v.

You couldn’t look at Anna Marie anymore.

Part of you knew that what happened wasn’t her fault, that she didn’t force Kurt to sacrifice himself—she didn’t even know he was going to do it, truth be told.

But that other part of you, the part that’s now so cold and bitter and angry because he wasn’t there anymore, couldn’t stand to look at her, especially when she was with Remy.

Kurt Wagner, your beloved fuzzy blue elf, the man you loved more than anything in this world was just… gone. And he didn’t even say goodbye. You didn’t get to hear his voice one last time or caress his face while you kissed him or look into his warm yellow eyes where you’d see your future together.

You were inconsolable, and even that was an understatement.

Your friends tried to help, they really did. Logan tried to distract you with training in the Danger Room, Jubilee insisted you come with her on her retail therapy trips, and Ororo helped you meditate to keep your emotions somewhat at bay, but nothing worked.

There were times when Remy and Anna Marie tried helping too, but you avoided them. You knew you should be happy for them—finally, they got their happy ending, but what about you?

Your heart was broken beyond repair, and the only person who could help mend it wasn’t here anymore. Despite your ability to heal anything you touched, you couldn't fix yourself. This debilitating pain in your chest that made it hard to breathe, hard to think of anything else but him, hard to exist in a world without him, never left you.

There wasn’t even a body for you to bury and God, that killed you.

That night, when there were no more tears left to cry, when your body felt so empty and exhausted, you crawled into the bed you shared so many nights with Kurt, you couldn’t bring yourself to sleep.

Today wasn't real, it couldn’t be. This was all just a really bad dream that you would wake up from any second. And Kurt would be there, with his arms around you, concerned yellow eyes gazing into yours so lovingly, murmuring, “Sshh, Liebling, it was just a nightmare. I’m here, and you’re safe.”

But it never happened.

You curled into the blanket, and another sob escaped your lips. It still smelled like him—faintly of brimstone and sulfur mixed with the soft scent of lavender cologne. You had helped him research what could mask the smell he was so insecure about, and lavender seemed to be his favorite.

It was fitting. Lavender symbolizes devotion, calmness, healing, and purity, among other things. Kurt was all of those things and more.

Kurt was a devoted man not only to his faith, but to those he cared about. Despite everything he had gone through, he still chose love above all else. His unwavering loyalty was so admirable and shocked you at times, including now. After watching his sister suffer for the loss of her love, he decided to trade his life for hers, because he was so damn devoted to love.

He was devoted to you too, there was no doubt about it. The way his eyes would search for you when you entered a room, reaching for your hand when he saw the anxiety in your eyes, and holding you close in the late evenings, talking about anything and everything on your mind. When you closed your eyes, you could feel the soft press of his lips to your knuckles.

Even in the times when the bedroom door closed, and it was just the two of you, he was devoted to you then too. The way his hands touched your body tenderly with so much care, afraid to hurt you in any way, the way his tail would circle your ankles to keep them in place as he would push himself into you, the way his lips would capture yours as you cry his name in pleasure were all signs of his worship of you.

Kurt was calm in most situations. His level head during times of crisis, when your mind couldn't think straight, kept you from being totally consumed with fear. He was always quick to diffuse arguments, making sure to hear both sides of the story before offering words of wisdom.

You wondered now if you were to start a pointless fight with someone, would he somehow appear out of thin air and stop it before it got ugly. You could picture his face now, not disappointed, no he was never disappointed with you. He would be worried.

"Schatz, talk to me, please." You could hear his voice, his hands on your shoulders, rubbing soothing circles. "What is wrong? Why did you feel the need to do that?"

Because you're gone.

Kurt was healing, in a way that not many people realized. It was different from your power that could cure wounds with a single touch. It wasn't from his mutant abilities, but purely from his heart. You saw it with Logan first. That grumpy man with sharp claws was rough to almost everyone and didn't see how Kurt could be so optimistic. But your beloved elf broke down those adamantium walls and brought him some peace.

He healed you too. Like most mutants, you didn't have it easy. Rough childhood and years of people calling you a freak simply because you could take away another's pain and heal them as if they were never hurt to begin with. You couldn't touch people for a long time, afraid of the judgment, but Kurt?

Oh, Kurt thought you were so beautiful.

At first, when you were just getting to know him, you would flinch at his affection. It didn't offend him, in fact, he understood your hesitation when you explained everything (oh, how easy it was to talk to him about your life, it was as if he had been there all along). Over time, he began to change your perception of your powers when you joined the X-Men shortly after you moved into Xavier's.

"You know Y/N, I think your hands are quite wonderful." Kurt smiles after a particularly rough mission.

You were helping civilians evacuate, and there were several people injured. You weren't a trained fighter, so there wasn't much you could do, but people were hurting, and you could fix it. You grabbed their hands without fear and took away their pain, their cuts, scrapes, and bruises, transferring them to your own body. You hissed in pain for a few moments before it disappeared completely. Kurt was watching you then as he would teleport in and out, bringing as many people as he could to safety.

"Wonderful?" You repeated with a raised brow. "That's a first."

"It is true. What I saw today was someone who didn't let their fears stop them from helping others, and that is wonderful."

You looked down at your trembling hands. There was dried blood beneath your fingernails, most of it yours. Your knuckles were bruised, your arms littered with cuts and scrapes that had already begun to fade. The pain was manageable now, but moments ago it had been almost unbearable.

"I didn't do anything special. It's just... what I do."

"I think you are wrong." He slowly reached for your hands, and you let him, his thumb gently brushing over the fading wounds on your fingers. When you looked into his calming yellow eyes, your whole world seemed to center, your heart skipping a beat, like everything you've ever gone through, every choice you've made, every mistake you regretted, made sense because all of it led you to him. "I think you are incredibly special."

He took away all of the pain you held deep within your chest with a single squeeze of his hand, as if it was the easiest thing in the world.

Kurt gently lifted your chin until you were forced to meet his gaze again. "I know what it is like to have people look at you and see only the things that make you different. I know what it is like to be called a monster." Your chest tightened. "But you must not let them convince you that you are one."

His fingers brushed against your cheek as tears welled in your eyes. "You are kind, and compassionate, and brave." He brought your hand to his lips. "And you have the most wonderful hands."

A quiet laugh slipped out as you tried to hide the fact that you were about to burst into tears from his words. "You really like my hands, don't you?"

"I do."

"Why?"

"Because they belong to you."

You were sure you fell in love with him that day. You would remember the way he'd looked at you as though you were something precious. And you would wonder how someone who had spent his entire life being called a monster could have been the first person to make you believe you weren't one.

Kurt was pure, always honest, doing things out of the kindness of his heart, and had the best intentions for everyone, even his enemies. Someone would try to kill him, spit out the most hateful, disgusting words imaginable, and your Kurt would hurt for them. He always saw the good in people, even when they didn't deserve it, especially his mother and half-brother.

His love for you pure. He admitted to falling in love with you first, afraid to push you for anything more you weren't ready to give. All he wanted for you was to be happy, healthy, and comfortable with yourself and your abilities. He was prepared to never confess his love in case you were never ready for a relationship, until you kissed him first.

Your relationship blossomed, and throughout the years, his love remained completely and utterly pure, only being greedy when it came to your pleasure.

He loved worshipping you, especially when he made you come undone on his tongue again and again as his tail stroked your nipples teasingly, coaxing you through another orgasm. With lovemaking, sometimes Kurt would only ever focus on you, with his mouth, tongue, tail, fingers, before even sinking into you.

Your hands that found purchase in his dark curls tugged against his head, bringing him away from your heat. "Kurt, you don't have to keep going." You were breathing heavily, your body shaking and covered in sweat. "I-I want you to feel good, too."

He chuckled as he pressed an open-mouth kiss to your thigh. "Liebling, you misunderstand. You are my greatest pleasure. Feeling you tremble, tasting how wet you get for me, watching you fall apart under my touch—that is what makes me feel good."

You buried your face deeper into the blanket, trying to push the memory away, desperate to breathe him in, as if somehow you could keep him here by memorizing the scent of him.

Your fingers curled into the fabric as you sobbed. "Please," you cried to no one in particular as your other hand reached to the other side of the bed. It was empty and cold, so very cold. "Come back to me."

He was supposed to grow old with you.

You'd never even gotten the chance to talk about it. Never gotten to discuss where you'd live, or whether you'd have children, or what kind of house you'd want. Never gotten to stand beside him and promise forever. Forever had been taken from you before you'd even realized you were counting on it.

When you found the ring inside his drawer a few weeks later, you desperately wished you hadn't.

You were searching for one of his sweaters to wear when you found the black velvet box. Your heart stopped, everything around you becoming deathly still, your hands trembling as you brought it out.

For several moments, maybe hours, you stared at it. You should have put it back and pretended you never saw it, but instead, you opened it.

The ring was simple, a golden band with a round diamond, and there was something engraved on the inside. It was small, in German: Immer bei dir.

Your breath caught in your chest at the words, the same phrase he murmured to you so many times before. "Always with you." You choked out as you sank to the floor, clutching the ring in your palm.

Kurt was going to ask you to marry him, and the realization was somehow worse than anything else.

You weren't sure how long you stayed sobbing in his room, refusing to move. "You were going to ask me." Your voice cracked and hoarse, you barely recognized it. "You were going to ask me, and I would've said yes."

The words echoed uselessly around the empty room as you traced the diamond with your finger. "I would've said yes, Kurt."

And for the first time since Kurt died, you allowed yourself to imagine the life you'd lost. You imagined walking down an aisle toward him in a dress that Jubilee helped you pick out. Anna Marie and Remy would be at his side, tears in their eyes, watching as Kurt took your hands.

You imagined his smile, murmuring how beautiful you looked. You imagined how handsome he would look in a tux, with your colors. What would have been your wedding colors? Definitely something blue because that quickly became your favorite color after you met Kurt. You were positive he would be happy no matter what you decided.

You imagined his trembling hands as he slipped a ring onto your finger, after speaking his vows of complete and utter love and devotion to you. You were sure you would be crying, feeling as if your vows for him were nothing in comparison to his sermon.

You imagined him kissing you, his hands cupping your cheeks as everyone cheered and clapped. Your hands would grab at his suit jacket, pulling him as close as possible, not caring that there were people in the room.

You imagined the first night as husband and wife, your honeymoon on a private island, away from anyone who would look at you two differently. You imagined neither of your clothes would be on for long, as you two spent time learning each other's bodies as if it was the first time. Technically, it would have been, since you two would have been married.

You imagined waking up the next morning as his wife, curled into his naked chest, as the sunlight streamed through the blinds on the window overlooking the ocean. It would have been peaceful, even if it was just for a few days. You would have been his in life and in death.

You would've chosen forever.

And you would've chosen him, every single time.

Scott and Ororo chose to bench you from the team after you continuously tried to get yourself killed. It wasn't on purpose, but the more you thought about it, maybe it was.

You had been rather reckless lately. They knew you weren't a fighter, but you tried to be. During fights, you wouldn't care how much you got hurt or how much pain you would take away from your teammates. You'd throw yourself between an enemy and someone else without thinking, or reach for the injured even when doing so put you directly in harm's way.

It didn't matter if your ribs cracked. It didn't matter if you couldn't feel your fingers afterward. It didn't matter if you went home covered in blood that wasn't even yours. Pain was pain.

And you were already hurting anyway.

So when Scott made the final decision for you to take some time away, you didn't argue with him. Normally, you would have, but you just didn't have the energy in you anymore.

You simply nodded, eyes focused on the window inside his office. "Okay."

Scott frowned. "Y/N-"

"I said okay." Your voice was so quiet that it seemed to unsettle him more than if you had screamed.

Ororo stood beside him, her arms folded loosely across her chest, watching you with those perceptive blue eyes of hers. She had always been able to see through you, even when you desperately wished she couldn't. "You understand why we are doing this?"

You looked down at your trembling hands and clenched your fists. "Because I've been reckless, stupid, not acting as an X-Man should."

"Because you are hurting," Ororo corrected gently, and your eyes burned.

"Ororo, don't." You swallowed, not daring to look into her eyes that you knew were full of nothing but concern. "I'm fine."

Scott sighed. "Y/N, no, you're not."

You twisted the ring on your finger, a new nervous habit you'd developed once you began wearing it. "What do you want me to say, Scott? I'm sorry that I can't move on so fast like the rest of you." You spat, crossing your arms, the anger bubbling inside your chest.

"No one is asking you to move on, Y/N, we're just... scared for you."

You scoffed, standing up from the chair, the wooden legs scraping against the floor. "Scared for me? I know what I'm doing-"

"No you don't and that's the problem!" Scott raised his voice, and your head snapped towards him. "You keep throwing yourself into situations you know are dangerous. You take hits that you don't need to take. You use your powers until you're practically collapsing." His voice is dangerously low when he says, "You keep doing things as if dying will bring you closer to him."

"Scott," Ororo warned softly, placing a hand on his shoulder as you glared at him.

You take a deep breath, glancing down at the ring Kurt would've proposed to you with. "Forgive me if I'm not exactly interested in being careful with my life right now, when the one person who made life less miserable is fucking gone. Imagine if it was Jean, Scott. How would you feel?"

His shoulders slumped. "Y/N-"

"Imagine if you never got to say goodbye to her." Your voice shook as you stepped closer. "Imagine if you never got to tell her you loved her one last time."

Scott's jaw tightened as you continued. "Imagine crawling into the bed you shared with her and realizing she's never going to come back."

"Y/N, please-"

"Imagine the life you were supposed to share with her, the wedding you were supposed to plan, the future that was yours to share was gone."

His and Ororo's eyes glanced at your hand as you began furiously wiping away your tears. Their eyes widened, but you didn't stop. "Would you be careful then?" He didn't answer. "Would you?" Scott looked away.

"Would you sleep at night? Would you eat? Would you want to go on missions?"

"Probably not." He finally answered.

"Would you care if you got hurt?"

Scott closed his eyes. "I don't know."

"Exactly." Your anger inside you flickered, and part of you was upset that you snapped at him as roughly as you did. But the other part that was beginning to consume you, that ugly, sorrow-ridden part, didn't care because none of this was bringing him back. "I don't know what you expect of me."

Ororo crossed the room to your side and cupped your face. "We do not expect anything of you, Y/N. We care about you more than you realize and want nothing more than for you to be okay." Her touch was so gentle, like a mother's caress, and you almost collapsed into her arms and sobbed.

You shake your head, pulling away from her. "I don't think I know what that is anymore."

When you leave the room, Anna Marie is waiting outside the door. You still don't dare look at you until her hand wraps around your arm, stopping you. You don't fight against her strength, you don't have much left anyway.

"Please, Y/N, let me say somethin'." She pleads, and you keep your eyes glued to the polished wooden floors of the mansion. "Could'ya at least look at me?"

For a moment, you can almost hear Kurt's voice in your head. Please, Liebling.

So you do. You know Kurt would've wanted you to. God, he would hate to see how you've been acting towards her, avoiding like she had the plague.

Her eyes are swollen from crying, and there are shadows beneath them that weren't there before. For a brief second, something inside you softens. You notice Remy at the end of the hallway, and his eyes are just as pleading, as if to say for you to hear her out.

"I-I know you're mad at me."

"I'm not." The lie tastes bitter on your tongue.

"You are. You don't have to pretend, sugar." She takes a shaky breath. "I ain't gonna tell you I know exactly what you're goin' through, because I don't."

"Good." The word comes out sharper than you intended.

Her face falls. "But I know what it's like to lose somebody you love."

Your eyes close at the memory of Genosha. So many lives had been lost that night, including Gambit. Kurt held you as you watched Rogue collapse, holding Remy's burned, dead body. You remember the countless nights Kurt would be there for his sister, helping her through her grief, letting her know that she wasn't alone.

"I lost Remy."

"You did." Your voice is cold, almost unrecognizable. "And then you got him back."

Anna Marie goes completely still, and you almost regret saying it, but only for a second because it's true. "You got him back." You repeat through gritted teeth.

Her lips part. "Y/N—"

"You were ready to die for him. You were willing to give your life to bring him back, and Kurt..." Your voice cracks as her expression twists. "Kurt decided to take your place."

"You know that's not what I wanted."

You closed your eyes. "I know."

"Then please—"

"I know you didn't ask him or even force him." Your fingers tighten around the ring. "I know you loved him. I know he's your brother and you'd never intentionally hurt him. But none of that changes what happened, and I don't need your pity."

She tries reaching for you. "It ain't pity, Y/N, I just want you to know I understand."

"You don't!" Your voice rises, and she flinches, recoiling as if you've struck her. "You don't get to tell me you understand. You lost Remy, and then you got him back." You point toward yourself. "I lost Kurt, and I got nothing."

Your breathing becomes uneven as you slip off the ring to hold it between your thumb and index finger to show her. She covers her mouth, eyes wide like Scott and Ororo when they realized. "I found out he was going to marry me after he was already dead."

Tears are streaming down her cheeks now, and you didn't realize Remy was closer until he stepped between you two, his arm going around Anna Marie's shoulders.

When Remy's eyes met yours, there was that same look of sorrow in his eyes that everyone in this damn mansion has been giving you when they see you. And that just makes you angrier.

"Don't."

Remy's brow furrows. "I ain't sayin' nothin', mon ami."

"Then don't look at me like that."

"Like what?"

"Like you feel sorry for me."

His expression falls, and when he opens his mouth to speak, the words are flying out of your mouth before you can even think, "Stay away from me, both of you. I can't stand to look at you."

Their faces crumple at your words, at the malice in your tone. That didn't sound like you, but it did feel like you. That tiny part of you that was beginning to fade away told you Kurt would be upset at you for speaking to them like that. He would tell you to stop, that his sister wasn't to blame, that Remy wasn't to blame. He would tell you that grief didn't give you the right to hurt the people he loved.

