukuna freezes as his brain goes completely blank again under your direct gaze. His eyes drop to your mouth, staring at the soft curve of your lips in the dim light of the desk lamp, his mind scrambling for any kind of escape hatch.

For fuck's sake, Sukuna. You've started already. Just finish it.

Instead, his throat stays bone dry, jaw clenching so hard a muscle jumps in his cheek. The words just refuse to come, and the surge of internal fury that follows nearly knocks him sideways.

“Never mind.”

You study him for a long moment, and a small, knowing look flickers in your eyes as you set your crust down on the plate.

"Well," you say softly, with a playful little tilt to your head. "I guess I officially know enough about drive belts now. At this rate, I won't have an excuse to bother you anymore."

The words hit like a bucket of ice water. The thought of you just fading back into the real world, never showing up at his garage again, triggers a raw, defensive panic that steamrolls right over his hesitation.

"You don't need car trouble to stop by," he quickly says.

It comes out too blunt, his voice rough and a little too sharp in the quiet room. He winces inside, bracing for you to pull away, but you just look at him, a soft, slow smile spreading across your face.

"You know," you murmur, your voice dropping into a gentle, teasing tone as you lean just a hair closer over the edge of the desk. "Most people just ask for a date."

Sukuna goes utterly still. The words hang in the air, and the silence that follows is so thick you can hear the faint, steady hum of the fluorescent bulb overhead. He doesn’t answer right away—he can’t. The gears in his brain lock up as he stares at you, completely stunned that you’ve just outmaneuvered him without even trying.

But then the sheer absurdity of it all hits him, and the tension in his chest snaps like a rubber band.

A low, rough chuckle shakes his chest, half frustration, half pure captivation. He drops the crumpled napkin onto the desk, and suddenly his eyes are burning with that hyper-confident heat he’s been holding back all week. The cautious, hesitant mechanic is gone in a blink.

"Yeah?" he rumbles, his voice dropping an octave.

Before you can blink, he closes the distance between the stools. That massive hand of his finds the back of your neck, thick fingers curling gently, thumb pressing into the warm skin along your jaw. His sheer size blocks out the rest of the office, casting you in his shadow as he leans down, tilting your face up to meet his gaze.

His eyes drop to your mouth, and the intensity of his stare makes your breath catch.

"Been trying real hard to be polite all week," he mutters with a wicked smirk right against your lips, tracing a slow line along your jaw with his thumb. "But you're entirely right. I'm taking you out tomorrow night."

He pauses, giving you one last chance to pull away if you want to. When you don't move, matching his smirk with one of your own, he closes the last bit of space without a single shred of hesitation.

The moment his lips meet yours, a ragged breath escapes him, a sound so raw it sends a shiver tearing down your spine. He’s been starving for this all week, and the force of it knocks the air from both your lungs.

Sweet vanilla and tobacco from his perfume flood your senses, drowning out everything else. Sukuna tastes exactly like he smells: warm, intense, and utterly intoxicating. Any coherent thought vanishes beneath the rush of it. Your hands find the soft cotton of his shirt, fingers twisting the fabric at his chest and bunching it tight in your fists as you pull him closer. Every bit of hunger he pours into the kiss, you give right back.

Feeling you lean in and your hands on him, a low, gravelly groan rumbles from deep in his chest. His grip at the nape of your neck tightens, thick fingers slipping higher into your hair until they're tangled in the strands at the base of your skull, leaving no room for doubt about how badly he's wanted this. His other hand leaves the desk, sliding up to cup your face, calloused thumb sweeping hard over your cheekbone as he tilts your head back, searching for a better angle.

Slow, insistent pressure parts your lips, and his mouth moves over yours in a rhythm that makes your head spin. The heat pouring off him is overwhelming, swallowing up the entire office until there's nothing left but his lips and the rough drag of his hands against your skin.

Sukuna pulls back just a fraction, barely a breath of space between you, so you can both drag in ragged breaths. Eyes closed, his forehead drops against yours while his chest heaves. But staying away isn’t an option. He leans right back in, catching your lower lip between his, sucking on it with a slow pull that rips a quiet gasp from your throat.

That deep drag is followed by a series of quick, hot pecks—one to the corner of your mouth, another firm press at the center of your lips, and finally a lingering kiss that seals your mouths together all over again.

Every tiny, breathless break just makes him hungrier. He presses in deeper, tongue tracing the shape of your lips, completely taking over the pace. Your heart hammers stupidly against your ribs, your body turning to liquid on the metal stool, kept upright only by the iron grip of his hands. He’s kissing you like he wants to leave a permanent mark, making up for an entire week spent talking himself out of this.

Even when he finally tears his mouth away, he refuses to let you go. His breath comes in short, heavy rasps that tangle with your own, crimson eyes fluttering open to find you—dark, hooded, and completely blown wide as he stares at your swollen lips. His thumb sweeps over your lower lip, wiping the dampness away with a slow, heavy pressure that makes your chest ache.

For a moment, neither of you says a word. The office is silent except for the sound of both of you trying to catch your breath. His chest rises and falls close to yours, and you can feel the lingering warmth of him, the tension that hasn’t left either of your bodies.

A smirk slowly tugs at the corner of his mouth. He savors the silence every bit as much as the kiss itself.

“Text me your address,” he rumbles, his voice incredibly low and rough. His hand is still tangled in your hair, fingers threaded deep enough that when you instinctively try to lean back and get a better look at him, his grip tightens just enough to stop you. It isn’t rough, but it’s firm, keeping you exactly where he wants you as his fingers shift slightly against your scalp. “And be ready at seven.”

Blinking up at him through the haze of the kiss, you tilt your head as much as his grip allows, brows lifting as you study him. The corner of your mouth twitches, caught somewhere between amusement and disbelief.

"Pretty sure that wasn't a question, Sukuna."

His smirk deepens as he looks down at you, completely unfazed by your tone. That arrogant confidence in his eyes is impossible to miss now, and somehow it only makes your stomach flip harder.

"Neither was taking you out tomorrow night," he murmurs.

You don’t bother answering. Instead, your fingers curl tighter into his shirt as you drag him down, crushing your lips into his. He chuckles deeply into the kiss as his hands slide from your face to your waist. Before you can think about what he's doing, he's pulling you off the stool and into his lap. Deepening the kiss, you bury your fingers in his hair, drawing a low groan from him that sends a shiver racing down your spine and straight between your legs.

notes: sukuna. buddy. my man. my brother in christ.

You’d gone quiet then, frozen with your teeth still embedded in the fleshy curve of his bicep. In the wake of the strike you’d ceased your riot against the grip of his hands and sort of… melted into him instead. Lifting your head, you’d blinked up with wide watery eyes, a slightly dazed expression painting your face. He’d nudged you a little, expression unreadable, and you’d soon resumed your onslaught, giggling and poking at him again. Distracting him enough with your teasing that he didn’t bring up the way you’d basically rag-dolled at the slap.

From that point, the seed had been planted, and in the dark depths of your mind, hidden in the deep recesses - it festered.

The second time he’d hit you was a little more intentional - a loving pat to the side of your face, fingers tracing the plump fat of your cheek, hollowed while you sucked him off.

“Let me see,” he’d murmured, fingers tapping gently at your cheekbone.

You’d leaned your head back, jaw slack and tongue lolled out to show him the milky cum pooling there. He’d cursed sharply, carmine eyes blown wide and dark, and you’d grinned in reply. Curling your tongue back into your mouth before you drooled the mess down onto your bare tits, and watched with a grin as he craned his head to catch the rogue dribbles with his tongue.

The third time, well, the third time you’d begged him for it.

“Hit me,” you panted, peering up at him with wide wet eyes as you grasped desperately at his wrists. Clawing at where they were planted firmly into the mattress either side of you.

He had you on your back, writhing in the messed sheets as he split you apart on his heavy cock. He’d spent the last twenty minutes coaxing slow brain melting orgasms out of you. It was soft, sweet. Too sweet.

“Hit you?” He echoed, eyes widened in mild surprise.

You nodded frantically, thighs clenching tighter around him at the mere promise of the words slipping from his lips.

“On the face,” you clarified, expression screwed up tight in desperation, lower lip wobbling so much he thought you might actually cry. “Slap me, please.”

The second the last syllable left your lips he’d lifted a hand and lowered it over your face in a quick slap. It was undeniably gentle, a little hesitant - barely more than a pat.

You frowned deeply, huffing a frustrated breath through your nose as you shook your head.

“Harder ‘kuna, want it harder,” you whined.

You watched the slow bob of his Adams apple for a few moments before he lifted a hand and slapped you again, hard enough this time that you heard the impact as well as felt it, head turned to the side with the force. Tears sprang to the edges of your eyes, and your ear closest to his palm rang hot. You blinked a few times, slow, indulgent - and then opened your mouth and moaned.

Before you could quite recover, or utter another demand his palm came down to strike you again, square across the cheek. You must have clenched around him, or maybe it was just the dumb fucked out way you peered up at him afterward with your mouth slack and face burning where his hand had made contact. Whatever it was he cursed sharply under his breath and slipped a big hand up to rest across your throat, in an action that read as decidedly possessive.

“Fuck, that’s really doing it for you, isn’t it?” He groaned, sounding equal parts awestruck and breathless. “Like it when I slap you, huh?”

“Love it… oh… fuck-… I love it…” You agreed, head lolling with each pump of his hips, utterly empty aside from the sensation of him stuffing you full, and the searing heat blooming over your cheeks in the shape of his palm. You felt him throb at the sound of your voice, so breathy and broken beneath him.

“Yeah. My sweet girl wants it nice and rough, is that right?”

You were nodding before he even finished, eyes half lidded and unfocused, peering absently at the blur of him moving above you, locked on where his hips were grinding into yours.

The rhythm he set was steady - not weak by any account, but subdued enough that you could tell he was actively making an effort to hold back for your comfort. But seeing the way your eyes rolled back a little, hand wrapped limply around his wrist while his fingers closed around your throat - all that delicacy went out the window.

His hips rolled in sinful thrusts now, smacking into yours with stern sticky slaps.

“Yes yes yesyes….oh fuuuuck….” You moaned, and swallowed against the curve of his palm where his fingers were pressed to your throat.

“Still want it harder baby?” He panted, deep groans of his own slipping free.

“Ngh-uhuh…” You babbled, head nodding.

“Greedy girl,” he teased, though his thrusts didn’t slow, and you swore you felt him throb nice and deep where he was kissing your cervix. “You’re such a fuckin’ brat, know that?”

If you’d been coherent enough to string a sentence together you would have replied back that he loved it, and if you’d had the strength to peer up you’d find that it was true - maroon eyes all but heart shaped, lowlidded and blown dark as he watched you come apart beneath him.

────────────────

he reaches for it lazily, one long finger swiping across the screen without much thought because who else would be texting him at nine in the morning but you? probably another picture of the cat doing something stupid or a complaint about the coffee machine. he's already smiling, a small private curve of his lips that nanami, sitting across the conference table, pointedly ignores.

but then he reads it.

my voice isn't deep but my throat is

the words sit there on the screen, innocuous little black pixels against white, and satoru gojo—the strongest sorcerer alive, the man who has faced down special grade curses without breaking a sweat, the honoured one himself—feels his entire body go rigid. his smile freezes and then dies. his eyes, usually hidden behind the dark lenses of his blindfold, narrow behind the black fabric. his cock, traitor that it is, twitches hard against the seam of his slacks.

he reads it again.

and again.

"something wrong, gojo-san?" ijichi's voice is hesitant, nervous, because everyone in this room can feel the sudden shift in his cursed energy. it's not threatening, not exactly, but it's heavy. it's thick and warm and pressing down on the air itself, making nanami shift in his seat and ijichi's pen clatter against his notepad.

"nope," gojo says, and his voice is too light, too airy, the way it gets when he's about to do something unhinged. "everything's fine. just got a very... interesting message from my wife."

nanami makes a sound low in his throat, something between disgust and resignation. "please do not elaborate."

"wasn't planning to," gojo chirps, but his thumb is already moving, typing out a response with a speed that would be impressive if it weren't so ominous.

you have ten minutes to get to my office and prove it.

he hits send and then sets the phone down carefully, face-up, watching the little delivered notification turn to read. the three dots appear. disappear. appear again. he can picture you on the other end, standing in the kitchen probably, still in his shirt, coffee going cold on the counter, reading his text and realizing exactly what you've done.

you text back: or what?

oh, you brat.

satoru doesn't dignify that with a response. he simply leans back in his chair, crosses one long leg over the other in a way that does absolutely nothing to hide the growing situation in his pants, and waits. ijichi is still talking about budget allocations for the kyoto exchange event but the words are just noise, static fuzz in the background of the singular focus that has narrowed his entire existence down to the door of this office.

seven minutes and thirty-two seconds later—he's counting—the door opens.

you're standing there in one of his dress shirts, the white one he wore to the last clan meeting, and it's buttoned wrong. one button off, making the collar sit crooked against your throat, and underneath it he can see the edge of your sleep shorts, the ones with the little strawberries on them. your hair is a mess. your lips are slightly parted from the jog up here. you look like you just rolled out of his bed and came straight here, and the possessiveness that roils through his chest is almost violent.

"sorry to interrupt," you say, and your voice is sweet, so sweet, dripping with fake innocence like honey laced with poison. "i was just looking for my husband. have you seen him? tall, annoying, thinks he's funny?"

ijichi chokes on air. nanami stands up so fast his chair scrapes against the floor. "i'm taking my lunch break," he announces to no one, and then he's gone, dragging a sputtering ijichi behind him, the door clicking shut with damning finality.

and then it's just you and satoru and the thick, charged silence between you.

"funny," he echoes, and his voice has dropped, the playful lilt gone and replaced by something lower, rougher, a gravel drag that makes your thighs press together involuntarily. "you think you're funny, sweetheart? sending me that filth while i'm in a meeting? while i'm supposed to be working?"

you shrug, one shoulder lifting, the too-big shirt slipping to bare the curve of your neck and collarbone. "i was just stating facts."

satoru uncrosses his legs slowly, deliberately, and leans forward in his chair. his blindfold is still on but you can feel the weight of his stare regardless, six eyes boring into you from behind black fabric, seeing everything—the quickening of your pulse in the hollow of your throat, the way your nipples have pebbled against the thin cotton of his shirt, the subtle shift of your weight from foot to foot. you're nervous. you're aroused. you're exactly where he wants you.

"come here."

not a request. you cross the office floor, bare feet silent against the expensive rug, until you're standing in front of his chair. he's still seated, long legs spread wide, hands resting on the armrests like a king on a throne, and the power differential of it makes your stomach flip. he's so big like this, towering even when he's sitting, and you feel small in the best way.

"on your knees."

the words are soft, almost tender, but there's steel underneath them. you sink down obediently, the plush carpet cushioning your knees, and now you're eye level with the very obvious bulge straining against his black slacks. your mouth waters. you can't help it. months of marriage and he still makes you feel like this, like you're drowning in him, like you'd do anything just to hear him groan your name.

"you know," he says conversationally, reaching down to trail one knuckle along your jaw, feather-light, "i was having a perfectly boring morning. reading reports. pretending to care about nanami's opinions on curse classification. and then my pretty little wife decides to send me that." his thumb presses against your lower lip, dragging it down, and you open for him without being told, letting the tip of it rest against your tongue.

"my voice isn't deep but my throat is," he quotes, and his voice cracks on the last word, just slightly, betraying the iron control he's clinging to. "you've got a dirty fucking mouth, baby. anyone ever tell you that?"

you suck on his thumb, hollowing your cheeks, and watch his jaw clench above you. the blindfold is still on and somehow that makes it worse—better—the anonymity of it, the way he becomes less human and more force, a presence rather than a person. your husband is in there somewhere but right now he's just hunger given form.

"was thinkin' about you," you murmur around his thumb, and his breath hitches. "woke up and you were gone and i was... empty. wanted you to come back. wanted to feel you."

"so you thought you'd text me that you've got a deep throat." his laugh is breathless, incredulous, a little bit wrecked. "my god, you're a menace. a fucking menace. and i married you. what does that say about me?"

"that you've got good taste."

he pulls his thumb out of your mouth with a wet pop and uses the same hand to cup your chin, tilting your face up further. "prove it, then. prove what you said. show me how deep that pretty throat goes, sweetheart."

your hands come up to his belt, fingers trembling slightly—not from fear, never from fear with him, but from anticipation, from the sheer overwhelming want that's been building since you sent that text. the leather slides through the buckle with a soft hiss, and then you're popping the button of his slacks, dragging the zipper down tooth by agonizing tooth. he lifts his hips to help you, just a little, and the casual cooperation of it makes something warm bloom in your chest. even like this, even when he's playing at being demanding, he's still taking care of you.

his cock springs free, heavy and flushed, the head already slick with pre-cum that catches the office light. he's big—you knew that, you married that—but it still steals your breath every time, the sheer length and thickness of him, the way he curves slightly to the left, the prominent vein that runs along the underside that you've traced with your tongue a hundred times and will never get tired of.

"there he is," you breathe, and satoru makes a strangled sound that might be a laugh or might be a groan.

"don't talk to my dick like it's a person."

"but he's my favorite person." you wrap one hand around the base, not even close to meeting your fingers around his girth, and squeeze gently. his hips jerk, just once, an involuntary response that he can't control. "aren't you? aren't you my favorite?"

"i'm divorcing you."

"no you're not." you lean in and press a kiss to the tip, soft and chaste, tasting salt and skin and him. "you love me."

"i love you," he agrees, and his voice has gone rough, raw, stripped of all pretense. "i love you so much it makes me stupid. now please—fuck—"

you take him into your mouth before he can finish the sentence.

the first few inches are easy, familiar territory, your tongue flattening against the underside as you sink down. his hand flies to the back of your head, not pushing, just resting there, fingers threading through your messy hair with a gentleness that contradicts everything about this situation. he's always like this—demanding and soft in equal measure, rough words and tender touches, a contradiction wrapped in expensive fabric and supernatural power.

"that's it," he breathes, and you can hear the strain in his voice, the way he's holding himself back. "that's my good girl. look at you. look at what you do to me. can't even—ah—can't even function when you send me shit like that. whole meeting went to hell. nanami's probably filing a complaint with hr right now."

you hum around him, a wordless acknowledgment, and the vibration makes his thighs tense beneath you. his fingers tighten in your hair, just slightly, just enough to make your scalp prickle.

"deeper," he says, and it's not a command, it's a plea. "come on, baby. you said your throat was deep. prove it to me. let me feel it."

you breathe through your nose and relax your jaw and push.

the stretch is intense, the familiar burn of taking him past your comfort zone, past the point where your gag reflex usually protests. but you've been practicing—god, have you been practicing, every chance you get, because making him fall apart like this is your favorite thing in the world—and you take him deeper than you ever have before. your nose brushes against the fine white hairs at his base, and your throat constricts around him, and satoru whines.

the strongest sorcerer in the world whines like a wounded animal, high and desperate, and the sound goes straight to your cunt.

"fuck, sweetheart, fuck, that's—how are you—hah—" his words are fragmenting, falling apart, and you can feel him twitching against your tongue, can taste the steady leak of pre-cum sliding down your throat. "you weren't lying. you really weren't lying. my perfect girl, my perfect fucking wife, taking me all the way down like you were made for it—"

you pull back just enough to breathe, a thin stream of saliva connecting your bottom lip to his cock, and look up at him through your lashes. his blindfold is still on but his mouth—his mouth is parted, lips wet and red from where he's been biting them, and his cheeks are flushed pink above the black fabric.

"told you," you rasp, and your voice is wrecked already, hoarse and rough. "my throat's deep."

