Writer Girl 🧚🏼‍♀️⚡️🍋

I’m just dumping my AO3 posts onto tumblr so enjoy!!

**NSFW WARNING**

**NSFW WARNING**

Everything was hazy. 

One shot

Two shots

Three shots

You had lost count after four. The alcohol warmed your skin more than the pulsing bodies inside the packed club could. The room was lit in flashes of blue and then red light. Everything felt like it was moving in slow motion.

You stumbled out of the club, tugging at your short black dress as it rode higher up your thighs. The air was biting; the chill sent a shiver up your spine. 

You unlocked your phone, and the music inside was a distant thump against your eardrum. You scrolled through your contacts until you landed on his name. With shivering thumbs, you press call and press the phone to your ear, your legs bouncing to try to warm you. The phone rings, once, twice. 

"Pipsqueak?" Caleb's voice comes through the device, warm and welcoming. 

"Hi," You giggle, hiccuping, "Caleb, I think I drank too much." You pout to yourself, hoping he can hear the need for a lift home in your voice. 

"How much have you had to drink, Pipsqueak?"  His voice tried and failed to disguise the concern through a breathless laugh.

"Emmm...too much?" You reply, words slurring just a fraction. 

He sighs softly over the phone. "Stay where you are, I'll be there in fifteen minutes." The line went dead. 

You walk over to the curb, feet settling on the side of the road, arms tucked under your legs to hold your dress down, and you wait. You can't tell if time is going by quickly or slowly. As you sit there, humming away to yourself, a shadow falls over your form. With furrowed brows, you look up from your feet and meet the gaze of a man clearly more intoxicated than yourself. "Hey, sweetheart." He drawls, crouching down beside you. "Aren't you cold out here all alone?"

You shake your head, "I'm fine, I just-" The air shifts. Heavy, and the man staggers back, an invisible force pushing him back away from you. Gravity. You turn to look behind you, eyes wide when they land on Caleb standing there, dressed in his flight jacket. His eyes were colder than you've seen them, harsh and unforgiving. The man stumbled as he tried to stand, clearly knowing better than to try anything else. He bolts, disappearing back inside the club. 

Caleb's eyes immediately turn to you, and he's at your side in a heartbeat. "Hey, Pips," he whispers, pulling his jacket to wrap it around your shoulders. "You'll catch a cold like this. Cmon, let's get you home." Before you could utter a response, he slid his lean arm under your legs and around your lower back, hauling you up into his arms like you weighed nothing. You rest your head on his chest, the steady beat of his heart a familiar comfort. Caleb carried you to his car, buckled you in to the passenger seat and closed the door. He climbed into the driver's side, started the engine with a quiet rumble and set off home. 

"I'm taking you to my apartment, Pips, no arguments. I'll be able to take care of you there. Make sure you sober up properly."

You lean your forehead against the cool glass of the window. "Caleb...are you mad at me?" You mumble quietly. 

His hands gripped the leather of the steering wheel harder. "Never." Is all he said. 

You nod and close your eyes, the darkness behind your lids spinning. "That guy was weird." You mumble, and he laughs softly. 

"Weird doesn't even begin to cover it, Pips." His voice was lower than usual. "Men like that are predators. They see someone alone and think they're entitled to whatever they want. It's disgusting." He shifted gears with more force than necessary, the car accelerating smoothly into the night. Caleb wanted to wrap you up and hide you from the world, from anyone who might dare look at you with anything less than reverence. But he'd never tell you that. 

The car finally came to a stop in the underground car park of his apartment building. He turned off the engine and turned to face you, the faint glow of the dashboard light casting his features in shadow. His eyes were dark, intense and searching your face for any lingering sign of distress. He unbuckled himself and leaned across the console, invading your space. His familiar scent, an oaky scent, hit you. Sandalwood and something uniquely him.

"Look at me, Y/N," he murmured, his voice softening with that familiar, affectionate tone. His fingers came up to gently cup your jaw, his thumb stroking the soft skin just beneath your eye. "You're safe now. I've got you, and I'm not leaving you tonight. Not after that." His thumb traced the line of your bottom lip, a feather-light touch that sent a shiver straight through you. It wasn't a question or a request, but a simple statement of fact. 

