That got the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth.

He stood without warning, hauling you up with him, and you stumbled into his chest with a surprised laugh. The room went dead silent seeing this, as every Varia officer suddenly found something fascinating to stare at on the far wall.

He walked and you kept up only because his hand hadn't left your neck, steering you through the corridor, up the stairs, all the way to the heavy oak door of your shared quarters before he shouldered it open.

You grabbed his tie before he could deposit you and turn around and yanked him forward, although he barely moved as his eyes dropped to your face.

"Stay~" you giggled.

"I wasn't leaving." he lied.

"You were going to go back down there and brood in your chair for another three hours." You pulled the tie again, walking backward, drawing him in. "I know you."

He kicked the door shut behind him and the lock clicked.

"Yeah." His voice was low, stripped of its usual bite. He looked at you standing there flushed and stubborn in the low light. "You do."

His mouth found yours before you could say another word.

TYL!Superbia Squalo

"VOOOIII! How many of those have you had?!"

You held up four fingers. Then reconsidered, and held up five.

"Oh, for fucks--sit down before you fall down!" Squalo grabbed your elbow as you swayed on the barstool, silver hair swinging as he whipped around to glare at the bartender. "Who kept serving her?!"

The bartender, a civilian contractor who clearly had not signed up for Varia-adjacent terror, went pale and backed into the liquor shelf.

"Squalo." You tugged on his sleeve. Then tugged harder. "Squalooooo."

"WHAT."

"You look really pretty tonight~♥" you curled a lock of his hair around your finger.

That shut him up for approximately one and a half seconds before he looked away from you to hide any evidence of a blush. "You're drunk."

"Drunk and correct." You leaned your full weight against him, arms looping around his waist, face buried in his chest. He stiffened, not because he minded, you'd been married long enough to know that, but because half the Varia was watching with open glee.

"Get off me. We're in public."

"No."

"That wasn't a request!"

"Carry me upstairs and maybe I'll let go." you grinned.

"I'm not--you can't just... dammit, FINE." He ducked down, got an arm under your knees, and swept you up like your weight wasn't a factor. You shrieked with delight as he stormed toward the staircase, face burning red, bellowing at anyone who so much as glanced their direction.

"EYES FORWARD OR I'LL CUT THEM OUT OF YOUR SKULLS."

He kicked open the bedroom door and set you on the bed with more care than his expression suggested. You kept your arms locked around his neck.

"Let go."

"Come here."

"I just carried you here, woman, what more do you--"

You kissed him. Messily and off-center, tasting like cheap prosecco. He made a strangled noise against your mouth and braced one knee on the mattress, his free hand fisting in the sheets beside your hip.

When you pulled back, he was breathing hard. That pretty face his flushed all the way to his ears.

"Door's still open," you whispered.

He walked back a few steps and slammed it so hard the frame cracked.

"Happy?"

"Getting there." You pulled him down again and he went down willingly this time.

TYL!Belphegor

"Ushishishi."

That laugh had been following you for the last twenty minutes. You sat at the end of the banquet table with your chin in your hand, cheeks hot, fourth cocktail mostly gone, and made a point of not looking at him.

"The princess is sulking."

"The princess wants to leave." You pushed the glass away and finally turned. Belphegor leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, crown tilted, grin already in place.

"Bel, I'm tired. Take me upstairs." you offered your hand towards his.

"Hmm. Ask properly."

You narrowed your eyes. "I'm your wife, dipshit."

"And I'm a prince." He tilted his head, blond hair shifting. "Rank supersedes marriage. Those are the rules." he shrugged.

"Those are your rules."

"Ushishi. Exactly."

You stood up, wobbled, and caught yourself on the table. His grin didn't waver, but he was beside you in two strides. A knife appeared between his fingers out of nowhere, flipping idly as he offered you his other arm.

"The prince will escort you. Since you're clearly incapable of walking in a straight line."

"How romantic."

"Royalty doesn't do romance. Royalty does obligation." But his hand settled on the curve of your waist as you walked, thumb tracing a slow circle against your hip through the fabric. The corridor stretched long and dim and his boots clicked an easy rhythm beside yours.

He opened the bedroom door and you turned, grabbing the front of his shirt, pulling him across the threshold.

His grin stretched wider. "Oh?"

"Get in here."

"The princess is bold tonight." He let himself be pulled, one step, two, until the door clicked shut and his back was against it. You pressed all of your weight against his lean frame and his chin dipped. Even behind that curtain of hair, you could feel his gaze on you.

"Tell me what you want." His voice dropped, the laugh finally absent from it. "Be specific."

"You. Now. Consider it another one your obligations."

He reached behind him and locked the door.

"Ushishi. Granted."

TYL!Dino Cavallone

You were leaning sideways on the couch when Dino found you, and his reaction was as predictable as the sunrise.

"Oh. Oh no, honey, how much did you--here, don't lean like that, you'll fall off the--ack!" He tripped over the coffee table reaching for you.

The head of the Cavallone family, beloved by many, undone by furniture yet again. Romario, standing by the doorway, pinched the bridge of his nose and looked away.

"Dino~" You reached for him as he caught himself on the armrest. "Dino, I want to go to bed."

"Yeah, okay, that's probably a good idea." He straightened up and pushed his hair back, that apologetic smile already forming. "Can you stand? Here, take my arm."

You took his arm. You also took the opportunity to lean your entire body into him, cheek against his shoulder, arms wrapping around his.

"Sorry," you mumbled into his jacket.

"For what? You're allowed to have fun." He pressed a kiss to the top of your head as he guided you toward the hallway. His stride slowed to match yours, patient with every uneven step as he looked back. "Romario, we're done for the night."

"Of course, Boss."

The walk upstairs took twice as long as it should have. You kept stopping to nuzzle into his neck, and he kept laughing though flustered, gently steering you forward.

He got the door open with one hand and walked you to the edge of the bed. "Okay, let me get you some water and--"

You grabbed his jacket and pulled causing him to stumble forward with a surprised yelp as he catched himself over you, one hand on the mattress, the other on your hip.

"Stay."

"I was just going to get you--

"Dino." You looked up at him, flushed, stubborn, still holding his collar. "I don't want water, I want you."

His ears went red and his smile became less composed. He exhaled, long and slow, and let his forehead rest against yours.

"You should really have some water..."

"I will, after we're done."

He sighed. "I suppose that's as close to a compromise as I can hope for."

TYL!Byakuran

He had been watching you all night as you finished your sixth marshmallow cocktail, which was his fault as he had them made specially, and the room was doing a gentle spin.

"Bya... kuran." you slurred.

"Hm?" He appeared beside you with half-eaten bag of marshmallows in his hand.

It was midnight at a Millefiore gala and the man was snacking on sugar.

"I'm calling it."

"Already? But the party is so fun." He popped another marshmallow into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully. "You haven't even tried the cake yet."

"If I try the cake, I will fall over."

"I'd catch you."

"Yeah, after my face falls into it... And after laughing on top of that." you murmured, smacking his shoulder lightly.

His smile widened a fraction. "Maybe. Maybe not. You'll never know unless you do it." He offered you a marshmallow and pouted when you pushed his hand away.

"Take me to our room. Please."

"Since you asked so nicely." He set down the bag, licked sugar off his thumb, and offered you his arm.

The hallways of the estate were empty. Your heels clicked unevenly and he matched your pace without comment, humming something tuneless as you leaned into him.

He opened the bedroom door and you stepped through, turned, grabbed the front of his shirt with both fists, and hauled him inside.

His eyebrows lifted. The smile stayed, but something behind it sharpened. "Oh my~"

"Shut the door."

"It's already shut. Didn't you notice?" He looked down at your hands on his shirt, then at your face. "You're flushed."

"I'm tipsy."

"You're also pretty."

That stalled you for a second. He used it and stepped forward, closing the gap until your back met the edge of the dresser.

"What do you want?" he asked, and for once the playfulness thinned out, leaving just the question and his eyes on you.