But he wasn't here anymore. He was fucking gone.

"He gave up everything for you." You glance at Anna Marie.

"I didn't ask him to!" She cried, pushing away from Remy. "You don't think I don't wake up every day remembering who ain't there? I miss him too, Y/N, so damn much."

Your stomach twists at her words as you turn away. Looking at her, at them, was too much. The hallway suddenly feels too narrow, the ceiling too low, the walls pressing inward around you. Your lungs refuse to draw in enough air.

You choke back a sob, and it burns on the way down as you look over your shoulder at them. Remy was holding Anna Marie closer now, staring at you, his concerned eyes watching you. You hated them. Hated them so damn much.

You look down at the ring. For a moment, you simply stared at the little piece of metal that was supposed to represent everything you still had to look forward to.

You slip the ring back onto your finger. "While I get to wonder about every single thing that was supposed to happen," You met her eyes one last time, your voice barely above a whisper. "You get to live it."

To no one's surprise, you left Xavier's less than a week later. You left a note in your bedroom, taking only some of your clothes and Kurt's belongings, and disappeared into the night.

It took some time, but you were able to secure a job at a cafe in the middle of nowhere after weeks of traveling. The little town was surrounded by trees and mountains, seemingly secluded from the rest of the world, which was perfect.

In the months that followed, no one tried to reach out to you, which you were grateful for.

You managed to get yourself a little house nestled within the woods. It was small, not enough for more than one person, but that didn't bother you. You decided a long time ago that being by yourself was easier.

Kurt's things occupied a small corner of your bedroom, carefully arranged as though he might come home one day and ask where something was. His sweater that was beginning to lose its scent hung on the back of a chair. His books sat on the nightstand. You kept the photographs of you two tucked inside the top drawer, taking them out only when you couldn't stand the emptiness anymore. His lavender cologne sat untouched next to his Bible, and you would often take off the cap to take a deep breath of his familiar smell, thinking he was there beside you.

And the ring never left your finger.

There was a church in the middle of town. It was old, with weathered stone walls and beautiful stained-glass windows that painted the floor in brilliant colors whenever the sun came through. You started going there on Sundays, and you weren't sure why.

Maybe because Kurt had loved God, or maybe because you wanted to feel close to something he had believed in, you weren't sure.

The priest never asked too many questions. Somehow, he knew you were grieving. Sometimes you'd sit in the last pew for an hour after everyone else had gone, staring at the stained glass until the colors blurred through your tears.

When you did talk about your lost love with tears in your eyes, the man would offer words from God that were meant to comfort you, but it just made the pain worse. "Love does not end simply because a life does." He would say after sitting next to you.

You wiped at your face. "It feels like it did." You looked toward the altar as the morning sunlight spilled through the stained glass, painting the empty pews in shades of blue, red, and gold. The blue was still your favorite. It would always be your favorite color. "He was supposed to come home."

His expression softened. "Sometimes," he said gently, "the hardest part of grief is not losing the person. It is losing the future you believed you would have with them."

Somehow, Logan, of all people, found you.

You heard the familiar engine rev of his motorcycle come down the dirt driveway before you saw him. The sound rolled through the trees, growing louder as it approached your little house, disturbing the otherwise deafening quiet of the woods.

The coffee mug in your hand hovered halfway to your lips as you listened. The engine growled down the dirt driveway before finally sputtering to a stop, and your stomach dropped.

Nobody knew where you lived. Nobody was supposed to.

You set the mug down on the coffee table as you heard the sound of the kickstand scraping against the ground and heavy bootsteps approaching your front door. You didn't move, staying deathly still, hoping that whoever it was would leave.

A knock sounded against the wooden door, three sharp racks that made your breath hitch.

"Kid," It was Logan's gruff voice, "open the door."

You closed your eyes, and you considered pretending you weren't home. You had spent so long putting that life behind you that you weren't even sure you were ready to see someone from the past.

"I know you're in there." His voice came again. "You're either openin' the door, or I'm kicking it down."

You almost laughed, but it quickly died before it reached your throat. Begrudgingly, you dragged yourself to the door, your hand hovering over the handle.

You weren't sure what frightened you more—the possibility that he'd come to drag you home or the possibility that he'd simply come because he'd been worried.

You opened the door and stared at Logan, who stood on the other side. He looked the same as you remembered, right down to the worn leather jacket and the permanent scowl etched across his face. Grumpy gills, as you affectionately called him.

His eyes moved over you, taking in the oversized sweater that belonged to Kurt, your tired eyes, your unkempt hair. You were sure you looked like a mess, but Logan was never one to judge, simply because that didn't matter to him. There was something that flickered in his gaze, and you had to look away in case he had that same pitiful look as everyone else.

You crossed your arms. "What are you doing here, old man?"

He shrugged. "Thought I'd check on ya."

"Why?"

"Because no one else was gonna." The words hit harder than they should have, twisting the sour pit in your stomach. You regret leaving how you did, despite everything you said being true. Kurt wouldn't have wanted you to leave like that.

Your nails dig into your biceps. "I don't need checking in on."

"Didn't say you did." Logan stepped past you, without waiting for an invitation.

You stared at him incredulously. "Seriously? I didn't say you could come in."

"Suck it up, buttercup."

"Logan."

He looked over his shoulder. "You gonna make me leave?"

You opened your mouth, then closed it. No, you weren't. Because beneath all the anger and exhaustion, there was a small, shameful part of you that was relieved to see a familiar face. Logan seemed to understand.

He walked farther into the house, looking around without commenting on the modest furniture or the boxes you still hadn't bothered unpacking.

His gaze eventually landed on the picture frame sitting on the coffee table of you and Kurt. It was taken during Christmas, both of you wearing atrocious, ugly sweaters with ridiculous decorations. You had your arms around his neck, kissing his cheek, while Kurt smiled brightly for the camera, his arm around your waist, tail behind your head to mimic bunny ears- well, one bunny ear. You both thought it was funny.

Logan's expression changed, just slightly enough for you to catch it. He knew grief and had been there more times than he could count. He'd watched people die, friends disappear. And he knew what it meant to carry someone who wasn't there anymore.

"Cozy." He muttered, and you snorted.

"That's your word for it?"

"Didn't say it was a good cozy, did I?"

The corners of your mouth twitched but dropped as quickly as it came. Logan noticed but didn't say anything.

He plopped heavily onto your couch. "Got any coffee?"

"Coffee?"

"Yeah."

You stared at him, eyebrows furrowing. "You drove all the way out here for coffee?"

"Nope." He leaned back, stretching his arms out. "But it does sound good. Drove a long way to get here."

Your thumb brushed absently over the ring on your finger. "How did you find me?"

"Tracked ya."

"Creepy. You could've called."

"Would you have answered?" You look away. "Thought so."

You rolled your eyes, turning away from him as you stepped into the kitchen, thankful you had a clean mug. "Still a pain in the ass, I see."

Logan chuckled as you poured the lukewarm coffee into the cup. "Still a brat, I see."

You returned, handing him the mug as you sat across from him in your armchair. "Grumpy gills."

His eyebrow lifted at the nickname you hadn't called him in so long. A memory came to mind of the first time you called him that. He was complaining about something you can't remember for a very long time, and the name slipped out. Kurt laughed so hard he nearly spilled his drink, and Logan threatened to throw both of you out the window.

For a moment, you could almost hear Kurt's laughter again, and your heart ached. Then the memory faded, and you swallowed the lump in your throat.

Logan took a sip of coffee, face twisting, and muttered something about it being cold. His eyes settled on the picture again, and you sank deeper into your seat.

"What are you doing here, Logan?" You asked again after a few moments of silence.

His expression hardened. "I wanted to see if you were alive." The response knocks the air out of your lungs.

You understood why, you weren't trying to live while you were at Xavier's after Kurt's death. You were simply there, just existing, and if something made you stop breathing, a sentinel or other dangerous threat to humanity, you wouldn't be upset. Maybe that's what Scott meant.

You take a deep breath. "Well, as you can see, I am very much alive." Not well, though. You don't think you've been well for a long time.

"Good."

You look down at your own cup of coffee, suddenly focused on the soft, milky brown color. "You don't need to worry about me."

"I know."

You looked at him. "Then why did you come?"

He didn't answer immediately, and he looked back toward the photograph again. That was the third time, and you realized that while you were grieving your lover, Logan was grieving his best friend. "Because I know what it's like."

Your chest tightened. "To lose someone?"

"To lose everyone." You didn't know what to say to that. Logan had lived through enough lifetimes of grief to fill a thousand graves. He knew what it was like to wake up and realize someone was gone, as you have done countless mornings. To reach for a person who wasn't there, as you do every single night, especially after your nightmares. To keep expecting to hear a voice that would never come again, as you do when you return home every night, hoping he'd magically appear as if nothing happened.

For a while, neither of you spoke, and you didn't mind. The silence with Logan was different. He didn't expect anything from you, and you appreciated it.

"Does everyone know where I am?" You asked, wrapping your arms around yourself, the sweater you wore that belonged to your beloved holding you as if it were his arms around you.

"No."

"Not even Xavier? Or Ororo? Or hell, Scott?"

He shook his head. "No. Only me. I didn't tell anyone that I found ya." Somehow, that strangely comforted you, but you didn't know why. Maybe because it meant this wasn't an intervention to take you home, or because no one had sent him, or because, for once, someone had come because they wanted to.

Your throat tightened. "Why?"

Logan set down his empty mug. "Figured you wanted it that way."

He continued to visit you almost regularly, and you made sure to keep a fresh pot of coffee warm for him.

Without asking, he began fixing up things around your house. Creaky doors no longer made a sound when you opened them. The hole in the rotten wooden steps in the front of your house was replaced with freshly painted, sturdy wood. A cabinet door that refused to stay closed suddenly worked perfectly. The faucet that had been dripping for weeks stopped. The old floorboard in the hallway that creaked every time you stepped on it was somehow silent.

You weren't sure why he was doing those things but you weren't complaining either.

You had come home one day to see him up on a ladder, fixing the shudder to your bedroom window.

"You know, I can pay someone to do that, right?" You called up to him.

"Yeah, well, I'm already here." He answered, looking down at you for a brief moment before continuing his project.

When he came inside for his hot cup of coffee, he found you staring at the picture on your table. Your finger brushed over Kurt's face, a shuddering breath escaping your lips, as you tried your hardest not to cry again.

Your eyes traced over his bright, beautiful smile that showed his teeth. That smile always made you feel like the luckiest person alive.

"He was happy there." Logan gruffed as he moved to stand beside you.

You sniffled. "He was always happy."

"Especially with you." He looked at the photograph.

"I miss him so much." Your voice cracked, and you didn't wipe away the tears that were falling freely now, not caring if Logan saw you break.

You missed the sound of his voice, him softly calling your name, or Liebling, or Schatz, and the sound of his laughter especially. You missed his touch, the way his gentle hands would cradle your face whenever you kissed, or how his fur felt beneath your fingers when you hugged him. You missed the way he could always find the silver lining in any situation, no matter how dark. You missed his gentle words of encouragement during your times of doubt that would always make you want to be and do better because that's the kind of partner he deserved.

You were tired of hiding the tears. Tired of pretending you were stronger than you were, of swallowing every sob until your chest ached and made you sick to your stomach.

The first tear landed on the photograph. Then another. More followed until you were sobbing, chest heaving with every breath.

When Logan placed his hand on your shoulder, you turned, and whatever fragile control you'd managed to hold onto finally shattered. You collapsed into his arms as your hands grabbed the back of his jacket and you sobbed into him, your entire body trembling beneath the weight of everything you'd been carrying alone.

Logan froze for half a second before his arms slowly came around you, with one wrapped firmly around your back, the other settled against the back of your head. His chin rested gently on the top of your head, as his hand moved slowly across your back. "Me too, kid. Me too."

Logan didn't visit for several weeks, and it began to worry you.

At the cafe, you would watch the news, wondering if there was some intergalactic threat the X-Men were fighting. Surely, he would tell you, right?

Throughout your shift, you were riddled with anxiety. You messed up orders, too busy lost in thought, thinking that something bad was happening and you weren't there to help.

Your boss sent you home early in the afternoon, telling you to get some rest so you could clear your head of whatever issues you had going on. It was then that you decided you would head back to Xavier's. While your little car wasn't the fastest, you would push it to the limit. You doubted they needed someone like you, but you wanted to help anyway. That’s what Kurt would’ve wanted you to do.

As you were driving to your home to pack a small bag of clothes and to see if your old uniform still fit, you could hear the familiar sounds of a jet flying overhead. Not just any jet, the Blackbird.

You hastily pulled into the driveway, slamming on the brakes. You slowly stepped out and looked towards the sky, where you could see a sleek black aircraft cut through the clouds above the trees.

Your heart pounded in your chest as the jet banked sharply, its engines roaring as it descended toward the trees behind your home.

Your first thought was Logan, or that something terrible had happened. Whatever it was left a gnawing feeling in your stomach that made you feel uneasy. Something wasn't right, and you weren't sure you could handle losing someone else.

What if it was Anna Marie? Or Remy? What if they were gone and your last words to tell them were terrible, hurtful things that didn't matter?

As the sounds of the engine began to fade, you started towards the forest. Dust and leaves whipped around you as the engines powered down, the hatch opening slowly. You raised an arm to shield your face as Wolverine emerged first. You caught a glimpse of a few others: Storm, Rogue, Gambit, and Beast. They looked tired and rough, but alive. And relieved?

Logan walked down the ramp and took off his mask. He reeked and definitely needed a shower, but you had never been happier to see him. "Kid, I need you to not freak out, okay?" You wanted to question the small smile on his face. Was he hiding something? What the hell is going on?

Your heartbeat continued to hammer against your chest. "Why would I freak out?"

He didn't answer as he stepped to the side as another figure began to approach you. Your breath caught as your eyes settled on blue fur that caught in the sunlight, yellow eyes scanning the forest around him, until his eyes settled on you.

You couldn't breathe, or maybe you forgot how to.

In front of you was your beloved, the man you grieved for years, your Kurt.

For a moment, the entire world ceased to exist as the two of you stared at each other. He looked almost the same as the last time you saw him, except maybe a little tired too, but there were tears in his eyes.

"Liebling?"

At the sound of his voice, your knees nearly buckled. You stumbled backward, shaking your head. "No...”

His face crumpled as he took a step forward. "Y/N-"

You covered your mouth, blinking rapidly as if this was a dream, and you were going to wake up any minute. "No, no, this can't be real. Y-you-" Your breath hitched, tears blurred your vision. "You died."

He gulped as he inched closer to you, his steps hesitant. "I know, and I am so sorry, my Y/N."

You watched him carefully: how his chest rose and fell with each breath, how his eyes never left yours as if he was memorizing every detail of your face, how his hands tentatively reached for you, but you took two steps back.

He stopped immediately, and you saw the hurt flash across his face. He wasn't angry, no, your Kurt could never be angry with you. He looked afraid. Afraid that too much time had passed between you two, that maybe you didn't want him anymore, or even that there was someone else.

You weren't afraid of him though, you were terrified that if you finally touched him, he would disappear again.

Kurt was inches away from you, crying, and you were too. You looked at Logan, who was now tearfully smiling. He gave you a nod, as if to say, this was real, this isn't a trick, he's alive.

"I-I don't understand-" your voice broke as you looked back to Kurt. "How are you here?"

He smiled through his tears. "It's a very long story." Oh, that smile. The same one that haunted your dreams and brought you comfort, even if it was just for a moment.

You swallowed as your fingers gently reached to cup his cheek. He was warm, so very warm, like he always was. Kurt closed his eyes and leaned into your palm, his shoulders relaxing at your touch. You tried to feel if he was in any pain or hurt but there was nothing, he was okay.

A sob tore through your throat. "You're warm."

He opened his eyes, that beautifully yellow lighting up your world as if it was the sun itself. "I am told that is generally a good sign."

You laughed, a real laugh that hadn't escaped your lips in you don't know how long. It turned into a sob halfway through as your other hand touched his face, making absolutely certain he was real.

He turned his head and pressed a trembling kiss to your palm and whatever remains of your restraint shattered.

You threw your arms around him and Kurt caught you instantly, as you buried your face into his neck, breathing in his scent. The brimestone, sulfur, and sweat didn't bother you at all, all that was missing was the lavender.

His arms wrapped around your waist, pulling you as close to him as possible.

You clung to him, your fingers twisting in the back of his uniform, utterly terrified that if you loosened your grip for even a second, he would be gone.

You listened to his heartbeat, the sounds of his breathing, the rusting of his uniform fabric between your hands. You squeezed him tighter, as his tail curled around your ankle.

He was alive. Your beloved Kurt was alive and breathing.

“Oh my Liebling,” his voice cracked as you felt his lips press to your hair, then your temple, and finally your cheek. He seemed unable to stop touching you either, hands moving over your back soothingly, then moving to rub your arms. He was relishing in your touch just as much as you were with his.

Your knees finally buckled and Kurt lowered himself with you, keeping safely cradled to his chest as you sank onto the forest floor.

You pulled away just enough to look at him and your hands found his face again. You touched his cheeks, his jaw, the bridge of his nose, the pointed tips of his ears. You traced every feature you had memorized so many years ago, as though your fingers could convince the rest of you that this wasn’t some cruel hallucination.

Kurt let you.

He watched you with tears still slipping down his cheeks, his own hands never leaving you. When his eyes finally settled on the ring on your left hand, he swallowed. “You found it?”

“Yes. Haven’t taken it off since.”