"Hmmm," you mumble, eyes heavy, "You're so warm." You whisper, eyes fluttering beneath your lids. 

His thumb stilled against your lip, the soft, half-conscious sound you made causing a deep and possessive ache to bloom inside his chest. He watched the flutter of your lids and your fight to stay awake, a battle you were clearly losing. Knowing he was your safe harbour was the only thing soothing his earlier anger. A low sound rumbles in his throat, a mix of contentment and something darker, territorial. "That's the point, pipsqueak. I'm always gonna keep you warm." His other hand came up, fingers combing through the strands of your hair that had fallen across your cheek, tucking them behind your ear with a reverence that felt almost holy. Caleb's gaze dropped to your lips, still parted softly from your last word. The urge to close the inches between you was a physical force, a magnetic pull he had to fight to resist. Now wasn't the time. You were drunk and exhausted. 

"Alright, sleepyhead. Let's get you upstairs and into bed. You're about to pass out." His tone was light, teasing, but the decision was made. 

Before you could realise, Caleb was out of the car and opening your door. He unbuckled your seatbelt and scooped you up effortlessly. You murmur a faint protest, something about walking, and he just chuckled, cradling you against his chest. "Shhh, I've got you pipsqueak. We're almost there." He kicked the car door shut with his foot and started toward the entrance of his building, holding onto you like precious cargo.

In between consciousness, you hear an elevator ding, a door unlock and close again, then you feel a softness at your back. Caleb lay you down on his bed as if you were made of glass, the mattress dipping under your combined weight. Before he could pull away, your hands weakly clutched at the front of his shirt, holding him in place, "Don't go." Your voice was a faint, sleepy plea. Caleb's heart clenched.  He gently pried your fingers loose, his touch lingering on your hands before he moved to pull the duvet up over you. 

"I'm not going anywhere. I'll be right here." He leaned down, his lips brushing your forehead in a kiss that was both a promise and a brand. "I'll be on the couch. Just sleep, Pips." He stayed there for a long moment, watching you, before quietly straightening up and leaving the room. 

**NSFW WARNING**

You settle into the sofa between both of them, the warmth coming off their bodies was palpable and the room felt hazy. Especially after that many shots of tequila.

“Guys,” you start, placing a hand on each of their knees. “I have an idea, but you’re gonna have to be open minded here” 

Gojo's entire body oriented toward you like a satellite dish locking onto a signal. His toast was forgotten mid-bite, crumbs still clinging to his lower lip, blue eyes blown wide with the kind of anticipation that bordered on feral. Your hand on his knee might as well have been a starting pistol.

"I was born open-minded. The doctor said it was the most open-minded birth he'd ever witnessed." He brushed the crumbs from his mouth with the back of his hand, leaning in. "Whatever it is, I'm in. Full commitment. Didn't even need the sales pitch."

"You don't even know what she's going to say." Geto's voice came out measured, but the muscle in his thigh tensed beneath your palm. He sat very still, his gaze dropping to where your fingers rested against his knee before dragging back up to your face. The mischief in your expression seemed to unsettle him more than the touch itself.

"Doesn't matter what she's going to say. The answer is yes. Life is short, Suguru. Spontaneity is the spice of existence."

"That's not the saying."

"It's my version, and it’s better." Gojo placed his hand over yours on his knee, his thumb settling against your knuckles. "Go ahead. Pitch us. I'm your easiest audience."

Geto said nothing. His arms remained at his sides, his breathing even, but he hadn't moved your hand away. Hadn't shifted his leg.

"Define open-minded," he said finally, each word placed with care, like he was laying stones across a river he didn't trust. His chin dipped, dark hair falling forward along his jaw, and he studied you from beneath it with an intensity that the low television light turned almost predatory. "Because your version and mine might look very different."

Gojo bounced his leg beneath your hand, practically vibrating. "Suguru, for the love of God, stop negotiating the terms and conditions and let the woman speak. You're killing the moment. The vibe is dying. I can feel it leaving the room."