"You. Without the audience."

"Done." He kissed the corner of your mouth first, almost delicate, then caught your lips fully, and the taste of marshmallow dissolved into something much better.

TYL!Gamma

You glared at your empty glass for past ten minutes but Gamma had only noticed four minutes ago from across the room. You knew because he lit a fresh cigarette, which was what he did when he was deciding whether to intervene.

Intervention arrived in the form of a hand on your shoulder and a flat voice above your head.

"Okay, time to go."

"I'm fine." you insisted, swatting his hand off.

"You've been staring at that glass like it insulted you. You're done." He took it from your hand and set it on the bar without looking. "Up."

"You're so bossy."

"You married bossy. Let's move."

You stood, and the floor tilted. His arm came around your waist instantly, pulling you against his side. He didn't make a production of it, he just adjusted his grip and started walking.

The cigarette stayed between his lips as he navigated you through the thinning crowd. Stairs. Hallway. Door. He fished the key out with one hand, the other still anchored on you, and shouldered it open.

"Bed. Water on the nightstand. I'll be back after I finish--"

You grabbed his sleeve and he stopped. The cigarette bobbed.

"Come inside." you asked.

"I need to check the perimeter for--"

"Gamma." You pulled harder, stepping backward into the room. "The perimeter can wait."

He looked at you. Looked at the steel grip you had on him, took the cigarette from his mouth, crushed it in the hallway ashtray without breaking eye contact, and stepped inside.

The door closed and locked as he stood there, back straight, watching you closely.

"You planned this." he realized.

"I had four drinks and an impulse. That's not a plan."

The ghost of a smile appeared and vanished as he crossed the room and caught your jaw in one hand, tilting your face up.

"Impulse, huh." His voice was low and close. "Lucky me."

Reborn (Adult Form)

You switched from wine to whiskey an hour ago and that had been a tactical error on your part. The jazz club was winding down, smoke curling under low amber lights, and you were propped against the bar with your lower lip pushed out.

"That face isn't going to work on me."

You pushed it out further.

Reborn stood beside you in a black suit, espresso in hand even though it was midnight and regarded you with the calm appraisal of a man who had never once been outmaneuvered by anyone, least of all his own wife.

"I want to leave." you requested.

"Then leave."

"With you, Reborn."

"Ah." He took a sip. "You could have led with that."

"I could have--But I'm four whiskeys in which have compromised my communication skills"

He set the cup down and adjusted his fedora as his eyes traveled from your flushed face to the way your dress curved over your hips.

"Compromised," he repeated. "That's one word for it."

"Are you going to help me or just stand there being handsome and unhelpful?"

"I can do both." But he offered his arm, and when you took it, he pulled you close, hand resting on the full curve of your waist. He walked you out without a word to anyone.

The hotel corridor was quiet. He unlocked the door, held it open, and you grabbed the lapel of his suit jacket and yanked him through.

One eyebrow rose. The fedora tilted.

"Bold."

"You like bold."

"I like competent. Bold is a bonus." He pushed you against the now-closed door and leaned down with his mouth hovering just above yours, close enough that you could smell espresso and gunpowder.

"Hm, you're still pouting," he murmured.

"Fix that then."

The corner of his mouth curved. "Yes, ma'am."

Fon (Adult Form)

The tea house had been converted for the reception with paper lanterns strung between wooden beams and low tables crowded with guests.

You miscounted your cups of sake, which easy to do when they were so small and kept getting refilled, and now you sat with both hands around an empty cup, cheeks burning, quietly refusing to admit you overdid it.

Fon knelt beside you with a soft smile.

"You're rather flushed."

"It's the lanterns. They're very... warm-colored."

"The lanterns." He smiled fondly, not wanting to tease you intentionally. "Of course."

You turned the cup over in your hands. "I think... I'd like to go to bed, if that's okay."

"Of course, let us go then." He rose and offered both hands to help you stand.

You took them and he drew you upward, absorbing your unsteadiness like a current as you wobbled.

"Lean on me if you'd like."

"I... don't want to be an inconvenience." you hesitated.

"You are my wife." He said it as though that answered every possible objection. His arm came around your back and you pressed into him, your head finding the curve of his shoulder.

He guided you through the corridor with unhurried steps. The night air came through the open screens, cool against your skin as his thumb traced a slow line along your shoulder as you walked, rhythmic as breathing.

The bedroom door slid open under his hand and stepped aside to let you through. You took his hand and softly pulled him in with you.

He followed your lead without any resistance and slid the door shut behind him with his free hand while his other hand held yours tighter.

"You've been patient all evening," you said.

"I'm always patient."

"I know. But I'm not." You squeezed your hand lightly in his hold. "Please stay with me."

He studied your face for a long, quiet moment. Then he raised one hand and brushed the hair from your temple, fingertips trailing down to your jaw, tilting your chin up.

"I believe you may have missed it when I implied..." he trailed for a moment. "That I was coming with you, not simply dropping you off."

Colonnello (Adult Form)

The military fundraiser had free beer. That was their mistake. Your mistake was trying to keep pace with a man who spent years drinking with soldiers, which meant by your sixth bottle you were gone and he was merely cheerful.

"Kora! You look like you're about to slide off that chair."

"I am fine."

"Says the one who put the wrong name on the raffle ticket twenty minutes ago."

"...That was a stylistic choice, in case anyone else had the same name."

Colonnello laughed as he leaned back in his chair. His dress shirt was rolled to the elbows, with his blond hair pushed off his face, looking like the kind of man recruitment posters wished they could manufacture.

You set your bottle down with both hands and looked at him dead on. "Take me home Nello."

"We're staying upstairs. Hotel, remember?"

"Then take me upstairs." you corrected.

"Can you walk?"

"Colonnello."

"It's a real question, kora! Last time you said you could walk after drinking and you zigzagged into a coat rack and almost took out a waiter."

"That coat rack was in a stupid location."

He grinned, stood, and crouched with his back to you. "Hop on."

"You're not serious."

"Yep.--Hop on."

You climbed onto his back because you knew there was no point arguing at this point.

His hands hooked under your thighs and stood with ease as you locked your arms around his neck, and he carried you through the lobby at a stride that suggested he could do this up a mountain in full gear.

Which he had done to prove a point, hence your lack of arguing this time around.

"You good up there?"

"You smell like beer."

"So do you, kora. We match!"

He took the stairs even though the elevator was right there definitely to show off to you and shouldered open the hotel room door once the two of you reached it.

He bent to let you slide off onto the bed but you didn't release your arms.

"Kora, you gotta let go so I can--"

"Nope." You pulled, hard, and he toppled back onto the mattress with you. He let out a surprised bark of laughter, catching himself and rolling over to be above you and your legs hooked around his waist.

"Oh," he said, grin shifting into something more focused. "That's how it is."

"That's how it is." you repeated.

"Good. I was hoping you'd say that, kora."

He kissed you as though this was another point he intended to prove, and honestly, you were happy to let him.

Skull (Adult Form)

"Nobody at this table has said a single nice thing to me all night. Not one!" This complaint had been broadcasted approximately nine times in two hours.

The other guests, a scattered collection of underground figures who stopped registering his existence around complaint three, carried on without blinking.

You rubbed your temples. Six cocktails. You had six cocktails because listening to your husband campaign for acknowledgment required chemical reinforcement.

"Skull."

"I pulled off a triple backflip on a motorcycle last week. Triple! Do you know how many people can do that!? Me, I can! And did anyone here even--"

"Skull."

He turned, eyeliner smudged from an earlier dramatic episode you mercifully missed during a bathroom break, and his face toggled from grievance to full undivided attention in half a second.

"What's wrong? Are you okay? You look flushed. Are you sick? Do you need air? Should I get--"

"I want to go to our room. Now, before I dissolve into this chair."

Everything about him changed in that moment. His shoulders set back with his chin lifted. It was the posture he pulled out whenever he was handed a mission he could actually complete without getting drop-kicked across the venue by a former colleague.