"yeah," he agrees weakly. "yeah, you definitely—you definitely proved that. fuck. come back. come back, i need—"

you swallow him down again before he can finish, and this time you don't stop. you set a rhythm, slow and deep, pulling back until just the tip rests on your tongue and then sinking all the way down until he hits the back of your throat. your jaw aches. your eyes are watering, mascara probably running in dark tracks down your cheeks. you don't care. you can't care, not when he's making those sounds above you, those broken little gasps and moans that he'd deny to his dying day.

"your mouth," he's babbling now, his composure completely shattered, hips rolling up in tiny aborted thrusts that he can't seem to control. "your perfect fucking mouth, baby, it's like—it's like you were custom-made for me, like someone designed you just to ruin me, and it worked, it fucking worked, i'm ruined, i'm absolutely—nngh—"

his thumb finds the corner of your mouth, stretched wide around his girth, and presses against the seam where your lips meet his skin. he groans like he's dying.

"feel that? feel how full you are? look at you. look at my good girl, taking every inch like it's nothing. you love this, don't you? love being on your knees for me, love choking on my cock while i tell you how perfect you are."

you moan around him, a wet garbled sound, and his answering curse is filthier than anything you've ever heard from him.

"yeah, you do. you love it. love being my pretty little cocksleeve, my perfect warm mouth, my—ah, ah, right there, sweetheart, right fucking there—"

you hollow your cheeks and suck hard, and satoru's entire body bows forward, his forehead dropping to rest against the top of your head. his breath is hot and damp against your hair, coming in ragged pants that fog the strands.

"i love you," he says into your hair, muffled and desperate. "i love you i love you i love you, you absolute menace, texting me that while i'm in a meeting, making me hard in front of nanami, making me—making me feel like this, like i'm going to crawl out of my own skin if i'm not inside you, like—"

you pull off him with a slick sound, stroking him with your hand instead, twisting your wrist on the upstroke in the way you know makes his toes curl. "you are inside me," you point out, voice wrecked and smug. "well. part of you."

"brat," he gasps. "mouthy little brat. i should—i should bend you over this desk and—"

"and what?"

his blindfold comes off. you don't see him move, don't see him reach for it, but suddenly it's gone and his eyes are there, those impossible blue eyes, pupils blown so wide they're nearly black, the six eyes swirling with something ancient and hungry and entirely focused on you.

"and keep you here all day," he finishes, voice dropping to something dark and promising. "keep you on your knees under my desk while i take meetings, let you warm my cock with that pretty throat, see how long you can last before you're begging me to let you come. before you're dripping down your thighs and everyone in the room knows, knows what a desperate little thing you are for me."

your cunt clenches around nothing. you whimper.

"yeah," he says softly, reaching down to cup your jaw, thumb wiping through the tear tracks on your cheek with devastating tenderness. "that's what i thought. but not today. today you're going to get back to work, sweetheart, because i'm not done with you."

his cock is still hard, still wet from your mouth, still pressed against your cheek where he's holding your face. he doesn't seem to care. doesn't seem in any hurry to finish what you started.

"what?" you breathe, and it comes out confused, desperate, aching.

satoru smiles, and it's the smile of a man who has all the time in the world and intends to use every second of it.

"you heard me. back to work." he tucks himself back into his slacks—still hard, still blatant, not even trying to hide it—and zips up with infuriating calm. "i have reports to finish. you have... whatever it is you do all day. we'll pick this up tonight."

"you can't be serious."

"deadly." he leans down and presses a kiss to your forehead, chaste and sweet, a mockery of everything that just happened. "you wanted to play games, baby. texting me filth while i'm working. so now we play. you're going to think about this all day. about my cock down your throat. about what i'm going to do to you when i get home. and by the time i walk through that door, you're going to be so wet i could slide in with one thrust."

you're still on your knees. your jaw aches. your throat is raw. and he's dismissing you like you're an employee who's overstayed their welcome.

"you're evil," you whisper.

"i'm your husband," he corrects, and kisses the tip of your nose. "now get out of my office before i change my mind and keep you here. i have a meeting in twenty minutes and i need to figure out how to sit through it without nanami murdering me."

Geto Suguru

the buzz of your phone against the marble countertop had been your first warning. the second had been the three little dots appearing and disappearing beneath suguru geto's name, a sure sign that whatever he was typing was being rewritten, reconsidered, chewed up and spat out by that razor-sharp mind of his. you'd been lounging on the velvet chaise in the living room, one leg dangling off the edge, the afternoon sun slicing through the blinds and painting stripes of gold across your bare thighs. you knew his schedule.

you knew he walked into that pristine, minimalist office of his at exactly 1:55 pm, set down his leather briefcase, and took exactly three sips of the pour-over coffee his assistant had waiting before he even glanced at his personal cell. you had timed it perfectly.

you'd typed it out with a sort of languid cruelty, your thumb hovering over the send button while you imagined the scene: suguru, long black hair half-tied back, suit jacket draped over the back of his ergonomic chair, the sharp line of his jaw tightening as he read the words. my voice isn't deep but my throat is. such a stupid, juvenile text. something a brat half your age would send to get a reaction.

but that was the point, wasn't it? you weren't half his age, but the gap was there, a decade plus of experience and composure that you loved to pick at like a loose thread on an expensive sweater. you wanted to see the composure fray. you wanted to yank that thread until the whole damn thing unraveled.

you sent it.

the silence that followed wasn't silence at all. it was a vacuum. it sucked the air out of the room, replaced it with a heavy, pressurized static that made the hair on your arms stand up. no ellipsis. no read receipt, even though you knew he had read previews turned on. just the cold, delivered timestamp staring back at you.

you bit your lip, a flicker of genuine fear igniting low in your belly. good fear. the kind that pooled wet and warm between your legs. you had poked a sleeping dragon. no, worse. you had walked up to a meditating monk and flicked him right between the eyes. you stayed on that chaise for the next three hours, not moving, not reading, not watching anything. just existing in the charged atmosphere you'd created, waiting for the storm to roll in.

you heard his key in the lock at 6:47 pm. usually, he texted when he was leaving the office. usually, you'd meet him at the door with a soft kiss and a glass of wine or a witty comment about his day. tonight, the door opened and closed with a soft, deliberate click that was somehow louder than a slam. you didn't move.

your heart was a frantic, hummingbird flutter against your ribs. you heard the soft thud of his briefcase being set down—not in its usual spot by the console table, but on the floor, right by the door, as if he couldn't be bothered to walk the extra three steps. then the slow, measured tread of his oxfords on the hardwood floor. each step was a countdown, a metronome ticking off the seconds until your judgment.

he appeared in the archway of the living room, and the sight of him made your throat click dry. he'd shed the jacket and loosened the tie, the top two buttons of his crisp white shirt undone to reveal the pale column of his throat and the sharp cut of his collarbone. his hair was fully down now, a sleek black curtain framing a face that was utterly, terrifyingly blank.

but his eyes. god, his eyes. they were dark, hooded, the pupils blown so wide they'd swallowed nearly all of that deep violet iris. he looked at you lying there, draped over the chaise like some pampered pet, and he didn't smile. he just tilted his head, a slow, predatory cant of his chin.

“get up,” he said. his voice wasn't loud. it was soft. it was the soft, silken rasp of a blade being drawn from its sheath. it was worse.

you swallowed, the sound audible in the tense quiet. “suguru, i—”

“i said,” he cut you off, the same quiet tone carrying an edge that could have sliced diamond, “get. up. and come here.”

you moved. you didn't scramble, you weren't that far gone yet, but you didn't dally. you rose on legs that felt a little too much like jelly and crossed the space between you. the late afternoon sun had faded to a bruised twilight blue outside, the room now lit only by the dim glow of a single salt lamp in the corner, casting everything in hues of amber and shadow.

you stopped a foot away from him, close enough to smell the remnants of his expensive cologne—cedar and bergamot—and underneath it, the clean, warm scent of his skin. he didn't reach for you. he didn't touch you. he just looked down at you from his considerable height, and the corner of his mouth twitched—not a smile, but an acknowledgment of the situation you'd put yourself in.

“my voice isn't deep but my throat is,” he repeated your text back to you, letting each word hang in the air, slow and deliberate, tasting them like a sommelier sampling a wine he'd already decided was flawed. his gaze dropped from your eyes to your lips, then lower, to the column of your throat, before snapping back up.

“do you have any idea what that sentence did to my afternoon? i was in the middle of a conference call with the kyoto branch when my phone buzzed. i opened it under the table, thinking it was you reminding me to pick up milk or telling me you loved me. and i read… that.”

his hand came up then, not to your face, but to your hair. his long fingers slid into the strands at the nape of your neck, and he didn't pull, not yet. he just gathered a fistful, tightening his grip incrementally until you felt the roots protest, a dull, grounding ache that tilted your chin up to meet his stare.

“i had to sit there for two more hours,” he continued, his thumb stroking the sensitive skin just behind your ear in a gesture that was deceptively tender given the steel in his grip.

“hard as a fucking rock behind my desk, nodding along to quarterly projections, while all i could think about was your pretty little mouth and the filthy, disrespectful things that come out of it. you made me a liar today. i had to excuse myself and tell takeda-san that i had a migraine. a migraine.” he let out a breath that was almost a laugh, but it held no humor. “the only thing throbbing was my cock, and it was all your fault.”

you tried to speak, to offer some clever retort or a whimper of apology, but the words died in your throat as his grip tightened fractionally. he used that hold to guide you downward, a firm, insistent pressure. you went willingly, your knees hitting the plush area rug with a soft thud. this was the proof he'd demanded.

this was you proving your words. and looking up at him from this angle, his tall frame looming over you, the evidence of his "migraine" straining obscenely against the fine wool of his dress pants right at your eye level, you felt a wave of dizzying, submissive heat wash over you.

“there she is,” he murmured, the first hint of real warmth—or was it condescension?—coloring his tone. with his free hand, he reached down and traced the curve of your jaw, his thumb coming to rest on your bottom lip, pressing down just enough to part them.

“my sweet, dumb little thing. you really don't think, do you? you just get a wicked idea in that empty little head of yours and your fingers type it out before your brain can catch up and remind you who you're talking to. you forget that i'm not one of those boys you could bat your lashes at. i'm a man who remembers every single debt. and you, baby, just racked up a very large one.”

he pulled his thumb away from your lip, a thin string of saliva connecting you for a second before it broke. he used both hands now to unbutton his pants, the sound of the zipper being drawn down obscenely loud in the quiet room.

he didn't push them down, just opened the placket enough to free himself. he was thick and heavy, the head flushed an angry, neglected red. he held himself at the base, not stroking, just presenting. a statement. an expectation.

“now,” he said, his voice dropping to a husky, intimate murmur.

“you made a promise, albeit a very crudely worded one. you claimed your throat was… what was it? something noteworthy? show me. show me just how noteworthy it is. and i swear to you, if you even think about using those little hands of yours to do the work your mouth should be doing, i will pull you over my lap and turn that pretty ass of yours the same shade of pink as that lipstick you’re not wearing. do you understand?”

“yes, suguru,” you breathed, the words ghosting against the sensitive head of his cock.

“good girl,” he praised, the words a soft, dark caress. he let go of your hair only to slide his fingers back along your scalp, cradling the back of your head now instead of restraining it. “open up for me, baby. let's see if you can take it. i've had a long, frustrating day. i'm not feeling particularly patient. so be a sweetheart and prove that mouth of yours is good for more than just getting you into trouble.”

you opened your mouth, letting your jaw go slack, and leaned forward. you didn't start with your tongue on the tip, like you normally would, teasing and coy. that wasn't what this moment was for. he wanted the proof of your text, the crude, visceral reality of it.

so you took him. you pushed forward, letting the smooth, hot skin of his shaft slide over your flattened tongue, past your teeth, and toward the back of your mouth. you felt the spongy head nudge your soft palate and you gagged, just slightly, a wet, choking sound that was swallowed by the flesh filling your mouth.

“mmm,” he hummed, the sound vibrating through him and into you. his hips didn't buck, he was too controlled for that, but you felt the muscles of his thighs tense under his pants where your hands rested on them for balance. “there's that throat. struggling already and i'm not even halfway in. what happened to all that confidence from your text, hm? lost it along with your ability to form a coherent thought?”

his words were a low, steady stream of filth that made the fire in your belly blaze higher. he kept the hand on the back of your head, not pushing, just… guiding. a silent reminder that he could, at any moment, take over. you breathed through your nose, focusing on relaxing the muscles of your throat, letting the weight of him rest heavy on your tongue.

you pulled back, a long, wet slide, until just the tip rested on your lower lip, and then you dove forward again, taking him deeper this time. the wet sounds were lewd, a slick, obscene squelch that filled the quiet room.

“fuck,” he hissed, the curse drawn out and sharp. “look at you. my pretty little cocksleeve. you were so bored today you had to text me that? you needed attention this badly? needed to feel useful?” his hips gave a tiny, involuntary twitch forward, just enough to make you gag again, your throat constricting around the intrusion. “you're drooling all over your chin, baby. it's a good look for you. much better than the clever brat on my phone. you're so much sweeter when that mouth of yours is full.”

you moaned around him, the sound a muffled, desperate vibration. your own arousal was a damp, insistent throb between your legs, your panties clinging to your folds. you shifted on your knees, trying to alleviate the ache, and the movement made you take him even deeper, until your nose was pressed against the crisp fabric of his open pants, the scent of clean laundry and his musk filling your senses. your throat worked around him, fluttering and gripping, proving the truth of your words with every wet, struggling inch.

“that's it,” he groaned, his composure finally starting to crack. his voice was a rough, wrecked thing now, all that smooth control scoured away by the feeling of your throat. “just like that, baby. take it. take all of it. you wanted to wreck my concentration? you wanted to make me sit in that office and burn for you? well, now you get to feel what you did to me. you get to feel how fucking hard you made me. there's no rush, sweetheart. we have all night. i'm going to use this greedy little throat of yours until you can't talk, until the only sound you remember how to make is that pretty gagging noise. then maybe, just maybe, you'll think twice before you send me a text like that again.”

he pulled your head back gently by your hair, letting him slip from your mouth with a wet pop. a thick strand of saliva connected your swollen lips to the ruddy, glistening head of his cock. your eyes were watering, your mascara smudged just so, and your lips felt bee-stung and used. he looked down at the mess he'd made of you and a slow, genuine smile finally touched his lips—a dark, possessive curl of satisfaction.

“we're just getting started,” he said softly, his thumb wiping the drool from the corner of your mouth before pushing it back inside, making you suck the taste of him off his own skin. “you wanted to prove your words? you're going to be on your knees proving them for a very, very long time tonight, baby. until that smart mouth of yours forgets every word but my name.”

Toji Fushiguro

toji fushiguro doesn't do mornings. he does the cold weight of a blade against his palm, the satisfying click of a suppressor being threaded into place, the mathematical certainty of a contract fulfilled. he does stale coffee from a vending machine and the grimy leather of his beat-up sedan. what he absolutely does not do is walk into the shitty little "office" he rents under a fake name in shinjuku—a place he only uses to clean weapons and avoid the landlord at his actual apartment—and get hit with a text message that makes him stop dead in the doorway with his keys still dangling from his scarred lip.

he'd only glanced at the screen because he'd felt the buzz against his thigh, assuming it was shiu with a new job file. it wasn't. it was you. and the words on the cracked screen made the blood in his veins reroute so violently he had to brace a hand against the doorframe, the wood groaning under his grip.

my voice isn't deep but my throat is.

he stared at it for a solid thirty seconds, the overhead fluorescent light flickering and buzzing like a trapped fly. his jaw tightened until the scar tugged painfully at the corner of his mouth. you'd timed it perfectly.

he'd just sat down in the creaky swivel chair, the one that groaned like it was dying every time he leaned back, and now he was staring at the concrete wall trying to figure out if he wanted to strangle you or fuck you into a coma. both. definitely both.

the worn fabric of his black cargo pants suddenly felt two sizes too small, the heavy zipper pressing uncomfortably against the rapidly swelling length of his cock. he palmed himself through the thick material, a low hiss escaping through his teeth as he read the message again, your name glowing like a taunt at the top of the chat log.

"fucking brat," he muttered to the empty room, the words a gravelly scrape of sound. his thumb hovered over the keyboard, the urge to type something threatening and vile warring with the sheer, blinding lust that was fogging up his peripheral vision. he had a hit scheduled for two o'clock. he needed to strip his glock, re-oil the slide, and do a range check on the scope for the rifle.

instead, he was sitting here with a dick so hard it could probably be used as a blunt force weapon, all because you'd decided to be a smart-mouthed little cocksleeve from the comfort of your shared bed.

he didn't text back. toji fushiguro wasn't a man who wasted words when actions would do. he let the silence stretch, let the anticipation curdle in your gut while he spent the next eight hours in a state of absolute, agonizing torture.

every step he took as he moved through the city to scout the location, the seam of his pants rubbed against the sensitive head of his cock, keeping him in a constant state of half-arousal that made him even more irritable than usual. being an assassin is ninety percent waiting and ten percent violence, and waiting while you're rock hard because your girl sent you a fucking pornographic text is a special kind of hell.

he nearly blew the whole job when his mark, some yakuza underboss with a sweat sheen on his brow, walked out of the pachinko parlor early. toji had been adjusting himself in the stairwell, hissing as the friction sent a jolt of pleasure-pain up his spine, and almost missed the clean headshot window. he had to compensate, the rifle kicking against his shoulder as he took the shot through a dirty windowpane, the suppressor spitting a quiet cough.

by the time he kicked the door of the apartment open at half past ten, he was a live wire of frustration and pent-up need. the apartment was dim, lit only by the blue glow of the tv playing some show you'd fallen asleep watching on the couch.

you weren't asleep. you were sitting up, wrapped in one of his old hoodies, looking up at him with those wide, faux-innocent eyes that knew exactly what you'd done to him. he didn't say hello. he didn't ask about your day. he dropped his duffel bag with a heavy thunk that rattled the floorboards and crossed the room in three long strides. his hand, still smelling faintly of gun oil and cordite, fisted in the collar of the hoodie and hauled you upright off the couch cushions.

"you think that shit is funny?" his voice was a low rumble, devoid of any humor, his green eyes dark and flat as they bore into yours. "do you have any idea what it's like trying to line up a four-hundred-yard shot with a hard-on because my girl wants to act like a cheap whore over text?"

he didn't wait for an answer. he used his grip on the hoodie to drag you down, your knees hitting the cheap tatami mat floor with a soft thud. he stood over you, a wall of muscle and menace, his shadow swallowing you whole. his free hand went to the button of his fatigues, popping it open with a flick of his thumb. the sound of his zipper lowering was obscenely loud in the quiet room, a metallic hiss that made your stomach clench.

"you're gonna prove it," he growled, fishing his cock out of his boxer briefs. it sprang up, thick and heavy, the vein on the underside throbbing visibly in the low light. he wasn't fully hard anymore—the hours of walking had softened him just enough to be frustrating—but he was getting there fast just looking at the way your lips parted. "you said your throat is deep. let's see if you can take it all without choking like the last time, yeah? you're gonna sit there on your knees and earn that text."

he let go of the hoodie only to cup the back of your head, his fingers threading through your hair and twisting, not enough to truly hurt, but enough to establish exactly who was in charge here. with his other hand, he slapped the heavy, warm weight of his cock against your cheek. once. twice. the sound was lewd, a soft thwack of skin on skin that left a faint trail of pre-cum glistening on your cheekbone. "open up, baby. daddy had a real long fuckin' day because of you."

the moment your jaw went slack, he pushed in. he didn't ease into it. toji wasn't built for gentle. he fed you the first few inches with a grunt, watching your eyes widen as the blunt, flared head of him pressed past the barrier of your lips and bullied its way onto your tongue. the taste of him was salt and musk, a day's worth of frustration made tangible. "thaaat's it," he groaned, the word drawn out and rough like tires on gravel. his head fell back for just a second, his adam's apple bobbing as he savored the wet heat of your mouth. "fuck, look at you. already droolin' all over my dick like a hungry little puppy. this what you wanted all day? huh? wanted my fat cock stuffin' your throat while i was out there working?"

his hips gave a lazy, testing roll forward, pushing another inch deeper. he could feel the flutter of your palate against the underside of his shaft, the instinctive gag reflex that you were fighting to suppress. his grip in your hair tightened, holding your head steady as he began a slow, devastating rhythm. he wasn't fucking your face—not yet. this was just a preview. this was him savoring the view of his cock disappearing between your swollen lips, the way your tongue flattened against the sensitive ridge of his frenulum every time he pulled back.