"The vibe is fine," Geto said, and his hand came up and settled over yours on his knee, mirroring Gojo's hold on the other side. His fingers were longer, rougher at the calluses, and they curled around yours with a pressure that was firm enough to feel intentional. His eyes held yours, steady and unblinking, the gold flecks in the hazel catching light from the screen.

"So tell us," he said, low and even, his thumb tracing a single line across the back of your hand. "What's this idea?"

You straighten, sitting more upright, and turn your head toward Gojo. You don’t say anything, don’t need to. You lean in, capture his lips with your own and kiss him.

Every molecule of air in the room evaporated.

Gojo went absolutely still. Your lips were soft and warm and tasted like tequila and something sweeter underneath, and for exactly two heartbeats Satoru Gojo, the man who always had something to say, had nothing. His breath caught audibly against your mouth, a sharp little intake that his chest held prisoner.

Then his hand came up and cupped the back of your head, fingers sliding into the dark thickness of your hair, and he kissed you back. It was gentle at first. Then his mouth softened further against yours and a low sound escaped him, barely more than a vibration against your lips, pleased and stunned and greedy all at once.

On your right side, Geto had turned to stone. His hand was still covering yours on his knee, but his fingers had locked down, grip tightening until the pressure bordered on something else entirely. His breathing remained even, the kind of controlled rhythm that took conscious effort to maintain. He watched.

Gojo pulled back first, just far enough to see your face, his forehead nearly touching yours. His pupils had swallowed most of the blue, leaving a thin ring of electric color around something much darker. His tongue swept his lower lip, tasting you there, and the grin that spread across his face was slow and dazed and nothing like his usual performance.

"Okay," he breathed, his thumb moving in a slow circle against the back of your skull. "That was…yeah. That happened. I'm just going to acknowledge that that happened and that I am profoundly in favor of it happening again."

His gaze shifted over your shoulder to Geto, and something passed between them. A look weighted with history and understanding and the kind of silent negotiation that only existed between two people who'd known each other long enough to hold entire conversations without speaking.

"Suguru." Gojo's voice had dropped, genuine and careful in a way that was almost unrecognizable. "She said open-minded."

The couch cushion shifted as Geto released your hand on his knee. You felt him move, felt the warmth of him reposition behind your right shoulder, closer than he'd been all night. His breathing hit the curve of your neck, slow and controlled and warm, raising every fine hair along your skin.

"I heard what she said." His voice was lower than the room deserved, scraped down to something raw. His hand found your jaw. Not your shoulder, not your arm, your jaw, and turned your face away from Gojo with a firm, deliberate grip, his thumb pressing into the skin beneath your ear. The hazel of his eyes had gone dark, the gold flecks burning like embers in the dim light, and he searched your face with an intensity that stripped away every layer the tequila had loosened.

"You sure about this, Y/N?” The question landed against your lips, close enough that you could feel the shape of each word. 

Gojo's hand was still tangled in your hair, his chest warm against your shoulder blade, his breathing unsteady against your ear. He pressed his mouth to the spot just below your earlobe and murmured, "Say yes. God, please say yes."

Geto's thumb traced the line of your jaw, tilting your chin up toward him, his gaze dropping to your mouth with unhurried, devastating focus. He waited, patient and unmoving, the tension in his body coiled so tight the air around him seemed to hum.

“I’m sure.” You breathe in response, and the last of his restraint shatters.

The word cracked something open in both of them.

His hand at the back of your neck tightened, pulling you flush against him, and his mouth dropped to the hollow of your throat where your pulse was drumming wild and visible beneath the skin. He kissed it with his mouth open, tongue flat and hot, and the groan that left him vibrated straight through your sternum into your ribs.

"Share," Gojo breathed behind you, his palms sliding down your sides to grip the hem of your t-shirt. He gathered the fabric in his fists, knuckles grazing the bare skin of your stomach, and pulled it upward with a slowness that was entirely intentional, exposing your midriff inch by inch, letting the cool air hit you in stages. "Lift your arms for me. Can you do that?"

Geto pulled back from your throat just long enough to let the shirt clear your collarbone, and the look on his face when the fabric came away,  wiped every remaining trace of composure from his expression. His lips parted. His breathing went shallow.