"Done! I've got this, come on." He rounded the table and offered his hand with a flourish that was absurd yet completely sincere. You grabbed it, pulled yourself up, and leaned against him.

He stumbled a half-step but caught you properly on the second try.

"I've got you. Okay? Right here. Not going anywhere."

He steered you through the crowd with his arm locked around your waist, shooting looks at anyone who glanced your direction, expressions he clearly believed were threatening. They were not.

After a side quest of going to the wrong floor, and going down the wrong hallway, he finally got the two of you to your hotel room. He fumbled with the keycard twice before the green light clicked, and by then you were already fisting the collar of his jacket.

"Wait at least let me get the--"

"Inside. Now." You hauled him through the doorway and he yelped, tripping over the threshold, catching himself against you as the door swung shut behind him.

"You--right now? You actually want--"

"We are literally married Skull."

His face went red from the piercings down. All that restless bravado condensed into something more controlled.

"Y-Yeah." His voice cracked once. He steadied it. "Yeah. We are."

Then he kissed you like he still couldn't believe his luck, and you kissed him back until he believed it.

TYL!Xanxus

He was in his office for hours with one of the Vongola's external advisors, and you caught sight of her leaning close, chest pressed against his arm and whispering something in his ear. Afterwards, you were sitting on the far end of the bedroom sofa, scrolling your phone with complete disregard. Xanxus dropped beside you. "Oi." No response. "I'm talking to you, woman." "That's nice." He snatched the phone from your hand. "The hell is your problem?" You looked at him, expression blank. "Go back to your meeting. That advisor of yours seemed very attentive."

"That woman's been advising the Alliance for six years. She's sixty-two." he exclaimed in disbelief. Your resolve wavered, "Well…She didn't look sixty-two--" "She's had work done, fuck if I care," he snapped, but his hand was already gripping the soft curve of your thigh, dragging you toward him. "Look, she's handsy with everyone. Squalo nearly broke her wrist last quarter." His arm wrapping around your waist. "There's no one else. Don't piss me off by thinking otherwise." When your hand curled into his shirt, he exhaled hard. "You're so fucking annoying sometimes." "You're still mean." "Yeah. And you're still mine."

TYL!Superbia Squalo

The mission debrief had run late, and when you'd tracked him down, he was backed against the corridor wall by a younger Varia recruit. She was pretty, slim, her hands fisted in his coat and was looking up at him through her lashes. You'd turned on your heel immediately. Sometime later Squalo stood in the kitchen doorway, hair damp from a shower, watching you cut aggressively vegetables. "VOOOI, you gonna tell me what's wrong or what!?" You set the knife down. "Why don't you ask your little recruit? The one with her hands all over you."

His voice hit a decibel that made you wince. "THAT BRAT? She grabbed me to beg for a squad transfer! I was about to throw her through the wall before you decided to up and leave!" "She didn't look scared." "Because you left before that part!" He closed the distance, catching your wrist gently. His voice was still loud by anyone's standards, but for Squalo, it was basically a whisper. "I married you. You think some recruit changes that? I'd sooner let Xanxus throw a wine bottle at me again."

TYL!Belphegor

You had found the earring on his nightstand, a pearl drop, gold clasp and clearly not yours. When you'd held it up, Bel had just grinned like the Cheshire grin and said nothing before walking away. Now you sat with a book which you hadn't turned a page for in over forty minutes. "The princess is sulking~" Nothing. "Ushishi, the princess is annoyed is she?--" You cut him off, "I'm reading, Bel." "You've been on that page since I got here." You didn't respond, causing his grin to fade a fraction. "You're actually upset." You sighed and turned the page, "No, like I said... I'm reading."

He walked behind you and plucked the book away. "That earring's yours." You blinked, waiting for him to explain. "The prince bought it yesterday, it was supposed to be a surprise buuut the princess decided to have a crisis instead~" His gloved hand found the soft curve of your jaw, making your face heat up. "…You could have just said that early!" He shrugged, laughing. "Ushishi, and miss watching you pretend you weren't jealous?" But his thumb traced your cheek gently. "There's no one else stupid enough to hold a prince's attention. Only you."

TYL!Dino Cavallone

You'd come early to surprise him at his office, only to catch the tail end of a phone call through the cracked door, his voice low and warm, "I miss you. I think about you all the time... I'll see you soon, I promise." You left without a sound and sat on the window sill to watch the rain. An hour later, Dino found you. "There you are! Romario said you came by-- hey, what's wrong?" You wiped your eyes quickly. "Nothing." He paused, taking in your expression. "You've been crying." You decided to be direct. "Who were you talking to on the phone, Dino?" Your voice cracked on his name.

"Oh. Oh. No no no!!--" He fumbled for his phone and turned the screen to you. A contact labeled Mamma. "She's been sick. She called to guilt trip me for not visiting." Your throat tightened. "Why did you say 'I think about you all the time'?" "Because she tells me I forget her if I don't call regularly! She's Italian, it's emotional warfare!" He knelt, arms circling the soft rounds of your knees. "You're my whole world, you have to know that by now." Your fingers found his hair. "You really were talking to your mom huh?" He nodded frantically, "She asked if we were eating enough. Twice. And then asked about grandkids again."

TYL!Byakuran

You found the small velvet jewlry box in his closet, and inside was a ring sized far too small for your fingers. Sometime later, you moved through the kitchen while Byakuran watched closely from the couch. "Hmm, you're stress-baking, what's wrong" You slammed the tray down harder than intended, "I don't always have to be stressed to bake brownies you know!" He chuckled to himself, "Because you're clearly so calm now," he teased. You continued baking in silence until the brownies were in the oven and you spun on your heel. "Okay fine, I'm stressed...Who's that ring for, Byakuran?" The playful tilt of his head stilled.

"Hm?...Oh that--It's for you, silly. Your birthday is in three weeks, I had it custom made to stack with your wedding band. They just got the initial sizing too small." Heat crawled up your neck, "For...me?" He shrugged playfully and got up. "Who else?" He made his way behind you, hugging you from behind. "You could have hidden it better." you murmured. He smiled, resting his chin on your shoulder. "Well I didn't think my wife would be snooping through my closet like a little spy~" You elbowed him and he laughed against your neck, holding you tighter.

TYL!Gamma

It had been a quiet night until you overheard him talking to someone on the phone while he was outside. "She's nothing like Aria..." You didn't stick around after that, going to bed with your back to the door. When Gamma slid in beside you, he noticed your coldness immediately. "You're awake." You grumbled, "I'm not." Causing him to sigh in response. "You breathe slower when you're actually asleep..." His hand reached for your hip and you shifted away and whisper. "I heard you... saying I'm nothing like Aria."

"You're not." He didn't hesitant. "Aria was everything to me. Losing her nearly killed me. I won't pretend otherwise." He sat up. "But I got asked if you reminded me of her. I said no, because you don't. Because you're not a replacement." His palm found the curve of your waist. "I loved Aria. I always will... But what I have with you isn't borrowed from her memory, it's yours." He laid down and brought you close to him. "I don't need you to be like her. I just need you to be here." Your hand found his. "You could have led with that." He hummed, pressing a kiss to the top of your head. "Sorry, didn't think I had to."

Reborn (Adult Form)

You'd walked into the cafe where you were meeting him and found him in the corner booth with a stunning woman leaning forward laughing at something he'd said. You watched him lift his cup to her, then left. A few hours had passed and you were sitting on the couch, coat still on. Reborn came through the door, eyes scanning you. "You didn't come." You avoided his gaze. "You looked... occupied." He set his fedora on the table, "Tell me what you think you saw."

After a few minutes of explaining, he sighed. "That was Bianchi, she wanted to discuss a complication. Threatened to poison my barista if I didn't entertain her." He crouched before you, catching your chin, tilting your face up. "Listen, I don't risk what I have, you least of all." Your lip trembled as his thumb traced your jaw. "I chose you with full knowledge of every alternative, never think otherwise." Your hand gripped his wrist. "You could have at least warned me." His mouth pressed against your forehead, "I didn't want to put you in danger, I'll introduce you two properly next time."