"yeah, you like that, don't you?" his voice was a low, affectionate drawl now, the earlier anger bleeding away into pure, lazy dominance. praise dripped from his lips, sticky and sweet like honey mixed with sin. "look so pretty like this, princess. prettiest thing i've seen all day. those idiots at the office don't got a clue what i got waitin' for me at home. a sweet little thing with a throat made for wrecking."

he pulled out completely, his cock bobbing wetly against his stomach, a thick string of saliva and his own slick connecting the tip to your bottom lip. he reached down and used his thumb to smear the mess across your chin, a satisfied hum rumbling in his chest. "stick your tongue out. flat. want to see where i'm gonna put it."

you complied, and he let out a shaky exhale, something akin to awe flashing in those usually dead green eyes. he placed the heavy length of his shaft on your extended tongue, letting it sit there, letting you feel the weight and the heat of him. "this is what you own, baby. this is what you made hard all day. feel that? that's your fault. every fuckin' throb."

then he slid back in, this time deeper. his hand on the back of your head pulled you forward as his hips pushed in, a slow, insistent pressure until your nose was flush with the dark, coarse hair at the base of his groin. your throat constricted around him, a wet, fluttering vise that made his toes curl in his boots. he held you there, his abdomen flexing with the effort of not coming on the spot, listening to the choked, guttural sounds you made as you struggled for air through your nose.

"there it is," he panted, his voice strained and full of filthy reverence. "there's that deep throat. fuckin' knew you could take it. good girl. such a good, dumb girl for me. lettin' me use this pretty hole however i want."

he let you breathe for a second before doing it again. and again. he established a languid, possessive pace, using your mouth like his own personal toy. he'd pull out until just the tip rested on your lips, letting you suckle on it greedily, lapping at the slit with desperate flicks of your tongue, and then he'd push back in, burying himself to the hilt with a wet, obscene squelch. the room filled with the sound of it—your wet gagging, his low, breathy moans, the slick sound of flesh meeting flesh.

"fuck, listen to you," he grunted, his hips rolling in a slow grind against your face. "sound so messy. sound like a fuckin' dream, baby. makes me wanna just... stay here all night. just keep my cock warm in this throat while i watch tv. you'd let me, wouldn't you? you'd sit here on your knees for hours just to keep me happy 'cause you're my sweet little cocksleeve."

he pulled out again, this time using his hand to tap the wet, heavy head against your lips repeatedly. tap. tap. tap. "open wider. jaw's gettin' tired? too fuckin' bad. you started this. you don't get to tap out 'til i say so."

he pushed back in, but instead of the usual rhythm, he just... stayed there. he seated himself fully, his balls resting snugly against your chin, and he let out a long, shuddering sigh. his hand in your hair loosened, his fingers gently massaging your scalp as he just stood there, buried in the wet heat of your throat. the tension from the day, the frustration of the missed shot window, the irritation of the train ride home—it all melted away as he focused solely on the feeling of your throat muscles fluttering helplessly around his invasion.

"yeah," he breathed out, his voice barely a whisper now, soft and almost tender. "that's the spot. right there. just keep me warm for a minute, baby. just let daddy rest his cock in that pretty throat. you feel so fuckin' good. so soft. so hot. my good little girl."

his thumb stroked over your cheekbone, wiping away a stray tear that had leaked from the corner of your eye—a physiological response, nothing more. he looked down at you, his expression unreadable but undeniably soft in the dim light. the big, scary assassin was gone. this was just a tired, horny man who'd been thinking about this exact moment for nine hours straight.

"next time you send a text like that," he murmured, his hips giving a tiny, involuntary flex that pushed him a fraction of an inch deeper, making you gurgle softly around him. "you better be in this position waiting for me when i walk through the door. maybe bent over the arm of the couch with a plug in that other tight hole too. give me a full-course meal to come home to after a hard day. you understand me?"

he slowly, achingly slowly, began to move again. just a few inches, a shallow, lazy glide in and out of the snug ring of your lips. he wasn't chasing anything. he was just enjoying the ride, enjoying the control, enjoying the wet, sloppy sounds of your mouth as he used it to soothe the ache he'd been nursing all day. his head lolled back, eyes falling half-closed, his lips parted around quiet, deep groans of satisfaction.

"fuckin' hell, baby. your mouth is a goddamn national treasure. should be illegal to feel this good. 's like... warm honey and fuckin' silk." his words were slurring now, drunk on the sensation of you. "could do this all fuckin' night. just... lazy like this. not even fuckin' you hard. just... feelin' you."

he pulled out one last time, letting his cock rest on your swollen lips, slick and shiny in the tv light. he rubbed the head back and forth across your bottom lip, smearing your own saliva across the sensitive skin. "keep your mouth open."

he didn't give you a reason. he just stood there, stroking himself slowly, the wet sound of his hand on his shaft filling the space. his eyes were locked on your open mouth, on the dark cavern of your throat waiting for him.

"want to see it one more time," he said, his voice rough with a need that had nothing to do with climax. "want to watch you swallow me down on your own this time. show me how much you missed this cock, baby. show me how sorry you are for making me hard at work."

he waited, his chest heaving, his cock twitching in his grip, ready to slide back into the only place he'd been thinking about for eight goddamn hours. the night was young, and he was in no rush at all.

Shiu Kong

the buzz of your phone against the polished wood of shiu kong's desk was a sound he normally ignored until he'd finished reviewing the morning's case files. but it was 9:47 am, precisely thirteen minutes before you usually texted him a picture of whatever cute bento arrangement you'd packed for his lunch, and he found his thumb swiping across the screen before his brain could tell him to focus on the arbitration clause in front of him.

he read the message once. then twice.

his tie suddenly felt like a noose.

my voice isn't deep but my throat is.

shiu exhaled slowly through his nose, setting the phone down face-up on the stack of manila folders as if it were a live grenade. the leather of his office chair groaned as he leaned back, palming the sudden, insistent ache straining against the fly of his tailored slacks. he was a man who dealt in information, in leverage, in the careful application of pressure over time. he didn't do impulsive. but you—his sweet, much younger wife who still blushed when he called her a good girl in public—had just lobbed a fucking missile into his meticulously ordered morning.

he didn't text back. that was the first rule of shiu kong's personal code of conduct: never negotiate with terrorists via sms. instead, he let the image fester in his mind. the image of you typing that out in the kitchen, still in his oversized shirt from last night, biting your lip with that specific blend of nervousness and bratty defiance you only got when you'd been reading those filthy romance novels you hid under the guest bed. he imagined the way your throat would constrict around the words if he made you say them out loud. that's when his hand moved to adjust himself under the desk, a rough, frustrated squeeze that did nothing but make the throbbing worse.

he waited.

the clock on the wall ticked with the slow, deliberate patience of a man who had spent years cultivating informants. by the time the door to his office clicked open at exactly 12:02 pm, the scent of your perfume and warm rice wafting in ahead of you, shiu was hard enough to drill through the mahogany.

"hi, baby," you chirped, holding up the thermal bag with a smile that was a little too innocent, a little too knowing. "i made those pork katsu rolls you like—"

"lock it."

his voice wasn't loud. it never was. it was the specific timbre of calm that preceded an earthquake, and it made your step falter for just a half-second before you caught yourself. you turned, the soft click of the lock sounding deafeningly loud in the soundproofed room. when you faced him again, he hadn't moved from his chair. he was still leaning back, one elbow on the armrest, fingers tracing the line of his jaw, his dark eyes fixed on your mouth.

"put the food down on the table," he instructed, his gaze dropping deliberately to the front of his slacks where the outline of him was obscene and undeniable. "then come here. you've been running that mouth from across town all morning. i want to see if the rest of it lives up to the marketing."

you set the bag down carefully, your hands trembling just enough for him to notice, which only made the corner of his lip twitch. that was the thing about shiu—he didn't get loud when he was angry or aroused. he got lazy. he got comfortable. he leaned further back in his chair, legs spreading a fraction wider as you approached the edge of his desk, and he pointed lazily at the floor between his oxfords.

"on your knees, sweetheart. we both know why you sent that text. you wanted me distracted all morning, thinking about those pretty lips stretched around me instead of reading contracts. well, congratulations." his hand came down to palm himself openly through the fabric, a low, satisfied hum vibrating in his chest as he watched your pupils blow wide. "you won. now you're going to sit right there on the floor of my office and prove that this smart little mouth is good for more than just giving me migraines."

there was no hesitation in the way you sank down. the carpet was plush, expensive, the kind meant for long meetings with wealthy clients. it felt sinful against your bare knees. shiu watched the descent with hooded eyes, his fingers working the buckle of his belt with a metallic jingle that filled the quiet room. the zipper came next, a slow, deliberate rasp that made your mouth water before you even saw him.

"look at you," he murmured, freeing himself from the confines of his boxer briefs. he didn't rush. he let the weight of his cock slap against the fine wool of his pants, thick and flushed an angry red at the tip, a single bead of precum already catching the overhead light. "you're drooling already and i haven't even touched you. you've been thinking about this since you hit send, haven't you? sitting at home, playing with your little clit while imagining how pissed off i'd be?"

"shiu..." your voice was a whisper, a plea.

"shh. don't use that voice unless you're planning on wrapping it around me." he leaned forward just enough to run his thumb across your bottom lip, pulling it down before letting it snap back wetly. "open up. and keep those eyes on me. i want to see the exact moment that smart mouth of yours realizes it's too much to handle."

he didn't shove. shiu wasn't a teenager in the back of a car. he fed you the tip first, just the blunt, hot head of him pressing past your lips. the taste of him—clean skin and salt and that specific musk that was just him—flooded your senses. his hand didn't fist in your hair; it cupped the back of your skull, fingers threading through the strands gently, a stark contrast to the filthy, heavy weight settling on your tongue.

"there we go," he sighed, the sound drawn out and utterly satisfied as he watched your lips seal around him. "look at that stretch. god, look at you. you talk so much shit for someone who can barely fit the first two inches. you said your throat was deep, baby. i'm waiting."

you took more. it was a concentrated effort, relaxing the reflexive gag, breathing through your nose as you slid forward. his hand remained steady on the back of your head, not pushing, just present. a reminder that he was in control of the pace whether you liked it or not. his hips stayed perfectly still in the chair, letting you do the work, letting you struggle against the thickness of him as you tried to take him down.

"fuck," he breathed out, the curse soft and reverent. "that's my good girl. you're trying so hard to prove you weren't lying, huh? but you're shaking. your little hands are gripping my pant leg like you're on a rollercoaster."

he leaned forward slightly, the movement pressing him just a hair deeper, enough to make your eyes water and your throat constrict reflexively. the sound that came out of him was a low, guttural groan—the kind of noise that vibrated straight through your chest and settled wetly between your thighs.

"that's it. that's the sound i wanted. not that sharp voice you use when you're telling me i forgot to take out the trash. this wet, sloppy, pathetic little gurgle." his thumb stroked the corner of your stretched mouth. "you feel that? that's your throat trying to swallow me. it's trying so hard to be good for me, even when you're choking on it. you're so dumb right now, aren't you? brain empty. just a warm, wet hole for me to fuck because you couldn't keep your phone in your pocket."

he pulled back just enough to let you breathe, a string of saliva connecting his tip to your swollen lip. his eyes were dark, almost black, and he tilted your chin up with his knuckle. "deeper. relax your jaw. stop fighting it and just let me use it."

you nodded, dazed, and opened wider. this time, he didn't let you set the pace. his hand tightened in your hair—not painfully, just firmly, like a tether—and he guided you down. his hips finally rolled upward in a slow, lazy thrust that pushed past the barrier of your soft palate and into the tight, velvet clutch of your throat. the sound you made was a strangled, wet glk that echoed in the quiet office.

shiu's head fell back against the chair with a thump, a ragged groan tearing from his chest. "oh, fuck. there it is. there's that deep throat you promised me. took you long enough to find it. you get so lost when i'm in your mouth, don't you? can't even remember how to breathe unless i tell you."

he held you there for a three-count, feeling the rhythmic clench of your throat muscles trying to swallow around the intrusion. it was heaven and hell wrapped in the soft, warm cavern of your mouth. when he let you up for air, you were a mess—spit shining on your chin, eyes glassy and unfocused, a soft, whining moan escaping your lips the second they were free.

"look at the mess on my floor," he chuckled, the sound dark and affectionate. he used his thumb to wipe the drool from your chin before sucking it clean off his own skin. "you're leaking through your leggings, aren't you? bet if i touched you right now, you'd soak my hand. all this just from having your throat stuffed full. you don't need a deep voice, baby. you need a cock to shut you up."

he didn't give you time to recover. he pulled you back down, this time setting a steady, languid rhythm. his hips rolled up to meet your descent with a practiced, lazy precision. the office filled with the wet, obscene symphony of your mouth working him over—the slick glide of saliva, the soft, breathy grunts he made each time he bottomed out, the choked, gurgling sounds you couldn't hold back.

"that's it, just take it," he cooed, his voice a low, hypnotic rumble. "you're doing so well for an old man like me. such a sweet little throat. i should keep you under my desk all day. just have you warming my cock while i take conference calls. you'd like that, wouldn't you? you'd sit there and drool all over my balls while i talk about liability insurance, just happy to be used."

he leaned forward again, his chest pressing against the back of your head as he buried himself to the hilt and held. your nose pressed into the coarse hair at his base, your throat bulging obscenely around his length. you gagged, hard, your hands flying up to grip his thighs for stability.

"shh, shh, breathe through your nose," he murmured against your hair, his voice softening for just a second before the dark edge returned. "no, don't tap out. you wanted to prove you could take it. so take it. feel me right here?" his hand moved from your head to press gently against the front of your neck, feeling the rigid shape of himself through your skin. "i can feel myself in your throat. that's insane. you're such a filthy little thing, letting your husband do this to you in his office."

he pulled back, letting you gasp and sputter, a mixture of saliva and precum dripping down your chin and onto your shirt. you looked ruined. your mascara was starting to smudge, your lips were puffy and red, and you were moaning softly even without him inside you, your hips shifting unconsciously against the floor.

"you love this," shiu stated, not asked. he was stroking himself slowly now, using your spit as lubricant, watching you watch him. "you love being put in your place. you love it when i get that look in my eye and remind you who owns this throat. say it."

"i love it," you rasped, your voice hoarse and wrecked, barely a whisper.

"louder. and look at me while you say it."

you lifted your chin, meeting his heavy-lidded gaze. "i love it when you fuck my throat, shiu."

the corner of his mouth curled into a satisfied smirk. "good girl. now be quiet and open up again. i'm not done proving my point. and when we're done here, you're going to sit on my lap and feed me those pork katsu rolls with your fingers while i'm still hard and wet inside you. because this is what happens when you text me porn at nine in the morning."

he guided himself back between your swollen lips, sighing at the familiar heat. this time, he was slower, savoring the way your tongue flattened against the underside of his shaft, the way your throat fluttered in welcome. his hips rolled like a gentle tide, pushing deep, retreating just enough to let you gasp, then pushing back in before you could fully recover. it was a lazy, possessive fuck, the kind that said he had all the time in the world to ruin you.

"listen to that," he whispered, his voice thick with arousal. the room was a chorus of soft, wet sucking sounds and his own low groans. "that's my favorite sound in the world. better than any settlement check. you, gagging on my cock, crying because it feels too good to stop. you're so pretty when you're dumb. your eyes get all glossy and you just... float."

his thumb brushed away a fresh tear that had escaped the corner of your eye. the gesture was so tender, so at odds with the way his hips were now thrusting up into your throat with increasing need, chasing the tight heat of you. "you're okay," he cooed, even as he held your head steady and fucked up into your mouth with a wet, sloppy squelch. "you're doing so good. just a little more. let me feel that throat squeeze me again. yeah, fuck, just like that. choke on it, baby. let me hear it."

the sounds you made were filthy. pure, unadulterated, pornographic bliss. and shiu kong, the most composed man in the building, was falling apart in his office chair because his wife had sent him a text about having a deep throat. he watched the way your lips stretched around him, the way your nose flared for air, and he knew he'd never be able to look at his desk the same way again.

Nanami Kento

“my voice isn't deep but my throat is.”

the message blinked up at him just as he set his leather briefcase down on the polished mahogany of his desk, the morning light still thin and grey through the blinds of his corner office. nanami kento had barely had time to remove his blazer, to let the familiar weight of another tedious workday settle onto his shoulders, before his phone had vibrated with that singular, devastating notification.

he had expected a reminder about his ten o'clock meeting, perhaps a query from a junior associate regarding the quarterly projections. what he received instead was a sentence so crudely, brilliantly obscene that it short-circuited every rational pathway in his brain and rerouted all available blood flow directly south with a force that made him grip the edge of his desk, knuckles going white against the wood grain.

for a long, suspended moment, he simply stood there, his tie suddenly feeling like a noose around his thickening throat, the crisp cotton of his dress shirt an unbearable friction against the sudden, rigid heat straining against the front of his tailored slacks.

he could feel his pulse hammering a frantic, angry rhythm in his temples and, more treacherously, in the heavy, throbbing length now trapped and aching against his thigh. he was a patient man, a man who prided himself on his stoicism, his ability to compartmentalize. he could endure mind-numbing board meetings, inane small talk with clients, the soul-crushing bureaucracy of corporate finance.

but this? this was a specific, targeted assault on his composure, a deliberate act of sabotage perpetrated by the one person he allowed past his carefully constructed defenses. you. his much younger, impossibly bratty, and utterly irresistible wife. you knew his schedule. you knew he had back-to-back meetings all day, starting with the partners' briefing in exactly seventeen minutes. and you had sent that text anyway.

he didn't text back. there was no response adequate to the crime you'd just committed. words felt flimsy, impotent in the face of the relentless, pulsing demand now governing his every thought. he spent the next nine hours in a state of agonizing, hyper-aware purgatory. every step he took was a conscious negotiation with the insistent ache in his groin, a constant, low-level throb of frustration that made his jaw clench and his usually placid demeanor sharpen into something far more dangerous. during the partners' meeting, as old man saito droned on about risk assessment metrics, nanami sat ramrod straight, his gaze fixed on a point just above saito's balding head, his mind a million miles away.

he was picturing you, not as you were when he'd left you this morning, sleep-rumpled and soft in his bed, but as you would be later. on your knees. he shifted almost imperceptibly in his chair, the heavy drag of his cock against the inside of his thigh a secret, maddening torment. he was so hard it bordered on painful, a dull, spreading ache that radiated outward from his core, making his trousers feel obscenely tight and his skin feel too small for his body.

lunch was a tasteless ordeal, a bento box he pushed around with his chopsticks while his cock throbbed a persistent, muffled drumbeat against the confines of his pants. he could feel the damp heat of his own pre-cum soaking into the fabric of his boxer briefs, a constant, sticky reminder of your vulgar, wonderful promise. you had said your voice wasn't deep but your throat was. such a simple, dirty little boast. and now he was going to make you prove it.

not because he was a cruel man, but because he was a man pushed past the brink of his considerable patience, a man whose carefully ordered world had been gleefully upended by a single, salacious text message. by the time the antique clock on his office wall finally, mercifully, clicked over to six-fifteen, signifying the end of his day, he was a tightly coiled spring of pure, undiluted want.

he drove home in a fog of anticipation, the city lights blurring past his window into streaks of meaningless color. he didn't bother with the radio. the only soundtrack in the car was the heavy sound of his own breathing and the relentless, pounding need between his legs. when he finally shouldered open the front door of your shared apartment, the quiet click of the lock sounded like a gunshot in the silent space.

he found you exactly where he expected you to be, curled on the plush sofa, a book in your lap, the very picture of domestic innocence. you looked up at him with those wide, deceptively guileless eyes, a small, knowing smile playing at the corners of your lips. the smile of a woman who had spent her entire day basking in the knowledge of the chaos she had unleashed.