"God, look at you." Gojo tossed the shirt somewhere behind the couch and pressed his bare chest against your back, the heat of his skin startling and immediate. His hands spanned your waist, thumbs stroking the soft skin just above your jeans, and he rested his chin on your shoulder to look down at you from the same angle Geto was. "Suguru. Are you seeing this."

"I'm seeing it." Geto's voice had dropped into a register that didn't belong in a living room, low and thick and stripped of every pretense. He leaned forward and pressed his mouth to your collarbone, dragging a slow, open-mouthed line across the bone, his breath fanning hot and damp over the tops of your breasts. His hands found your thighs, palms flat against the cotton of your pyjamas, and spread them apart with enough pressure to make the intention unmistakable. He settled between them, his hips pressing against the edge of the couch between your knees, and looked up at you through the dark curtain of his hair.

"Tell me where," he said, his thumbs drawing circles on the inside of your thighs, each rotation pressing higher. "Tell me exactly where you want my mouth and I'll give you anything you ask for."

Gojo's lips sealed against the junction of your neck and shoulder from behind, sucking a slow, deliberate bruise into the skin. One hand crept up your ribs, fingers tracing the underwire of your bra with featherlight precision, teasing the edge without crossing it. His hips ground against your lower back and the hard length of him pressed through the thin fabric of his sweatpants, unmistakable and unapologetic.

"Don't let him sound all generous," Gojo murmured against your neck, his breath coming in short spurts. "He's asking because he wants to hear you say it. He gets off on the words as much as the act. Always has."

Geto's eyes flicked up to Gojo over your shoulder, dark and molten, and the smile that carved across his face was slow and sharp and utterly filthy.

"Guilty," he admitted without a shred of shame, his fingers hooking into the waistband of your shorts, one knuckle grazing the bare skin beneath your navel. He tugged once, gentle, a question written in the gesture. "So give me what I want. Tell me where, and I'll make you forget every shot of tequila you had tonight."

You take his hand and guide it between yours leg, letting it rest there. “Here, Suguru.”

His forehead dropped against your sternum, dark hair spilling across your bare skin, and his hand ground slow and firm against the shorts with a deliberate, rolling pressure that made the fabric itself feel obscene.

"These are coming off," he said, already working the button free, tugging the zipper down with a metallic whisper that cut through the room. "Lift your hips for me."

Gojo's thumbs circled your nipples in tandem, slow and maddening, and he pressed an open-mouthed kiss to the curve of your shoulder. "Do what he says," he murmured against your skin, his hips rolling once against your lower back, the hard line of him dragging a lazy path up your spine through his sweatpants. "Trust me, you want to do what he says."

You lifted, and Geto stripped the shorts down your legs. His hands found your bare thighs and his thumbs pressed into the soft skin of your inner legs, pushing them apart again, wider this time.

Geto sat back on his heels between your knees and looked. Just looked. His chest was heaving, his dark hair disheveled where it had dragged across your skin. His tongue dragged across his lower lip, slow and unconscious.

"Suguru." Gojo's chin rested over your shoulder again, peering down the length of your body to where Geto knelt. "You're staring."

"I'm appreciating." His thumbs traced the crease where your thighs met, pressing just close enough to make your hips jerk. The smile that ghosted across his mouth was dark and unhurried. "There's a difference."

"I told you I'd make you forget every shot of tequila." His mouth lowered to the inside of your knee, his lips parting against the sensitive skin there, trailing upward in a line of open, wet heat. "So lie back, let Satoru hold you, and let me keep my promise."

Gojo shifted behind you, drawing you back against his bare chest, his arms wrapping beneath yours so his hands still cupped your breasts. His heartbeat slammed against your spine, rapid and hard, and he pressed his mouth to your temple.

"Comfortable?" he whispered, his thumbs still working slow circles. "Because I have a front row seat and I'm not going anywhere."

Geto's mouth reached the middle of your inner thigh, and his teeth sank in, before his tongue soothed the sting in a long, flat stroke.

"Every shot," he murmured against your thigh, a promise sealed in heat and breath. "Every single one."