Fon (Adult Form)

Everything had gone wrong. The mission was a mess, contacts fell through, six hours in the rain for nothing, and when you'd come home soaked and fuming, Fon had looked up from his tea and said, "You're home. Good." Then gone back to reading. You sighed and walked past him to the bedroom without a word. Minutes later he appeared in the doorway. "You're upset." "I'm not." "You slammed the door harder than usual." You groaned, covering yourself with a blanket. "Maybe I'm tired of coming home to someone reacts the same way whether I've had the worst day of my life or a fine one... Do you even care?"

He knelt next to your blanket lump, and for the first time his composure looked frayed. "I could feel your frustration before you opened the door. I didn't come to you because you usually want space before talking." His fingers found yours under the blanket and held them softly. "I made you tea. Your favorite blend. It's on the counter." You blinked. You hadn't noticed. His voice went quiet. "My calm is not absence, I apologize if it came across like that... I simply love you in quieter ways." Your throat tightened but no words left. He brought your hand out from the blanket and pressed his lips to your knuckles. "I always pay attention to you, even when it doesn't look like it."

Colonello (Adult Form)

You'd overheard him on the phone with Lal Mirch, which was nothing unusual, but it was how he'd said it. "Nobody pushes me like you do, Lal. Never have, never will, kora." You moved to sit down on the back steps, and Colonello dropped down beside you shortly after. "Hey. You're quiet, kora." You hummed, "Yeah, just thinking is all...Do you ever wish things had gone differently? With Lal I mean?" His hand stilled.

"Where's this coming from?" he questioned, eyebrows pinching together. "I heard you. Nobody pushes you like her. Never will. I can't compete with that." you laughed hollowely. A confused noise left him, "Huh, compete? You think this is a competition?" "Colonello--" He cut you off. "Lal is my combat partner. She trained me, kicked my ass and made me the soldier I am." His hand found your knee, "But she's not who I want beside me when the fighting's done, kora. What I have with Lal is war. What I have with you is what I fought for." Your vision blurred as your hands moved up to wipe your eyes. "You really mean that?" He pulled you into him, arm tight around your shoulders, lips pressed hard against your temple. "I asked you to marry me didn't I?"

Skull (Adult Form)

You saw a fan video of Skull at a stunt show, he was winking, blowing a kiss at a screaming woman in the front row. The comments flooded all with similar themes on how cute and flirty he is. You doom scrolled through the comments until Skull came in grinning. "Babe! The show was insane--" He stopped. "Oh no did something happen to Wisp?" "No, Wisp is fine but..." He tilted his head, "Buuuut what?" You showed him the video and the comments. "Care to explain?"

His eyes went panicked. "I-I-I--That's my thing! I'm a crowd pleaser--I didn't even see her face, the helmet was half on!" You believed him now, but kept going. "Sure looks like you saw her." He pointed at your phone. "You're trusting internet people over your husband?!" He dropped to his knees, pressing your hand against his hammering chest. "Feel that? You being upset is scarier than anything today, and I jumped a motorcycle through fire." Your resolve cracked as he began pleading. "I'll get 'I love my wife' embroidered on the back of my jacket. Big letters. Rhinestones." You slapped his arm with a smile "Don't you dare."

The first course went fine. He didn't look at you. Spoke to the Cavallone representative with one-worded responses as he focused more on the red wine in his hand.

By the second course his eyes found yours from across the table as his nostrils flared ever so slightly while his gazed like a predator locking onto prey.

You held his gaze. Took a bite of your risotto, and looked away first on purpose because you knew it would infuriate him.

It did.

You felt the weight of his stare on the side of your face for the rest of the course. Heavy and unblinking. The Cavallone representative tried to engage him in conversation about territory lines and Xanxus answered without moving his eyes from you.

By dessert, his chair had scraped back.

"We're done here," he announced to the table.

"But the negotiation isn't--" the Cavallone man started.

"Done." People scattered as he started reaching for his holster, but you stayed seated, finishing your wine, pulse slamming in your ears.

The dining room emptied until it was just you and the sound of his footsteps coming around the long table.

He braced both hands on the arms of your chair and leaned down until your faces were inches apart.

"You think I don't know what you did?"

"I organized a nearly successful dinner. You're welcome."

"That's not what I'm talking about and you know it." One hand left the chair arm and found your thigh under the table, gripping it through your dress hard enough to make your breath catch.

"You've been sitting across from me for two hours wearing something that's made me think of everyway to get all those pieces of trash out of this room."

"Sounds like a personal problem honestly." You shrugged.

"It's about to be your problem." He pulled your chair out from the table with you still in it, the legs shrieking against floors before kneeling between your legs, pushing your dress up your thighs and placing his mouth against your skin.

Your hand found his hair and gripped as his jaw dragged up your thigh.

"Every curve," he muttered into your skin. His fingers dug into your hips. "You sat there looking like this, smelling like this--"

"Like what?" You ran your fingers through his dark hair and felt his breath stutter.

"Like you belong to me and you wanted every person to know it."

"Did it work?"

He bit your inner thigh and you arched off the chair, but his hands caught your waist and pinned you to your seat as his mouth continue trailing upwards.

"Get upstairs. Now." he ordered.

"Make me." you said instinctually before instantly realizing that was the wrong thing to say to a man like him... or perhaps the right things depending on who you are.

He stood and hauled you up with him and your feet barely touched the floor before he had you against the dining room wall, one hand flat beside your head, the other gripping the back of your thigh and hitching it up against his hip.

His body pressed yours into the plaster before his mouth crushed yours. Your hands grabbed the front of his suit jacket, pulling him closer. His tongue found yours and you groaned into his mouth.

He broke the kiss and pressed his forehead against yours with open eyes bore into yours from an inch away.

"Upstairs," he order again.

"Then carry me, if you can." you taunted, testing your luck.

Heat ignited behind his eyes as he curved both hands under your thighs, and lifted your full weight with surprising ease as your legs and arms wrapped around him as he carried you up the villa stairs with his mouth on your throat the entire way.

The bedroom door was kicked open, kicked shut, and locked before he dropped you on the bed and looked down at you with unmistakable want.

"I waited two hours," he said. "Don't expect this to be quick."

TYL!Superbia Squalo

You were trapped in a moving vehicle with Squalo on a four-hour drive back to Varia headquarters, and had applied the pheromone spray at the last rest stop despite knowing that the AC was broken.

So when windows came down and hot summer air flooded the car, the breeze carried everything you were wearing straight towards the driver's seat.

For forty minutes he said nothing while he white-knuckled the steering wheel, silver hair whipping in the wind.

You watched the countryside blur past and pretended to be fascinated by olive groves while your heart tried to hammer through your ribs, before you lurched forward after he shifted the gears too hard.

"You changed something," he said bluntly.

"Hmm?"

"At the rest stop. You put something on. Don't play dumb."

"I freshened up, is that a crime?"

"FRESHENED--" The car drifted and he corrected hard. His hand left the wheel and raked through his hair making the car drifted again.

"Hey--Eyes on the road!" you yelled, gripping the grab handle above.

"Don't tell me where to look!" But his eyes were already on you. Dropping to your bare legs in the passenger seat, the sundress bunched at your thighs, the seatbelt cutting between your breasts.

The car drifted a third time and a horn blared from behind and he snapped back, cursing at them.

"I wouldn't have bothered with this pheromone spray if I knew you'd end up killing us both!" you screeched, both hands gripping the handle now.

"VOIII--We wouldn't die in traffic!"

His grip on the steering wheel flexed, released and flexed again as he kept intentional attention to the road.

The car was filled with silence for another 5 kilometers as the olive groves gave way to grassy hills as the sun began its decent down.

Throughout all of this the wind kept carrying your scent towards him in waves before he pulled off the highway without any signal or warning, driving down a narrow road flanked by stone walls until the car was hidden from the road.