His fingers traced the ring before he brought your hand to his lips, kissing the ring this time. “Immer bei dir Schatz,” he murmured so softly you almost didn’t hear it. “I want to ask you properly-“

You cut him off with a searing kiss, your hands cupping his jaw, tracing him with your thumbs. Kurt melted into your touch, his own hand cradling the back of your head, fingers sliding into your hair.

You kissed him as though you could somehow make up for every kiss you’d lost, every morning you had woken alone, every night you’d reached across the bed only to find cold sheets.

Kurt kissed you with the same desperation.

His hand remained tangled in your hair while his other arm tightened around your waist, drawing you against him until there wasn’t even an inch of space between you. His tail curled instinctively around your leg, as though some part of him needed the reassurance that you were really there too.

When you finally pulled away, resting your forehead against his, you gazed into his eyes that were waiting for yours. The look he gave you made your chest ache, there was so much love and adoration, and it made you kiss him again. You would kiss him until the world ended, not caring about anything else.

“You don’t need to ask me properly, my Kurt,” you murmured against his lips, “I’ve already said yes.”

A soft laugh escaped him as he slips his hand from your hair to your cheek, brushing away the tears that hadn’t seem to stop yet. “You have no idea how long I dreamed of hearing you say that.”

You smiled shakily. “I think I have some idea.”

Kurt presses his lips to your forehead. “I love you, Mien Liebling, so much.”

Your eyes filled again. “I love you more. I don’t think I ever stopped.”

You weren’t sure how long you stayed wrapped in each other's arms but right now, time didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was the blue man you held so dearly to your heart.

Somewhere behind you, Logan cleared his throat. You looked over your shoulder to see him standing with the others, wearing the most unbearable smug you’d ever seen.

“You planning’ on coming home, kid?”

You glanced back and Kurt, who was already smiling and looked at you as if you’d hung the moon and stars.

“Could you give us another minute?” You asked, looking backs to Logan.

He snorted. “Take five.”

He turned away, herding the others back into the Blackbird when you met Anna Marie then Remy’s eyes. Neither of you knew what to say, there were years of grief, of guilt, of so much anger between you three.

Anna Marie smiled through the tears as Remy squeezed her shoulders. You return the smile and while it wasn’t forgiveness yet, it was a start of something.

Kurt helped you stand, pulling you against his side, as his arm naturally slid around your middle, where it always used to go. He was watching you with that same adoring expression that made you fall in love with him all over again.

You looked to the Blackbird, then to your small little house, then back to him.

“We can go wherever you’d like, my Y/N.” Kurt says softly. “My home is wherever you are.”

Plus, the mission ran long, the debrief even longer, and he's been running on fumes for the better part of eighteen hours. Maybe this is his body reminding him that he's not actually invincible even if the serum makes it feel that way sometimes. He's tired. That's all this is.

Medical cleared him forty minutes ago. Routine checkup, vitals normal, no injuries to note. Mission success. Another HYDRA facility taken out, mostly inactive but still operational enough to need clearing. A handful of guards, computers full of encrypted files for Nat to sort through, and more dust than seemed reasonable for a place that was supposedly still in use. 

It was a weird amount of dust, actually. Steve keeps snagging on that. Active facilities don't accumulate dust like that, yet the lab was covered with the thick powdery kind that coats every surface and blooms up in pale clouds when you move through it wrong.

And move through it wrong Steve had. 

When he'd taken down three guards in the main lab, the force of the fight had sent up a particularly thick puff of it. Enough that his throat constricted and his chest went tight. A too familiar tightness, low and stubborn, like he was twelve again when every breath was a negotiation. The kind that used to plant itself behind his sternum on cold Brooklyn mornings and refuse to shift.

He'd actually coughed. Hard enough that he had to step out of the room, hand braced against the doorframe while he caught his breath like some rookie who couldn't handle a little particulate in the air. But medical had checked his oxygen levels, listened to his lungs, found nothing wrong. Probably just particulate irritation, they'd said. The serum would clear it. And they'd been right - his breathing's fine now. Everything's fine.

Steve shakes his head, swinging a leg over his bike, and heads into the building. He's overthinking. Natasha told him he looked like shit and should go home and sleep for once. He'd laughed, told her she was projecting.

But now Steve's starting to think she might've been onto something.

The building's stairwell is mercifully cool and quiet, and Steve takes the stairs two at a time like always. Five flights is nothing. He's done it a thousand times, usually without thinking, but tonight by the second floor he's warm - too warm for the mild evening. The leather jacket that felt fine on the ride home now feels stifling, clinging to his shoulders and back.

By the third floor, he starts pulling at his collar. By the fourth, he's unzipped the jacket entirely. And when he hits the fifth floor, there's a thin sheen of sweat on his neck and his breath is coming harder than it should.

Steve pauses, hand on the door to your shared apartment, and for a second he considers turning around. Going back to the compound, making medical run more comprehensive tests.

But the thought of another hour in that sterile medical bay instead of being home - instead of seeing you, sinking into that easy warmth you always seem to carry with you - stirs something wrong in his chest. Makes something tighten uncomfortably. He needs to be home. Needs the particular brand of domesticity that only exists in your shared space, where he gets to be Steve and not Captain America.

Yes. He just needs to get inside, see you, shower, and maybe eat something if you've made dinner. Then sleep for ten hours. Simple.

He pushes through the door before he can second-guess it, and the apartment wraps around him immediately - warmth, music drifting from the kitchen, the smell of garlic and pancetta that means you’re making his favorite pasta. Dropping his duffle by the door, Steve heads to the kitchen, drawn by the sounds of you humming off-key, moving around, the comfortable domestic soundtrack that usually settles something in his chest.

Some of the tension in his shoulders starts to ease. This is good. Normal. Exactly what he needs.

Until he rounds the corner and his brain stutters to a halt.

You're wearing his hoodie. Stood at the stove with your back to him, intently focused on cooking, and you're wearing his hoodie. It practically swamps your frame. The sleeves are pushed up past your elbows because otherwise they'd swallow your hands, shoulders so broad they slip off one of yours, exposing a lacy bralette strap and the curve of bare skin that Steve wants his mouth on.

And shorts. Tiny black shorts that barely qualify as clothing, just peeking out from under the hem of his hoodie, leaving your legs completely bare from where the hoodie ends. 

You're swimming in the hoodie. In something of his. The size difference so obvious it makes his hands itch at this sudden, visceral urge to grab you and see how you’d disappear under him. To see how easy it would be to cage you in, crowd you back against the counter. To get his hands under his hoodie and find out if you're wearing his scent on your skin the way you're wearing his clothes, if you smell like him now, if you thought about him when you put it on, if—

"Oh my god, Steve, you startled me!" 

The sound of your voice catches him mid thought, and his brain slams back to room. You've spun around, wooden spoon in hand, and despite the startled words your whole face lights up. There’s genuine relief there, happiness that seems disproportionate to him just walking through the door. "How was the mission? You look exhausted, are you—"

"Is that my hoodie?"

The words come out rough, almost accusatory, cutting across your concern. Steve doesn't even know why that's the first thing out of his mouth, why out of everything he could say - something normal like hello, mission was fine, dinner smells good - that's what his brain latched onto.

You blink, clearly surprised by the abruptness, then glance down at yourself like you'd forgotten. 

"Oh. Yeah." When you look back up there's mischief in your eyes. "It's way comfier than all of mine. You don't mind, do you?"

Mind. Right. 

Does he mind that you're standing in his kitchen wearing his clothes, drowning in fabric that smells like him, looking so at home and domestic and pretty that something in his chest is pulling tight enough to hurt? Does he mind that this is somehow more intimate than it has any right to be? That the sight of you in his hoodie is doing things to him that he absolutely cannot examine right now?

"No, it's fine." His mouth is dry. When did his mouth get dry? "Keep it."

"Good," you reply, grin widening. "'Cause I wasn't giving it back anyway."

There’s a teasing lilt to it that Steve feels low in his gut. Or lower than his gut. Somewhere he’s definitely not supposed to be feeling things about his roommate, his friend, the person who should feel safe and comfortable in her own home without him losing his mind over a fucking hoodie.

But God, you turn back to the stove and Steve can’t stop watching. Even as you start chattering to him about dinner, about your day, something that would normally have him leaning against the counter asking questions, he's not hearing your words anymore. Instead, Steve's gaze drops without permission, returning to the way the hoodie shifts when you move, how it rides up when you reach for the spice cabinet and shows more of how those shorts cling to your ass.

He takes a step closer without meaning to. Then another. Close enough now that your scent hits him properly and floods his senses - that particular sweetness he associates with you, but underneath it, woven through, is him. His scent. 

You smell like you've wrapped yourself in him, like you're marked with it, and the possessive bolt of heat that shoots through Steve nearly buckles his knees. His fingers curl into fists at his sides, jaw clenching as his body responds with alarming intensity to something as simple as you wearing his clothes.

The kitchen feels too small suddenly - too hot, the air too thick, and Steve can't seem to get enough oxygen to his brain. No prizes for guessing where else it's heading.

And the heat under his skin, that constant low simmer since he left the compound, suddenly cranks up to something that makes him lightheaded. His jeans are getting tight, his cock beginning to harden. And there's this clawing need building in his chest that he doesn't know what to do with, doesn't know how to control.

Of course, it's not new, the attraction.

He's been attracted to you since you moved in six months ago. Since Sam had shoved your number at him and told him his apartment was depressing and lonely and that he needed a roommate. Since you'd shown up with boxes stacked in your arms and made some joke about not being a serial killer that surprised a laugh out of him. 

Living with you has been comfortable in a way he hadn't expected, all casual dinners and movie nights and inside jokes. And yes, maybe he's spent more time than he'd like to admit thinking about what it might be like to close that distance, to make this more than friendly, to kiss you. 

But Steve's not stupid. Asking you out could ruin everything. Could make you uncomfortable in your own home, make you feel like you had to say yes because of who he is, or worse, make you feel like you had to leave if you said no. The risk of destroying this easy, comfortable thing you've built together isn't worth it, no matter how many times Sam and Bucky tell him he's being an idiot and should just ask you to dinner already.

And yet, now his body doesn't seem to care. It's like every nerve ending in his body has suddenly rewired itself to point at you like a compass finding north. Something that's making his hands shake and his brain offer up increasingly detailed images of what he could do if he just closed the distance between you, if he just reached out and—

"Steve? Are you even listening to me?"

Your voice cuts through the spiral once again and he realizes you've been talking. You've turned back to look at him, and your eyebrows are doing that thing where they draw together with worry. 

"You look really flushed." You're studying him now, concern sharpening in your eyes, and then you're moving toward him. "And you're kind of just... standing there like something's wrong."

Your hand comes up, and the second your fingers make contact with his forearm, Steve jerks back like you've burned him. Nearly trips over his own feet putting distance between you. The brief touch sends electricity straight through him, and his cock responds immediately, twitching and thickening in his jeans until they feel obscenely tight. He shifts his stance, angles his body slightly away, desperately trying to hide what's becoming impossible to conceal.

This is insane. He's going insane.

Your eyes are darting over his face now, head tilted in that way you do when you're trying to figure him out, and there's genuine worry written across your features. Everything about it - you being this close, smelling like him, looking up at him with those big, concerned eyes - is making everything exponentially worse. The ache low in his gut intensifies, spreading outward until his whole body feels like a live wire.

"Steve, are you okay?" you ask, and he makes the mistake of watching your lips form the words. "You're really worrying me."

"Yeah." His voice comes out wrecked, barely recognizable. He clears his throat, trying again. "Fine. Just tired."

"Are you sure?" You take another step closer and Steve's back hits the doorframe. "You're sweating. Like, a lot. And you're breathing hard."

He is. He can feel it now, a bead of it running down his temple. And his t-shirt is sticking to his spine despite the fact that the apartment isn't remotely warm. What the fuck was happening to him? His skin feels wrong. Too tight. Prickling with something that's not quite pain but certainly is more than uncomfortable. Every nerve ending feels raw and oversensitive.

His jacket is still on and it's unbearable, too tight across his shoulders and trapping heat against his skin. He needs it off. 

"I'm fine," he lies, and even he can hear how strained it sounds. "Just—I need a shower."

"A shower?" Your frown deepens. "Steve, maybe we should call Bruce or someone, you're clearly not—"

"I'm fine." It comes out harsher than he meant it to, and he watches you flinch. Fuck. Fuck, he's making this so much worse. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I just—it's just muscle tension. From the mission. My muscles are sore and the serum makes me run hot sometimes, you know that, and I just need—a cold shower will help, it'll help cool me down and—"

He's babbling. He knows he's babbling, throwing out excuse after excuse while you stared at him like you'd never seen him before, like he's a stranger wearing Steve Rogers' face, but he can't seem to stop.

"The mission was intense," he continues frantically, needing you to believe him, needing you to stop looking so worried. "Lots of close combat and I'm just—I'm tense. All my muscles are tense. A shower will help. Just need to cool down and relax."

He turns and practically flees down the hallway, before he can say what he really needs - you, spread out beneath him, wrapped around him, making sounds he's only let himself imagine in his weakest, most shameful moments when his hand is on his cock in the dark and he pretends it's you touching him instead.

Steve stumbles into his bedroom and straight through to the en-suite, shutting the door and leaning against it like something's chasing him. His reflection in the mirror looks frantic. Face flushed dark, pupils blown so wide, chest heaving. His lips look fuller somehow, plumper and pinker, like he's been biting them without realizing.

Guilt churns in his gut alongside the relentless heat. He'd scared you. Snapped at you when all you'd done was try to help. Made you worry. Been completely fucking weird and now you probably think he's losing his mind.

Maybe he is.

Because he's so hard it actually hurts. His cock is straining against his jeans, thick and aching, pressing against the zipper unbearably. He can feel his pulse in it, each throb sending a jolt of sensation through him that was equal parts pleasure and agony. When he shifts his weight, the friction of denim against sensitive skin makes him bite back a groan.

He's never felt like this. This desperate, all-consuming need that won't quit no matter how much he tries to think it away, logic it away, force it down with sheer willpower.

Sweat runs down his temple, his neck. The leather jacket is still on and Steve tears it off with shaking hands, letting it drop to the floor. It doesn't help. Everything still feels too hot, too tight, like his skin has shrunk two sizes and doesn't fit his body anymore.

Steve's fingers fumble with his belt, clumsy in a way they never are. They're shaking now, struggling with the simple mechanics of a belt buckle while his cock throbs insistently behind the zipper.

He gets it open finally, pops the button on his jeans, and the relief of pressure is so immediate and intense that he has to brace one hand against the sink. But it's not enough. Not even close. He shoves the jeans down his hips and they catch on his thighs - still damp with sweat, fabric clinging - and Steve has to peel them off with more force than should be necessary.

His boxer briefs are tented obscenely, a wet patch of precum already visible at the tip, and Steve can't even meet his own reflection in the mirror.

The shirt comes off next, pulled over his head and discarded without ceremony. His dog tags clink against his chest, metal warm from his overheated skin. Every piece of clothing that comes off should make him feel better, cooler, but it doesn't. If anything, being bare makes him more aware of how wrong everything feels. The hypersensitivity of his skin, the way even air movement feels like too much stimulus.

Steve hooks his thumbs in the waistband of his boxer briefs, and just the brush of fabric as he moves pulls a sound from his throat he doesn't recognize. When he shoves them down, his cock springs free, completely erect and already leaking.

This isn't normal. Even for him, even with the serum's effect on his libido, this is excessive. Steve looks down at himself and feels something close to shame. 

Turning away from the mirror, Steve reaches into the shower, cranking the cold tap as far as it will go. He steps in the moment the water starts flowing and the cold hits him like a physical shock. For a blessed moment, it cuts through everything else. His overheated skin welcomes the icy spray like a mercy, the temperature difference sharp enough to make him gasp in relief. Steve braces his hands against the tile, head hanging under the stream, and tries to breathe through it. 

Tries to think about anything other than you. Anything other than your scent and your touch and the sight of you in those shorts and his hoodie.

The water runs over his shoulders, down his spine, plastering his hair to his forehead. It should help. But his cock is still hard. Still throbbing. And as the initial shock of cold fades, the heat comes creeping back. That insistent burning under his skin that the water isn't touching.

Steve squeezes his eyes shut and immediately regrets it.

Because his mind is flooded with images of you leaning over the counter in those tight little shorts, making dinner. And his traitorous brain doesn't stop there, it keeps going, imagining you in that same position but for different reasons, imagining him behind you, imagining his hands shoving that fabric out of the way to find you wet and needy for him.

"Fuck," he hisses through clenched teeth.

His cock throbs in response, another bead of precum forming at the tip despite the freezing water, despite the fact that he's actively trying not to think about you. He looks down at himself - still achingly hard, heavy between his legs - and feels another wave of confused arousal crash through him that makes his knees weak.

Maybe it's just because it's been so long?

Steve tries to think back to the last time he actually took care of himself. Weeks? No, longer than that. A month at least, maybe two. He's been so focused on missions, on taking down HYDRA bases, on being Captain America, that he hasn't exactly had time for anything "extracurricular."

This is probably the longest he's gone without any kind of release since waking up from the ice.

The serum amplified everything about him, including ramping up his sex drive to levels that had taken some getting used to. Back in the forties, right after the transformation, he'd been blindsided by it. Suddenly he'd gone from Steve Rogers who could barely keep a girl's attention to someone who had urges that were damn near overwhelming.

He'd had to learn to manage it, to deal with needs that were sharper and more insistent than anything a normal man experienced. So he'd figured out his body's rhythms, what it needed, how often. Learned to take care of himself efficiently and move on. 

Except now he's apparently pushed too far, gone too long, and his enhanced biology is making its displeasure violently known.