“Suguru,” you moan out, breathless and needy. Your back arches gently off Gojo, hips weakly bucking. 

"Say it again." His voice came out raw, scraped hollow, his hands curling around the backs of your knees and pulling you forward on the couch until the bare heat of you was inches from his mouth. "My name. Just like that."

Gojo's fingers pinched and rolled in a rhythm that matched his own unsteady breathing against your neck, each tug sending sparks cascading down through your belly. He pressed his lips to the shell of your ear, his voice molten and private. "Give him what he wants. You should see his face right now. He looks like he's about to lose his goddamn mind."

"I'm already there." Geto's admission came out stripped of pride, stripped of armor, stripped of everything except the raw ache underneath. He lowered his head and pressed his mouth to the crease of your inner thigh. 

His tongue drew a long, flat line up the inside of your thigh, agonizingly close to where you needed him, then diverted at the last second to press a  kiss against your hip bone. His hands pinned your thighs open, fingers dimpling the soft flesh, holding you spread and still while he mapped the territory around you without ever touching the center.

"Suguru, stop torturing her." Gojo's hips shifted behind you, the rigid heat of him dragging against your lower back, and his breath stuttered on the words. "And me. You're torturing me by proxy. I can feel her shaking."

"Good." Geto's lips curved against your hip, and his breath fanned hot across the slick skin he'd been deliberately avoiding. "I want her shaking."

He tilted his head and finally dragged his tongue through the center of you in one long, devastating stroke. His eyes fell shut, lashes dark against his cheekbones, and his grip on your thighs tightened hard enough to leave crescents where his nails bit in.

"Christ, you taste sweet." The words were muffled, spoken directly into you, and he sealed his mouth over your aching clit and sucked with a focused, merciless pressure that turned the edges of the room white.

Gojo watched over your shoulder, his chest heaving against your back.. His fingers abandoned your breasts and slid down, on palm spreading flat across your stomach to hold you still while the other hand tangled in Geto's dark hair, pushing it back from his face.

"Let me see you," Gojo breathed, leaning forward over your shoulder, his blue eyes fixed on where Geto's mouth worked against you. "Fuck, Suguru. You look obscene."

Geto's eyes opened at that, heavy-lidded and black with arousal, and he looked up at both of you through the dark frame of Gojo's fingers still threaded in his hair. His tongue flattened and circled, slow and thorough, and the eye contact he held while doing it was an act of fucking war.

"Harder," Gojo whispered, and the instruction carried a weight that went beyond suggestion. His hand in Geto's hair tightened, guiding the pressure, and Geto let him. He let Satoru Gojo push his face deeper with a groan that vibrated through every nerve ending you possessed.

His tongue found a rhythm. It was deliberate, relentless, lapping in tight circles that built something unbearable behind your navel. Two fingers pressed against your entrance, slick and warm, circling without pushing inside, and Geto pulled back just enough to breathe against you, his lips swollen and shining.

"Ask me for it," he rasped, the tip of one finger pressing just enough to stretch before retreating. "I want to hear you ask."

The gym smelled like sweat, leather and antiseptic. 

Not the clean hospital kind, but the sharp biting kind that stung your nostrils and clung to old canvas and soaked into handwraps left in a locker for too long. 

Heavy bags swung in a steady rhythm, chains rattling. 

Leather hitting leather. 

Your shoes stuck faintly to the rubber flooring as you stepped inside, medical bag slung over your shoulder. You had been warned it would be rough around the edges. They hadn't lied. 

Men moved like machines here, skipping rope, shadowboxing, grunting through each tedious padwork round. A bell rang somewhere in the distance, sharp and metallic. 

"Keep moving. Hands up!" A voice barked across the gym. You turned, a tall, broad man in his late fifties stood ringside, stopwatch hanging from his neck. Thick grey hair. He had a weathered face, and his shoulders were still broad and square. He must have fought himself at one point. 

Coach Tetushiro Karoda. You recognised him instantly from the briefing. Former national champion, now one of the most respected coaches on the circuit. 

He noticed you standing near the entrance and jumped down from the ring, striding toward you with his hands in a towel. "You're the new physio?" He asked, and you nodded, extending your hand to him. 