“welcome home, ken,” you said, your voice as sweet and light as honey. that voice. the one you claimed wasn't deep.

he didn't return the greeting. he simply crossed the room in three long, deliberate strides, his movements unhurried but charged with a quiet, implacable force. he stopped directly in front of you, his tall, broad-shouldered frame blocking the light from the standing lamp, casting you entirely in his shadow.

his hand came up, his movements still slow, almost tender, as he undid the perfect knot of his speckled tie with one hand. he pulled the length of silk free from his collar and let it drop to the floor, a soft whisper of sound against the hardwood. then, he reached down and unbuckled his belt, the metallic jangle of the clasp echoing in the quiet room. he didn't unzip his trousers yet. he just loosened them, a subtle but unmistakable signal of intent. his cock was a rigid, insistent shape straining against the dark grey fabric, a sight he made no move to hide.

“you have a very big mouth for such a little thing,” he finally said, his voice a low, gravelly murmur that was utterly devoid of the patient, professional tone he used all day. this was the voice of a man who had been thinking about nothing but the hot, wet clasp of your mouth for hours. “i read your text this morning. i had to sit through a three-hour budget review with a hard-on so severe i thought i might crack a tooth from clenching my jaw. all because my sweet, filthy wife decided to be a tease.”

he reached down and gently, but with an undeniable firmness, took the book from your unresisting hands and set it aside. then his fingers found your chin, tilting your face up to meet his heavy-lidded, golden-brown gaze. “you said your throat was deep. i've been thinking about it all day. measuring it in my mind. wondering if you were just being a brat, or if you were actually prepared to back up such a claim. so here's what's going to happen, sweetheart. you're going to get on your knees right here on this rug, and you're going to prove it to me.”

there was no command in his tone, only a quiet, absolute certainty. he guided you down with the barest pressure on your shoulder, and you went willingly, the plush fibers of the rug meeting your knees. he watched you descend with an almost clinical fascination, his gaze tracing the line of your neck as you looked up at him.

“that's my good girl,” he breathed, the praise a warm, intimate caress. “so obedient now. couldn't be this good for me this morning, could you? had to send me a message designed to make my cock ache all day.”

he finally unzipped his trousers, the sound sharp and decisive. he didn't pull himself out. instead, he reached down and brushed a stray strand of hair from your forehead, his touch infinitely gentle, a stark contrast to the raw, throbbing need pulsing just inches from your face. “i'm going to take my time now, darling. you stole my focus for an entire workday. you made me sit in meetings with a dripping, aching cock that wouldn't soften, no matter how many times i mentally recited the quarterly depreciation figures. you owe me. you owe my cock a very long, very thorough apology.” his thumb traced the curve of your bottom lip, pressing down just slightly, feeling the plush give of it.

“open up, sweetheart. let me see that deep, talented throat of yours.”

when your lips parted, a shaky exhale escaping you, he let out a low, rumbling sound of approval from deep in his chest. “ah, there it is. so pretty and pink. it's a shame you use it for such wicked things as texting your husband filth while he's trying to work.” he finally freed himself from the confines of his boxer briefs, his heavy cock springing forth, the thick, flushed head already slick and glistening with the evidence of his day-long torment.

he was long and undeniably thick, the kind of size that required patience and care, a fact he was well aware of. he held himself at the base, not aggressively, but with the casual ownership of a man who knew his own body and yours.

“i'm not going to fuck your face,” he stated plainly, his thumb still resting on your lower lip, keeping your mouth slightly agape. “not yet. you're going to do all the work. you're going to show me just how sorry you are. i want to feel that clever little tongue first. i want you to taste what you did to me all day. taste it.” he guided the broad, weeping head of his cock to your waiting lips, smearing the slick, salty fluid across them in a slow, deliberate glide.

“that's it. get it nice and wet. you made this mess. you clean it up. such a messy, needy little thing you are, sending your husband dirty texts while he's at the office. did you touch yourself thinking about it? did you rub that needy little cunt while you imagined me reading it, getting all hard and frustrated?”

he didn't wait for an answer, because the question was rhetorical. he knew you did. he eased the head of his cock past your lips, just an inch, and let out a hiss of pure, agonized relief. “f-fuck,” he stuttered, the profanity torn from him, his carefully constructed composure finally cracking at the first wet, silken touch of your mouth. “that's… god, that's good. your mouth is so warm. it's been so cold in that office all day. all those numbers. and all i could think about was this. this exact heat.”

he let you set the pace, his hand moving from his base to cradle the back of your head, not pushing, just… resting there, a heavy, warm, reassuring presence. his other hand remained on your chin, his thumb still hooked over your teeth, keeping your mouth open and relaxed for him.

“that's it, baby. take your time. we have all night. i've been hard for nine hours. you can spend at least a few minutes making it feel better. use your tongue more. yeah, just like that. right on that little spot on the underside. you know exactly where, don't you? you know my cock better than i know my own portfolio. smarter than you look, aren't you? or maybe you just look dumb when you're like this, with my cock stretching your pretty lips. a little dumbification looks good on you, sweetheart.”

he watched you with a hooded, intense gaze, his breathing deepening as you worked him over with your tongue, lavishing attention on the sensitive head, tracing the thick vein that pulsed along the underside. “mmhm, that's my good fucking girl,” he praised, his voice dropping to a gravelly whisper.

“so eager to make it up to me. you should be. i had to excuse myself from the afternoon meeting. pretended i had an urgent call. went to the restroom and just stood there in the stall for five minutes, palming myself through my pants like a desperate teenager because of you. because you whispered that filthy little promise in my ear from across the city. you're a menace. an absolute, wet-mouthed menace.”

he allowed you to take him deeper, inch by agonizing inch, his jaw going slack as he felt the head of his cock nudge against the soft resistance at the back of your mouth. “oh,” he breathed, the sound barely audible. “there it is. that's the spot you were bragging about, isn't it? feels tight. feels like it wants to swallow me whole. i'm not going to make you do it all at once. i'm not a monster. i'm a patient man, remember? i'm going to let you get comfortable. i'm going to let you drool all over my cock until it's a sloppy, slick mess. i want it messy. i want to hear it. i want to hear how wet your mouth is for me. i want to hear those little gagging, choking sounds when you try to take a little more than you're ready for. because you will try, won't you? because you're so desperate to prove you're my good, deep-throated little wife.”

he pulled back slightly, just enough to let you breathe, a thick string of saliva connecting your swollen lips to the glistening head of his cock. “breathe, sweetheart. through your nose. nice and slow. there's no rush. i've been aching all day. a few more minutes of this lazy, perfect torture won't kill me. it might, actually. you look so fucking beautiful like this. on your knees, in my shadow, your mouth all messy and wet just for me. my cock is the only thing that exists in your world right now, isn't it? all those silly little thoughts are gone. just the weight of it on your tongue. the taste of me. the need to please me. that's all you need to think about. just being a warm, wet, willing place for me to rest my cock after a very long, very hard day. you did this to me. now you get to fix it.”

his hips gave a tiny, involuntary jerk, pressing just a fraction deeper, and you gagged softly, a wet, choked sound that made his eyes flutter shut and a low, guttural moan vibrate in his chest. “nghhh, yeah. just like that. that sound. i've been replaying a fantasy of that sound all day. the sound of my cock hitting the back of your throat. you have no idea. you have no idea the power you wield with that mouth.

but you're learning, aren't you? you're learning that for every bratty text, there's a consequence. and your consequence is kneeling on this rug for as long as it takes for me to feel that every last inch of your throat is properly acquainted with my cock. not to come. no, we're not there yet. this is just… an introduction. a long, slow, lazy fuck of your pretty face. just to remind you, and this greedy cock of mine, exactly who it belongs to.”

Higuruma Hiromi

the courtroom of your shared apartment is silent except for the soft hum of the refrigerator and the distant wail of a siren somewhere in the city that never cared about the war crimes about to be committed on your throat. you're on your knees on the cold hardwood because he'd pointed once, just once, finger crooked like he was calling a recess, and your body understood the verdict before your brain could file an appeal.

the wool of his suit trousers scratches against your cheek when you nuzzle forward, inhaling the scent of him—starch, sandalwood, the faint metallic tang of old paper and older justice—and above you, higuruma hiromi exhales a sound that is not quite a sigh and not quite a groan, something caught in the docket between contempt and wanting.

“two hours,” he says, and his voice is the same one he uses when he's dismantling a witness on cross, low and measured and absolutely devastating. “you sent that text two hours before you were supposed to leave. did you think i would forget? did you think i would read those words—'my voice isn't deep but my throat is'—and simply file it away as evidence pending review?” his hand finds your hair, not gentle, not rough, just there, fingers threading through the strands like he's flipping through case notes, like he's searching for the precise paragraph where you admitted guilt.

“you knew exactly what you were doing. premeditation. malice aforethought. you wanted me hard in the middle of a deposition. you wanted me shifting in my chair, recrossing my legs, clearing my throat while opposing counsel droned on about easements and property lines, all because my pretty little wife decided to commit an act of domestic terrorism via text message.”

you try to speak but his grip tightens just slightly, a warning, a judicial order to remain silent while the court is in session. “ah, no. the time for testimony was before you hit send. now we're in the sentencing phase. and i've been thinking about your sentence for one hundred and twenty excruciating minutes. do you know how long that is to sit with an erection in a three-thousand-dollar suit? do you know how many times i had to excuse myself to the restroom just to stand in a stall and breathe through my mouth and recite the civil procedure code backwards until i could walk without limping?” his thumb traces the shell of your ear, deceptively tender, the way he might handle a piece of evidence he's about to tear apart on the stand.

“you're going to make it up to me. you're going to show the court exactly what that clever little throat can do. and i'm going to talk you through every second of it because that's what you wanted, isn't it? you wanted my voice. you wanted the words. you wanted me to lose my composure so completely that i'd have no choice but to take you apart with language alone.”

his belt buckle is cold when your fingers find it, and he lets you fumble because the fumbling is part of the punishment, part of the exquisite torture of watching you struggle with the leather and the clasp while he remains perfectly still, perfectly composed, a marble statue of a man who has sentenced men to death with less emotion than he's showing right now. “there you go,” he murmurs, and the praise drips down your spine like warm honey, sticky and sweet and utterly condescending.

“such a good girl when you're not being a menace to my professional reputation. do you have any idea what i had to endure? nakamura from across the table asked if i was feeling unwell because i kept pressing my palm against my thigh under the table, trying to will away the image of you typing that message with a smirk on your face, knowing, always knowing exactly what you do to me.” the leather slides free with a whisper and then the zipper, that metallic purr that makes your mouth water even before you see him, even before you feel the weight of him against your lips.

“the prosecution would like to enter into evidence exhibit a: the text message in question, sent at precisely 4:23 PM, reading 'my voice isn't deep but my throat is' followed by a winking emoji that i will personally see burned at the stake for its complicity in this crime.” his voice has dropped half an octave, still controlled but fraying at the edges like old rope, and you can hear it, the strain, the way he's holding himself together through sheer force of legal will.

“and exhibit b: the defendant's current position, on her knees, mouth already open, pupils blown wide, looking up at me like i'm the one who committed a felony when we both know who the real criminal is here. the court finds the defendant... guilty. guilty of being an insufferable little tease. guilty of making a grown man, an officer of the court, contemplate faking a family emergency just so he could come home and fuck that smart mouth until it forgot how to form words.”

you take him into your mouth and the sound he makes is not a moan, not yet, it's a punched-out exhale, a hiss of air through clenched teeth, the noise a man makes when he's been holding his breath underwater for too long and finally breaks the surface. “that's it,” he breathes, and his hips twitch once before he locks them down, iron control, the same control he uses to keep his face blank when a witness lies through their teeth.

“that's my girl. that's my sweet, filthy girl who thinks she can say absolutely anything to me and get away with it. but you don't get away with it, do you? you end up right here, every time, on your knees, with your mouth full and your eyes watering, and you love it. you love being put in your place. you love when i talk to you like this, when i use all these big words and long sentences to tell you exactly what a desperate little thing you are.” his fingers flex in your hair, not pushing, just holding, anchoring himself to the reality of your warm wet mouth and the obscene sounds starting to fill the quiet apartment.

“the court would like to note for the record that the defendant has exceptional technique,” he continues, and there's a tremor in his voice now, a crack in the judicial facade, and you work harder for it, take him deeper, let your throat relax around him the way you've learned, the way he taught you with patient hands and increasingly unraveled praise.

“exceptional. truly. i've seen a lot of things in my career, defendants who could lie with a straight face, prosecutors who could twist a narrative until it sang, but i have never, in all my years, encountered anything as devastating as the way you hollow your cheeks and look up at me like you're waiting for a grade, like you need me to tell you you're doing well, like my approval is the only verdict that matters.” a wet sound escapes around him and he groans, actually groans, the noise dragged out of him against his will, and his head tips back for just a moment before he forces it forward again, forces himself to watch.

“see? see what you do? two hours i sat there, professional, composed, the picture of legal decorum, and all the while i was thinking about this. about the way you'd look up at me. about the sounds you'd make. about how wet your cunt gets just from having your mouth used, don't think i don't know, don't think i can't see you pressing your thighs together right now like that's going to help anything.”

he's right, of course he's right, he's always right, and your thighs are pressed together so tight you can feel the tremor in your own muscles, the ache of emptiness between them, the way your body is begging for attention you know you won't get until he decides the sentence has been served. “the court recognizes the defendant's... discomfort,” he says, and there's a smile in his voice now, dark and amused and terribly fond, the smile of a man who has spent twenty years finding loopholes in the law and is now applying that same creativity to making you squirm.

“but the court also recalls that the defendant chose to send a sexually explicit text message during business hours, knowing full well that the plaintiff—that would be me, darling, keep up—would be forced to endure two hours of uninterrupted arousal before he could address the situation. so really, the defendant's current state of... need... is self-inflicted. poetic justice. the scales don't lie.” his thumb traces your stretched lips, feeling himself through the thin barrier of your skin, and his breath catches audibly.

“god, look at you. look at you taking all of me. my perfect girl. my perfect, ridiculous, infuriating girl who texts me filth while i'm trying to work.”

you make a sound around him, something desperate and muffled, and he shushes you with a gentleness that contradicts everything else about this moment, his thumb stroking your cheek now, wiping at the tears that have started to track down from the corners of your eyes. “i know, sweetheart, i know. it's a lot, isn't it? all that cleverness, all that bravado in a text message, and now look at you. can't even speak. can't even form a coherent objection. overruled, by the way, whatever protest you were trying to lodge.

the court has heard enough from the defendant today. the court would much rather hear these sounds instead, these wet desperate little sounds you make when you're trying so hard to be good for me, when you're trying to make up for being so very, very bad.” his hips move now, shallow thrusts, barely there, just enough to feel the flutter of your throat around him, just enough to make you work to keep up.

“and you are being good now, aren't you? you're being so good. my good girl, finally, after two hours of being an absolute menace to my sanity. i should keep you like this always, you know. just on your knees, mouth available, all those sharp words swallowed down where they belong. think of how productive i'd be at work if i knew i was coming home to this. think of how quiet the apartment would be without you running that pretty mouth about anything other than my cock.”

the condescension should make you angry, should make you pull back and snap at him, but it doesn't, it never does, it just makes you wetter, makes you take him deeper, makes your eyes roll back a little as you surrender to the role he's assigned you: dumb little wife, pretty little mouth, nothing but a warm place for him to empty all those hours of frustration.

“there she is,” he breathes, and the approval in his voice is a physical thing, a warmth that spreads through your chest even as your jaw aches and your throat burns. “there's my girl. stop thinking. you don't need to think. you just need to take what i give you and be grateful for it. that's your sentence, by the way. in case you were wondering. the court sentences you to stop thinking, stop scheming, stop sending me messages designed to ruin my entire day, and just... exist here, on your knees, with your mouth full of me, until i decide you've learned your lesson.” his thumb presses against the corner of your lips again, feeling the stretch, and he makes a low sound of pure masculine satisfaction.

“though we both know you never learn. you'll do this again next week. next month. next year. you'll find some new way to crawl inside my head and set up camp there, and i'll let you, because i am weak, because i am utterly, pathetically devoted to you, because even two hours of torture is worth it if it ends with you looking up at me like i'm the only thing in the world that matters.”

the rhythm builds slowly, inevitably, the way his cases build toward closing arguments, every thrust a new piece of evidence, every wet sound an exhibit entered into the permanent record of your marriage. he's talking continuously now, a stream of legal jargon and filth and praise all tangled together, his composure finally crumbling around the edges as his hips lose their perfect control and start to move with real need.

“the defense rests,” he says, and it comes out ragged, “no, the prosecution rests, i don't even know anymore, i can't think when you do that thing with your tongue, yes, that thing, exactly that thing, you know exactly what you're doing, you always know, you're so smart except when you're being so dumb for me, so perfectly dumb, letting me use this clever mouth like it's nothing but a—” he cuts himself off with a groan, deep and resonant, and his hand in your hair tightens to the point of pain, the point of perfect, the point where everything narrows to this moment, this act, this absolute surrender of everything you are into his keeping.

“i'm going to keep you here,” he tells you, voice wrecked, “i'm going to keep you right here for as long as it takes for that message to stop playing on a loop in my head. could be minutes. could be hours. the court has tremendous discretion in sentencing, and i intend to exercise every last bit of it.” his eyes meet yours and they're dark, so dark, all that judicial restraint burned away to reveal the man underneath, the man who loves you, the man you drove crazy with eleven words and an emoji.

“you wanted my voice. you have it. you have all of it. every word i couldn't say in that deposition, every filthy thing i thought while pretending to care about zoning variances, every single syllable of how much i want you, how much i've always wanted you, how you ruin me daily and i let you, i beg you to ruin me, i sentence you to ruin me for the rest of our lives together.”

and on your knees, with your mouth full and your mind empty of everything but him, you accept the verdict.

Ryomen Sukuna

the lock screen of sukuna's phone glowed face-up on the polished mahogany of his desk, a single notification slicing through the silence of his corner office like a scalpel. he had been mid-scowl, staring at a quarterly earnings report that bored him to the point of physical pain, his jaw tight enough to crack granite. the message preview was from you, his pretty little wife, the one who was supposed to be at home resting that delicate, spoiled throat of yours with tea and honey after you'd complained of a tickle this morning. instead, the text read: my voice isn't deep but my throat is.

his thumb hovered over the screen for a solid three seconds. the air conditioning vent hummed overhead, and the distant click of his assistant's heels faded into white noise. sukuna's jaw unclenched, but only so he could bite down on the inside of his cheek hard enough to taste copper.

a dark, predatory stillness settled over his broad shoulders, the kind of calm that preceded a category five hurricane. the tailored wool of his slacks suddenly felt like sandpaper against his skin, the fabric straining as his cock twitched violently against his thigh, fattening up with a speed that was almost painful.

you were a menace. a fucking brat wrapped in cashmere and his last name, sitting somewhere in his house, bored, and deciding to ruin his concentration with six words that made his vision swim with red. he didn't text back. he never did. words like that deserved an answer in person, delivered with the kind of weight only his presence could provide. he stood up so abruptly his chair rolled back and slammed into the credenza, the echo a gunshot in the empty room. meeting adjourned. afternoon cleared. he grabbed his keys with a violence that said he intended to use them on something other than the ignition.

the drive home was a blur of white-knuckled fury and aching need. every red light was a personal insult. every slow driver was a conspirator in your torture. by the time he shoved the front door open hard enough for the handle to dent the plaster of the foyer wall, he was a live wire, humming with a singular, obscene intent. the house smelled like you—vanilla and something clean, something soft.

it was a stark contrast to the burning, primal energy rolling off him in waves. he found you exactly where he expected, curled on the sectional in the living room, looking up at him with those wide, falsely innocent eyes over the rim of a ceramic mug. you were wearing one of his old band tees, the neck hole stretched and frayed, hanging off one shoulder. you knew. you fucking knew what that shirt did to him, and you wore it while sending a message that filthy.