That has to be it. Has to be why he's reacting like this. Not because something's wrong, but because he's pent up and his body is responding to deprivation the way the serum makes it respond to everything: excessively.

And you. God, you in those shorts, in his hoodie, being so sweet and domestic, had just been the trigger. The match to kindling that had been building for weeks.

It's not pervy. It's just biology. Enhanced biology, biology nonetheless. So if he just takes care of it, he'll be fine. The need will ease, his head will clear, and he can go back out there and have dinner like a normal person instead of someone who can barely look at his roommate without getting hard.

Steve's hand drifts down his stomach almost without conscious thought, and when his fingers wrap around his cock he can't stop the groan that rumbles from his chest. The touch sends electricity up his spine, pleasure so intense it's almost painful after being hard and neglected for so long. 

He strokes slowly at first, testing, and his head falls back against the tile with a dull thunk. The cold water streams over his chest but he doesn't feel it anymore. All his focus narrows to the heat building in his core, the slick slide of his fist over sensitized skin, the way his cock throbs with every stroke like it's been waiting for this. 

And in his thoughts, you're there. 

Steve's grip tightens involuntarily and he strokes faster, chasing friction, telling himself to think about something else, anything else. But his mind won't cooperate. It just keeps offering up increasingly vivid fantasies: what you'd look like without his hoodie, whether you were wearing anything under those shorts, if you'd be wet if he checked, if you ever touched yourself in your room late at night thinking about— 

"Shit—," he curses, the sound echoing off the shower tiles. 

God, what would you sound like? The question burrows into his brain and won't let go. Would you whimper? Moan his name? Would you be loud or would you try to stay quiet, biting your lip the way you do when you're concentrating? Would you beg? He thinks you might. Thinks you might say his name all breathy and desperate while he slowly thrusts into you, feeling you stretch around his cock inch by inch. 

A low groan builds in his chest and Steve has to bite down on his lip so hard that he tastes copper. You're just in the kitchen. The walls aren't that thick. And the thought of you hearing him like this should horrify him but instead it sends another bolt of heat straight through his gut.

Steve's free hand slaps against the tile, bracing himself as his knees threaten to give out.

His cock is leaking steadily now, precum making the slide slick and easy, as his hand speeds up, rhythm getting rougher, chasing the sensation. And Steve can't stop imagining it's your hand instead of his. Your smaller fingers wrapped around him, struggling to fit around his girth, looking up at him with those eyes while you learn exactly how he likes to be touched.

Or better yet, your mouth. Fuck, your mouth. Those pretty lips he'd caught himself staring at stretched around his cock, your tongue sliding along the underside, taking him deeper while he threads his fingers through your hair, guiding you, feeling your moans vibrate around him.

A strangled sound escapes his throat before he can stop it, and Steve has to sink his teeth into his shoulder to muffle it. He's so wound up, weeks of neglect and pent-up need making him hair-trigger sensitive. His hips thrust forward into his fist, searching for more friction, more pressure, chasing the orgasm building at the base of his spine with alarming speed. 

This is wrong. This is so fucking wrong. You're his friend, his roommate, someone who trusts him enough to live with him and wear his clothes and worry when he seems off. And here he is jerking off to fantasies of fucking your face. While you wait for him to come back for dinner.

But he can't stop. Can't make his mind go blank or think of anything else.

"Fuck—" His forearm isn't enough to muffle it and Steve bites down on his own arm as his orgasm slams through him. "Oh god, fuck—"

His cock pulses in his grip, and your name tears from his throat. Thick ropes of cum paint the shower wall, more than seems possible. The serum already makes him produce more than normal, but this is excessive even for him. It's almost painful in its intensity, pleasure so sharp it makes his legs shake, and he has to brace both hands against the wall to stay upright while it works through him.

For a few blissful seconds, pleasure drowns out every other sensation in his body

Then reality crashes back in, and with it comes the guilt.

Steve stares at the evidence of his release being washed away by the spray, chest heaving, and feels the shame burn through him hotter than the need had been.

"Jesus Christ," he mutters, scrubbing both hands over his face. "What the fuck is wrong with me?"

But even as guilt churns heavy in his gut, even as he tells himself he's disgusting and inappropriate and a terrible friend, he looks down and his stomach drops. He's still hard. Not just half-hard, not softening. Fully, achingly erect like he hadn't just had one of the most intense orgasms of his life. The relief he'd expected, the clarity that should have come, was nowhere to be found.

Steve stares in disbelief. The serum gives him a faster refractory period than normal, sure, but this? This isn't normal. Even for him.

He wraps a hand around himself experimentally and has to bite back a groan. The touch sends sparks through his overloaded nerves, pleasure bordering on unbearable, but underneath it the need is still there. Still clawing at his insides, unsatisfied and demanding more.

If anything, the ache in his gut feels worse now. More insistent. Like his body is genuinely angry that he came and it wasn't inside you, that it was his hand and not your body taking it, not your pussy clenching around him and milking him dry.

"No," Steve says out loud, voice hard like he's ordering a subordinate. Like he can command his own body back into line through sheer force of will. "Stop it."

This can't be just pent-up sexual frustration. Something else is happening. Something must've happened at that Hydra base. It has to that - the dust. The way it had hung in the air, gotten in his lungs, made him cough like his body was rejecting it. What if it wasn't just particulate irritation? What if HYDRA had something in that lab, some kind of bioweapon that got into his system?

Steve's jaw clenches. He should call Bruce. Should've called him an hour ago instead of convincing himself this was normal. Bruce would run tests, figure out what he'd been exposed to, synthesize a counter-agent if needed. Or Tony. Tony has access to SHIELD's entire database on HYDRA weapons, might recognize the symptoms.

But the thought of making that call, of trying to explain, "Hey, I can't stop thinking about fucking my roommate, I'm hard enough to cut diamond, and I just jerked off in the shower while moaning her name," makes him want to die. Tony would never let him live it down, would make jokes about it for the rest of Steve's natural life. 

He'd probably tell Natasha, who would tell Clint, and then the entire team would know that Captain America got dosed with some kind of HYDRA sex drug and spent the evening jerking off to thoughts of his roomate. 

Maybe it'll pass on its own. The serum processes toxins faster than a normal metabolism; whatever this is might just need time to work through his system. He can get through dinner, make some excuse about not feeling well, go to bed early. Wake up tomorrow back to normal.

Turning off the water with more force than necessary, Steve reaches for a towel. Even the act of drying off feels like too much. The terry cloth dragging across his oversensitized skin makes him grit his teeth. He manages his chest and arms with rough, perfunctory swipes, but when the towel brushes his cock he actually hisses, the sensation sharp enough to make his vision blur.

He abandons the towel halfway through, still damp, and pulls his boxers back on, hissing at the friction of fabric against sensitive skin. The compression just makes him more aware of his situation. He's tenting the boxers obscenely, the outline of his erection impossible to miss, a damp spot already forming again where he's leaking. There's no hiding this. No way to pretend everything's fine when his body is advertising exactly how not-fine he is.

And the thought of putting anything else on makes his overheated skin crawl. Maybe he could manage sweatpants. Loose ones that won't cling. And then he'll return to the kitchen, try and act normal for dinner.

Steve takes a breath that doesn't quite fill his lungs, braces himself, and opens the bathroom door.

You're in his bedroom.

Standing there with frozen peas in one hand, and a pill bottle and bottle of water in the other. The shock of it - you, here, in his space when he's barely holding himself together, when he's standing here in nothing but his boxers with his cock still straining obscenely against the fabric - roots him to the spot. Your head snaps up at the sound of the door, eyes going wide.

"Oh! Sorry, you'd been a while and you were so weird earlier and I got worried..."

The words trail off. Steve watches it happen, the way your gaze catches on his bare, dripping chest. You're trying to be subtle, he thinks, trying to make it look clinical, concerned, but there's nothing clinical about the way your focus catches on the water beaded across his chest.

Your lips part slightly as you track a single droplet running down his sternum, over the defined ridges of his abs, following its path like you're memorizing it until it disappears into the waistband of his boxers.

And then your gaze drops lower.

Steve watches your pupils dilate the moment you see what’s impossible to miss, impossible to misinterpret. Time stretches. Your breath hitches just loud enough for him to hear, and neither of you moves.

"I thought—" Your voice comes out different. Breathier. You swallow so hard he can see your throat work. "I thought these might help. For your muscles."

You hold up the peas and pills like they explain why you're in his bedroom, but your gaze hasn't moved back to his face. It's still tracking over him - shoulders, chest, the V of muscle at his hips - and Steve can see the flush creeping up your neck in real time. 

He should grab something to cover himself, should apologize, should do literally anything other than just stand there letting you look at him like that.

You start rambling now, that nervous spillover of words you do when you're flustered. "Frozen peas for the soreness, and Bruce made these painkillers specifically for your metabolism, remember? For when—"

"You didn't have to do that." His voice sounds like gravel.

"Sorry," you say quietly, and your eyes finally drag back up to his face. "I'm just… you really scared me earlier. I've never seen you like that."

The concern in your voice is palpable. But then you shift your weight and he catches the way your gaze dips again, just for a second. Your tongue darts out to wet your lips - unconscious, he's sure, but it doesn't matter because the sight of it sends heat straight through him so fast it makes his head spin.

Did you hear him? In the shower? Is that why you came to his room? Because you heard your name, heard what he was doing? The thought should mortify him. Should make him want to disappear through the floor. Instead, his cock gives an interested twitch that he knows you can see.

"Steve?" 

Your voice pulls him back. You've moved closer. When did that happen? The peas and water are on his nightstand now and you're right there, close enough that when Steve pulls in his next breath, your scent floods his senses again. But there's something else now. Something sweeter, headier, that makes his enhanced senses lock onto you like a target.

Arousal.

You're aroused. The realization slams into him with physical force. He can smell it on you, subtle but unmistakable, and every instinct in his body that's been screaming at him all evening suddenly focuses with laser precision on that single fact.

"You're still really flushed," you say, and your voice has gone soft. Worried. "And you're breathing so hard. Are you sure nothing's wrong?"

Everything's wrong. You're too close and you smell too good and he can see your pulse fluttering in your throat and all he can think about is closing that last foot of distance and finding out if you taste as good as you smell.

"I'm fine," Steve lies, and it might be the most blatant one yet.

You turn to face him fully, and the genuine worry etched in your features makes his chest tight for different reasons.

"You do so much, Stevie," you probe, and the nickname lands like a caress. "You hold so much in. You've been working so hard lately, mission after mission." You step closer and Steve's breath catches, every muscle in his body going rigid with the effort of staying still. "I'm worried about you. If there's anything I can do to help, anything at all, please tell me. I'll do it."

Anything at all.

Steve's mind immediately offers up about a dozen graphic answers to that - vivid, explicit images of exactly what you could do to help, each one more detailed than the last. He has to close his eyes against the onslaught, has to physically fight back the thoughts of your mouth on him, your body under his, the sounds you'd make if he just gave in and took what his body is screaming for. 

You don't mean it like that. You're just being kind, being a good friend, offering comfort the way you always do. You have no idea what's running through his head right now, how close he is to snapping.

"You don't—" His voice cracks and he has to clear his throat, has to force the words out. "You don't need to worry about me."

But you're not listening, or maybe you're just too concerned to care about his protests, because your hand comes up toward his face and Steve's reflexes take over before his brain can catch up. His hand shoots out and catches your wrist mid-air, and the second skin touches skin everything goes white-hot.

The touch sears through him like lightning. He can feel your pulse under his fingertips, quick and fluttering, can feel the softness of your skin, and it takes every ounce of willpower he possesses not to yank you against him right then and there.

"Let me see," you protest, and before Steve can process the words you're pulling your wrist free of his grip. A determined tug that his lust-addled brain doesn't think to resist. Both of your palms come up to cup his face, cool against his burning skin.

Steve's lungs stop working. Your hands on his jaw, your thumbs at his temples, the way you're studying him with those worried eyes while standing close enough that he can see the individual flecks of colour in your iris is obliterating what's left of his control. "Oh my god, you're burning up. Steve, you're literally…"

He can't hear the rest. Can't process words when your hands are on his face and your arousal is flooding his senses and the coil of need in his gut has pulled so tight he thinks it might actually snap him in half. All he can think about is grabbing your wrists, pulling you flush against him, finding out if your mouth tastes as good as he's imagined when he finally stops being careful and takes what he wants.

Your fingers move to his neck - checking his pulse - and Steve stops breathing entirely. His cock throbs so hard it's painful and he can feel his control dissolving like sugar in water, going from solid to nothing in seconds.

He needs. God, he needs. Needs to touch you, taste you, needs to rip those tiny shorts off and find out if you're as wet as you smell, needs to bury himself inside you until this relentless burning finally stops, needs to pin you to his bed and fuck you until you're screaming his name and all of a sudden he can't remember why he was fighting this in the first place.

"I'm calling Bruce—"

"No!"

The word comes out too loud, too violent, and Steve watches you jump. He's scaring you again and he hates it but he can't stop, can't make himself be gentle when his whole body is screaming.

"You need to leave." The words sound strangled, barely human. His control is hanging by a thread and that thread is unravelling fast. "Please. You need to go. Right now."

"What? No, Stevie, I'm not leaving when you're clearly—"

"Please." It comes out like a whine, and some distant part of Steve registers that he's begging but he's too far gone to care about pride or dignity anymore.

He takes a step back, needing distance before he does something unforgivable. "You don't—you don't understand. You need to go back to your room. Lock the door. Don't come near me."

Your expression shifts to hurt and confusion, brow furrowing in that way that makes his chest ache even through the haze of need. "Why? Steve, I just want to help!"

"You can't help with this!" Too sharp, too harsh, and he watches you flinch like he's struck you. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, just—please just go. Please."

"You're scaring me." Your voice comes out small and it kills him, absolutely kills him. "Just tell me what's wrong. Whatever it is, we can figure it out togeth—"

"I can't stop thinking about you." The confession tears out of him before he can stop it, raw and desperate and too honest. "I can't—fuck, I've been trying, I've been trying so hard to hold it together but I can't think straight and all I want—all I can think about is—"

He cuts himself off with a harsh breath but it's too late. The truth is out there now, hanging in the air between you like something physical.

You stare at him with your eyes wide, and Steve can see your chest rising and falling rapidly. Can see the exact moment his words register. The shock flickering across your face, then understanding, then something that looks dangerously close to want. Your scent spikes so sharply it makes his knees weak, that sweet arousal flooding his senses until he can barely think through it.

"Steve," you breathe, and there's something in your voice he's never heard before. Something breathless and urgent.

You take a step closer. Then another. Your hand comes up to rest against his chest, right over his hammering heart, and Steve's breath stops entirely. He can feel the tremble in your fingers, can see the way your eyes flick to his lips, and he knows with sudden, devastating certainty what you're about to do.

You push up on your toes, tilting your face toward his, close enough that he can feel your breath ghost across his lips, and Steve's last thread of control frays to nothing.

Lunging that last inch, he captures your mouth in a kiss that tries, briefly, to be gentle - some buried instinct trying for something tender, wanting to do this right. But the moment your lips part under his, a deep rumbling growl tears up from his throat and his hands are suddenly everywhere. One hand fists in your hair, gripping tight to angle your head exactly where he needs it, while the other clamps onto your waist. Tight enough that you know you'll feel the imprint of his fingers tomorrow.

God, you want to feel it tomorrow.

He yanks you flush to his body and you stumble into him with a gasp that's his undoing. Your mouth opens for him and Steve takes immediate advantage, greedy for it, greedy for every breath you'll give him, tilting his head to seal his mouth over yours properly.

His tongue sweeps past your lips to finally taste you properly, and you're even sweeter than every fantasy promised. Better than anything he imagined in that shower with his hand on his cock and your name in his throat.

When he sucks your bottom lip between his teeth and releases it slowly, you make this small wounded sound that goes straight to his cock. You feel it twitch against your stomach through the thin cotton of his boxers, and he's so big, so overwhelming, radiating heat and the salt musk smell of his sweat that makes your head spin and your thighs clench.

Heat floods his system at the knowledge that you can feel how hard he is, how much he wants you. And he knows he can't satisfy the clawing need in his gut through your mouth alone.

Steve tears himself away from your mouth and every cell in his body revolts violently like he's ripping off his own skin. A needy little protest escapes you as you chase after him without thought, lips wet and swollen and so devastatingly pretty he almost stops caring. 

"You don't," The words come out between ragged pants, his voice wrecked, barely recognizable as his own. "You don't understand." His chest heaves against yours, breath coming hard and fast as he presses his forehead to yours, hand still fisted tight in your hair because letting go simply isn't something his body knows how to do anymore. "I'm not in control right now. I don't know if I can be gentle. Don't know if I can stop once I start—"

"Then don't stop," you whisper against his lips, and your hand slides up his chest to curl around the back of his neck. "Take what you need, Steve."

And there’s no universe, no timeline where Steve Rogers could survive hearing that from your mouth, not even if he were perfectly himself. 

His last thread of restraint frays to nothing.

Steve's mouth crashes back into yours with bruising intensity, all desperate hunger and zero control. You open for him instantly, no hesitation, just pure wanting, and the primal satisfaction that rolls through his chest is almost violent in its intensity.

Then his arms slide down to grip your thighs, fingers digging into soft flesh as he hauls you up against him like you weigh nothing. You're so light in his grip, so easy to position exactly where he wants you, and the rush of it - the physical proof of how easily he can manhandle you - sends a dark thrill surging through him. Your legs wrap around his waist instinctively and your body moulds to his perfectly, soft curves yielding to hard muscle, and he can feel everything.