He threw it into park with the engine still running.

"Get out."

You did, and so did he.

He came around the hood in four strides and his hands grabbed your waist and your back hit the passenger door as his face dropped into the curve of your neck and breathed you in.

"You knew," he said against your throat. "You knew the wind was blowing that shit directly into my face while you pretended nothing was happening."

"Was something happening?"

His mouth pressed against your pulse and your knees buckled with a gasp, though his thigh shoved itself between yours in time to keep you upright against the car.

Your hands found his hair and you twisted your fingers into it and pulled his head back to see his eyes were both furious and desperate as they looked at you.

"Then why did you wait forty minutes?"

"Because I was doing 145 on the A3 and I have some self-preservation even though you were trying to destroy it!" His hands slid down to your hips as his body pressed between your legs, catching your gasp with his mouth.

As expected, his kiss was not gentle, and his hands were everywhere. Grabbing your thighs, pulling your hips, sliding up your sides beneath your sundress.

"This dress. This stupid fucking dress. Do you know what it's been doing to me since this morning?"

"It's just a sundress."

"On you it's a weapon." His mouth found your collarbone and bit down, making your back arch into him as his hips jerked forward as a mix between a groan and a curse escaped him.

"Do you know how long I've wanted this?" he continued. "Since the day you walked into the Varia mansion and told Levi to go to hell and didn't flinch when even I yelled at you." His forehead against yours. Silver hair curtaining both your faces.

"My legs were shaking the entire time though." you confessed.

"They're shaking now too." His hand slid down your thigh to prove it. He kissed you again but slower this time, hand cupping the back of your neck.

"We still have three hours of driving ahead if us," you murmured against his lips.

"Forget the drive." He pulled away and opened the back door.

"Get in before I lose what's left of my mind."

You climbed in and he followed. The door slammed and the car rocked on its suspension while highway traffic streamed past none the wiser.

TYL!Belphegor

You were thirty thousand feet in the air and had six hours left to go.

The Varia jet was small for a private aircraft, two rows of leather seats facing each other with a narrow aisle and a cockpit door that stayed locked. Outside the windows there was nothing but black sky and the occasional blink of a wing light.

Belphegor sat across from you with his boots on the seat beside your thigh and his tiara reflecting the overhead reading lamp. He'd been bored since takeoff and someone (you) was going to suffer for it.

You had the mission dossier open in your lap, reading over the intel on the target, floor plans and extraction routes.

The pheromone spray had been applied in the bathroom in a moment of poor judgment.

Because you were going to spend six hours in a sealed metal tube with a man would and has killed people for fun, and you had voluntarily made yourself the most interesting thing in the cabin.

"Ushishi, you keep reading that over and over, I think you got the details down." he said.

"I'm just being thorough."

"You're stalling. The prince can tell." His boots shifted, boot toe nudging your thigh. "What are you nervous about?"

"I'm not nervous."

"Your breathing hitched when the cabin doors shut." He tilted his head, blond hair shifting across his hidden eyes. "Being trapped in a small space with me would make most people would be nervous."

"I'm not most people though." you stated plainly, flipping through the dossier.

"Ushishishi. No. You're not." He pulled his boots off the seat and leaned forward, elbows on his knees, chin in his hands. The distance between your faces halved.

"You're also not wearing whatever you're wearing by accident."

Your grip on the dossier tightened. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Recycled air." He tapped the vent above him. "Everything circulates. The prince has been breathing you in since the wheels left the ground and it keeps getting stronger because your pulse is elevating your skin temperature and the compound is volatilizing faster."

"You know a lot about pheromone chemistry for a prince."

"The prince is a genius. I know a lot about everything." He stood. The cabin was narrow enough that standing put him directly over you. He braced one hand on the headrest behind you and leaned down and inhaled near your jaw and his grin dissolved into something open and hungry.

"Six hours," he repeated, quieter now. "Of sitting across from you in a locked cabin while that smell gets into everything. My clothes. My hair--"

"Sit down and put your seatbelt on Bel."

"No."

You grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled. He came down into the seat beside you willingly, knees hitting the leather, and the dossier crumpled between you as he pulled it free and tossed it down the aisle without looking.

"We need tha--"

"The prince has it memorized. Target is on the thirty-second floor, extraction is the southeast stairwell, and the security rotation changes at 2 AM." His hand found your jaw and tilted your face toward him. "Now stop talking about the mission."

"What should I talk about instead?"

"Nothing." He swung one leg over yours and settled into your lap facing you, knees bracketing your hips, light enough to hover but close enough that every shift of the plane's movement pressed him against you.

His hands slid into your hair and gripped, making your head tip back as his mouth found the underside of your jaw.

"Five hours and thirteen minutes left," he murmured against your throat. His hips rocked forward and your hands flew to his waist and grabbed fistfuls of his shirt. "The prince intends to use every single one."

"We have a mission briefing to finish."

"We already finished it, remember?" His teeth sunk into your next below your ear and you whimpered, biting your lip.

"Ushishishi." His mouth hovering over yours. "The prince knew you'd sound like that."

"You did not."

"Genius, remember?" He kissed you and grinned into it as your hands slid under his shirt and up the bare skin of his back. He shuddered against you and bit your lower lip.

The plane hit a pocket of turbulence that pressed him harder into you.

"Five hours," you breathed against his mouth.

"Five hours." He repeted, his eyes were just visible through the curtain of blond hair. Completely fixated on you. "You sealed yourself in a metal box with a prince who wants to devour you, I hope you've realized this."

"Better yet, I planned for this."

"Ushishishi, perhaps I've found my princess after all~" He grinned as his mouth dropped back to your neck.

TYL!Dino Cavallone

The restaurant was one of those 'if you know you know' the kind of place that didn't have a sign outside. You had to know the door, and Dino knew every door in Naples worth knowing, and this one led to a candlelit room with eight tables and a chef who came out personally to explain each course.

He made the reservation a week ago. Told you to wear something you felt beautiful in and sent a car for you just as you finished getting ready.

You applied the pheromone spray in the back seat. Throat. Chest. Inner wrists. The driver kept his eyes on the road and you kept your eyes on your trembling hands and by the time the car stopped you smelled like a woman with intentions.

Dino stood when you walked in, showing you old-fashioned courtesy that would have felt performative from anyone else. He was wearing a dark suit with no tie, and the top button undone.

"You look stunning." He said as he pulled your chair out, fingers grazing your shoulder.

"You clean up well yourself."

He hummed and sat across from you, pouring you a glass of wine from a bottle already breathing on the table, and smiled at you over the rim of his glass.

The appetizer arrived, something with burrata and figs and a drizzle of honey that he insisted you try first. You ate and talked. He told a story about Romario getting lost in Milan that made you laugh hard enough to cover your mouth.

Midway through the story, his words slowed.

He blinked. Picked up his wine, smelled it for a moment before shaking his head and set it down without drinking. His eyes moved from your face to your neck to your--he quickly looked back up, catching himself.

"S-Sorry... Where was I?"

"Romario and the taxi driver."

"Right. He..." Dino paused and inhaled. His hand found the edge of the table and gripped. "He took the wrong--I'm sorry, can I be honest with you right now?"

"Always dear."

"I have completely lost track of that story because something about you tonight is making it difficult to sit on this side of the table."

Your wine glass stopped halfway to your lips. "Something about me?"

"You smell..." He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them they were heated and stripped of their earlier charm. "Irresistible." he said plainly, although it was obvious he had something else in mind.

"It's a pheromone spray. I put it on in the car" you confessed, fingers fidgeting with the edge of a napkin. "Is it too strong? I can go wash it--" he cut you off.

"In the car." He laughed once as his hand left the table to raked through his hair. "You sat in my car and put on something designed to--And then walked in here and let me tell a story about Romario while I--"

"While you what?"

"While I've been staring at your neck for the last six minutes fighting the urge to put my lips on it."

A waiter approached but Dino held up a hand without looking away from you. "Apologies, we need a moment." he requested, as the waiter vanished.