“sukuna,” you breathed out, and your voice was a little scratchy, a little hoarse, playing up the sick card. “you're home early. did something happen at work?”

he didn't dignify that with a verbal response. he just crossed the room in three long, silent strides, the heavy thud of his dress shoes on the hardwood the only warning you got before he was standing over you, blocking out the light from the bay windows. his hand came down, not to strike, but to cradle—his large palm fitting around the column of your throat with a terrifying, familiar gentleness. his thumb stroked over your pulse point, feeling it jump and flutter under his touch like a trapped bird. his skin was hot, calloused from the gym, a stark contrast to the soft, vulnerable skin of your neck. he could feel the faint vibration of your nervous swallow against his fingers.

“read me the text you sent,” he ordered, his voice a low, gravelly scrape that had absolutely nothing to do with your fabricated sore throat. it was the voice of a man pushed past the edge of his patience, a man who had spent twenty minutes in traffic with a dick so hard it threatened to punch a hole through his zipper. “i want to hear it out loud. since you seem so proud of your writing skills, little wife.”

you swallowed again, and this time he felt the full, tight contraction of your throat muscles working against the cage of his fingers. you set the mug down with a shaky clink on the side table, your eyes locked on his. “my voice isn't deep,” you whispered, your own breath hitching as his grip tightened a fraction, just enough to make you aware of how easily he could crush the air from your lungs if he wanted to. “but my throat is.”

the second the words left your lips, the last thread of his composure snapped. his free hand went to the back of your head, fingers twisting roughly in the baby hairs at the nape of your neck, pulling your head back to expose the long, elegant line of your throat. “filthy mouth,” he growled, leaning down so his lips brushed the shell of your ear, his breath hot and damp.

“wasting my time with spreadsheets when i could've been here watching these lips stretch around me. you think that's funny, don't you, baby? making a fool out of me at work? letting everyone in that goddamn building see me storm out with a hard-on because my wife doesn't know how to act right when she's left alone?”

he didn't wait for an answer. he didn't want one. he wanted you to prove your thesis statement. with a firm, unyielding pressure on your shoulder, he pushed you forward off the couch. the floor was thankfully covered by a thick, plush shag rug he'd bought specifically because he liked you on your knees and he didn't like seeing bruises on them unless he put them there with his mouth.

you went willingly, eagerly, sinking down onto the soft fibers as he stepped back just enough to work at his belt. the clink of the metal buckle was deafening in the quiet room, a tolling bell for the debauchery to come. you looked up at him from your knees, that innocent facade melting away into something hungrier, something that matched the fire burning low in his own belly. this was the you he married—the one who could look like an angel while thinking thoughts that would make a porn star blush.

“open your mouth,” he commanded, his voice tight with restraint. he freed his cock from the confines of his boxer briefs, and the sight of it made your lips part instinctively before his words even registered. he was thick, veined, the tip an angry, flushed red and glistening with a bead of pre-cum that had been leaking steadily since you hit send on that godforsaken text.

he was heavy in his own hand, and he gave himself a slow, languid stroke, tapping the wet head against your waiting bottom lip, smearing the slickness there like gloss. “there she is. my pretty, dumb little wife with a throat that's just begging to be used. you wanted my attention so bad, didn't you? couldn't stand the thought of me thinking about numbers and contracts instead of this wet, warm fucking mouth.”

“mhm,” you hummed, the sound vibrating against the sensitive crown of his dick, and his hips jerked forward involuntarily, a guttural groan tearing from his chest. he let you take him in slowly, watching with hooded, predatory eyes as your lips stretched wide to accommodate his girth. it was a tight fit, always was, and the sight of you struggling just to take the first few inches made his balls draw up tight and heavy.

your tongue flattened against the underside of his shaft, a wet, welcoming heat that made his knees feel weak for just a split second. he fisted his hand tighter in your hair, not pushing, just anchoring himself in the reality of the moment—his sweet, mouthy little wife, on her knees for him, making good on her filthy promise.

“thaaat's it,” he drawled, his voice dropping an octave, becoming a lazy, rolling purr of satisfaction. he was still pissed, the anger simmering just beneath the surface, but it was tempered now by a bone-deep, possessive pride. “look at you, already drooling all over my cock and i haven't even moved. such a good girl when you're quiet, aren't you? you just needed something heavy in your mouth to shut that clever little brain off. is that it? you needed daddy to come home and fuck the thoughts right out of your head?”

you moaned around him, a wet, garbled sound that was more vibration than noise, and your eyes fluttered shut as you started to bob your head. he let you set the pace for a few blissful seconds, savoring the slick, tight glide of your throat. but he was still too wound up, the image of that text message burned into his retinas. he needed more. he needed to feel the proof of your boast. his grip on your hair tightened, and he pulled you back until just the tip rested on the cushion of your bottom lip. a thick string of saliva connected you to him, glistening in the afternoon light.

“nah, baby,” he murmured, shaking his head slowly, his lips curling into a cruel, affectionate smirk. “you said your throat was deep. you didn't say anything about your mouth. that's just the warm-up. i want what you promised. i want to feel these tonsils. open up wider. relax that jaw for me. c'mon, be a big girl.”

he pressed forward again, and this time he didn't stop at the entrance to your throat. he pushed past the resistance, groaning low and long as the head of his cock nudged into the impossibly tight, velvety heat of your pharynx. “ffffuuuck,” the word was drawn out, a hiss of pure, unadulterated pleasure. your eyes were watering, tears spiking your lashes, but your hands were gripping the fabric of his slacks at his thighs, pulling him closer, not pushing him away.

you were such a fucking marvel. so eager to please him, so desperate to prove you could take all of him. he held himself there for a beat, letting you adjust, letting you feel the heavy, throbbing weight of him lodged deep inside your neck. his thumb swiped under your eye, catching a tear. “that's my girl. look at you, crying all pretty on my dick. you love this, don't you? you love being my little throat warmer while i'm supposed to be making million-dollar deals.”

he started to move then, but it wasn't the frantic, face-fucking pace his anger initially craved. no, this was something lazier, something more intimate and degrading all at once. he kept his thrusts shallow, just barely pulling out of the tight clutch of your throat before sinking back in, a slow, wet, gliding rhythm.

each time he bottomed out, your nose pressed into the coarse, trimmed hair at his base, and he'd hold it there for a long, torturous second, letting your throat muscles flutter and contract around him in a desperate attempt to swallow or breathe. the sounds were obscene—a wet, rhythmic gluck-gluck-gluck that filled the living room, punctuated by his own deep, satisfied groans.

“that's my deep-throated little wife,” he praised, the words dripping with condescending affection. his hand was still at your throat, feeling the obscene bulge of himself through your skin. the tactile feedback made his own eyes roll back for a second.

“feels so fucking good, baby. you have no idea. sitting in that meeting, all those stuffy old bastards talking about market volatility, and all i could think about was this. this exact, tight, wet spot right here.” he pressed down on your throat where he was buried, and you gagged beautifully, the contraction making his cock jump.

“shhhhh, easy. i know. it's a lot, isn't it? too much cock for such a small, pretty throat. but you're doing so well. you're proving your point, aren't you, sweetheart? you've got the deepest, greediest little throat in the whole damn city.”

he pulled out completely, letting you gasp and sputter, a waterfall of drool spilling from your swollen, red lips down onto the front of his tee shirt. you looked wrecked, absolutely debauched, and he hadn't even gotten his pants all the way off. he liked it that way. he liked you messy and dumb for him, your brain turned to static from the lack of oxygen and the overwhelming sensation of being so completely filled. he crouched down, his face level with yours, and his expression was a complicated mix of sadistic glee and genuine adoration. he kissed you, licking into your mouth and tasting himself on your tongue, a guttural sound of approval vibrating in his chest.

“don't think this is over because i let you breathe,” he murmured against your wet lips. “i'm still pissed. you owe me an afternoon. i'm going to sit on this couch, and you're going to stay right there on that rug, on your pretty knees, and you're going to keep my cock warm in that deep throat of yours until you forget what words even are. until that clever, bratty little brain is just a puddle of nothing but 'yes, sukuna' and 'thank you, sukuna'. understand?”

he didn't wait for a verbal confirmation. he just stood back up, dragging you with him by the hair to position you between his spread thighs as he sank back onto the sectional. he guided your mouth back down onto his spit-slicked, aching length, sighing in pure contentment as that wet heat enveloped him again. he grabbed the remote from the side table and turned on the tv, settling back as if he didn't have his wife's throat stuffed full of his cock.

You kept your face blank, eyes lowered like the obedient daughter they expected, while inside your mind screamed.

Later that night, when the household finally fell into drunken slumber and the torches burned low, you moved.

You had planned this in secret for weeks. A plain dark wool cloak stolen from the stables. A small bundle of hard bread, dried cheese, and a waterskin. Soft leather shoes you hoped would last. But the most valuable thing you owned was the wedding gown itself. You had decided to wear the half-finished white dress during your escape — the expensive satin and delicate lace might fetch enough coins in a distant village to buy you passage far away from here. It was risky, but you had nothing else of real value.

You slipped out through the narrow servant’s entrance at the back of the kitchens, the heavy door groaning softly behind you like a warning. The moment your feet touched the cold, dew-soaked grass, terror and fragile hope surged through you in equal measure.

You ran.

The forest swallowed you whole.

Ancient trees loomed like silent judges, their branches clawing at your white gown as if trying to drag you back. The delicate satin — still only half-finished, with pins and loose threads — snagged mercilessly on thorns. You heard fabric tearing again and again: sharp rips that sounded far too loud in the darkness. The long lace veil caught on a low limb and nearly yanked you off your feet; you tore it free with shaking hands, leaving half of it fluttering behind you like a surrendered flag. Mud and wet leaves caked your bare feet. Sharp stones and roots sliced into your soles until every step left bloody prints in the dirt. The cold night air burned your lungs. Sweat soaked your back and chest despite the chill, making the torn gown cling obscenely to your skin. Your legs screamed with exhaustion after only an hour, but fear kept you moving. Behind you, distant shouts echoed through the trees — your father’s guards, torches flickering like angry fireflies. Dogs barked. They were coming.

You pushed harder.

Branches whipped your face, leaving stinging cuts across your cheeks. Your hair fell loose from its elegant pins, wild and tangled. Tears streamed down your face, mixing with blood and dirt. Every shadow looked like a man ready to grab you. Every snap of a twig made your heart seize. You ran until your vision blurred and your chest felt like it would burst. You ran until the shouts grew fainter and the trees finally began to thin.

Hours had passed. The moon hung high and merciless overhead, bathing the world in cold silver light. Your legs trembled violently as you stumbled out of the treeline onto a wide, muddy road. In the distance, warm golden lantern light glowed between clusters of simple wooden buildings. A village.

You nearly collapsed with relief.

The main street was deserted, shutters closed tight against the night. Only one building still showed signs of life. Warm light spilled from its open front door onto the dirt road, carrying with it the thick, metallic scent of fresh blood and raw meat. A weathered wooden sign creaked overhead in the cold breeze:

Fushiguro Meat Co.

You limped toward it, every cut and bruise screaming.

A massive man stood under the wooden awning, illuminated by the lantern light. He was enormous — broad as a barn door, easily over six feet tall, with shoulders and arms so thick with muscle they looked carved from stone. He wore a blood-streaked leather apron tied low on his narrow hips. Beneath it, a simple white tank clung to his sweat-slicked chest, the thin fabric molded to heavy slabs of muscle and dark, scattered scars. His black hair was damp and messy, strands falling across his forehead. A deep, jagged scar twisted the corner of his mouth, giving his face a permanent, dangerous smirk even when he wasn’t smiling.

Thick veins stood out on his forearms as he slowly wiped a long, wicked boning knife clean on the edge of his apron. The blade gleamed.

He looked like violence given human shape — raw, brutal, and utterly terrifying.

You didn’t know his name. You didn’t know anything about him except that he was the only soul still awake, and you were completely out of options.

Your legs gave out the final few steps. You dropped hard to your knees in the cold dirt right in front of him, the torn white satin of your ruined wedding gown pooling around you like spilled milk mixed with blood and mud. Your chest heaved. Fresh tears cut clean tracks down your filthy cheeks.

“Please—” Your voice came out cracked and hoarse, barely more than a whisper. “Hide me. Just for one night. My family… they sold me to Lord Kato to settle their debts. He’s going to break me. Hurt me in ways I can’t even speak of. I’ll do anything you ask — scrub floors until my hands bleed, haul carcasses, sleep in the cold room with the meat, be your servant, your cleaner… anything. Just please… don’t let them take me back.”

You bowed your head, trembling, and clutched desperately at the bloody hem of his apron with both hands, staining your fingers red.

The man stopped moving. He looked down at you slowly, sharp green eyes narrowing as they took in every detail: your torn and filthy wedding dress, the cuts on your face and feet, the desperate tears, the way you knelt before him like a supplicant before a god of slaughter.

He flicked the long knife shut with a loud, metallic click that echoed in the quiet street.

“Not my problem, princess,” he rumbled. His voice was deep, low, and rough — like gravel being dragged across stone. There was no pity in it. “I don’t hide runaways. Go beg somewhere else before you bring trouble to my shop.”

You stayed on your knees, fingers still twisted tight in the bloody hem of his apron. Tears kept falling, mixing with the dirt on your cheeks. “Please… I have nowhere else. They’ll find me by morning. Lord Kato will—”

Footsteps. Soft, quick, coming from the narrow alley beside the butcher shop.

Three women emerged into the lantern light, their shawls pulled tight against the night chill, each carrying a small lantern. They stopped short at the sight of you kneeling in your ruined white gown in front of the massive butcher.

“Gods above,” the tallest one gasped. “Is that a wedding dress? Child, what in the world happened to you?”

The women hurried closer, lanterns swinging. Warm golden light spilled over your torn satin, the mud-caked hem, the blood from his apron smeared across your bodice and hands. One of the younger women pressed a hand to her mouth. “She’s bleeding… and look at her feet!”

You looked down at yourself — the once-beautiful dress now filthy and shredded — then up at the stranger towering over you. His green eyes were narrowed in clear irritation, jaw clenched like he was seconds away from shoving you into the street and bolting the door.

A wild, desperate plan came to your mind.

You pushed yourself up on shaky legs, ignoring the sharp pain in your cut feet. Before he could step away, you grabbed his large, calloused hand with both of yours, clinging desperately. His palm was warm, rough, and still faintly sticky with dried blood.

Turning to the three women with the most exhausted yet radiant smile you could force, you announced clearly:

“This is my husband.”

The words rang in the quiet night air.

The women froze.

You kept going, voice trembling but determined. “We were married in secret this evening. My family didn’t approve — they tried to sell me off to a cruel lord to settle their debts. So I ran away through the forest to reach him. The dress… it got ruined on the way, but I’m here now. I’m exactly where I belong.”

Silence stretched for a heartbeat.

Then the women erupted.

“The butcher got married?!” the tallest one exclaimed, eyes wide. “Toji Fushiguro actually took a wife? I never thought I’d live to see the day!”

One of the younger women clapped her hands together, beaming. “Look at her, even all torn up she’s lovely! Brave thing, running through the woods in the middle of the night just to get to her husband.”

The third woman laughed warmly. “We’ll bring fresh bread and some stew first thing in the morning for you newlyweds. Can’t have Toji’s new wife going hungry on her first day here!”

Toji.

So that was his name. Toji Fushiguro.

You felt the man — Toji — stiffen beside you. His massive hand twitched hard in your grip, muscles flexing like he was fighting the urge to rip free and deny everything. His sharp green eyes burned into the side of your face, dark with fury and silent threat. But the women were watching excitedly. The whole village would know the story by sunrise if he contradicted you now.

You squeezed his hand tighter, nails digging into his skin in a silent, desperate plea. Please. Just play along.

Toji’s scarred jaw flexed. A low, dangerous growl rumbled deep in his chest. For one terrifying second you thought he might expose you.

Then, in the flattest, most reluctant voice you had ever heard, he grunted:

“…Yeah. She’s mine now. Wife.”

The women squealed with delight. They offered more congratulations, promised gifts for the “newlyweds,” and finally bustled away down the dark street, lanterns bobbing and their voices already carrying the juicy news.

The moment their footsteps faded, Toji’s grip turned bruising. He yanked you forward so hard you stumbled against his broad, solid chest, then dragged you roughly through the open door of the butcher shop. The heavy oak door slammed shut behind you with a resounding thud that rattled the walls.

Inside, the air was thick and heavy — cold iron, raw meat, woodsmoke, and the faint metallic tang of fresh blood. A single lantern burned low on the wooden counter, casting long, flickering shadows over heavy chopping blocks, hanging meat hooks, and rows of sharp knives.

Toji spun you around and shoved your back against the closed door. One thick, powerful forearm braced beside your head, completely caging you in. His massive body loomed over yours, heat rolling off him in waves. The scent of blood, sweat, and raw masculinity filled your lungs.

His green eyes were dark with fury… and something much darker, much hungrier.

“What the fuck was that?” he snarled, voice low and lethal. “You just told half the goddamn village you’re my wife. You got any idea what you’ve done, little runaway?”

Your heart slammed against your ribs. You could feel the hard press of his chest against yours, the sheer size of him making you feel tiny and trapped.

“It was the only way,” you whispered, breathing fast. “They would’ve dragged me back to Lord Kato by morning if they knew the truth. Now they think I belong to you. No one will question it. Please… just let me stay the night. I’ll disappear at dawn, I swear it.”

Toji stared down at you for a long, heavy moment. His scarred mouth twisted into a slow, dangerous smirk. His free hand came up and gripped your chin firmly, tilting your face up so you had no choice but to meet his intense green eyes.

“Disappear?” he growled, thumb pressing hard into your jaw. “Too late for that, princess. You just tied yourself to me in front of witnesses.”

He leaned in closer, so close his breath ghosted hot across your lips. His voice dropped even lower, rough and full of promise.

“You owe me now. Big time.”

His gaze dragged slowly down your body — over the torn white lace barely clinging to your curves, the bloodstains, the way your chest heaved with fear and adrenaline. He just held you there, pinned against the door, letting the heavy tension coil tighter and tighter between you.

“Upstairs,” he finally ordered, voice like gravel. “Now. We’re gonna have a long talk about what you just got yourself into.”

Toji didn’t give you time to argue.

His massive hand clamped around your upper arm like a steel band and he hauled you away from the door. You stumbled after him on aching, bleeding feet as he dragged you through the back of the shop. The scent of raw meat grew thicker near the cold room, but he turned toward a narrow wooden staircase tucked behind a heavy curtain.

“Move,” he growled when you hesitated at the bottom step.

You climbed. Each step sent fresh pain shooting up your legs, but you bit your lip and kept going. Toji followed close behind, his heavy boots loud on the old wood, one hand still gripping your arm so you couldn’t possibly run.

The stairs opened directly into a small, sparse apartment above the butcher shop. It was surprisingly clean for a man who spent his days covered in blood. A single main room served as both living space and kitchen — a sturdy wooden table with two chairs, a stone hearth with dying embers, a few shelves holding jars of preserved meat and dried herbs. A narrow hallway led to what you assumed were the bedroom and washroom. Moonlight spilled through two small windows, painting everything in cool silver.