The frantic beat of your heart hammering against his chest. The clench of your thighs around his hips. The damp heat between your legs settling right against his cock through the layers separating you, and it makes him throb so hard he groans into your mouth.

But still, it's not enough. He needs you impossibly closer, needs to consume every inch of space between you. One hand shifts to palm your ass with a possessive squeeze that makes you whimper and roll your hips against him. It's an instinctive, needy grind that drags your core along the length of his still covered cock. 

"Steve, please," you whine against his mouth. "I need—"

Your desperation makes Steve's pupils blow completely black, swallowing the blue entirely. He turns and presses you against the wall, pinning you there with the weight of his hips, using the solid surface to hold you exactly where he wants you.

"God, I know, sweetheart. I know you do," he rasps against your neck, teeth scraping your pulse point. "Tried to be good. Tried not to think about this. But so damn sweet I can’t think straight." His hands tighten on you possessively, fingers digging into flesh. "'m gonna take care of you now, I promise. Gonna make you feel perfect. Gonna stretch you open on my cock and fill you up until you can't take anymore. Fill you up so good you'll feel me for days."

Heat curls low and tight in your belly at his filthy promise, and your body reacts instinctively, clenching around nothing so sharply that a needy little moan slips out before you can stop it. Your fingers clutch at his bare shoulders, desperate for something to anchor yourself against the overwhelming reality of finally having him like this. 

All that heated muscles under your palms, slick with sweat. He’s so much bigger like this, crowding every inch of space you have, caging you in, and your head swims with the sheer physicality of him.

But it’s the heavy, hard length of his cock grinding against you through thin cotton that nearly undoes you. Thick and insistent, pressed exactly where you’re throbbing for him, dragging against you with every subtle shift of his hips. The friction makes your breath stutter, your thighs tightening helplessly around him, trying to draw him even closer, to get more of that impossible, intoxicating pressure.

Steve moves with urgency that borders on frantic, carrying you the few steps to his bed and laying you down with slightly more care than the desperation vibrating through his body would suggest. But the second you're on the mattress, that restraint evaporates. He follows you down like he's magnetised, covering your body with his.

Heat radiates off him in waves, overwhelming, consuming. His breath fans over your cheek, uneven and ragged, and when his hips slot between yours, you feel just how hard he is. Thick, straining against the thin cotton of his boxers like he’s seconds from losing his mind entirely.

"Jesus," he groans, almost a choke, forehead dropping to your shoulder as if the contact alone might save him. "I need—sweetheart, I need you, I need you so bad."

He kisses you again, harder this time, nothing gentle left in him. His mouth is hot, frantic, stealing your breath as his hands slide over you in frantic sweeps, already pulling at your clothes. It's rougher than he intends - though he’s trying, god he’s trying - but whatever is burning through him is stronger than his control.

His hoodie is the first causality, tugged over your head and tossed aside without care for where it lands. Immediately his mouth is on your bare skin, lips and teeth working down your throat to your collarbone while his hands slide up to cup your breasts through the thin bralet. 

The delicate fabric does nothing to hide your peaked nipples straining against it, and the sight combined with the feel of them hard beneath his palms makes him groan low and desperate against your skin. His fingers hook under the elastic, pulling it up with greedy, impatient hands before it can register that he should probably slow down, be more careful with you. 

But he can't. His mouth trails lower, hot and demanding as he sucks one nipple between his lips, tongue circling the sensitive peak before his teeth graze it lightly, teasing. Your fingers thread into his hair, tugging. He groans at the sting of it and sucks harder, alternating between your breasts with ravenous attention. Licking, sucking, nipping until both nipples are peaked and glistening with his spit, until you're squirming beneath him and making those breathy little sounds that drive him insane.

His hand palms and kneads the soft flesh while his mouth works, and every arch of your back, every tug on his hair, every whining plea that falls from your lips just winds him tighter. Normally could spend hours here, mapping every response, learning exactly what makes you fall apart.

But it's not enough right now. None of it is enough.

The need burning through Steve's veins is almost painful now, an ache so deep and consuming he can barely think past it. He needs more. Needs all of you. Needs to be inside you with an urgency that's rapidly shredding what little control he has left. 

His mouth trails down your stomach, open-mouthed kisses that quickly become bites, small sucks that leave wet heat on your skin. He’s losing the thread of gentleness entirely, hands already at your shorts, fumbling with the waistband for half a second before impatience overrides coordination entirely.

He doesn't mean to - or maybe he does, he can't think straight enough to know - but his enhanced strength rips through the fabric like tissue paper, taking your panties with it. The startled sound you make is half protest, half arousal, because the ease of it, the sheer strength, makes heat pulse between your legs.

"Steve—!"

"I'm sorry, sweetheart," he rasps into your skin as he chucks the ruined scraps aside. "I'm sorry, I'll replace them, I promise, I just—" His hands grip your thighs, spreading them wider for him. "I need—I can't—"

But the words die in his throat completely because the sight of your pussy, slick and glistening for him, combined with your scent flooding his heightened senses, makes something in Steve's brain simply stop working. Every coherent thought evaporates, consumed by primal need. He's gone. Completely lost to whatever's burning through his veins. 

All that exists is the need to taste you, claim you, bury himself so deep inside you that he forgets where he ends and you begin.

"Look at you," Steve breathes, tongue flicking out to wet his bottom lip absently, like he can already taste you. "So fucking pretty and wet for me." 

His biceps flex as he drags you down the bed effortlessly, hauling you closer with enough strength that a startled gasp tears from your throat. Your thighs end up over those broad shoulders and he settles between your legs like he's exactly where he's meant to be. His breath ghosts hot over where you're aching for him and you arch involuntarily, seeking and retreating all at once.

He's staring at your exposed pussy with an intensity that borders on feral, like you're something he wants to devour. Like's he's been starving for you longer than he'll admit.

Your cheeks burn. Heat pools low in your stomach as you try to squirm away under the intensity of his gaze, suddenly hyperaware of how exposed you are despite how desperately you want this.

"Don't," he growls against your folds, the word a dark, commanding rasp in a tone you've never heard from him before but makes heat flash down your spine.

His arms clamp tighter around your thighs, spreading you wider, pinning you in place easily. Utterly at his mercy. The possessive dominance of his grip steals what little breath you have left.

Then his mouth seals over you and any coherent thought you have dissolves into nothing. There's no teasing; whatever's burning through Steve's veins has burned away every shred of patience. He buries his face between your thighs and devours you like a man who'll die without his mouth on every inch of you. 

His tongue drags through your folds in one long, devastating stroke that punches a broken cry from your chest that you barely recognize as your own voice. Steve's answering moan is one of pure relief, rumbling from deep in his chest and vibrating against your cunt. Your hips buck helplessly in his arms as he licks and sucks with focused, consuming desperation, and within seconds you're gasping his name. 

Broad strokes of his tongue work through your slick folds, greedy in his pursuit of your pleasure and you're writhing against him, biceps flexing to keep you where he wants you. He finds your clit and sucks it between his lips with perfect pressure, circling the swollen bud with his tongue, and you grind against him shamelessly, fingers twisted so tight in his hair it has to hurt.

But Steve just groans his encouragement and you feel it everywhere, feel the way he's grinding against the mattress below seeking his own friction, aching for a bit of relief from the pressure, while he loses himself completely in the taste of you.

God, the sight of him. All flushed skin and flexing muscle, sweat making his broad shoulders gleam, chin glistening obscenely with your arousal. And those perfect plush lips are pink and swollen now, parted around another appreciative moan that makes you clench around nothing. His eyes are closed like he's savouring you, and when they flutter open to meet yours they're so dark and blown wide with need it sends another pulse of heat straight through you.

The flat of his tongue drags up again, licking up through your folds before spearing inside, and the obscene wet sounds of it mix with your gasping moans and his rough growls. One of his hands shifts from your thigh to spread you wider with his thumb, opening you up so he can fuck you with his tongue properly while his nose grinds against your clit.

The combination makes your back arch violently, pleasure spiking so sharp and quickly it's overwhelming.

"Steve—fuck—Steve, oh my god—" The words tumble out incoherent, your brain shorting out under the onslaught.

But he doesn't slow down. If anything, your babbling spurs him on. Two thick fingers slide into you, curling immediately to stroke that devastating spot while his tongue works in tight, merciless circles.You're shaking now, thighs trembling uncontrollably in his bruising grip, that coil winding tighter and tighter until you think you'll actually break apart from it.

"Need you to come," he rasps against you, and there's desperation in his voice that matches the frantic grinding of his hips against the bed, like making you come is the only thing keeping him tethered to sanity. "Please, sweet girl, need to have it."

The raw pleading in his voice is what does it. That broken desperation, the way he's begging you like he needs this more than air, sends you over the edge so hard and fast you don't even have time to warn him.

Your orgasm crashes through you like a tidal wave, violent and all-consuming. Your back arches clean off the bed, thighs clamping around Steve's head as you cry out his name - or try to, the sound coming out more like a broken sob. White-hot pleasure explodes through your nerve endings, radiating out from where his mouth is still working you relentlessly, and you can't breathe, can't think, can't do anything except shake apart in his grip.

But Steve doesn't let up. He keeps his mouth sealed over you, licking and sucking like he wants to devour every aftershock, like he's trying to pull more from you even as you're already flying apart. It's too much, bordering on overwhelming, but when you try to squirm away his arms lock you down harder.

"Stevie—'s too much—I can't—"

He finally pulls back just enough to press open-mouthed kisses to your inner thighs, your hipbones, working his way up your body as you try to remember how to breathe. His hands roam restlessly over your skin and when he reaches your face his lips are glistening, hair dishevelled from your grip, face flushed and chest heaving.

"Perfect, you're so fucking perfect," he rasps against your mouth, kissing you deeply enough that you taste yourself on his tongue. "But I need to be in you, need it more than I've ever needed anything." His hips grind against you unconsciously, the hard length of him pressing insistently through his boxers, now soaked through. "Need it so bad I can't think, can't breathe. Please, pretty girl, need you so bad I'm losing my mind—"

He's already moving, pushing himself up just enough to shove his boxers down with shaking hands. The elastic catches on his cock and he makes a frustrated sound, yanking the fabric down his thighs and kicking them off entirely. When he springs free, your breath catches.

He's big. Thick and flushed dark, curving up toward his stomach with prominent veins running along the length. The head is already leaking, a bead of precum glistening at the tip, and he's so hard it looks almost painful. Your eyes widen involuntarily as your brain tries to process how that's supposed to fit inside you.

Steve notices your stare, follows your gaze down, and a sound rumbles from his chest that's pure male satisfaction. The visual does something to him, you can see it in the way his pupils dilate even further, the way his jaw clenches, the way the muscle ticks. How much bigger he is than you, how easily he could manhandle you, how small and vulnerable you look pinned beneath all that muscle and raw strength.

"It'll fit," he promises, voice rough and absolutely certain despite the tremor in his hands. He settles between your thighs, caging you in completely with his body, surrounding you with heat and want. "I know I'm big, sweetheart, but you can take me, 'm gonna make sure you do."

One hand drops between your bodies and the thick head of his cock drags through your folds, gathering your slick, and the sensation punches a desperate sound from both of you. Each time he rocks forward your hips chase the friction instinctively.

His mouth finds your neck, lips and tongue working over your pulse before he sucks with an impatience that you know will bruise. You gasp and tilt your head without thinking, offering more, and Steve groans his approval against your skin. Teeth scrape over the sensitive tendon before biting down hard enough to make you whimper, and he soothes the sting with his tongue only to move lower and do it again. Marking you deliberately. Claiming you.

He keeps talking in between - words tumbling out of him like he’s not even talking to you anymore, just spilling whatever delirious need is consuming him.

“Fuck…'m gonna stretch this pretty little pussy open on my cock,” he babbles, almost dazed, eyes locked on where he’s lining himself up with you. “Fill you up so good… so fucking full. You'll feel me for days, sweetheart. Days. Gonna make sure you never forget what it feels like to have me inside you."

He's so hot and hard against you, and when he notches himself at your entrance - just the tip of him pressing in - and even that has you whimpering at the stretch. Your arms fly up to wrap around his neck, nails digging into his shoulders as you try to anchor yourself against the overwhelming sensation.

Oh god—Steve—" It comes out high and shaky, almost a whine. "Please—"

The plea tears from your throat but you don't even know what you're begging for. For him to go slower? For more? For relief from the burning stretch that's somehow perfect and too much all at once?

"I know, baby, I know," Steve coos against your throat, pressing kisses between words, and there's that desperation threading through his voice again. "Shh, I've got you, pretty girl. Just breathe for me."

But even as he's soothing you his hips press forward incrementally, working himself deeper, and you can feel every thick inch as he pushes in and your body struggles to accommodate him. The stretch burns and you bury your face against his neck with a sound that's embarrassingly close to a sob.

"Wait—Steve, you're too big, I can't—"

"You can," he pants, his voice is strained, shaking with the monumental effort of going slow when everything in him is screaming to just thrust home, to bury himself completely in your wet heat. "You're doing so good f'me. So fucking good. Just a little more—fuck—just need you to take a little more."

His hands grip your hips tight enough to bruise, holding you still while he rocks forward another inch. You're so full already and he's not even halfway in yet, your body struggling to accommodate the sheer size of him, and the whine that tears from your throat makes him groan and press his forehead to yours.

"That's it, that's it," Steve breathes, kissing your jaw, your cheek, your temple - anywhere he can reach. "I know it's a lot, baby. But you're taking me so perfect. Look how good you're opening up for me." Another shallow thrust and you whimper against his mouth, nails raking down his back. "You're doing so perfect. Gonna make you feel so good, I promise. Just let me in, baby. Let me fill this tight little pussy up like you need."

The combination of his words and the relentless stretch is overwhelming in a way that makes your head spin and your nerve endings spark. Your body reacts instinctively, walls clenching tight around the thick length of him already inside you.

Feeling your wet cunt constrict around hi breaks whatever fragile restraint Steve had left. With a low, guttural sound he slams the rest of the way in, burying himself to the hilt in one brutal thrust that punches the air from your lungs.

The cry that rips from you is sharp and broken - pain and pleasure so intense they're indistinguishable, blurring together into something that has you arching violently against him. You're so full you can barely breathe, stretched impossibly wide around him, and the sensation is so overwhelming you almost come from that alone. 

Your walls flutter and clench around his length, desperately trying to adjust to the sheer size of him. Tears spring to your eyes, spilling over to track down your cheeks.

"Fuck—I'm sorry, I'm sorry—" Steve's voice cracks as he kisses frantically at your tears, lips pressing to your cheeks, your eyelids, the corner of your mouth. "I'm so sorry, pretty girl, I didn't mean to—you just felt so good, I couldn't—"

But even as he's apologizing his hips are already moving, pulling back and rocking into you with needy thrusts. He's not giving you time to adjust, can't seem to stop himself, his body operating on pure need now.

"So tight," he gasps against your skin. "So fucking perfect around me. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I just need—" Another thrust, deeper this time, and you sob against his shoulder. "Need you so bad. Can't stop. Please tell me you're okay, please."

You try to speak. Try to form words through the overwhelming sensation of being so impossibly full but your brain can't form coherent words. All that escapes is a pathetic, whimpering "Stevie." 

It's all you can manage before he shifts his hips slightly, angling deeper, and on the very next thrust the blunt head of his cock grinds right against your g-spot.

Pleasure detonates through you so suddenly you can't even cry out, mouth falling open on a silent gasp as he thrusts into you again. Your eyes fly wide, a shocked gasp tearing from your throat as white-hot sensation explodes through every nerve ending.

You're coming before your brain can even register it's happening. Two thrusts, maybe three, and your orgasm rips through you like lightning.

Your whole body seizes, cunt clamping down violently around his cock as you gush around him, soaking his length and making the slide obscenely wet. The sounds falling from your lips are helpless and incoherent, your back arching clean off the bed as wave after wave of pleasure shorts out your brain completely.

"Fuck—oh fuck, that's it, that's it—" Steve's voice breaks on a groan as your walls spasm around him. "Good girl, such a good fucking girl, coming all over my cock—"

You can't breathe, can't think, can't do anything except convulse in his arms while your pussy milks his cock with desperate, rhythmic pulses that has Steve following you over the edge. With a guttural snarl he buries himself as deep as he can go as his cock throbs inside you, pulsing violently as the first rope of cum floods your pussy. Then another. And another. And it doesn't stop.

"Fuck—oh fuck!" Steve's voice breaks on a groan, hips grinding into you as he empties himself, and there's so much. Too much. Your walls are coated, flooded, completely painted white with his release, and he just keeps coming. Spurt after thick spurt filling you beyond capacity until you can actually feel it. Hot and excessive and so overwhelming your body can't contain it all.

"Steve—Steve—oh god." You try to squirm away instinctively, whimpering at the overwhelming sensation of being pumped so full. "I can't—there's too much, I can't—"

But Steve's hands lock onto your hips like a vice, fingers digging in bruisingly as he holds you in place and grinds you down harder onto his cock, forcing you to take more.

"Shh, shh, you can," he hushes against your neck, pushes you down harder onto him, forcing himself impossibly deeper even as his cock continues pulsing, and more cum floods into you. "You can take it, sweetheart. Take all of it. Every fucking drop, just a little more."

Cum starts leaking out around the thick base of him, even though he's still buried deep, still pulsing, still pumping more into you. It spills out of you despite how tightly your pussy is stretched around his length, dripping down your ass and pooling on the sheets beneath you.

"Please," You're babbling now, tears flowing freely as you shake your head helplessly. "Steve, please, 's so much, I'm so full." 

"Fuck, you're dripping with it," Steve pants against your neck, hips still rocking through the aftershocks, trying to fuck his cum further into your already overflowing pussy. "Taking all of it. Every drop. Knew you could. Knew this sweet pussy was made for me, pretty girl." 