Dino moved, walked around the table and crouched beside your chair so his face was level with yours. His hand rested on your knee beneath the tablecloth and brought his mouth was close to yours..

"I want to stay... I want to order the main course and has a civilized evening with his love, but..." His thumb moved on your knee, tracing circles that widened up your thigh. "Tell me you want to stay and we'll stay."

"What if I don't?"

His hand stilled on your thigh and he bit the inside of his cheek as he looked at you for moment before he stood and pulled your chair back, taking your hand. The two of you walked to the front where the head host stood with professional composure.

"The main course is on its way shortly, signore--"

"Serve it to your staff tonight. On me." Dino placed a fold of bills on the podium without counting. "The wine too, all of it. Our compliments to the chef."

He looked at the money. Looked at Dino. Looked at you and gave a knowing smile.

"Of course, signore. Buona serata [good evening]."

The car was already there waiting. He opened your door and you slid in, and he followed instead of walking to the other side. His hands cupped your face immediately after the door closed and kissed you deeply, giving into the urge he had been fighting back earlier.

Your hands grabbed the lapels of his jacket and pulled him closer while his palms slid down your neck to your chest, groaning against your mouth as his other hand found your thigh and squeezed.

"Home," he said against your lips. Then louder, to the driver. "Home. Now."

"How far?" you breathed.

"Twenty minutes."

"That's a long time."

His mouth found your throat, teeth grazing your skin as his hand traveling from your thigh to the curve of your hip, pulling you half into his lap in the back seat. "Then I'll keep busy."

Back at the restaurant, the kitchen staff split a four-course meal among themselves with a bottle of wine that cost more than their monthly rent while the chef raised a glass to the empty table.

TYL!Byakuran

Byakuran sat cross-legged on the white couch in his private quarters at the Millefiore base, marshmallow bag in his lap, with the television playing an old re-run he wasn't really paying attention to.

You stood in the doorway and your courage almost failed. The pheromone spray felt like a cheap parlor trick in front of a man who seemed to know more than he cared to admit.

"You're hovering~" He didn't look away from the screen. "Come in or don't, but the doorway thing is very cute."

"I came to bring the recon summary."

"Mmm. Put it anywhere." He popped a marshmallow into his mouth and chewed for a moment before stopping. His eyes slid to you and sharpened with an intense flicker of focus.

"Actually, I want you to come sit with me."

You sighed and sat on the far end of the couch and he smiled at the distance finding it cute. "You smell different tonight." he stated, keeping his attention on you.

"A-Ah, must be my new lotion."

"Liar~♥︎" He said sweetly, setting the marshmallow bag aside and unfolded toward you on his hands and knees.

"Byakuran what are you--"

"Shh. I'm investigating." He reached you. One hand braced on the cushion behind your head, the other landing on your bare knee where your skirt had ridden up. He leaned in until his lips hovered below your ear, closed his eyes and breathed in slow.

"Pheromone compound," he murmured. "Synthetic musk. Italian, probably. Applied quite generously and recently at that." His eyes opened. "Applied for me, I take it?"

"What makes you think it's for you?"

"Because I've seen every version of how tonight plays out, and in all of them you end up exactly where you are right now." His hand slid up from your knee, trailing along the full curve of your thigh, fingers pressing into the flesh with slow, curious pressure. "I wanted to save us about twenty minutes of pretending this time around."

He pushed you back against the arm of the couch and settled over you. His weight was deceptive, all lean muscle pressing you down into the cushions, and his thigh slid between yours and your breath caught and his smile returned but hungier.

"Mmm. you like this. You like the way I'm looking at you right now."

"Looking at me how?"

"Like you're the most interesting thing in any reality I've ever touched." His mouth found your neck and his tongue traced the line of your pulse while hand mapped the curve of your hip and stomach. "And you are, every time, without exception ♥︎"

Your back arched when his teeth grazed your ear while his hands slid beneath your shirt. His palms were flat on your bare skin as his fingers spread across the plush of your waist with a slow, possessive grip that tightened when you pulled his hair harder.

"You're trembling," he whispered against your neck. "The spray isn't doing that to you though, just me."

"Y-Your ego is staggering." you stumbled out, making him laugh.

"Tell me I'm wrong." His mouth moved up to yours and kissed you deeply as his hand found the back of your neck and held you there while his other hand continued its slow exploration beneath your clothes, tracing every line, dip and curve.

He broke the kiss just far enough to speak against your lips. "I knew you were coming tonight. Before you decided, before you picked up that little bottle... I knew."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"Lots of things about me don't make sense." His mouth trailed down your throat, following the scent trail with focused attention. "You'll get used to it. Or you won't. Either way I find it cute."

"Do you just find everything cute or something?"

The playfulness in his expression flickered to something genuine as his thumb traced your jaw.

"Not everything," he said quietly. "Not even close. Just you. For longer than you'd believe if I told you."

You pulled him back down by the open collar of his shirt and kissed him and felt him smile against your mouth and then felt the smile dissolve when your hands found bare skin beneath the fabric and your nails dragged down his back.

His composure cracked and a soft sound left him that was surprisingly unguarded as he pressed his face into your throat where the spray was strongest.

"The recon summary--" you breathed.

"Was never why you came here." His grin came back. Sharp and fond and devastating. "And we both know that."

TYL!Gamma

The pool table was his. Well, not officially. It belonged to the Giglio Nero estate and anyone could use the game room on the second floor. But everyone in the family knew that after 10 PM the room belonged to Gamma, who spent his late evenings running strategy drills against himself.

You asked him to teach you how to play last week and he looked at you for a long moment with those steady eyes before telling you to come by Thursday at ten.

It was Thursday at ten and you stood in the hallway outside the game room with the pheromone spray drying on your skin and the distinct awareness that you were about to enter a small room with a man you've been pinning after for months now.

The door was open and he stood at the far end of the table chalking a cue. He glanced up when the door creaked wider.

"You're on time."

"You said ten."

"Most people keep me waiting though." He held out a second cue. You took it. Your fingers brushed his and he held the contact a fraction too long before releasing. "You've never played?"

"Nope, not once."

"Then we'll start with stance." He moved behind you and the room somehow felt even smaller now. "Feet shoulder width. Lean forward. Plant your bridge hand flat."

You leaned over the table and the cue wobbled in your grip as his hand landed on your hip to adjust your angle and stayed.

"Flatten your back and drop your elbow." His voice came from directly above your right shoulder. Close enough to feel on your skin. His chest wasn't touching your back but the heat of it was there.

His hand on your hip tightened. Released. Tightened again.

"Your stance is still off," he said, but it sounded like he was talking about something else.

"Show me then."

He stepped in, flush against your back as his arm came alongside yours and his hand covered your bridge hand on the felt and his chin hovered beside your temple. You felt him inhale once through his nose and then stop breathing entirely.

Three seconds of absolute stillness.

"Hit the cue ball," he said. His voice had dropped into a register that made your fingers want to curl against the felt.

You struck. Missed everything. The cue ball rolled pathetically into the side cushion.

"Again." He hadn't moved. His hand left yours and settled on your stomach, adjusting your posture, palm flat against the curve of it. His fingers spread. His thumb traced a slow arc beneath your ribs.

"Gamma, that's not helping my aim."

"Your aim isn't what I'm thinking about right now." His mouth was beside your ear. "What are you wearing?"

"I... might have accidentally put on a pheromone spray instead of my normal one." you winced, waiting for a lecture that never came.

"And you wore it here. Tonight. To a private lesson..."

"...Yup, sounds about right." you could feel the heat of embarrassment warm up your face.

Before you could create distance, his hand pressed harder against your stomach, drawing you back against his chest. You felt his mouth find the junction of your neck and shoulder as his lips parted.

"I was going to teach you to play," he said against your skin. His other hand came down on the table's edge beside yours, caging you between his arms. "I had a full lesson planed. Stance, grip, angles, follow-through."

"We can still do that."