Toji kicked the door at the top of the stairs shut behind him and finally released your arm. You immediately backed up a few steps, the torn hem of your wedding dress whispering across the floorboards.

He folded his thick arms across his broad chest, blood-stained apron still tied around his waist, and stared at you like you were a problem he was deciding how to carve up.

“Start talking,” he said flatly. “And don’t leave anything out. Who the fuck are you, why is a lord hunting you, and why the hell did you decide to drag me into your mess?”

You swallowed hard, still catching your breath. You introduced yourself by name, then continued quietly, “My family is in debt. Deep debt. They sold me to Lord Kato yesterday to settle it. He’s a cruel man. Three wives before me, and none of them lasted long. He told my father in front of me what he plans to do on our wedding night.” Your voice cracked. “I couldn’t stay. I ran in the only thing of value I had — this dress. I thought maybe I could sell it in a village for enough coin to disappear.”

Toji’s green eyes flicked over the ruined white lace clinging to your body — torn, muddy, bloodstained. He let out a low, humorless snort.

“And instead of keeping your mouth shut and hiding somewhere quiet, you decided the best plan was to announce to the biggest gossips in the village that you’re married to the local butcher.” He took one heavy step closer. “You realize what you’ve done?”

You nodded quickly. “They won’t hand me over now. Not if they think I belong to you. The whole village will protect the butcher’s wife… right?”

Toji laughed — a short, dark sound that sent a shiver down your spine.

“Protect?” He shook his head. “You just painted a target on my back too, princess. Lord Kato isn’t the type to let his property run off. When he comes looking — and he will come looking — he’s going to hear all about how the village butcher stole his bride.”

He dragged a large hand down his face, clearly pissed off, but there was something else in his expression now. A glint of dark amusement. Maybe even reluctant interest.

“You’re either the bravest idiot I’ve ever met… or the most cunning.”

You stood there trembling in the middle of his living room, arms wrapped around yourself. The torn bodice of the dress had slipped dangerously low on your shoulders, but you didn’t dare fix it.

“I’ll leave at first light,” you promised again, softer this time. “I won’t cause you any more trouble. Just… let me stay until sunrise. Please, Toji.”

Hearing his name from your lips made his eyes narrow.

“Don’t,” he warned. “You don’t get to say my name like we’re actually married.”

He turned away from you and walked over to the small hearth. He crouched down, added two fresh logs, and stoked the fire back to life with practiced efficiency. The warm orange glow slowly filled the room, chasing away some of the chill.

When he stood again, he looked even bigger in the firelight — shoulders impossibly wide, muscles shifting under the thin tank top, the scar at his mouth pulling as he scowled.

“Sit,” he ordered, nodding toward one of the wooden chairs at the table. “You’re bleeding all over my floor.”

You obeyed, lowering yourself carefully onto the chair. The moment you sat, exhaustion crashed into you like a wave. Your feet throbbed. Every cut and bruise ached. You were filthy, terrified, and running on nothing but fear and adrenaline.

Toji disappeared down the short hallway and returned a minute later with a metal basin, a clean rag, and a small jar. He set the basin on the floor in front of you, then dropped into the chair across the table, watching you with those sharp green eyes.

“Clean your feet,” he said gruffly. “I’m not carrying you around if they get infected.”

You dipped the rag into the water and started wiping away the mud and blood as carefully as you could. The silence stretched between you, thick and heavy. The fire crackled. Outside, the village was completely quiet.

Toji leaned back in his chair, arms crossed again, studying you like livestock.

“You really think this marriage story is gonna hold?” he asked after a long minute. “Village folk love to talk. By noon tomorrow everyone’s gonna want to meet my mysterious bride.”

You kept your eyes on your injured feet. “I just need a day or two to figure out where to go next. I can… I can work. I’m not useless. I can clean, cook, help in the shop—”

Toji’s low chuckle cut you off.

“You? Working in a butcher shop?” He shook his head. “You look like you’ve never touched anything bloodier than a sewing needle in your life.”

He watched you struggle to clean a deep cut on your sole for another moment before he made an irritated sound and leaned forward.

“Give me your foot.”

You hesitated.

“Now,” he growled.

You slowly lifted your leg. Toji took your ankle in his huge, rough hand — surprisingly gentle despite the calluses and dried blood on his fingers. He pulled the basin closer and started cleaning your wounds himself with careful, efficient movements.

The contrast was jarring: this terrifying mountain of a man, covered in someone else’s blood, carefully tending to your torn-up feet.

“You’re staying the night,” he said quietly, not looking up from his work. “Not because I’m kind. Because if I throw you out now, those three hens will ask questions I don’t feel like answering. Tomorrow we figure out what the hell to do with you.”

He finished cleaning one foot and moved to the other. His thumb brushed accidentally over a sensitive spot and you hissed softly.

Toji’s eyes flicked up to your face for a second, something unreadable flashing across his expression.

“After that…” He set your foot down carefully and leaned back again, voice dropping into a low, dangerous rumble. “You’re gonna start paying off the trouble you just caused me.”

He didn’t explain what that meant.

But the way he was looking at you — slow, heavy, possessive — made heat crawl up your neck despite the fear.

Toji held your gaze for another long moment before he finally released your ankle. He pushed the basin aside with his boot and stood, towering over you once more. The firelight danced across the hard lines of his face, catching on the jagged scar at the corner of his mouth.

“Stay there,” he muttered.

He disappeared into the back room again. You heard the sound of water splashing, then heavy footsteps returning. When he came back, he carried a thick wool blanket and a tin cup. He set the cup in front of you — it was filled with cool water — and dropped the blanket over the back of your chair.

“Drink,” he ordered. “You look half-dead.”

You obeyed without thinking, your hands still trembling slightly as you lifted the cup. The water was clean and cold, soothing your raw throat. Toji watched you drink the entire thing, arms crossed, before he spoke again.

You lowered the empty cup. “Thank you… for the water. And for cleaning my feet.”

He made a dismissive sound in the back of his throat, like thanks made him uncomfortable. Then he leaned against the edge of the table, close enough that his thigh nearly brushed your arm.

“You really thought this through?” he asked, voice low. “Running in a fancy white dress, announcing yourself as my wife in front of the nosiest women in the village… What’s your actual plan once the sun comes up?”

You stared down at your bandaged feet. “I didn’t have time for a real plan. I just knew I couldn’t let them marry me off to that monster. I thought if I could get far enough away, maybe sell the dress, I could buy passage on a cart or a boat. Start over somewhere no one knows me.”

Toji exhaled through his nose, almost a laugh but darker. “Selling that dress would’ve gotten you robbed or worse before you even reached the next town. You’re lucky you only made it as far as my doorstep.”

Silence settled again, broken only by the crackling fire. You pulled the blanket tighter around your shoulders, suddenly aware of how exposed you still were — the torn bodice of the wedding gown hanging loosely, the lace ripped in several places, dirt and dried blood streaked across your skin.

Toji’s eyes drifted over you again, slower this time. They lingered on the curve of your shoulder where the dress had slipped, the rise and fall of your chest, the way the white fabric clung to your thighs.

“You look ridiculous,” he said bluntly. “Like a bride who lost a fight with a pack of wolves.”

Despite everything, a tiny, tired smile tugged at your lips. “That’s… not far from the truth.”

He pushed off the table and walked over to a wooden chest in the corner. He rummaged inside and pulled out a large, worn linen shirt — clearly one of his. It looked big enough to reach your knees.

“Here.” He tossed it to you. “Can’t have you walking around my place looking like that. Change. There’s a washroom down the hall if you want to clean up more.”

You clutched the shirt to your chest. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” he warned. “You’re still in my house. Still wearing that damn dress that’s going to bring trouble to my door.”

He turned his back to give you a moment of privacy, busying himself by adding another log to the fire. You quickly stood, wincing at the pain in your feet, and slipped behind the partial wall that separated the washroom. You peeled off the ruined wedding dress with shaking hands, letting the torn fabric pool at your feet. The cool air kissed your bare skin as you pulled Toji’s shirt over your head. It smelled faintly of smoke, soap, and something unmistakably masculine. The hem fell halfway down your thighs.

When you stepped back out, Toji turned around. His eyes darkened the moment they landed on you in his shirt.

“Better,” he grunted, though his voice sounded rougher than before.

He gestured toward the narrow hallway. “Bedroom’s at the end. Only one bed. You take it tonight. I’ll sleep out here.”

You hesitated. “I can sleep on the floor. I’ve already caused enough—”

“Don’t argue,” he cut you off. “My house, my rules. Get some sleep. You look like you’re about to fall over.”

You walked carefully down the short hall, every step still painful. The bedroom was small and simple like the rest of the apartment — a large wooden bed with thick blankets, a single chair, and a window overlooking the dark village street. You climbed onto the bed, pulling the covers over yourself.

Toji appeared in the doorway a minute later, leaning one broad shoulder against the frame. The firelight from the main room silhouetted his massive form.

“Door stays open,” he said. “And don’t even think about sneaking out in the middle of the night. If I have to chase you down, I won’t be in a generous mood.”

You nodded, sinking deeper into the mattress. Exhaustion was pulling at you hard now, but sleep still felt far away with him standing there watching you.

“Toji…” you whispered.

He raised an eyebrow.

“Thank you,” you said again, softer. “For not throwing me out.”

His expression didn’t soften, but something in his eyes shifted. He pushed off the doorframe and turned to leave.

“Get some sleep, runaway,” he muttered. “You’re gonna need it.”

He left the door wide open. You heard him moving around in the main room — the creak of the wooden chair as he sat down, the quiet clink of a cup. The fire continued to crackle.

You lay there in his bed, wrapped in his shirt, the weight of everything that had happened pressing down on you. The fake marriage. The village women who now believed you were his wife. Lord Kato still out there searching. And the terrifying, strangely careful butcher who had just tended to your wounds and given you his bed.

Sleep finally claimed you, but even in your dreams you could still feel the heavy weight of Toji’s gaze on your skin.

You woke to the sound of knocking.

It was loud, cheerful, and relentless — three sharp raps on the shop door downstairs, followed by muffled feminine voices. Sunlight streamed through the small bedroom window, warm and golden. For a brief, disoriented moment you forgot where you were. Then everything crashed back: the forest, the blood-stained butcher, the lie you’d told.

You sat up quickly. Toji’s oversized linen shirt had ridden up your thighs during the night. Your feet still ached, but the bandages held firm. You heard heavy footsteps downstairs, then Toji’s low, irritated growl as he opened the door.

“Morning!” a cheerful woman’s voice called up. “We brought breakfast for the newlyweds! Fresh bread, stew, and honey cakes. Don’t tell us you’re still in bed on your wedding night!”

Another woman giggled. “We’re dying to meet your bride properly!”

Toji’s heavy footsteps came up the stairs. He appeared in the bedroom doorway, looking imposing in the daylight. He wore a clean black tunic stretched tight across his chest, the same blood-stained apron tied around his waist. His hair was messy, jaw set with clear annoyance.

“They’re here,” he said flatly. “Three of them. Loaded with food.”

Your stomach twisted. “What do we do?”

Toji’s green eyes dragged over you — bare legs, wearing nothing but his shirt. Something dark flickered across his face.

“You sold us as newlyweds,” he reminded you, voice low. “So act like it. Smile. Look happy. Keep the story straight.”

He stepped closer and tugged the hem of the shirt down your thighs possessively. “There’s a spare skirt and blouse in the chest. Change. Quickly.”

You moved fast, wincing at the pain in your feet. Toji turned his back while you dressed in the simple dark green skirt and cream blouse. They were a little loose but far more practical.

When you were ready, Toji gave you one last look and jerked his head toward the stairs. “Downstairs. Remember — you’re my wife.”

The three women had already let themselves into the front of the shop. They had laid out a generous spread on the wooden counter: warm bread, a pot of hearty stew, honey cakes, and spiced cider. The moment you appeared behind Toji, their faces lit up.

“Oh, here she is!” the tallest, round-faced woman exclaimed. “Look at you, dear. Much better than last night. I’m Mrs. Sato, by the way! My husband runs the bakery just down the street.” She gestured to the other two. “This is Mira and little Hana.”

The younger women smiled warmly.

“You clean up beautifully,” Mira said. “You already have that newlywed glow!”

You felt heat rise in your cheeks. Toji’s large hand settled heavily on your lower back, warm and claiming.

“Thank you,” you said, offering a shy smile. “You’re all so kind. I’m sorry for how I looked last night… the journey through the forest was harder than I expected.”

Mrs. Sato waved her hand. “No apologies needed! Running away from a bad match to be with the man you love? It’s the most romantic thing to happen in this village in years.”

Toji grunted, his thumb slowly stroking your spine. “Wasn’t exactly planned,” he said dryly. “But here we are.”

The women laughed and chattered while you helped serve the food. They asked how you met, how long you’d been secretly courting, and whether you planned to stay in the village. You answered carefully, sticking close to the story. Toji added short, gruff confirmations, never moving far from your side.

Just as the women were gathering their empty baskets to leave, a loud, sharp knock echoed through the shop.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

This knock was different — heavy, authoritative, and impatient.

Toji’s hand tensed on your back. His expression hardened instantly.

Mrs. Sato glanced toward the door, curious. “Are you expecting more visitors already?”

Toji didn’t answer. He moved toward the door, positioning himself so his broad frame blocked most of the view inside. You stayed behind the counter, heart suddenly hammering.

He opened the door.

Two armed men stood outside, wearing the dark crimson and gold colors of Lord Kato’s household. Swords hung at their hips. Their eyes scanned the interior of the shop coldly.

“We’re searching for a missing girl,” the taller guard announced. “Runaway bride. White wedding dress. She fled the lord’s estate last night. Anyone matching that description come through here?”

The air in the shop grew thick. Mrs. Sato and the other two women turned to look at you with wide eyes, then back at the guards.

Toji’s voice was calm but ice-cold. “No one like that here.”

The second guard tried to peer past him. “Mind if we take a look inside?”

You stayed frozen behind the counter, heart hammering. Before Toji could answer, Mrs. Sato stepped forward with the confidence of someone who had gossiped through every scandal the village had ever seen.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she said brightly, waving a hand. “You boys are wasting your time. That right there is Toji Fushiguro — our butcher for the last fifteen years. We’ve known him since he was a surly teenager dragging whole pigs through these doors!”

Mira immediately jumped in, nodding eagerly. “And he has a wife! They’ve been happily married for two whole years now. We were at their quiet little wedding ourselves. Very romantic.”

Hana clapped her hands together dramatically. “Yes! They’re the sweetest couple. Toji can barely keep his hands off her even when he’s covered in blood. Always canoodling right outside the shop like they’re still courting!”

Mrs. Sato leaned toward the guards like she was sharing precious village lore. “Honestly, if some runaway noble girl in a fancy white dress had shown up here last night, the entire village would’ve known before sunrise. This dear girl has been living above the shop for ages. Helps Toji with the accounts and everything. She’s no fugitive — she’s the butcher’s wife, plain and simple.”

Toji finally moved. He reached back with one thick arm, caught you around the waist, and pulled you forward against his side in one smooth motion. His grip was firm and possessive, his large hand resting heavily on your hip as he held you close.

The guards blinked, clearly thrown by the united front.

The taller one squinted at you. “But the missing girl was wearing a white wedding dress…”

Mira let out a theatrical laugh. “Plenty of white dresses in the world! Our girl here has been wearing plain village clothes for years. Look at her — does she look like some pampered noble who ran away last night?”

Hana nodded vigorously. “Exactly! She even makes the best meat pies in the village. We’d know if she was some lord’s bride.”

The two guards exchanged uncertain glances. Between Toji’s intimidating size, the three women’s absolute certainty, and the perfectly domestic scene in front of them, their suspicion melted away.

The shorter guard cleared his throat. “Seems like a false lead, then. Sorry to bother you folks.”

The taller one gave a reluctant nod. “Apologies for the intrusion. If you hear anything about a girl in a white dress, send word to the lord’s estate.”

Mrs. Sato smiled sweetly. “Of course, dears. Safe travels back!”

The guards turned and walked off down the street without another word.

The moment the door clicked shut, Mrs. Sato burst into laughter and fanned herself. “Well! That was more excitement than we usually get before noon.”

Mira winked at you. “Don’t worry, love. We’ve got your back. No one’s taking the butcher’s wife anywhere.”

Hana grinned. “We’ll spread the word. The whole village will keep an eye out.”

Toji gave them a short, gruff nod. “Appreciate it.”

The women gathered their empty baskets, still buzzing, and finally left with more promises of future visits and gifts.

The shop fell quiet again, morning sunlight streaming peacefully through the windows.

Toji slowly turned to face you. His hand was still on your waist, heavy and warm. For a long moment he just studied you, green eyes dark and intense.

“You’re damn lucky those three are the nosiest women alive,” he muttered. “They just sold that story better than we could’ve.”

He stepped closer, backing you gently against the counter. His voice dropped low, rough around the edges.

“So the whole village’s got our back it seems.” His thumb brushed slowly over your hip bone. “This lie keeps growing. Whole village thinks you’re mine now.”

His gaze dropped to your lips for a heartbeat before returning to your eyes.

“So tell me, runaway… how long do you plan on playing my wife? And how far are you willing to go to make everyone believe it?”

You swallowed, suddenly very aware of how close he was. The counter pressed into your lower back, and Toji’s broad body blocked out most of the morning light. His hand remained heavy on your hip, thumb still tracing slow, absent circles that made your skin prickle beneath the thin blouse.

“I… I don’t know,” you admitted, voice barely above a whisper. “I didn’t think past getting away from Lord Kato. I just wanted to survive the night.”

Toji hummed, low and thoughtful. He tilted his head slightly, studying your face like he was trying to decide whether you were worth the growing headache you’d brought him.

“Surviving isn’t enough anymore,” he said. “Not after this morning. Those guards will report back. When they don’t find you, Kato will send more men. Maybe even come himself.” His fingers flexed on your hip. “And the whole village now believes you’re mine. If the story breaks, they’ll look like fools. They won’t forgive that easily.”

You met his eyes, heart thudding. “Then what do we do?”

For a moment he didn’t answer. Instead he reached up with his free hand and brushed a stray lock of hair behind your ear, the gesture surprisingly gentle for someone so rough-looking. His calloused fingertips lingered against the side of your neck.

“We lean into it,” he finally said. “Hard. You stay. You act like my wife in public — every smile, every touch, every time someone knocks on that door. No slipping up. No running off when it gets hard.”

He leaned in a fraction closer, voice dropping. “And in private… we figure out the real terms.”

Your breath caught. “Real terms?”

Toji’s scarred mouth curved into a slow, dangerous half-smirk. “You cost me peace and quiet, runaway. You cost me the simple life where nobody bothered me. So you’re going to start paying me back.”

He didn’t elaborate, but the heat in his green eyes made it very clear what kind of payment he had in mind.

“I won’t force you,” he continued, surprising you. “Door’s right there. You can still walk out and take your chances on the road. But if you stay…” His hand slid from your hip to the small of your back, pulling you flush against him. “Then you’re mine until this blows over. Or longer. Depends how good you are at pretending.”

The solid wall of his chest pressed against you, warm and unyielding. You could smell faint traces of smoke, soap, and the metallic hint of blood that never quite left him. Your hands came up instinctively, resting lightly on his abdomen.

“I’m not pretending right now,” you whispered.

Toji’s eyes darkened. For a second you thought he might kiss you — really kiss you — but he held back, letting the tension stretch until it was almost unbearable.

“Good,” he murmured. “Because the village expects a devoted wife. They’ll be watching. Bringing food. Asking questions. Asking when we’re going to have little butchers running around.”

Your face burned. Toji chuckled, deep and rough, clearly enjoying your reaction.