His cock gives another violent pulse and you whimper helplessly, completely stuffed, cum sloshing inside you with every tiny shift of his hips.

Your limbs feel boneless, trembling with aftershocks, and you expect him to soften now, to give you both a moment to recover. But Steve doesn't slow down. Doesn't even pause. His cock is still rock-hard inside you and his hips keep moving - pulling back and thrusting in with the same urgent intensity, maybe even more now that you're slick with both your release and his excessive cum.

A broken whimper falls from your lips as oversensitized nerves spark with each thrust. You're so full, so overwhelmed, you can barely process that he's still going, still hard, still needing.

"I know, baby, I know—I'm sorry," He sounds almost pained, teeth scraping over your pulse point before biting down. "I'm sorry, I can't—fuck, just need one more from you—just one more, yeah? Need to feel this perfect pussy clench around me again. Can you do that for me? Please, baby, just one more."

His rhythm picks up, hips snapping forward with primal desperation. You can barely nod, can barely do anything except take it as he pounds into you, the wet obscene sounds of his cum squelching with every thrust filling the room alongside your breathless whimpers and his desperate groans.

But it's still not enough for him. With a frustrated snarl Steve pulls back, and before you can even whine at the loss of him, he's grabbing your legs, pushing them up and back. Your knees press to your chest as he folds you completely in half, and when he sinks back in this new angle has you seeing stars.

"Oh god—" The broken cry tears from your throat as he sinks back in, and he's so much deeper like this. Impossibly deeper.

"That's it—yes," Steve's voice is guttural as he starts moving again. "Need to get deeper, need to—fuck, you feel that? Feel how deep I am?"

You're completely pinned beneath him, folded in half and utterly helpless, unable to do anything but take the brutal pace he sets. The new position has gravity working against you too, his weight pressing you into the mattress, and you're babbling - words tumbling out that don't even make sense.

"Can't—oh god, Stevie, you're—'s too deep, I can't—fuck—s'good—please."

Your hands scrabble frantically at his back, nails digging in and dragging down, leaving angry red crescents that make him hiss and thrust harder.

Sweat drips from his temples onto your chest, your neck, and he leans down to lick it off with a groan, tongue dragging over your heated skin. His hips never stop that relentless grinding, working himself as deep as physics will allow. Driven by something beyond his control to keep fucking into your used, dripping pussy like his life depends on it.

"Taking me so well," he pants into your neck between messy kisses. "Look at you, so good for me. Letting me use this perfect cunt."

One of Steve's hands snakes down between your bodies, finding your clit, and the second his thumb makes contact you cry out - sharp and broken - because you're so oversensitive, swollen and puffy from two orgasms already

"Steve—no, I can't—can't again, 's too much."

"You can," he insists, and his fingers start circling that abused bundle of nerves with just enough pressure. "Can feel you getting tighter already. You're gonna come for me again, pretty girl. Need to feel you squeeze my cock one more time, please."

The stimulation is so intense you need to escape it. Every muscle in your body wants to flee the overwhelming sensation, but pinned beneath him like this there's nowhere to go, no way to twist away. You're utterly trapped, unable to do anything but take it. Take his cock pounding into you and his thumb working mercilessly over your puffy clit until pleasure starts building again despite your body's protests.

"Oh god, oh my god—Steve please." You're sobbing now, tears streaming as sensation builds too fast, too intense.

But your body betrays you. The combination of his fingers and his cock and being trapped beneath him with nowhere to go builds faster than should be possible when you're this wrung out. Your pussy flutters around him, clenching weakly, and Steve groans like it's the best thing he's ever felt.

"That's it, come on, give it to me."

And you do. Your third orgasm rips through you with less intensity than the others but somehow more devastating because you're so oversensitive every nerve ending feels raw. You clench around him with a broken sob, thighs shaking violently where they're pressed to your chest.

But this time when you come down, gasping and trembling, Steve doesn't stop. Doesn't even slow down. If anything he gets more frantic, more desperate, like your orgasm just made the need worse instead of better. 

His rhythm gets more erratic, more brutal, like he's chasing something just out of reach and it's driving him insane.

"Not deep enough," he mutters, almost to himself, and there's genuine frustration in his voice. "Still not—fuck—need more, need—"

Without warning he pulls out completely, ignoring your confused whimper, and his hands are on you - gripping, lifting. You barely process what's happening before you're airborne, completely off the bed, and Steve is standing with you in his arms like you weigh nothing.

"Wrap your legs around me," he orders, voice rough, and you obey on complete instinct, the words not even processing in your brain. The moment you do he's lining himself up and pulling back you down onto his cock with brutal force.

The angle is devastating. Gravity works against you, impaling you on his full length, and the depth has you choking on a scream. You can feel him everywhere, so deep and stretching you in ways that shouldn't be possible.

"There—fuck yes, there." Steve's head falls back on a guttural moan as he starts using you, biceps bulging as he fucks you on his cock like you're a toy made for his pleasure. Lifting you up and pulling you back down with ease that should be terrifying but instead has you clenching around him.

You're completely helpless, just a ragdoll as he manhandles you exactly how he needs. Your hands scrabble desperately at his shoulders for any kind of stability. Every time he pulls you down gravity does half the work, driving him impossibly deeper, and all you can do is take it. You can't form words anymore, just needy little sounds as he uses your body. 

Your brain is completely gone, drunk on the feeling of him, on being so full, on the obscene wet sounds of his cum leaking out with every brutal thrust and dripping down both of you to splatter on the floor.

"Look at you," Steve rasps, eyes wild as they lock onto where you're joined, watching himself disappear into you over and over. "Fucking look at you taking my cock. So small I can just—" He emphasizes with a particularly brutal drop that has you wailing. "Use you however I want."

Your thighs are shaking violently, muscles screaming, but it doesn't matter because Steve's holding you up effortlessly. Using his strength to fuck you on him at whatever pace he wants, and right now he wants it hard and fast and deep.

"Steve—fuck—oh god, oh god." You're babbling, tears streaming, completely cock-drunk and overwhelmed.

"Shh, I know, I know," he coos even as he doesn't slow down at all. "But you're doing so good f'me. My perfect girl, letting me use this tight little cunt. Can feel myself in your stomach, can you feel it? Feel how deep I am?"

You can only whine in response, completely overwhelmed, pleasure bordering on too much but your body keeps responding, keeps clenching around him like it can't help itself.

The last of your strength gives out entirely. Your head lolls against his shoulder, too heavy to hold up anymore, and you're just gone. Completely boneless in his grip, every muscle turned to liquid, unable to do anything except let him use you exactly how he needs. Arms hanging limply around his neck, your legs barely maintain their grip around his waist; if it weren't for Steve's hands on you, you'd slide right off him.

"Can't—can't—Stevie I can't." The words slur together, muffled against the sweat-slick skin of his neck, your brain too fried to form anything coherent.

"I know, baby, I know, almost there." Steve assures, his rhythm getting choppier as he gets closer. "Just a little more, need—fuck—need to fill you up one more time."

His muscles flex and strain as he bounces you faster, using you like you're weightless, like you're nothing but a warm sleeve for his cock. The wet sounds are obscene - cum and slick squelching with every brutal thrust.

You're not even moaning anymore, just making these small broken sounds with every impact, completely and utterly spent. But your body still responds, still clenches weakly around him when he hits that spot deep inside.

"That's it, that's—fuck—" Steve's breath hitches and his grip on you turns almost painful. "Gonna—fuck, I'm gonna—"

His hips slam up one final time, burying himself as deep as gravity and anatomy allow, and then he's coming with a snarl, sinking his teeth into your shoulder. His cock pulses violently inside you and somehow - somehow - there's still more. 

Hot thick ropes of cum flooding into your already overfull pussy, and you can actually feel this time, the way it has nowhere left to go, just gushing back out around his length to run down your thighs, down his, pooling on the floor. It's insane. He's already filled you once and yet he's still pumping more into you, his body shuddering with the force of it, and you can only mewl meakly against his throat as he empties himself completely.

His hips slow gradually, the frantic rhythm finally easing as his cock gives one last weak pulse inside you. Steve's breathing is ragged against your hair, chest heaving, but something shifts - you can feel it in the way his grip on you gentles, the way the manic edge bleeds out of his muscles.

The burning under his skin that's been driving him insane for hours finally starts to fade. His temperature drops, the desperate clawing need loosening its grip on his chest, and for the first time since he walked through that door he can actually think.

His cock softens inside you, and the relief that floods through him is so intense it's almost dizzying.

"Shit," he breathes, and his voice sounds like his own again. Clearer. "Oh god, sweetheart, I—"

You make a weak, mewling sound against his neck and Steve's heart clenches with immediate guilt. You're completely limp in his arms, trembling, and guilt crashes through him so hard it nearly takes him to his knees.

"Hey, hey, I've got you," he murmurs, voice going soft and gentle as he carefully lowers himself to sit on the edge of the bed with you still in his lap. His hands, which had been bruising just minutes ago, turn tender as they stroke up and down your back. "You're okay. I've got you now, baby."

He's still buried inside you and he knows pulling out is going to be uncomfortable, so he takes his time. One hand comes up to cradle the back of your head, fingers threading gently through your sweat-damp hair, while the other supports your back.

"Gonna pull out now, okay?" He waits for some sign you've heard him - a tiny nod against his shoulder - before carefully lifting you just enough to slip free. You mewl at the loss, at the feeling of his cum immediately starting to leak out of you, and Steve makes a soothing sound. "I know, I know. I'm sorry, baby. Just let me take care of you now."

He shifts you in his arms, cradling you against his chest like you're something precious, and presses a kiss to your temple. His heart is still racing but it's slowing now, the frantic edge gone, replaced with bone-deep exhaustion and worry.

"You still with me?" he asks softly, pulling back just enough to look at your face.

With gentle fingers, Steve brushes the strands of hair plastered to your sweat-damp forehead, tucking them behind your ear with a tenderness that's almost painful after the brutality of moments before. Your head lolls without the support, too heavy for your exhausted muscles, so his hand slides down to cup your chin, thumb stroking your jaw as he carefully tilts your face up to meet his gaze.

"Look at me, sweetheart," he murmurs, voice barely above a whisper. "Need to see those pretty eyes."

Your lashes flutter, and when you finally manage to focus on him, Steve's chest constricts painfully. Your eyes are glassy, still wet with tears that cling to your lashes, pupils blown wide and unfocused in a way that speaks to exactly how far gone you are. The cloudiness there, the fucked-out haze, it's beautiful and devastating all at once.

Another wave of guilt crashes through him so hard he has to close his eyes briefly against it.

Keeping one hand cupped under your jaw to support your head, he reaches blindly for the nightstand with the other, fingers finding the water bottle you'd brought for him earlier - back when you'd been worried about him, before he'd lost complete control. The thoughtfulness of that gesture, the care you'd shown him, makes his throat tight.

"Gonna get you some water, okay?" He uncaps the bottle one handed, bringing it carefully to your lips. "Small sips, sweetheart. Just a little."

You make a small sound of protest, like even that is too much effort, but he persists gently.

"I know you're tired. But you need it, pretty girl." He tips the bottle carefully, supporting your head with his other hand, and relief floods through him when you part your lips and take a small sip.

The cool water touches your lips and you drink instinctively, slow and uncoordinated, and Steve watches with laser focus to make sure you don't choke. Some of it spills down your chin and he wipes it away with his thumb, murmuring praise the entire time.

"That's it. Good girl. Just a little more."

He coaxes a few more sips into you, before setting the bottle aside. And then his hands start hovering over you like he's not quite sure where to touch, if he should touch. The contrast between how he'd been manhandling you minutes ago and this careful hesitation would be almost funny if the guilt wasn't eating him alive.

"What do you need?" he asks quietly, and there's an edge of desperation to it. "I can—do you want food? A bath? I should probably get you cleaned up." His thumb strokes almost absently along your jaw, the only point of contact he seems to allow himself. "Just tell me what you need, sweetheart. Anything. I'll give you anything."

There's an edge of desperation in the offer, like he's trying to make up for everything, trying to fix what he broke.

With what little strength you have left, you burrow closer into his chest, nose finding the warm curve of his neck, and the small movement seems to surprise him. Your breath ghosts over his skin as you mumble, words slurred with exhaustion but unmistakable. 

"Jus' want you," you mumble against his throat, words slurring together. "Don' go."

Steve goes very still. Then something in him seems to unlock, the tension bleeding out of his shoulders, the frantic worry in his eyes softening into something almost reverent. His arms finally wrap around you properly. Securely. Like he's allowed to hold you now.

"Okay," he murmurs, voice rough with emotion. "Okay, baby, I've got you."

Carefully, like you're something infinitely precious, he shifts you both down onto the bed. He rolls onto his side and gathers you against him, pulling you flush to his chest with one arm wrapped securely around your waist and the other sliding up to cradle your head. You immediately melt into him with a soft, appreciative sound that's almost a purr, and Steve feels some of the horrible tension finally start to ease.

"That's it," Steve whispers, pressing a gentle kiss to your temple. "I've got you, pretty girl. Not going anywhere."

His hand trails down from your hair to stroke along your thigh with soothing, repetitive motions. Soft and steady, like he's trying to ground you both. Another kiss to your forehead, then your closed eyelids, his lips lingering there as you start to drift.

"Sleep, sweetheart," he murmurs against your skin. "I'll be right here when you wake up. Promise."

You make another small sound, already halfway gone, and Steve tightens his arms around you. As your breathing evens out and your body goes completely slack against him, Steve presses his face into your hair and tries not to think too hard about what happens when you wake up. Tries not to wonder if you'll regret this, regret him. 

He should probably be planning how to explain what happened. How to apologize for losing control. How to convince you this wasn't just whatever got into his system, that he's wanted you for months, that this meant something.

But exhaustion is pulling at him too, and you're so warm in his arms, and he's too tired to fight the way his body wants to curl around yours like he can keep the world out if he just holds on tight enough.

He'll figure it out in the morning.

For now, he just holds you closer and lets himself have this - your warmth, your weight, your trust - even if it's the only time he gets it.

more mads: thank you so much for reading this absolute filth fest (like… 7k of it is smut. i’m unwell.). i hope you loved it!! if you did, please hit like or, even better, please consider leaving a comment/reblog bc it would genuinely make me grin like an idiot. my leo moon means i will literally perish without external validation. i’m tinkerbell coded. love u <33 p.s. i hope someone got the panic! at the disco reference in the title 🙂‍↕️

But then there’s you. You’re not like the other humans. You don’t come to him with any intention of collaring him. Instead, you have your hands folded together in prayer—sweet scripture leaves your lips, soothing his singed skin until it stops burning.

You wear holy robes and a kind smile on your face, you don’t avert your eyes even as he glares at you with the embers in his own, even as he growls and bares teeth. You don’t ignore him when he speaks, either, even when his tongue comes out split through the middle and all his words reek of smoke. You bathe him in holy water and rinse the soot out of his fur—telling him he’s a good boy.

He feels no desire to bite your hand as you pet his head and stroke his ears—he just ends up wagging his tail. But then again… he is still a hellhound. And you should know better than to feed monsters in the dark…

He leaves his room in the chapel and sniffs yours out—nothing, not even so much as a seal on your door to keep him out. You have too much faith. Your door creaks open, but you remain peacefully asleep—all soft snores as he mounts you with drool dripping down his canines…

Fushiguro Toji Hunter

Rumor has it that something far worse than ogres and trolls travel the forest. Beware of the hunter—all you little nymphs, fauns, and fairies. Some say he’ll stuff you in a bag and sell you, while others argue it’s his appetite that makes him hunt—some even mean it’s just for sport, that he’ll kill and stuff you and mount your head on the wall.

You, a poor forest nymph, are unfortunate enough to get yourself caught in one of his nets. You’re a crying little mess by the time he comes around—begging him not to sell or eat or skin or harvest your wings, barely breathing between the words.

He chuckles and promises you he won’t do any of that stuff, but the smile on his face is enough to convince you he’s possessed by some sort of demon. And as he hauls you up on his shoulder and starts carrying you further into those places you’ve never dared venture, into the thicker parts of the forest where the trees all seem riddled with some type of disease—you can’t help but believe all those rumors you’d heard.

He tells you that his snares and nets are meant for rodents and that he didn’t think fae-folk were dumb enough to get themselves caught by them as he starts cutting into the net to free you—only, he doesn’t stop at the net—but goes for your slik garb next. Whistling as he bares your pretty skin while pinning your small wrists above you in one meaty hand.

His grin is sharper than his knife when he advises you not to struggle, saying he would feel awful if he were to accidentally cut you.

It started with random disagreements. Ones that you usually would've brushed off, but all of a sudden couldn’t. They were small, like what-show-should-we-watch-tonight small. They still ended with you going back home for the night. Each time, you brought back more of your belongings. Then it became a habit, and you started taking things home on normal days. 

Satoru never saw you sneaking your things out, but he watched as that corner in his closet grew smaller and smaller, until it had more hangers than clothes to hold—becoming nothing but a reminder of all the space you once took up. And yet instead of asking why, he did what he always did and just lived with it.

Which didn’t work out very well for him. Later that week, Satoru decided to punch some guy in the face for getting too close to you at a party. 

It wasn’t immediate, of course. He gave it an hour before he proceeded to antagonize the man until he had a better reason to punch him in the face, because being a jealous loser wasn’t one of them. You wouldn’t have been surprised if he was already in a mood, given how you turned down going to the event with him. It had already been days since you heard from him when he asked—of course you were going to say no. 