"No." His forehead dropped to your shoulder. You felt his breathing fracture against your collarbone. "I have been trying to be professional around you for weeks. And you just undid all of it in ten minutes."

"Tell me you did it on purpose," he said into your shoulder. "Tell me you walked in here tonight wearing that for me and not because you actually wanted to learn pool."

"I did it on purpose."

"Good." He lifted his head. Took the cue from your hands and set it on the rack behind him without looking. When he turned back his hand caught your jaw and tilted your face up toward his . "Then we're done with the lesson." he said before kissing you.

Your hands fisted in his shirt while his hand found the back of your thigh and hitched it up against his hip as he pressed forward making the pool balls behind you scatter with a crack.

He pulled back, breathing hard and place his forehead against yours.

"I'm going to clear this table," he said.

"Of what? The balls?"

He looked at you and the corner of his mouth twitched. He swept his arm across the felt behind you and everything rolled and clattered and dropped into pockets and the green surface was empty.

Then his hands found your waist and lifted you onto it.

"That's better," he said, and stepped between your thighs and kissed you again.

Reborn (Adult Form)

He knew before you sat down, glancing up from his espresso as the corner of his mouth moved one millimeter. Which for Reborn, was the equivalent of any other man falling out of his chair.

"You're late," he took a sip from his cup.

"Two minutes."

"Late's late." His eyes tracked a couple walking past on the cobblestone street, purposely not looking at you. "Order something."

His gaze slid over to your wrists when you waved towards the waiter and ordered a cappuccino. Ah, so that's where you applied... He choose not to mention it yet, which was worse than confrontation as it meant he was in this for the long game.

Your cappuccino arrived and you drank in silence as the afternoon sun fell across the small table between you, making his fedora cast a shadow over his eyes.

He finally broke the silence, "How's your drink?"

"Fine." you mumbled from behind your mug as you people-watched.

"You seem tense."

"Not in the slightest, what gave you that idea?"

"Your pulse is visible in your throat." He still wasn't looking at you. He raised a finger to signal the waiter for another espresso. "It's been elevated since you sat down. Which means either you're afraid of me, which we both know you aren't, or you're waiting for me to react to something you did before you arrived."

Silence.

"I'm not going to react," he said. "Not here at least."

Your stomach tightened. "And... why not?"

"Because we're in public. Because I have a reputation. And because whatever you're wearing is designed to weaken impulse control and I refuse to give you the satisfaction." His second espresso arrived. He wrapped his fingers around the cup without drinking. "I will, however, tell you what's going to happen next."

"Go on." You looked at him from the corner of your eye.

"We're going to finish our coffee, I'm going to pay and we'll take a walk three blocks north to the hotel I'm staying at..." He paused, took a sip and set the cup down. "Then I'll let my impulses slip."

Your cappuccino nearly felt from your grasp.

"You missed a spot, by the way." He finally looked at you. "Behind your left knee. I can tell because you crossed your legs to the right when you sat down... you were thinking about every step before you got here, weren't you?"

"You're insufferable."

"And observant." He stood and dropped a bill on the table before he offered you his hand. "Shall we?"

You walked three blocks in the Florentine sun with his hand on the small of your back while he pointed out architecture, mentioned a restaurant he liked and asked about your week and behaved with such control that by the time the hotel room door closed behind you, you were barely ready for the shift in tone.

He removed his fedora and turned to face you.

"Now," he said, voice stripped of any pleasantries. "Come here and let me work."

His hands caught you by the hips and spun you so your back pressed against his chest, as his mouth landed on the spot behind your ear. The sound you made made him exhale audibly against your skin like he was holding that breath the entire walk here.

"Let's see if I can find all the places you've applied that spray... Hm, here." His lips traced down to your neck while his hands slid forward across your stomach, pulling your body back into his, fingers pressing its give through the dress. "Here." His mouth moved lower towards your chest. "And here." His knee nudged into the back of your right knee and you buckled, although he caught you with ease and laughed quietly against your shoulder.

"Y-You knew about the spray whole time," you managed.

"I knew before you even sat down." He turned you to face him while he cupped your jaw and kissed you once before he pulled back. "The world's greatest hitman, remember? Nothing gets past me." His thumb stroked your cheekbone. "Especially not you."

He kissed you again and the restraint that had held strong finally broke.

Fon (Adult Form)

He invited you for tea three days ago with a handwritten note that was slipped beneath your door. Thursday evening, his residence, tea and meditation. You pressed the note flat against your chest and stood in your hallway with your heart hammering against your chest.

Thursday came and you sprayed the pheromone on your throat and wrists, dressed simply, and drove to his home before your nerves failed you.

He met you at the door with a soft smile. "Thank you for coming. Please," he moved to the side to permit you entry.

The tea room opened onto a garden that had a low table with two tea cups and a cast-iron pot already steaming. You knelt across from him and he poured your tea with steady hands before pouring himself a cup.

You both drank and enjoyed the tea as you both discussed one another's lives, forgoing unsavory details regarding work.

By the second cup, his pour began to waver with a tiny tremor in the stream. He corrected it instantly, but his eyes lifted to yours and lingered one beat longer than required.

"Shall we meditate?" he said uncharacteristically sudden, fully aware pouring a third cup would reveal his personal affliction.

"Are you--I mean, sure. Yes. Lets!" you agreed, setting your concern aside, momentarily forgetting the spray.

He moved the tea equipment to the side and gestured to the cushion beside him rather than across from him and you shifted around the table and knelt at his side.

The reduced distance meant every breath you took now would waft the spray directly toward him.

"Close your eyes," he said. "And breathe from your center. Let everything quiet."

You closed your eyes, straightened your spine, and focused on your breath the way he taught you in previous sessions. In through the nose. Out through the mouth.

The garden sounds filtered in: Cicadas, a distant fountain, the rustle of leaves.

His breathing beside you was measured and perfectly timed.

You did your best to match your rhythm to his and felt your shoulders drop and jaw unclench as the evening settled around you both like water.

Minutes passed. Five, maybe ten before his lips were pressed to the curve of your neck without warning. He was right where you applied spray most to, and the shock of it jolted through your entire body.

Your eyes flew open. "Fon--"

"Keep your eyes closed." His voice against your skin was barely above a whisper. "Please."

You closed them but your hands trembled in your lap while his mouth moved slowly up the side of your neck. His lips parted and you felt the heat of his breath and the faintest graze of his tongue tracing your pulse and your head tipped sideways to give him more room.

"I have been sitting here..." he murmured between your jaw and your ear, "attempting to meditate while your scent dismantled every technique I knew."

"You could have said something." you sighed out, trying to keep your voice contained.

"That's what I'm doing right now." His hand found your thigh and settled there. "With your permission, I would like to contin--."

"Yes."

His mouth opened against your throat while his hand slid from your thigh to your waist and pulled you toward him. His other hand caught the back of your neck and guided your forehead to rest against his.

"I have meditated in silence for many years," he said, his eyes open now. "And I have never once been distracted. You should understand what it means that tonight I could not manage even ten minutes."

"What does it mean?" you whispered.

He answered by kissing you with the kind of focus he brought to combat and pulled your body against his, making you gasp into the kiss while he swallowed the sound.

Your hands pressed flat against his chest and felt his heartbeat hammering in complete contradiction to every serene thing about him. He groaned quietly against your mouth as his arm locked around you and dragged you fully into his lap. Your weight settled onto him and his hips rolled up against yours.

"I thought this was tea and meditation," you breathed with a smile.

"The tea's gone cold," His mouth pressed against yours again while his hands mapped the full shape of your hips, stomach, and thighs. "And I am no longer meditating."

"What are you doing instead then?"

His teeth grazed the swell of your chest above your neckline and your back arched, fingers twisting into his braid pulled it loose making his dark hair spill across his shoulders.

"Worshipping," he said against your skin, and proved it until the lanterns burned out.