“Don’t worry. We’ll give them a good show.” He finally stepped back, giving you room to breathe again, though his hand lingered on your waist a moment longer. “For now, help me open the shop. Act natural. If anyone else comes asking, you know what to say.”

You nodded, still flushed.

As he turned to start his morning routine — sharpening knives, hanging fresh cuts, preparing the counter — you moved to help where you could. Every time you passed near him, his hand would brush your lower back or arm — small, deliberate touches that looked casual to anyone watching but felt heavy with intent.

By midday, a few villagers had already stopped by “just to say hello” and congratulate the newlyweds. Each time, Toji played his part perfectly — gruff, possessive, pulling you close with an ease that made the performance feel dangerously real.

An older man dropped off a small basket of eggs and clapped Toji on the back. “Didn’t think I’d live to see you settle down, Fushiguro. She must be something special.”

Toji’s arm tightened around your waist as he gave a low grunt. “She is.” His fingers flexed against your side, warm through the fabric of your blouse. You leaned into him instinctively, playing along, and felt the solid wall of muscle beneath his tunic.

A young mother came next with her toddler in tow, offering a jar of preserved berries. She smiled at you brightly. “You two look so good together. How long have you been hiding her from us, Toji?”

“Long enough,” he answered, voice rough but carrying a hint of smugness. He pressed a slow, deliberate kiss to the top of your head right in front of her. The casual affection made your stomach flutter.

By early afternoon the steady trickle of visitors finally slowed. Toji flipped the shop sign to “Closed for the Day” and locked the front door with a heavy click. The sudden silence felt louder than all the chatter combined.

You let out a shaky breath and leaned against the counter, arms wrapped around yourself. “They really believe it. All of them.”

Toji wiped his hands on a rag, watching you from across the room. He tossed the rag aside and stalked toward you, slow and deliberate.

Gods, he was huge.

Up close like this, in the quiet afternoon light, the sheer size of him hit you all over again. Broad shoulders that seemed to stretch the fabric of his black tunic, thick arms corded with muscle from years of hauling heavy carcasses, a powerful chest that rose and fell steadily. The jagged scar at the corner of his mouth only made him more striking — dangerous, rough, and strangely, undeniably attractive. Those sharp green eyes pinned you in place, intimidating as ever, yet there was something magnetic about the way he moved. Like a predator who knew exactly how much power he held and chose not to use it… yet.

He stopped right in front of you, so close you had to tilt your head back to meet his gaze. One large hand came up to cup your chin, thumb brushing along your jaw.

“You’re handling this better than I expected,” he said quietly.

You felt your pulse quicken under his touch. “I feel like I’m going to faint every time someone looks at me.”

His thumb stroked slowly over your skin. “You’re not fainting. You’re standing here in my shop, wearing my clothes, letting me touch you like you belong to me.” His voice dropped lower. “Looks pretty convincing from where I’m standing.”

The air between you thickened. You could smell the faint mix of blood, woodsmoke, and clean sweat that clung to him. His sheer physical presence was overwhelming — the heat rolling off his massive frame, the way his broad chest nearly brushed against you with every breath.

“What happens when the guards come back?” you asked, voice softer than you intended.

Toji’s expression darkened. “Then we give them the same show. Or I handle it my way.” His hand slid from your chin to the back of your neck, fingers threading gently into your hair. “But right now? Shop’s closed. No more visitors. No more pretending for a little while.”

He didn’t move away. Neither did you.

Instead, you found yourself leaning into his touch, exhaustion and adrenaline twisting into something warmer, heavier. Your hands rose to rest on his chest, feeling the hard, solid muscle beneath your palms.

“Toji…” you started, unsure what you even wanted to say.

He cut you off with a low sound. “Careful. You keep saying my name like that and I might start believing this marriage is real myself.”

His grip on the back of your neck tightened just slightly — not painful, but enough to remind you how easily he could pull you in. His green eyes dropped to your mouth, lingering this time, dark with hunger.

“You still haven’t answered my question from earlier,” he murmured. “How far are you willing to go, runaway?”

The shop was quiet except for the distant sounds of village life outside. No one was watching now. It was just the two of you, the weight of the lie, and the growing, electric heat between you.

You wet your lips, heart racing.

“I’m still here,” you whispered. “That should tell you something.”

Toji’s scarred mouth curved into a slow, hungry smirk.

“Yeah,” he said, voice rough. “It does.”

The silence that followed felt heavier than before. The shop was quiet now, the afternoon light cutting sharp lines across the wooden floor and the rows of knives hanging on the wall. Toji didn’t step back. He stayed right there, towering over you, one hand still gripping the back of your neck while the other rested heavy on your hip.

He really was massive up close.

Broad shoulders that strained his tunic, thick arms veined and scarred from years of brutal work, a chest so solid it looked like it could take a hit from a horse and keep going. The scar at the corner of his mouth gave his face a permanent edge, dangerous and rough. Yet there was something about the way he looked at you — intense green eyes, half-lidded, focused — that made your stomach tighten in a way that had nothing to do with fear.

Toji noticed you staring.

“Eyes up here,” he muttered, but the corner of his scarred mouth twitched like he was amused. “You keep looking at me like that and I’m gonna get the wrong idea.”

You swallowed. “I’ve never been this close to someone like you.”

“Someone like me,” he repeated, almost mocking. He leaned in a little more, voice dropping low. “Big, ugly butcher covered in blood half the time?”

You shook your head. “Not ugly.”

The words slipped out before you could stop them. Toji paused, eyes narrowing slightly like he was trying to decide if you were lying. Then he let out a short, rough breath.

His thumb brushed slowly along the side of your neck, calloused and warm. You could feel the strength in his hand, how easily he could tighten his grip if he wanted. The contrast between that raw power and the way he was holding back made the air feel thick.

“You’re playing a dangerous game,” he said quietly. His gaze dropped to your mouth for a second before flicking back up. “I’m not a patient man, runaway. And I’m definitely not a gentle one.”

Your hands were still pressed against his chest. Under your palms, his muscles were firm and warm, shifting slightly with each breath. You didn’t pull away.

“I know,” you whispered.

Toji’s jaw flexed. For a moment his control looked strained — shoulders tense, fingers pressing harder into your skin. He leaned down until his face was inches from yours, close enough that you could feel the heat of his breath.

“If you stay,” he said, voice low and deliberate, “this stops being fake whenever I say it does. Behind this door, you won’t be playing a role. You’ll be in my bed. Under me. Taking what I give you.” His thumb dragged across your lower lip. “And you’ll moan my name like you mean it.”

Your breath caught.

Toji held your gaze for another long second, then slowly released you. He stepped back, rolling one shoulder like he needed to shake off the tension. The sudden space felt colder than it should have.

“But not right now,” he added gruffly. “You’re still half-dead on your feet and I’ve got work to finish before the meat spoils.”

He turned toward the back counter and picked up his sharpening stone. The steady scrape of metal filled the shop as he worked on one of his larger knives. You stayed by the front counter, watching the way his back and arms moved — powerful, efficient, every motion reminding you exactly what kind of man had just offered to claim you.

Every so often he glanced over at you, eyes dark and unreadable.

The silence between you wasn’t uncomfortable. It was charged. Heavy with everything neither of you was saying out loud.

After a while, Toji spoke without looking up from his work.

“You hungry?”

You blinked, surprised by the sudden normal question. “A little.”

He jerked his head toward the stairs. “There’s leftover stew from this morning in the pot upstairs. Heat it up if you want. Or stay down here. Doesn’t matter to me.”

You hesitated, then moved to help him organize the counter instead. Every time you passed close by, his arm would brush yours — deliberate, not accidental. Small reminders that the tension hadn’t gone anywhere.

The afternoon stretched on like that. Quiet work. Occasional glances. The weight of his presence never really leaving you.

By the time the sun had fully set and the village outside grew dark and quiet, the tension between you had only thickened. Lanterns flickered in distant windows, but inside the butcher shop everything felt hushed and intimate.

Toji locked the front door with a heavy click and killed most of the lanterns, leaving only a single low one burning near the stairs. The warm glow followed you both upstairs, casting long shadows across the wooden beams.

He grabbed a spare blanket from the chest and headed for the worn couch against the far wall without a word. The piece of furniture looked comically small beneath his massive frame as he tossed the blanket over it. Then he reached back and pulled his tunic off in one smooth motion.

Your mouth went dry.

Firelight danced over his bare back and shoulders — thick slabs of muscle shifting under scarred skin, powerful arms flexing as he folded the tunic. His waist tapered into a sharp V, disappearing beneath the waistband of his trousers. Every inch of him looked hard, battle-worn, and undeniably masculine. The sight made something low in your belly tighten.

You stood frozen in the bedroom doorway.

“Wait,” you said, voice barely louder than a whisper.

Toji glanced over his shoulder, one dark brow raised. The movement made the muscles in his chest and abdomen flex visibly.

You twisted your fingers in the hem of your blouse, cheeks already burning.

“You don’t have to sleep on the couch,” you offered shyly. “The bed is… big enough for both of us. I don’t mind sharing.”

The silence that followed was deafening.

Toji slowly turned around to face you fully. The low firelight carved deep shadows across his torso, highlighting every ridge of muscle, every old scar, the faint trail of dark hair disappearing into his trousers. He looked even bigger like this — raw power barely contained, green eyes locked on you with dangerous intensity.

He took one slow step closer, then another.

“Careful what you offer me, runaway,” he said, voice low and gravel-rough. “I’m not the type to hold back.”

You swallowed hard but didn’t back away.

“I just… it doesn’t feel right making you sleep on that tiny thing after everything,” you murmured, eyes flicking involuntarily down his bare chest before snapping back up. “We’re supposed to be married. At least to everyone else.”

Toji stopped just inches away from you. The heat radiating from his body wrapped around you like a cloak. You could smell him — smoke, clean sweat, and that faint metallic trace that always clung to his skin. His sheer size made you feel small and fragile in comparison.

He tilted his head, studying you like prey.

“You offering to share my bed isn’t about being polite,” he murmured. “If I get in that bed with you, I’m not staying on my side. I’ll pull you against me. I’ll have my hands all over that soft little body. And if you keep looking at me with those wide, needy eyes…”

He leaned down, lips brushing the shell of your ear as he spoke.

“I won’t be able to stop myself from spreading those pretty thighs and finding out exactly how wet pretending to be my wife has made you.”

Your breath hitched sharply. Heat flooded your face and pooled between your legs. You pressed your thighs together instinctively, but Toji noticed — of course he did. A dark, satisfied sound rumbled in his chest.

He pulled back just enough to look at your face again, eyes heavy-lidded and hungry.

“I’m not gentle,” he continued, voice dropping even lower. “I fuck hard. I take what I want. And right now, I want to ruin that shy little runaway who dropped to her knees at my door and turned my whole life upside down.”

His hand came up, knuckles lightly dragging down the side of your neck, over your racing pulse, then lower until they brushed the neckline of your blouse. Not quite touching skin, but close enough to make you shiver.

“So think very carefully before you offer again,” he warned. “Because once I’m in that bed, the only pretending left will be how long you can keep quiet while I’m buried inside you.”

The air felt too thick to breathe.

Toji’s scarred mouth curved into a slow, predatory smirk as he watched the effect his words had on you.

“Still want to share a bed with me… wife?”

Toji’s words hung heavy in the air.

You didn’t answer with words.

You looked up at him, heart hammering so hard you could feel it in your throat, and gave a small, shy nod.

That was all it took.

Toji’s control snapped. A low, almost feral sound rumbled in his chest as he moved. In one fluid motion he scooped you up, one thick arm under your knees and the other around your back, lifting you like you weighed nothing. Your breath caught at how easily he carried you — his biceps flexing hard against your body, the heat of his bare chest pressing into your side.

He carried you the few steps to the bed and laid you down on your back with surprising care, but the look in his eyes was anything but gentle. The mattress dipped deeply under his weight as he climbed over you, caging you in completely with his massive frame. His broad shoulders blocked out most of the firelight, leaving you in shadow beneath him.

“You a virgin?” he asked, voice low and rough, green eyes searching yours like he was looking for any hesitation.

You nodded again, cheeks burning with embarrassment.

“Fuck,” he breathed, the word almost reverent. His gaze darkened as it dragged slowly down your body. “Gonna have to take my time with you then. Can’t wreck this tight little virgin cunt on the first thrust.”

He kissed you deeply, tongue claiming your mouth in slow, filthy strokes while his rough hands explored every inch of you. He took his time peeling your clothes off — first tugging your blouse over your head, then sliding your skirt down your legs, and finally hooking his fingers into your soaked panties and dragging them off. When you were completely naked beneath him, he sat back on his heels and just stared, drinking in every inch of your exposed body like a man who’d been starving for weeks.

“So fucking small,” he muttered, almost to himself. His large hands ran up your thighs, thumbs brushing the sensitive skin on the inside, then spread your legs wide open. “Look at this pretty virgin pussy… already glistening and I’ve barely touched you.”

The cool air hit your wet folds and you shivered. Toji’s eyes were locked between your legs, dark and hungry, as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

He lowered himself between your spread thighs like a man on a mission. The first slow, hot drag of his tongue from your entrance all the way up to your clit made your entire body jolt. Toji groaned deeply at your taste, the sound vibrating straight through you.

“Sweet as hell,” he rasped, voice thick with lust. “Could eat this pussy for hours.”

Then he devoured you.

His tongue worked in slow, broad strokes, licking every inch of your soaked folds before focusing on your swollen clit. He sucked the sensitive bud into his hot mouth, flicking it rapidly with the tip of his tongue while two thick fingers teased your entrance, circling and pressing but not pushing in yet. When you started whimpering and rolling your hips, he finally pushed one thick finger inside you — careful, but relentless.

“So goddamn tight,” he growled against your pussy, the vibration making your toes curl. “This little hole is gonna fight my cock the whole way in.”

He curled his finger slowly, searching, until he found that spongy spot that made your back arch. He rubbed it firmly while sucking harder on your clit. The wet, obscene sounds of his mouth and fingers filled the quiet bedroom — slick, filthy, and loud. Your thighs started trembling around his head as pleasure coiled tighter and tighter in your belly.

“Toji— oh gods—”

He didn’t let up. He ate you out like he was starving for it — messy, hungry, and completely focused on pulling every sound out of you. He added a second finger, stretching you open carefully, scissoring them while his tongue flicked fast and firm over your clit. The pressure built unbearably fast.

Your orgasm crashed over you without warning. Your back arched clean off the bed as you came hard on his face with a broken, sobbing cry of his name. Your walls clamped down around his fingers, pulsing wildly.

Toji licked you through every wave, slow and thorough, drawing out every last tremor until you were twitching and oversensitive, whimpering softly. Only then did he pull back. His chin and lips were shiny with your slick. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, eyes dark and satisfied as he looked up at your flushed, panting face.

Then he shoved his trousers down.

His cock sprang free — thick, heavy, veined, and longer than anything you’d ever imagined. The flushed head was already leaking steadily.

“See this?” he said, stroking himself slowly. “This is gonna stretch you wide open, baby. But I’ll make it fit.”

He climbed back over you, pushing your legs up and folding your knees toward your chest. The position left you completely exposed. He rubbed the fat head of his cock up and down your drenched folds, coating himself in your wetness, teasing your clit with every pass.

“Deep breaths,” he warned. “Gonna go slow.”

He pushed in.

The stretch was intense. You gasped sharply, a high-pitched whimper escaping you as just the thick head popped inside. “Ah—! Toji… it’s so big…”

Toji groaned, jaw clenched tight as he fought the urge to slam forward. “Fuck— so tight,” he hissed. “Relax for me, baby. Let me in.”

You whimpered softly, fingers clutching at his shoulders. “It burns… but— ah— don’t stop…”

He worked himself in inch by slow, careful inch. Every time you tensed, he stopped, leaning down to kiss your neck or suck on your tits until you loosened again. Sweat beaded on his forehead from the restraint.

Halfway in, you let out a shaky moan, eyes fluttering. “Oh gods… I can feel you so deep already…”

Toji looked down at the bulge already forming in your lower belly. “Shit… look at that,” he groaned, pressing a big hand over the swell. “My cock’s barely halfway and I can already see it inside you.”

When he finally bottomed out, hips flush against your ass, you felt so full you could barely breathe. A broken whimper left your lips. “T-Toji… you’re all the way in… I feel so full…”

Toji stayed still, buried to the hilt, letting you adjust while he kissed you slow and deep. “Good girl,” he praised, voice strained. “Taking every inch of my cock on your first time. Such a perfect little wife.”

When your whimpers turned into soft, needy moans, he started moving — slow, deep rolls of his hips at first. The wet drag of his thick cock against your walls made you cry out.

“Feel that?” he growled. “Feel how deep I am? Gonna breed this cunt so full tonight.”

“Ah—! Yes… I feel it,” you moaned, voice trembling. “It’s so deep… Toji—!”

His pace gradually picked up. The bed started creaking rhythmically as he fucked you harder, deeper. Your tits bounced with every thrust. You couldn’t stop the desperate sounds spilling from your mouth.

“Gonna fill you up,” he panted. “Pump this tight womb full of my cum until it takes. Want you walking around the village with my kid growing inside you. Everyone’s gonna know exactly who fucked you first.”

The filthy words sent you spiraling. “Please— Toji— I’m gonna—!” You came hard around his cock, walls fluttering and squeezing him like a vice as you screamed his name, “Toji—! Ahh—!”

Toji snarled and fucked you through it, pace turning brutal. The wet slap of skin on skin echoed loudly.

“Fuck— gonna cum,” he groaned. “Gonna breed you— take it all—”

You whimpered and moaned beneath him, voice hoarse, “Cum inside me… please— fill me up—!”

He slammed in deep one final time and came with a long, guttural moan. Thick, hot ropes of cum flooded your pussy, pulse after heavy pulse. There was so much it leaked out around his cock despite how tightly you were stretched around him. Toji kept grinding deep, pushing every drop into your womb, hand pressing down on the bulge in your belly like he wanted to keep it all inside you.

You let out a soft, overwhelmed whimper at the feeling of being so full of him.

He stayed buried inside you for a long moment, chest heaving against yours, both of you slick with sweat.

Then he leaned down, kissed you slow and possessive, and murmured against your lips:

“This cunt belongs to me.”

Toji stayed inside you for a while longer, gently grinding and kissing your neck, before he finally pulled out with a low groan. A thick trickle of his cum leaked from your abused hole onto the sheets. He looked down at the mess with dark satisfaction, then rolled onto his back and pulled you against his chest.

“Rest now,” he said quietly, voice rough but surprisingly gentle as he wrapped a heavy arm around you. “You’ve had a long day, runaway. Close your eyes.”

He pressed one last kiss to the top of your head, his large hand resting possessively on your lower belly.

“Go to sleep.”

-

You woke up to warmth.

A heavy, solid arm was draped across your waist, pinning you to a broad chest. Toji’s body was curled around yours from behind, one thick thigh wedged between your legs. His breathing was slow and deep, but the moment you shifted even slightly, his grip tightened possessively.

The room was still dim, early morning light just beginning to creep through the small window. Your body ached — a deep, satisfying soreness between your thighs, faint bruises on your hips from his fingers, and the unmistakable sticky warmth of his cum still leaking out of you.

You tried to move again, but Toji’s low, sleepy growl stopped you.

“Stay,” he muttered against the back of your neck, voice rough with sleep. His hand slid down to cup your lower belly, pressing lightly. “Not done holding you yet.”

Heat rushed to your face. You stayed still, letting him pull you tighter against him. His cock — already half-hard again — rested heavy against your ass.

After a few quiet minutes, Toji sighed and finally loosened his grip. He rolled you onto your back so he could look down at you. His hair was messy, eyes still heavy-lidded, but the smirk on his scarred mouth was fully awake.

“Morning,” he said, voice gravelly. His hand stayed on your stomach, thumb stroking slow circles. “How’re you feeling?”