Never in your life had you been that embarrassed to be associated with anyone. Embarrassed and disappointed—mostly with yourself. It left you with some hope during a time you questioned whether or not to cut ties with him. It was hard not to, you had hardly seen or spoken to him the weeks leading up to it. He had you convinced he didn’t see a future with you, let alone want one. As problematic as it may sound, his sudden burst of jealousy revived the love you’ve unfortunately grown to have for him. It was inevitable. Satoru has always had the ability to captivate just about anyone he spoke to. One could only imagine how easy it is to fall for someone like him. And for someone as stubborn as you, it was just about impossible not to once he started showing you the sides he usually kept hidden from the world. 

So after a week of giving him the silent treatment, and receiving multiple flowers and an ‘accidental’ dick pic in return, you found yourself back in his arms, horny and slightly confused once again.

. . . 

There were certain things Satoru won’t talk about with anyone, not even with his best friend. 

One of those things was you. 

It was rare whenever he did. Suguru had quickly learned not to circle back to it in the future because Satoru would either play dumb or genuinely not know what the hell he was talking about, because he was drunk when he called and rambled about you for an entire hour at the time. 

Suguru can’t lie, though—he tries to pry as much information out of him as he can whenever he does get a drunken phone call. He’s nosey, okay? He’s come to accept that part of him a long time ago. 

It’s not like he fishes for anything bad. It was always so he could get a better idea of Satoru’s headspace when it came to you. 

At first he thought you were just a placeholder in his life until someone better came along. But then you all graduated, and Satoru continued to see you. Then he thought maybe he just felt like he didn’t have the time or energy to hold a serious relationship, and that you two clearly had some good bed chem going on—might as well keep it up. 

Then it clicked a year later, when he randomly dropped by his apartment on a Sunday morning, and finally got to see what you two were like together, since Satoru never bothered to mix you in with his friend group, and neither did you with him. 

Actually, no. He got to see what he was like with you. You barely spoke that morning, because you were violently hungover. 

Satoru was in perfect shape compared to you, which made it clear he decided to play the role of a caring boyfriend and picked you up from wherever you were, then brought you back home. You were surprisingly clean that morning—Suguru wouldn’t have been surprised if his best friend bathed you before putting you in a pair of his pajamas.

Then he saw multiple soup containers on his counters, along with multiple kinds of over the counter medicine that mighthave helped you and an entire case of some fancy hydration solution that he most likely asked his parents to send him the night before, since they were rich and had access to everything.

And Satoru has always tried to hide how much he cared, always tried to hide how much he wanted to help you. But the moment he heard you running to the bathroom, he rushed over and held your hair back as you puked out whatever soup he bought you. Suguru even heard him apologizing for it and promising he’d never buy that shit again, as if it were the restaurant's fault you got sick, not because you overdid it the night before. 

…You weren't a placeholder, and Satoru was fucking pathetic for not straight up declaring his feelings for you. 

He still is! 

It’s an entire year later and Suguru’s just as, if not more, confused. The last drunken rant he was forced to listen to was about how you were slowly packing up your things and planning on leaving him. You two weren’t even official, but now you’re leaving him? Not just breaking up with him, leaving him. 

And why do you have an entire section full of clothes in his closet? 

He’s always made an effort not to pry because he’ll eventually get it out of him, but the suspense was killing him this time around. 

“Sooo…” He tried to act casual about it, but Satoru immediately looked at him with a smidge of suspicion. “How’s everything been?” 

Satoru didn’t answer that question right away, as he struggled to hide how stupid he thought it was to ask, given how much they already talked. Suguru’s supposed to be the mysterious one here—it was fucking weird. “Good, I guess,” he shrugs. 

“Nice, nice…” his lips thin to a smile. “You been talking to anyone new lately?” 

Satoru huffs out a laugh. “Why would I do that?” 

“Oh, so you’re still seeing—“

“Yeah.” He says it like it’s obvious, which naturally annoys his friend because it’s fucking not. 

But Suguru continues to prod. “How’s she been?” 

“Good…” he answers cautiously, before doing a complete 180. “You didn’t hear anything about her, did you?” 

He sounded suspicious, maybe even a little worried. Suguru’s left to draw his own conclusions and is convinced that his friend still thinks you’re leaving him. “No,” he chirps out. “Just curious, that's all.”

“Yeah, she’s alright,” he says more confidently. “The usual, I guess.” 

You act like you can’t change that, the thought stays in Suguru’s head. It’s not like you’re any better. He’s gotten to know you just enough in the last year to know you’re just as hopeless as he is. You’re just as willing of a participant in the friendzone you two have continued to stay stuck in. 

“Well, if it works, it works.” Suguru gives a smile as he shrugs. 

“Mhm.” Satoru smiles back, though his look’s a little more pained… and forced. 

It works. 

…Enough. 

You shut down the last attempt he made to move forward with you, though—so it’s a little fucking hard to pretend like he’s happy with how “it’s” working. Probably harder than usual, since he ended up trying to fight some random guy at the party after being told you’d meet him there. It was small, probably didn’t mean that much either, but it was still something that would’ve kept him tethered to you since neither of you would’ve been able to leave without the other. 

He considers himself lucky you even decided to come over again after that day. You were pissed enough to leave your read receipts on so he knew you were ignoring him. 

It’s a surprise you came around as quickly as you did. Granted, there was some emotional disconnect in those last two months—one week of actual distance seemed to finally make your heart grow fonder. 

He just didn’t think it’d grow that fond.

Fuck.

It’s like you’ve been trying to get him pregnant these last three weeks.

There’s begging. There’s talking someone through it. Then there’s whatever you started whispering in his ear the other day that made him cum so hard he started seeing colors that he never knew existed. 

And he knows you two really should’ve had a more serious talk by now—probably multiple—but he figured this was a good enough excuse to put it off for a moment. It’s not even about the sex anymore—it’s about how close you’ve been. Half the time you’re pressed up against his chest, holding his jaw, making out with him, biting his lip, kissing his neck, whispering in his ear, asking questions like, did you miss being inside of me? 

Yes. 

Are you gonna cum again? 

Fuck yes.

Then you kiss him again, as if it were a reward. 

He had no idea how long it would last, and just decided to savor every last moment of it.

. . .

It’s been four days since you last saw Satoru, and he’s been pestering you to come over throughout the entirety of it. 

You really haven’t had the time to do anything for yourself, let alone drive to the other side of the city to see him. The company you work for is in shambles right now thanks to multiple people quitting all at once, and you regret not joining them. You’re tired, overworked, and honestly considering paying someone to knock you out so you can finally get a good night's sleep. 

Your phone rings as you step out of the elevator. Instead of fishing through your purse to answer it, you let out a small groan and keep walking. 

Satoru can wait. 

People usually look forward to arriving back home from work. That was not the case for you. It’s 8:13 PM, and the state of your apartment fills you with nothing but dread. It’s only been 4 days since you cleaned because you’ve barely even been here—it shouldn’t look this bad.

Your phone rings again, and you wish Satoru knew how shitty of a day you were having so he’d feel bad for calling. There’s an obvious struggle to find it as the shuffling in your bag continued, and just your luck, you missed another call. 

You didn’t even want to call anyone back right now, but you really didn’t want to hear it ring one more time either. So you force yourself to return the call, all while hoping he wouldn’t keep you on the phone for too long. 

“Hey.” He answers after one ring, and you’re already annoyed by the absence of stress in his tone.

“What?” you ask almost defeatedly. 

There’s a pause before he reluctantly responds, “You busy tonight?” 

You prepare to let out a sigh, but end up feeling bad for even considering it since he’s just trying to talk to you. Looking over your dirty kitchen while answering was not a good idea—your voice slightly cracks. “Nope.”

“You should come over then,” he's oblivious at first, taking a minute to realize how you responded. “I can order takeout and… are you alright?”

“…yeah,” you squeak out.

He pauses, then drops the friendly tone. “No, you’re not. What’s wrong?”

“I’m exhausted,” you sniffle, and then your voice begins to tremble. “I’ve been staying at work late because a bunch of people quit and my place is a fucking mess.” You snap a little at the end, staring at a giant pile of dishes. “Fuck! I forgot to go to the grocery store today, too.”

“Have you eaten?” 

“No.”

You hear a soft groan as he gets up from wherever he’s sitting, along with the light jingle of his keys. “I’ll bring you something.” 

“Really?” you ask, sounding so hopeful you could actually cry. 

“Yes, really.” He suppresses a laugh. “Don’t start cleaning, either. Just go sit down or something.” 

“Okay.” You weren’t gonna argue with that—you did not want to do those dishes. “Thank you.”

“Mhm. See you soon.”

Forty minutes later, you were in the middle of eating the dinner plate he picked up from a local Hawaiian place, drowning out the sound of dishes being washed while you watched the show you put on. 

You’re usually a better host than this, but you let yourself be a little selfish this time and didn’t try to stop him from cleaning anything else. You didn’t even look at him, honestly. He’s a man—he’s fine. Though you were a little surprised seeing how fast he got everything cleaned and picked up. 

There was a proud little look on his face once he plopped down on the couch beside you, and you tried not to laugh. 

“Feelin’ any better?” 

“Yeah,” you hum. “Thanks for dinner… and doing my chores.”

“You’re welcome,” he warmly says. 

“Do you want the rest of my food?” 

“No, it’s okay,” he murmurs, waving a hand. “I have some stuff I can eat at home.”

You give him a little glance. “You’re going home?” 

“Yeah.” His lips twitch, fighting back a smile. “Just came to drop off food and clean.” 

“How sweet.” You still don’t look like you believe him. “I have some of your clothes here if you want to spend the night.” 

“I can. I kinda figured you’d want your rest, though.”

You shrug. “Tomorrow’s Saturday. I’ll be sleeping in either way.”

He leans in a little closer until he’s face to face with you. “You sure?” 

You nod. “Mhm.”

“Alright.” He smiles, then closes the distance between you with a soft kiss, taking his time before pulling back to look over the space with a sly look on his face. He’s been here enough to be familiar enough with the place, but it’s usually you who comes to him. 

“What?” you finally ask, though you already have an idea of what’s going through his head.

“You know,” he murmurs, eyes trailing back to you. “I don’t think we’ve ever used this couch before.” 

“What are you talking about?” You fight back a smile. “We’re using it right now.” 

“You know what I’m talking about,” he grins, settling a hand on your hips, squeezing it as he kisses you again, deeper this time. “Don’t get smart with me.” 

“M’not,” you softly laugh. “I just don’t think you know what you’re talking about.”

Right,” he hums. 

Riling him up isn’t usually this easy, but you figure your absence for the last four days had left him frustrated enough to strip you of all your clothes and have you on your back in what felt like less than a minute. 

He didn’t even give you a moment to process it—just slotted himself in between your thighs and started dragging his tongue through your folds to shut you up. He had your knees pinned to your chest, squirming under his grip as he brought you closer and closer to the edge. And just as you thought you’d reach the moment of sweet release—

“Fuck—what are you—no, no, no wait keep going!” 

Satoru pulls away, head still between your thighs as he gives you a puzzled look, blatantly ignoring the spot you needed him the most. “What are you talking about?” 

“I was gonna—“

“Cum?” he says it for you like it was some random guess. 

“Yes!” you whine out, frustration bubbling as the air begins to cool the mixture of spit and slick his tongue left behind. 

He hums, taking a moment to think about it since the distraught look on your face wasn’t enough. “Yeah… no. I don’t think you know what you’re talking about, baby.” 

“Are you serious right now?!”

He slaps your clit with one swift motion, earning himself a gasp that settles into a look of absolute disbelief on your face. “What?” he coos, circling his thumb over the spot he just struck, just barely giving you any relief. “Not so innocent now, huh?” 

“I was messing with you!”

“And now I’m messing with you,” he muses, satisfied with himself. “Acting like you haven’t been waiting for dick this entire time.” You don’t respond to that. He grins. “Yeah,” he pulls away entirely, taking his shirt off and throwing it in with the pile of clothes he stripped off you earlier. He begins to unbuckle his belt, “probably what you were thinking about the whole time after putting me to work.” 

The last to come off are his boxers, cock slapping hard against his torso before gesturing for you to get up with the curl of his finger. “C’mere, it’s my turn to put you to work now.” 

You were more than eager to do so while he sat back, gripping your hips firmly as you bounced up and down every last inch of his cock. “Yeahh, that’s it baby—show me how much you missed my cock.” 

It was clear how much you missed it with the way he didn’t even need to help you, practically treating him like some toy as you threw your hips back, all of his favorite sounds spilling from your lips each time he hit that sweet spot inside of you. 

“Can’t believe you tried to leave earlier,” you say through a soft moan. 

He huffs out a laugh, “I was tryna be nice, thought you were too tired.”

“God, no,” you hum in disagreement, and there’s nothing but amusement in his eyes as you complain. “I needed this so bad, work was so awful this week.”

“You poor thing.” He tries not to smile as he grinds you down against him, pulling another moan out of you. “Let me see it then.”

Even when he wasn’t the one taking charge, he was so fucking hot—marveling over your body and the thick creamy ring forming around his base through a pair of heavy lidded eyes, groans rumbling through his chest in between each praise. 

“God, you’re so fuckin’ good at this—fuck, that’s it, keep going,” he rasps, fingers digging into your hips until he finally gives in to the urge to push you down, the sounds of skin on skin growing louder as he grew lost in it all. 

There was no helping it, your skin was too soft and your pussy squeezed around him just right. Even as your legs began to tremble, you took every inch like you were fucking grateful for it, and once again, without fail, he thought of how he’d never get tired of you. He’d gladly spend the rest of his life listening to all the sweet sounds you make. 

His hands snake up your back and pull you in, pressing you against his chest as he starts fucking you back. It’s nothing short of intoxicating once you start kissing him just how he likes. Slowly, yet desperately—starting at that sensitive spot just under his ear that practically brings him to his knees with how weak it makes him. 

“Fuuuck,” he shudders, unable to stop the drawn out groan that sends your stomach fluttering. 

You keep going, making him slowly lose his mind until he’s grabbing the back of your head and crashing his lips into yours, swallowing all the moans his heavy cock drags out of you.  

“Harder,” you pant against him. “Make me cum.” 

Without another word, he leans further back into the couch and plants his feet on the ground, then starts drilling into you. The rooms filled with the obscene sounds of him pounding into you before you’re even able to fully process it, and just barely steady yourself before your nails start digging into his chest from the way he works an orgasm out of you as if it were a debt that was owed to him. 

You start babbling something about it being too much, only for Satoru to crack his palm over your ass because he disagreed. And there was no convincing him otherwise—the moment he opened his mouth was the moment you realized he was gone. 

“So fuckin’ tight—fuuck,” he groans, pushing you down and making you meet every single one of his thrusts. “Just take it, baby. You’re almost there, just keep squeezing me like that. Yeahh, just like that.”

He doesn’t let up, driving himself right into that sweet little spot inside of you, making the pressure build up fast. “Oh my g-god,” you helplessly let out a sob. “I’m gonna—”

“Me too, baby,” he rasps, thrusts growing sloppier and sloppier. “Me fuckin’ too.” 

Then after one particularly rough thrust, you're in full blown tears from the orgasm that completely rips through you, with no chance of catching your breath because Satoru started chasing after his own sweet release shortly after, driving you way past the point of overstimulation. 

Your memory of the night grew hazy from that point, vision blurring as the week quickly caught up to you, holding on to nothing but the sound of his voice as he started pumping you full of his warm cum while chanting your name over and over again. 

...and thankfully missing the pathetic “I love you” that slipped out of him right at the very end.

The morning started slow. Satoru woke up for a moment around 9:00 am, saw that you were facing away from him, flipped you over so you’d lay on his chest, and threw your leg over him. You were in the same spot the next time he woke up, just with your face tucked into the crook of his neck—short, soft breaths grazing over his skin. He knew you’d be waking up soon and waited until you finally stirred to greet you with his palm rubbing over your back. 

There’s a small stretch of time between the few sighs you let out, just barely fighting to wake up. It wasn’t until you had your first sip of coffee with him in your kitchen that you finally did. 

The air between you was casual at first as you talked about nothing in particular. He was just easy to talk to, so conversations always flowed. It wasn’t until your phone buzzed against the counter when the air suddenly grew stagnant, and you quickly guessed why when you saw who texted you—your coworker. Male coworker. 

The text was friendly. All he did was wish you a good weekend after seeing how hard you worked that week—which you explained to Satoru, whose response was a thousand times worse than his initial reaction. 

“You’re trying to explain yourself like we’re in a relationship or something,” he huffs out a bitter laugh. “I’m not your fuckin’ boyfriend. I don’t care.”

Your expression falls flat, because it’s either that or show how hurt you were because he had you convinced he actually did. 

“What are you being so rude for?” you ask, genuinely.

He shrugs. “I’m not—it’s the truth.”

“I know that, but I never even said you were to begin with.” 

“Don’t need to when you’re already acting like it,” he says, and you just continue to look at him with a blank expression. 

If his goal was to make you feel fucking pathetic, he succeeded with how cold he said it, how dismissive he was being. There’s not one defensive bone in your body right now, and yet he’s treating you like there is. 

He’s barely even acknowledging you right now, casually scrolling through his phone as if his personality didn’t just do a complete 180.

“I’m done.” It wasn’t what you wanted, but it had to be done—which was why you didn’t hesitate to say it. “Get out.”

It was so sudden and casual that it threw him off. Still, he laughed. “Seriously?”

You let out a sigh, along with a subtle smile that makes Satoru think you’re not actually kicking him out, but then you start walking up to the door. 

And then you open it.

“I am.” You start gesturing toward the hallway, and it still didn’t click for him as he continued to stare at you. “You’re doing nothing but taking up space right now. Get up, grab your keys, and leave.”