Colonnello (Adult Form)

The movie was his idea, he showed up at your apartment with a pack of beer and an action film he swore was a classic before planting himself on your couch like he owned the place. He was out of uniform for once, wearing only sweat pants and a tank top because apparently he didn't 'believe' in sleeves outside of active duty.

Twenty minutes into the movie you excused yourself to the bathroom.

You stared at the pheromone bottle on the shelf. You bought it a week ago as a joke and hadn't touched it since. But Colonnello was on your couch with his arm stretched across the back of it... and the space next to him was pretty much your size...

And frankly, the beer had made you just brave enough to try it out. One spritz. Two. Four. That shouldn't be too much... right?

You walked back out and sat beside him, closer than before, tilting yourself into him. He adjusted without comment, arm moving from the couch back onto your shoulders with ease.

The movie continued, and he laughed at an explosion before taking another drink.

By the time the movie hit its climax, his attention was too divided to react to anything happening on the scene.

He drank his beer more slowly, arm on your shoulder shifting. His fingers that rested against your upper arm, began tracing an absent circle on your skin. His head turned just slightly toward you, away, then back again.

"You change your shampoo or something, kora?"

"No?"

"Hm..."

The movie kept playing and his hand moved from your arm to the side of your neck, fingers ghosting up and down it. You could feel his breathing change against your side, deeper, like he was rationing air.

"Something's different," he said again. Quieter.

"Is it bothering you?"

"Bothering me." He repeated it flatly. His hand left your neck, found your chin and turned your face toward his. The television threw blue light across his features. "No. It's not bothering me. Bothering is the wrong word, kora."

"What's the right word?"

He didn't answer with words. He answered by sliding his hand from your chin to the back of your head and pulling your mouth to his.

The kiss was hard and tasted like cheap beer. Your hand landed on his chest and felt the slam of his heartbeat and realized he'd been sitting there quietly losing his mind quietly for the past hour while pretending to watch explosions on screen.

He broke the kiss long enough to haul you into his lap. Your full weight settled onto him and he pulled you down with both hands spread across your back and groaned into your mouth like the pressure of your body was exactly what he'd been craving.

"You did this on purpose," he muttered between kisses. His mouth moved to your jaw. "Sat next to me smelling all sweet like this, waiting for me to break."

"How long did it take?"

"Too long, kora." His hands found the hem of your shirt. Slid beneath it. Palms flat against your bare skin of your stomach. He pulled back took in the sight of you in his lap with narrowed eyes. "I've been trying to keep my hands off you for weeks. Whatever you have on--It's killed the last of my self-control..."

"Good. Your self-control was getting on my nerves."

He laughed then flipped you onto your back on the couch and settled over you while the movie continued playing on behind him, forgotten. His mouth found your neck where he breathed you in between open-mouthed kisses that made your fingers dig into his shoulders.

"Weeks--" he said again against your throat. His hands slid up your sides beneath your shirt, feeling the curves he pretended he didn't stare at every time you walked through a room. "Every time you handed me reports. Every time you bent over that strategy table..." he suppressed a groan. "Weeks, kora."

"You could have said something."

"I'm a soldier. We maintain our position until the mission parameters change." His teeth grazed your neck while is hands tightened on your body, pulling you up against him. "And they have."

"--With a pheromone spray I panic-applied in my bathroom."

"While I sat out here like an idiot watching a movie I've seen six times." He lifted his head and you could see his grin. His was flushed, bright-eyed, wrecked but so happy with it you couldn't help but grin back. "I heard you counting, by the way. Didn't know why, but makes sense now. These walls are thin."

"You did not."

"Kora, I can hear a safety click from two hundred meters. You think I can't hear you muttering in there?" He kissed you again, slower this time while his hand cradled the back of your head and his body covered yours completely.

He pulled back and looked down at you with a serious expression

"I don't do relationships halfway," he said. "You need to know that. If this is happening, this is happening. I'm not a casual guy, kora."

"I know."

"Good." His thumb traced your lower lip. "Then stop looking at me like you think I'm going to change my mind."

The beer went flat on the coffee table. The credits rolled without audience. The screen went dark and the room went dark with it and somewhere in the quiet his voice found your ear.

"Best movie night ever, kora."

You agreed, even though either of you had seen a single frame past the 60 minute mark.

Skull (Adult Form)

He almost cancelled.

You knew because he texted you six times in the hour before showing up.

First that he was on his way. Then that traffic was bad. Then that maybe tonight wasn't great actually. Then that no, he was coming, sorry. Then a typo. Then a correction of the typo.

Skull de Mort, the Immortal Stuntman, Cloud Arcobaleno, was nervous about dinner at your apartment.

You took advantage of the extra time to prepare. You cooked pasta, opened some wine, changed into your dress and... stood in your bedroom holding a bottle pheromone spray like it was a grenade. Taking a deep breath in, you misted it down your chest before shoving the bottle back into your dresser.

The doorbell rang at 8:23PM. He was over 20 minutes late, which you were thankful for.

You opened the door and he stood there holding flowers. Grocery store flowers, still in the plastic with a price sticker, because while he didn't do things elegantly he did do them earnestly and that was always the thing about him that you loved most.

"These are for you! The nice ones were sold out. These are fine though, the lady said they last a week. I don't know if that's--"

"They're perfect Skull." You took the flowers from him and stepped aside, "Come on in."

His face flustered as he walked in adjusting sleeves he wasn't used to wearing.

He was wearing a button-down shirt, not his usual leather and purple and he looked so nervous your chest almost ached for him.

You put the flowers in water and poured two glasses of wine, handing him one. He took a sip and choked slightly and you watched the blush climb further up his neck while he tried to play it off.

"T-The pasta smells amazing!" he said, for once trying to get your attention off of him for a moment.

"Thank you."

"And you look--you're--I mean the dress is--" He gestured vaguely at your entire body with his wine glass and nearly spilled it. "Really, um."

"Really what?"

"Really making it hard to... remember how talking works."

You smiled and stepped closer, watching as his gaze dropped to the neckline of your dress... and you swear you saw his eyes nearly glaze over.

His wine glass landed on the counter with a clumsy thud, his mouth opened to apologize but then closed as his free hand reached toward you before stopping midair.

"Can I--is it okay if I--"

You took his hovering hand and placed it on your waist and he exhaled in relief.

Then his fingers curled into you and he stepped forward and dropped his face into the curve of your neck and he breathed you in as a sound between a whimper and a growl left his throat.

"What is that," he said into your neck, his voice dropping into a register you never heard from him.

"Just um... you know... pheromone spray."

"And you put it on... for tonight?"

"For you actually."

His teeth found your neck and he bit down, making your spine arch and the wine glass wobble on the counter as your hand fisted in the back of his button-down and pulled it untucked.

"I had a whole plan," he said, mouth moving down to the swell of your chest above the dress. "Dinner. Conversation. Be charming. Don't knock anything over. Don't screw it up." His hands slid down and gripped the thick of your thighs through the dress and lifted you onto the kitchen counter and stepped between your legs and looked up at you. His pupils were blown so wide there was almost no color left. "You destroyed my plan." he pouted.

"You were going to knock something over anyway."

He laughed then kissed you deeply, swiping his tongue against your lips. You let out a soft sigh and locked your legs around him while your hands slid up his chest to undo the first button his shirt, making him shudder against you.

"I'm not good at this," he breathed against your mouth. "I'm not smooth--Honestly I'm probably going to say something stupid and ruin the moment--"

"Then stop talking and keep kissing me."

He did and moved his lips down your jaw, across your throat and above your chest while his hands explored you with growing confidence, pulling you tighter against him every time you made a sound.

The pasta boiled over on the stove. He reached behind you and turned the burner off without lifting his mouth from your skin.

"Ngh, s-sorry, should we stop for dinner?" he murmured.

"Later."

"Thank god." He said all too quickly and grinned against your throat, pulling you closer.

a/n. Listen I love KHR, so when a friend ( @potator-tati ) asks for a KHR request, I take it and RUN--hence why this my longest piece yet. Hope you enjoyed~