You shifted, wincing a little at the soreness. “Full… and sore,” you admitted softly.

Toji’s smirk widened into something darker, more satisfied. He leaned down and kissed you — slow and lazy at first, then deeper, tongue sliding against yours. When he pulled back, he dragged his hand lower, fingers brushing through the mess between your thighs.

“Still leaking my cum,” he murmured, almost proud. “Good.”

He pushed two thick fingers back inside you, slow and careful, fucking his dried cum deeper. You whimpered, hips twitching.

“Toji—”

“Shh,” he soothed, kissing your temple. “Not fucking you again right now. You’re too sore.” He kept his fingers inside you anyway, lazy and possessive. “Just keeping you full.”

You stayed like that for a while — his fingers buried inside you, his mouth brushing lazy kisses along your neck and shoulder. The morning was quiet except for the occasional creak of the bed and your soft sounds.

Eventually he pulled his fingers out, brought them to his mouth, and licked them clean while watching your face.

“Breakfast,” he said simply. “Then we open the shop.”

He got up first, completely naked and shameless. You couldn’t stop yourself from staring at the powerful lines of his back, the flex of his ass and thighs as he moved. He caught you looking and chuckled.

“Keep staring like that and I will bend you over the table downstairs,” he warned.

You quickly looked away, cheeks burning.

He tossed you one of his clean shirts and a fresh skirt. While you dressed, he pulled on his usual trousers and tank top, tying his blood-stained apron around his waist.

Before you left the bedroom, he caught your wrist and pulled you close one more time. His hand cupped your jaw, thumb brushing your bottom lip.

“Last night wasn’t pretend,” he said quietly, eyes serious. “Not for me. You’re mine. Understand?”

You swallowed and whispered, “I understand.”

He kissed you again — hard, claiming — then rested his forehead against yours for a second.

“Good.”

He led you downstairs, his hand firm on your lower back the entire way.

The village was waking up outside. And for the first time since you’d run away, you didn’t feel like running anymore.

Toji unlocked the front door and flipped the sign while you tied on a clean apron. The morning air carried the smell of fresh bread from Mrs. Sato’s bakery and the distant clang of the blacksmith’s hammer. A few early customers began drifting toward the shop.

The first hour passed in a surprisingly calm rhythm. You helped weigh portions, wrap cuts of meat in clean paper, and hand them over with a shy smile. Toji stayed close the whole time — sometimes reaching past you for a knife, sometimes resting a hand on your waist as he moved behind you. Every touch felt deliberate, like he was marking his territory even when no one was watching.

Then the bell above the door rang again.

A tall, sun-tanned man with kind eyes and an easy, friendly smile stepped inside. He looked to be in his late twenties, with the strong build of someone who spent his days working the fields. He greeted Toji with a familiar nod.

“Morning, Fushiguro. The usual shoulder cut, please.” His gaze shifted to you behind the counter and softened with genuine interest. “You must be the new wife everyone’s been talking about. I’m Haru. I run the big farm past the mill.”

You returned his smile politely. “Nice to meet you, Haru.”

He watched as you carefully wrapped his order, your hands still a little clumsy with the butcher paper. “It’s good to see a new face around here,” he said warmly. “You seem really kind. Gentle. The kind of person who makes a place feel brighter just by being in it.” He rubbed the back of his neck, almost shyly. “If you ever need anything — extra vegetables from the farm, help carrying something heavy, or just someone to talk to when things get quiet — my door’s always open. Wouldn’t want you feeling lonely so soon after moving in.”

You tilted your head, completely oblivious to any hidden meaning, and gave him a grateful smile. “That’s very kind of you. Thank you. I’ll keep that in mind.”

Before you could say anything else, the air behind you changed.

Toji’s large hand settled heavily on your hip, fingers digging in with clear possession as he pulled you back firmly against his chest. His other arm slid around your waist, locking you in place.

“She won’t be needing anything,” Toji said, his voice low and dangerously even. “I take care of my wife.”

Haru blinked, the friendly smile faltering as he finally registered the tension rolling off the butcher. “Of course. I was just… being neighborly.”

Toji’s grip on your hip tightened. “Neighborly is saying hello. The rest sounded like something else.”

The silence that followed was thick and uncomfortable. Haru swallowed hard, quickly paid for his meat, and muttered a polite goodbye before leaving without another word. The door swung shut behind him with a soft jingle.

The second he was gone, Toji spun you around and backed you against the counter. His green eyes were dark, jaw clenched tight with barely-contained jealousy. One big hand came up to cup your jaw, thumb pressing lightly against your bottom lip.

“You really didn’t notice?” he muttered, voice rough.

You shook your head, genuinely confused. “He was just being nice…”

Toji let out a short, irritated breath and leaned in closer, forehead almost touching yours. “He wasn’t just being nice. He was testing the waters. Seeing if my wife might be open to something else. Offering you a soft place to land if you ever got tired of me.”

His other hand slid under your skirt, fingers brushing between your thighs and finding you still slick from the night before. You gasped softly as he pushed two thick fingers inside you without warning, curling them slowly.

“Toji—”

“Mine,” he growled quietly against your ear, pumping his fingers in a lazy rhythm. “This pussy is mine. You are mine. I don’t want you smiling so sweetly at other men. Understand?”

You whimpered, clutching his shoulders as pleasure sparked through your still-sensitive body. “I understand…”

He kissed you then — hard, possessive, and hungry — while his fingers continued their slow, deliberate strokes. When he finally pulled back, his eyes were still dark with jealousy.

“Next time someone talks to you like that,” he said, voice low, “you let me handle it.”

He reluctantly withdrew his fingers, straightened your skirt, and stepped back like nothing had happened. But the tension in his shoulders and the dark look in his eyes remained.

“Back to work,” he said gruffly, still clearly worked up.

You nodded, legs shaky, heart racing, and turned back to the counter.

The rest of the morning passed with Toji staying even closer than before — a constant, heavy, possessive presence at your side. Every time another customer entered, his hand found your waist or lower back, silently reminding everyone (and you) exactly who you belonged to.

The rest of the morning dragged on with the same heavy tension.

Every time a male customer stepped through the door, Toji’s demeanor shifted. His hand would find your waist, your hip, or the small of your back — a silent, unmistakable claim. He answered questions in short, clipped tones and watched the men with sharp, warning eyes. You tried to focus on wrapping orders and smiling politely, but the constant possessiveness was becoming impossible to ignore.

By early afternoon, when the shop finally quieted again, you couldn’t hold it in anymore.

You turned to him while he was wiping down the counter.

“Toji,” you said softly, “you’re being too much.”

He paused, setting the rag down slowly. When he looked at you, his green eyes had gone dark.

“Too much?” he repeated, voice low and deceptively calm.

You swallowed but stood your ground. “Yes. The constant touching, the glaring at every man who even looks at me... They’re just customers.”

Toji stared at you for a long, heavy beat. Then he slowly walked around the counter, backing you up until your hips hit the edge. He caged you in with his massive frame, one hand braced beside you on the wood, the other coming up to grip your chin, forcing you to meet his eyes.

“You think I’m being too possessive?” he murmured, thumb brushing your bottom lip. “Tell me something, wife… What kind of husband would I be if I let other men think they can have access to what’s mine?”

His voice was rough, low, and dangerous. “If I smiled and stepped aside while they flirted with you? While they offered you help and soft words like they had any right to you?”

He leaned in closer, breath hot against your ear. “I’d be a fucking joke. A weak man who doesn’t know how to protect what belongs to him. And I’m not weak.”

His free hand slid under your skirt without warning, fingers pushing between your thighs. You were bare underneath. The moment his calloused fingertips brushed your folds, he groaned softly — low and rough — when he found you already wet again.

“Already soaked,” he muttered, voice thick with satisfaction. “Complaining about me being too possessive, but your pussy is dripping the second I touch you.”

“Toji—” you whimpered, hips twitching as two thick fingers pushed inside you in one smooth motion. The stretch made you gasp, your walls still tender and sensitive from the night before.

He curled his fingers slowly, deliberately, stroking that spongy spot deep inside you while his thumb found your swollen clit and rubbed tight, firm circles. His mouth latched onto your neck, sucking hard enough to leave another mark, teeth grazing your skin as he worked you open.

You moaned, loud and broken, clutching desperately at his broad shoulders. Your legs trembled around his wrist as pleasure sparked hot and fast through your body.

“You can tell me I’m too much,” he growled against your throat, biting down lightly before soothing the sting with his tongue. “But we both know the truth. You like it when I act like this. You like knowing no one else can touch you. You like being mine.”

His fingers pumped faster, curling with every thrust, the wet, obscene sounds of your arousal filling the quiet shop. Your hips rolled against his hand instinctively, chasing the pleasure even as your thighs shook.

“Ah— Toji… please—” you moaned, voice cracking. Your head fell back, exposing more of your neck to him. He took full advantage, sucking and biting along your skin while his fingers drove deeper, faster.

You were right there — teetering on the edge, muscles tightening around his thick fingers — when he suddenly pulled his hand away completely.

You let out a desperate, needy whine, hips chasing his fingers uselessly. Your core throbbed, aching and empty.

“Toji…!” you whimpered, voice hoarse and frustrated, eyes glassy with unshed tears of need. “Please— I was so close…”

Toji smirked, dark and satisfied, eyes gleaming with lust as he watched you squirm. He brought his glistening fingers up between you, holding them in front of your face so you could see how wet they were — coated in your slick right up to his knuckles.

“Open,” he ordered, voice low and commanding.

You obeyed instantly, parting your lips. He pushed his fingers into your mouth, letting you taste yourself as you sucked them clean, tongue swirling around them obediently. His green eyes darkened further, pupils blown wide as he watched you.

“Good girl,” he murmured, voice rough with arousal. “Look at you… so fucking eager. Whining because I stopped, sucking my fingers like you’d do anything for my cock right now.”

He pulled his fingers free with a wet pop and leaned in, kissing you deeply, tasting you on your own tongue. When he pulled back, his breath was ragged.

“You can complain about me being possessive all you want,” he said, voice dark and low, “but your body doesn’t lie. This pussy knows exactly who it belongs to.”

He suddenly lifted you onto the counter with ease, as if you weighed nothing. The wood was cool against the backs of your thighs as he shoved your skirt all the way up to your waist in one rough motion, baring your dripping pussy completely. He stepped between your spread thighs, his broad body forcing your legs wider apart until your knees were nearly touching your shoulders.

His hands gripped your hips hard enough to bruise, fingers digging deep into your soft flesh with unmistakable ownership. With his other hand, he freed his cock — thick, heavy, and already throbbing. The veined shaft glistened as he stroked himself once, slowly, eyes locked on your exposed, glistening cunt.

“Since you think I’m too possessive,” he said, voice rough and dangerous, “I’m going to remind you exactly why I am.”

He rubbed the fat, leaking head of his cock up and down your soaked folds, coating every thick inch in your slick. He teased your swollen clit with every slow pass, tapping it lightly until your hips jerked and you let out a needy whimper.

“Toji… please—”

Without another word, he pushed in with one deep, powerful thrust.

You cried out sharply, back arching hard off the counter as the thick head forced its way inside, stretching you wide open. The sudden, overwhelming fullness stole your breath. Toji groaned deeply, burying himself to the hilt in one smooth stroke, his hips flush against your ass.

“Fuck… still so tight,” he growled, voice strained with pleasure. “Even after I filled you last night. This greedy little cunt keeps sucking me in like it doesn’t want to let go.”

He didn’t give you any time to adjust. He started fucking you hard and deep, the heavy wooden counter creaking loudly under the force of every brutal thrust. Your moans echoed shamelessly through the empty shop as he claimed you right there in the middle of the day.

“Mine,” he snarled against your neck, biting down hard enough to leave another dark mark. “Say it.”

“I’m yours— ah— Toji—!” you moaned, voice breaking as your legs wrapped tightly around his waist, heels digging into his lower back.

He fucked you even harder, hips snapping forward with powerful, punishing strokes. The wet slap of skin against skin filled the room, loud and filthy. One of his big hands reached between your bodies, his thumb finding your swollen clit and rubbing fast, tight circles.

“That’s right,” he panted, breath hot against your ear. “My wife. My pussy. No one else gets to look at you the way I do. No one else gets to touch you. No one else even gets to fucking think about you.”

Your moans grew louder and more desperate, your walls fluttering around his thick cock with every deep thrust. The counter shook beneath you. Your tits bounced wildly inside your blouse with the force of his movements.

He suddenly leaned back slightly, gripping your thighs and spreading you even wider as he drove into you. The new angle made him hit even deeper, the bulge in your lower belly becoming visible with every thrust.

“Look at that,” he groaned, eyes fixed on the spot where his cock disappeared inside you. “You’re taking me so fucking deep. This tight cunt was made for my cock.”

You cried out, nails digging into his shoulders as pleasure coiled tighter and tighter inside you. “Toji—! It’s too deep— ahh—!”

“You can take it,” he growled, fucking you harder. “You’re going to take everything I give you.”

Your orgasm crashed over you without warning — fast, violent, and overwhelming. Your walls clenched hard around his cock, fluttering and squeezing as waves of intense pleasure tore through your body. You screamed his name, thighs shaking violently around his waist.

Toji snarled like a beast, his rhythm turning erratic and savage as he fucked you through your climax. He kept pounding into you, chasing his own release, hips slamming against yours with wet, filthy sounds.

But he didn’t cum.

Instead, he suddenly slowed his thrusts, grinding deep and slow, keeping you right on the edge of overstimulation. His breathing was ragged, sweat glistening on his chest and neck.

He leaned down, capturing your mouth in a messy, possessive kiss while still buried deep inside you.

“You’re not done yet,” he murmured against your lips, voice dark and full of promise. “We’re nowhere near finished.”

Before you could catch your breath, Toji pulled out of you with a wet, obscene sound. You whimpered at the sudden emptiness, your pussy clenching around nothing, already missing the thick stretch of him. But he didn’t give you any time to protest.

In one swift, powerful motion, he flipped you over onto your stomach across the counter. Your chest pressed against the cool, smooth surface, your cheek resting on the wood as he yanked your hips back and up, forcing your ass high in the air. Your skirt was still bunched uselessly around your waist, leaving you completely exposed — bent over like a whore in the middle of his shop.

Toji kicked your legs wider apart with his foot, then pressed one large hand firmly between your shoulder blades, pinning you down hard against the counter.

“Fuck, look at you,” he growled, voice thick with raw lust. “Bent over my counter like a proper little wife. Ass up, pussy dripping for me.”

He spread your ass cheeks wide with both hands, exposing your swollen, abused pussy completely. Without any warning, he spat directly onto your folds — a thick, warm glob of saliva landing right on your clit and dripping down. You gasped sharply at the filthy sensation, your hips twitching.

Toji groaned at the sight and used two thick fingers to rub his spit into your pussy, mixing it with your own slick, pushing it inside you. Then he brought his palm down hard on your ass with a loud, resounding smack.

The sharp sting bloomed hot across your skin. You cried out, jolting forward on the counter.

“Stay still,” he ordered, voice rough. He smacked the other cheek even harder, watching the way your flesh jiggled and turned pink under his hand. “This ass is mine too. Every fucking inch of you is mine.”

You moaned helplessly, pushing back against him despite the sting. Toji lined up the thick head of his cock again and thrust back inside you in one brutal, deep stroke.

The new angle made him feel impossibly bigger, reaching even deeper. You moaned loudly, fingers scrambling for purchase on the smooth wooden counter as he immediately started fucking you hard and fast.

The counter creaked loudly under the force of his powerful thrusts. Each snap of his hips drove his thick cock impossibly deep, the wet slap of skin against skin echoing through the empty shop. Toji’s hands gripped your hips in a bruising hold, pulling you back onto his cock with every stroke like he was using you.

“Fuck— this pussy feels even better like this,” he groaned, voice rough and strained. He smacked your ass again, harder this time, watching the way your flesh rippled red under his palm. “So fucking wet. You like being bent over and used like this, don’t you?”

“Yes— ah— Toji—!” you moaned, cheek pressed against the cool counter, eyes fluttering shut. Every brutal thrust made your breasts press harder into the wood, your sensitive nipples dragging against it.

Toji reached forward and fisted a hand in your hair, pulling your head back slightly as he fucked you even harder. His hips slammed against your ass with wet, filthy sounds. He spat on your pussy again, right where his thick cock was stretching you open, and used his thumb to rub the saliva into your swollen clit.

“Such a messy little wife,” he panted, smacking your ass repeatedly between thrusts — sharp, stinging slaps that made you clench tighter around him. “Dripping all over my counter. Taking my cock so deep like you were made for it. Look at this greedy cunt swallowing every inch.”

Your moans turned into broken sobs of pleasure. The combination of his brutal pace, the stinging heat on your ass, and the filthy words pushed you right to the edge again.

Toji leaned over you, his broad chest pressing against your back, his breath hot and ragged against your ear as he kept pounding into you without mercy.

“Tell me who this pussy belongs to,” he growled, smacking your ass one more time, hard enough to make you yelp.

“You—! It belongs to you— Toji—!” you cried out, voice hoarse and desperate.

He snarled in satisfaction and fucked you even harder, the counter shaking beneath you. His hand slipped between your legs again, rubbing your clit fast and rough.

You came with a broken scream, your walls clamping down hard around his thick cock, thighs shaking violently as intense pleasure tore through you.

Toji groaned loudly as your orgasm triggered his own. He slammed in deep one final time and came hard, flooding your pussy with thick, hot spurts of cum. He kept grinding into you slowly, pushing every drop as deep as possible, his hips pressed tight against your reddened ass.

For a long moment, the only sounds in the shop were your heavy breathing and the faint drip of his cum leaking out of you onto the floor.

Toji stayed buried inside you, leaning over your back and kissing the back of your neck possessively.

“Still think I’m being too possessive?” he murmured against your skin, voice dark and satisfied.

You could only whimper in response, too overwhelmed to form words. Your body was trembling, pressed against the counter, pussy still fluttering weakly around his thick cock. Every small shift made you feel the mess he’d left inside you — warm, sticky, and so full it was leaking down your thighs.

Toji let out a low, rumbling sound of approval. He stayed deep for a long moment, grinding slow and lazy, pushing his cum even deeper as if he couldn’t stand the thought of any of it escaping. His large hand smoothed over the reddened skin of your ass where he’d spanked you, almost soothing now, before giving one last firm squeeze.

“Answer me,” he said quietly, lips brushing the shell of your ear.

“…No,” you breathed, voice hoarse and shaky. “I don’t.”

He hummed, clearly pleased. He finally pulled out slowly, watching with dark eyes as a thick trail of his cum dripped from your abused hole onto the floor. The sight made him groan softly.

“Fuck, that’s a pretty sight,” he muttered. He used two fingers to push some of the leaking cum back inside you, then straightened your skirt with surprising care.

Toji helped you stand on shaky legs, turning you to face him. He cupped your jaw with one hand, thumb brushing your flushed cheek as he studied your expression — eyes glassy, lips swollen, hair messy.

“You’re going to feel me for the rest of the day,” he said, voice low. “Every step. Every time you move. I want you thinking about who fucked you over this counter.”

He leaned in and kissed you — slower this time, but still deep and possessive. When he pulled back, his forehead rested against yours for a brief second.

“Clean yourself up a little,” he told you, pressing one last kiss to your temple. “We’ve still got half a day left.”

Toji stepped back, tucking himself away and adjusting his apron like nothing had happened, though the dark, satisfied glint in his eyes remained.

You stood there on unsteady legs, heart still racing, feeling the unmistakable warmth of his cum slowly leaking down your inner thighs.

And somehow, you couldn’t find it in yourself to complain.

a/n: aren't the old hags kinda iconic? lmk what you think and if you'd be interested in a part two! likes and reblogs appreciated!!