“Whatever,” he scoffs, trying to hide his freshly bruised ego as he got up. Yet it showed with the lack of certainty in his usual stride—he was more than aware of his unwanted presence. 

You put on a brave face, despite feeling your stomach slowly sink. But it was better to settle in with the reality you chose now, rather than being struck by it later on.

He lets out a deep sigh as he steps out into the hall, then stops to look at you. “So that’s it? You’re just gonna cut me off because I said something that we both knew?” 

“Do you hear yourself right now?” You don’t know why you even asked—of course he does. He just never thinks he’s wrong. “This isn’t a relationship, remember? There is no commitment—I could cut you off for getting a bad haircut, and that’d be fine because I don’t owe you anything. You were being a fucking asshole. What did you think was gonna happen? That we talk it out and overcome it?”

At first his eyes grow distant. Then he barks out a laugh, impressed by how you managed to piss him the fuck off with that one. “No, I didn’t. I didn’t think you’d get triggered by something that dumb, either. But if you wanna be sensitive and cry every time you hear some shit that you don’t like, fine—have a nice fuckin’ life,” he starts walking away, knowing he’ll just say something rude if he stays any longer. “Good luck finding someone that’ll fuck you half as good as I do.”

Whoops.

“Thanks. I’ll send you a tape if I do.”

“Fucking try that and see what happens,” he suddenly snaps. 

And just as he’s about to walk back up to you to keep going, your door slams shut.

. . . 

Between your photo trail evidence of going out multiple times a week and Satoru training at the gym as if he were going up against god himself, it was safe for Suguru to assume that things ended between you two. 

Horribly, might he add, since Satoru doesn’t even want to find a rebound. He literally just drowns himself in work and then tortures himself at the gym after. Suguru tried talking to him about it in between sets. 

“Hey, has everything been alright?” 

“Everything’s been fuckin’ great.” 

Then he brought you up.  

“Never heard that name in my life.”

Satoru proceeded to add extra weight plates to the barbell right after, and Suguru didn’t ask any further for his friend's own safety. 

It’s been three weeks. 

He’s not saying he needs to get over it. Satoru can take however long he needs. It’s just time to start being honest about it, instead of making him pretend like everything he’s been doing has been normal. Feels like he’s being gaslit at this point. 

Lucky for him, the torture of not knowing what happened between you two didn’t last too long when he spotted you at the coffee shop just a few days later. Minding his own business was completely out of the question—he didn’t hesitate to approach you once he grabbed his order from the counter. 

“Oh, hey! How’ve you been?” 

It took you a second to process who had just approached you, but once you did, there was no missing the brief moment of disdain in your eyes from running into your ex-something’s best friend in public. Not that he gave a shit. Your problems were with Satoru, not him. Which was why he continued to give you that warm smile of his in your eyes 

“Hey,” you force out a smile. “Good! Yeah, I’ve been… great,” you say, and it doesn't sound very convincing.

It sparks some amusement in Suguru. “Mind if I join you?”

“Yeah, sure,” you gesture at the seat across from you, and he can’t help but think you are so much nicer than your ex-fuck buddy right now. 

He takes a seat, then rips the band-aid off like it was nothing. “How’ve you been holding up after everything?” 

Your smile falters, the thoughts of what Satoru could’ve possibly said about you running through your mind. “I’ve been alright. It’s not like we were anything serious, anyway.” 

“Right,” he pretends to agree, though his tone says otherwise, managing to crank your nerves up a notch. 

“Did he—” You hesitate for a second. “Can I ask what he said to you?” 

“Nothing,” he looks disappointed with the answer himself. “Granted, he never said much to begin with. But yeah, no, he hasn’t said anything.”

You nod, looking disappointed as well, just for different reasons. “Of course he hasn’t.”

He swishes his coffee inside the cup, trying to gauge what kind of mood you’re in. “Can I ask what happened?”

You were half-expecting the question—he’s always seemed like the gossipy type. The story itself isn’t that bad. You weren’t planning on talking shit about Satoru either, in the case that his friend does relay the message back to him, but it wasn’t considered talking shit if you were telling the truth. 

So you tell him, starting with how normal of a morning it was. 

You knew you weren’t wrong, but watching his reactions as the story progressed healed something in you. He was dumbfounded by the end of it. 

“I can’t believe he said that to you.”

“Yep.” 

“No, seriously. I don’t know why he’d say that to you.” 

You scoff. “Because he's an ass?” 

Shit. You weren’t supposed to say anything bad about him. With Suguru’s reaction, though, you doubt he’ll mention anything.

He shrugs. “I mean… yeah,” Satoru being a bit of an asshole was an obvious truth, but that was seemingly beside the point, “but he really cared about you.”

You stare at him blankly. “I thought he never said that much to begin with.”

“He’s weird with certain things.” He shrugs again, this time out of reluctance. He’d rather not share the drunk, pathetic rants for Satoru’s sake. “But if you think about it, he’s never complained about you or shared any of your business. Never got tired of you, either.” 

“What a positive outlook,” you murmur, leaning your head against the palm of your hand, glancing over the busy street. 

“Okay, fine—he may have shared how you were starting to bring your stuff back home, and he sounded pretty worried,” Suguru quickly admits, as if he weren’t dying to mention it.

You glance back at him. “He did?” 

“Yeah,” he sighs. “Now he spends his days exhausting himself. Trust me, he cares. A lot.”

You all but hum, then take a sip of your coffee.

“Do you care?” he asks. 

“Yeah.” You wince a little, having to admit it. “But not enough to give him the opportunity to say all that stuff to me again.”

“I get it.” He respects it, too. He doesn’t think you’re completely in the right, though. You had the same amount of time that Satoru did to fess up. “Honestly, I just think he needs a little push.” 

He has your full attention now. 

“Like what?” 

He smiles once more, and you quickly realize that he is not the wholesome man he pretends to be with the plan he proposed.

. . . 

The music continues to pound against Satoru’s chest, as it has for the last thirty minutes. Not once in all the time he’s been in this club has he not regretted accepting Suguru’s invitation to a boys' night out. Usually he’d be drunk right now, having the time of his life with some girl hanging on him, dragging him to the dance floor. 

That “some girl” being you. 

Instead, he’s sitting at the bar, tipsy and bored. Some girl came up to him, asking if he wanted to dance. He pretended not to hear her, making her storm off after her third attempt at trying to get his attention. Sure, it was rude, but he can’t find it in himself to sympathize with her right now. Or anyone else for that matter. 

Luckily, Mr. Designated Driver’s here, so he had someone to be boring with, and for once Kento doesn’t seem annoyed by his presence. Not that he’d care if he was. If he were in the mood to have fun at the moment, he would’ve rage-baited the blonde by now.

Kento even laughs for once, a rare sight. 

Satoru’s lips twitch into a smile as he looks up from his drink. “What are you laughing about?” 

“Take a look at who Suguru’s dancing with,” the man says, nodding towards the dance floor, feeling messier than usual despite sticking to a mocktail for the night. 

Satoru turns, and the moment his eyes find Suguru, he deadpans. “What the fuck?” 

It’s you. 

Suguru’s dancing with you, and you look like you’re enjoying yourself with the way he’s holding your hips and whispering in your fucking ear.

The genuine shock in his tone and the way he grips his drink nearly makes Kento burst out into laughter. The only thing keeping him from doing so was the fact that Satoru actually looked like he was ready to blow a fucking gasket. Though his attempt to keep to himself doesn’t do much, because Gojo starts yelling at him like it’s his fault.

“Are they fucking talking?!” 

Kento’s face suddenly scrunches up in annoyance. “How would I know?” 

“Maybe ‘cause you’re smiling like you do!” He suddenly accuses him, making the blonde hold his hands out in defense. “Has he been fucking her behind my back?!”

“I don’t know?!” Kento yells back at him, “I didn’t even know you two broke up!” 

“We didn’t—weren’t dating in the first place!”

“Then what’s the problem with them seeing each other?” the blonde counters. 

“Because it’s fucked up,” Satoru immediately responds, and while Kento can agree with that, he can’t help but share the same sentiment as Suguru—he had two years to make things official with you. “You know what? Fuck you.”

“Me?” Kento points at himself with a scoff. “What the fuck did I do?!”

“What didn’t you fucking do?” Satoru mutters bitterly before downing the rest of his drink in one go. It was the only thing he could come up with, knowing deep down he really didn’t do anything wrong. He was just pissed off and taking it out on him. 

Kento doesn’t even get the chance to respond to the comment—Satoru was already getting up from his seat the moment his glass hit the counter. His stomach slightly churns as the possibility of Satoru making a scene pops up in his head, but it eventually settles as he watches the man make his way to the bathroom instead. 

It takes everything in Satoru not to push past all the sweaty people in his way, reminding himself to calm down the entire time. He finally gets to the bathroom, realizes there’s surprisingly no one else in there, and takes the chance to lock the door. Then he plants his hands down on the side of the worn down sink and takes a good look at himself. 

He tells himself lots of things. 

Relax. 

It’s not that serious. 

You were just someone he fucked, it only went on for as long as it did because it was convenient—because it was easy. 

He tells himself it doesn’t matter if Suguru had you, because he had you first. They don’t call it sloppy seconds for no reason, and if Suguru wants to fucking settle for that, then he can be his guest. 

The bathroom door begins to pound, there’s someone yelling on the other side, but Satoru ignores it. 

God. Why the fuck are you dancing with Suguru? Have you been eyeing him the entire time you were together?

The door pounds again. 

He continues to spiral as he goes through almost all the stages of grief. He doesn’t get to the acceptance part though, partially because of the banging on the door that ends up annoying him. After taking one last deep breath, he straightens back up at full height, walks over to the door, and is met with some greasy drunkard when he opens it. 

“What the hell?! There are multiple stalls." The stranger immediately chastises him, and Satoru has absolutely no interest in defending himself at the moment. 

“I’m deaf,” he says in all seriousness, and there’s instant regret on the man’s face as he begins to apologize, but Satoru just walks past him and makes his way down the hall, returning to the sea of sweaty people. 

By the time the stranger realized he was lying, he was long gone—off to find you.

You thought it was a horrible idea at first, but Suguru was a persuasive man. You definitely needed a drink or two though to get comfy with him and the plan you two agreed on, which was to make Satoru jealous. 

It was petty, but there also wasn’t much to lose at this point. If he reacts, great. If he doesn’t, it’s not like anything changed. Either way, you weren’t going to be the first to break the silence between you. 

You were starting to think the plan was a complete failure, though. One moment you get a glimpse of Satoru sitting at the bar, then Suguru turns you around to fully face his direction, and he’s gone. 

As time went on, you forced yourself to let it go, telling yourself that he had left and all there was left to do was enjoy yourself. You’d never date Suguru, nor are you likely to sleep with him, but he sure was fun to dance with and talk to. So you let him hold your hips as you swayed to the music and allowed yourself to laugh at his jokes. You’ve moped around enough for a man that didn’t care, and decided to let go and enjoy yourself under all the flashing neon lights. 

The big hands at your hips begin to turn your around, there’s a smile on your face as you follow, only for it to be wiped away with complete and utter confusion when you realize the man you’d be dancing with was not Suguru, despite being the same exact height and wearing the same annoying man bun. 

“Hey,” he smiles, and the tone of his voice carries the same smoothness as Suguru’s does. “Been wondering when you’d notice me—names Zuko, by the way.” 

You wanted to scream. When did Suguru get switched out with him?! That fucking asshole. Why would he just leave you like this?

Then, as if it couldn’t get any worse, you see a familiar head of stark white hair from the corner of your eye, and he sounds so incredibly pathetic as he yells, “What the fuck is your problem?” but you also can’t help but find some comfort in it. At least he’s here to save you from this awkward moment, even if it was just to argue with you.

Zuko wasn’t such a bad guy, though. He tries to pull you aside once he notices an angry man headed straight towards you—not that it makes it any better that Suguru straight up abandoned you after coming up with the plan.

“Oh, fuck off,” Satoru swats the man’s hand away from you, and then he starts lying through his teeth. “We have a baby at home and she’s been gone for three fucking days.”

“Oh shit.” Zuko immediately backs off, but not without looking at you as if you were a deadbeat mother. “Sorry about that.”

And while he’s a stranger, it still hurts being misjudged like that. 

“No, we don’t?!”

“Megumi’s gonna hear about this one day and fucking hate you for it,” Satoru yells loud enough for those around you to hear. “You’re not even done breastfeeding yet and you’re going out and grinding on random men?” 

“Satoru!” you yelp out and attempt to cover his mouth because everyone around you seems to believe him, only for him to grab your wrist and begin to lead you out of the club, murmuring, “we’re leaving,” through a clenched jaw.  

Despite the unserious nature of his tactics to get you out of there, he was still fuming by the time you two stepped outside and proceeded to absolutely lose it.

“I can’t fucking believe you. I–“ He had to physically stop himself from what he was originally going to say by groaning and biting his knuckles. “My best friend and his fucking look-alike. What the fuck? What are you trying to say?!”

You didn’t even think of that, but Satoru would find himself questioning if that was your type, and you almost laughed at the fact. “Nothing!” 

“So that was just a coincidence?” He stops to look at you, but doesn’t get an immediate answer because it wasn’t a complete coincidence. “Jesus fucking Christ. You danced with my best friend right in front of me, then moved on to someone that looked just like him. Why would you do that?!” 

“I didn’t know I was dancing with the second guy, it was dark!”

“That doesn’t make it any better!” If anything, it pissed him off more that you thought you were with Suguru the entire time. “You kicked me out of your place because you were done with me. I didn’t bother you after that, and now you’re trying to make me jealous? What the fuck is your problem?!” 

“I kicked you out because you saw me texting a coworker and started being a dick and said all that shit about how you didn’t care. Do you even remember what you came over for that day?”

“I didn’t mean it like that—“

“And then reminded me we weren’t in a relationship—“

“Oh my god,” he groans, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know why you listen to half the shit I say—I’ve been trying to be in one with you this entire fucking time!” 

His pathetic excuse for a confession is met with a scoff, and he’d be lying if he said it didn’t bruise his ego a little bit—especially with how you continued to look at him like he was a lying piece of shit. 

There’s a pause, and you eye him down as you cross your arms. “You’re just saying that.” 

“I’m not—“

“You literally are,” you continue to argue with him, growing more defensive as the seconds pass. “Why didn’t you say anything sooner?” 

“Fuck—I don’t know,” he says, throwing his arms out in defeat. “Life got busy. I didn’t want to fuck up whatever the hell we had.” 

You suppress a laugh. “What a charming way to say fuck buddies.” 

“We weren’t just fuck buddies though, and you know that,” he grumbles. If he weren’t so pissed off from having to watch you dance with not one, but two guys, he’d probably be blushing like some little school girl right now. “Look, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have talked to you like that, and I’ve felt like shit about it ever since.”

“You’re only saying that after seeing me with someone else,” you stubbornly respond. 

He almost corrects you, because he saw you with two people, not one–not to mention they were the complete opposite of him–but he doesn’t mention that. Not because he didn’t want to add more to the argument, but because the thought made him sick. If there were power in thoughts, they’d both be bald right now. He was going to shave Suguru’s fucking head. 

“How would you feel if you saw me grinding up against some girl after being told to fuck off?” he huffs out, running his fingers through his hair. “You told me you were done with me! So yeah, I’m saying that now after weeks of trying to move on—I’m sorry and I fucking love you. I never want to see you with another man again.” 

Your cheeks suddenly warmed, stunned by how easy it was for him to admit that. Unfortunately, what could’ve simmered down to a sweet moment, where you told him you loved him back, gets paused because he’s still distraught and starts rambling again. 

“Really? Suguru? I’m not fucking Rapunzel, I can’t grow my hair out like that!” 

“Satoru–”

He cuts you off and continues to spiral. “You said you liked the undercut! Who lies about something like that?”

“I didn’t lie–”

He barks out a laugh, even though he looks like he’s about to cry. “I know I’m not perfect, but at least I don’t have a support group dedicated to me.” 

That doesn’t surprise you one bit, but you quickly move on from that as you try to get a word in. “We did it to make you jealous!” 

He stops mid-sentence and looks at you as if you had just shot him. 

“I ran into him at the coffee shop and I was really sad because I thought you didn’t care about me and so he offered to help me out with that because he claimed that you did,” you quickly explained as he continued to just stare at you with a blank face. “And that he was probably my best bet since you were less likely to fight him.” 

“I’m gonna fucking murder him,” he says a little too calmly. 

“Please don’t,” you murmured, growing concerned that he actually might with the way his eyes dart back to the door. 

“I care,” he says, though he doesn’t really need to convince you anymore. “I care, a lot.”

“I know,” you smile, but it slowly fades as you hear familiar laughter off in the near distance. 

You both slowly turn your heads towards the direction it’s coming from, and Suguru turns the corner shortly after, with some girl in his arms. His shirt is slightly disheveled as if he were in a rush to button it up, hair messier than usual, and there's a big fat hickey on the side of his neck. 

Did he seriously disappear to go fuck someone? 

He stiffens the moment he sees you two. 

“Having fun?” Satoru spitefully asks. 

Suguru quickly looks back, then points at himself—acting completely clueless. The girl he’s with is still giggling. “Are those your friends?”

“I have no idea who those people are,” he chuckles like some old rich guy, the epitome of nonchalance. 

Satoru looks back at the girl, who’s clearly already wrapped around Suguru’s finger. “If he brought up anything about astrology, just know he doesn’t actually give a shit about it.”

“Just ignore them, Tiffany,” he says as he opens the door, quickly glaring back at you two. “They’re just drunk and looking for a reaction.” 

“It’s Stephanie.”

“That’s what I said, sweetheart.”