"Yeah, Hi, I'm—" he waved you off. 

"Good. Good, we needed one weeks ago." He wasn't being rude, just factual and to the point. He glanced over his shoulder toward the far side of the gym. "Come on. I'll introduce you." 

You followed him deeper inside the gym, past the line of bags, past the lockers. 

The noise intensified the closer you got to the ring. 

Pads cracking. Fighters breathing hard. And then, you saw him. A wide set of shoulders, lean arms and a mop of black hair. He was sitting on a wooden bench across from the ring, head lowered, elbows resting on his knees, long fingers working methodically as he wrapped his hands. 

He looked...heavier than the others. Not just in size, but in presence. 

His hair was slightly damp, and the fabric of his t-shirt was stretched taut across him. He didn't acknowledge your approach, even though you're certain he was aware of it. 

"Toji," Karoda said, arms folding across his chest. 

No response. Just the sound of tape wrapping. 

"Toji." He said again, more firmly now. "This is the new physio. You've been complaining about your shoulder for weeks." Those words pulled a reaction from him. 

"I'm fine." He said, eyes still on his wrists, then he continued. 

You move from behind the coach, stepping closer. Your eyes tracking each wrap of his hand. "It's sitting lower. Your left shoulder. After a hook, I'm assuming?" I look between him and the coach. His hands were still now. "Rotator cuff, I imagine, it's hitching with each movement, and it looks inflamed, even from here."

Kuroda raised an eyebrow and glanced sideways at you, a flicker of approval crossing his weathered features before he masked it. 

Toji's hands were still in his lap, and his jaw tightened. A small flicker under his skin. Then those dark green eyes lifted for the first time and found you immediately. 

"Lucky guess." He said flatly. 

"It wasn't a guess," Kuroda cut in, "She spotted it in ten seconds. And it took you six damn weeks to even mention it to me." Kuroda turned to you with a short nod before walking toward the ring to check on another boxer. 

Toji said nothing. He finished the loop of tape around his right hand and tore the end with his teeth, his eyes never leaving yours. He lowered both hands, then flexed them to test the tension.

"Rotator cuff's fine," he said, voice low. "It's just tight." 

He stood then, the full height of him unfolding, and the bench seemed to shrink. Sweat had darkened the collar of his shirt, and up close, you could see the scars on his knuckles more clearly. He rolled the left shoulder once, controlled. But the movement faltered, just barely, right at the top of the rotation. 

"So you're the new physio." An echo of the introduction. "Kuroda's been talking about getting one for months, figured he'd never actually do it."

He picked up a half-empty water bottle from the bench and took a long drink, his throat bobbing with each swallow. He lowered it and wiped his mouth with the back of his wraps. "I don't need someone hovering over me between rounds."

"Great, because I intend to hover at the end of them." 

He didn't laugh. The noise of the gym swelled around you both. Ropes skipping, bags thudding and someone cursing across the room. He tossed the bottle back onto the bench. 

He turned toward the heavy bag a few feet away. "Just stay out of my way during sessions." He threw the first jab. Clean. Sharp. Then, a second, it landed true. 

But then the left hook came a fraction slower. When it landed, his shoulder dipped forward instead of rotating through fully. He knew you saw it. 

But he kept hitting anyway. 

You move around him, standing behind the bag, and you brace one arm around the back of it, holding it steady. Increasing the resistance. "Y/N." You say between combos. "My name is "Y/N. Forget the doctor. I'm not technically one, and it makes me sound like I'm old." 

The bag jolted under your hands as his right straight slammed into it. The impact travelled through the leather and into your palms, your forearms bracing against the weight of it. 

He paused mid-combination. His breathing was controlled but deep. Sweat traced a line down the side of his neck and disappeared beneath his collar. 

"Y/N." He said it once. No warmth. No rejection. Just an acknowledgement. His eyes remained fixed on the bag, not you. "Not technically a doctor, and you're already calling out injuries across the gym floor." Another jab, then a straight right that made the chains rattle. "You're either really good or incredibly reckless." He stepped back then, shaking out his left hand. "Kuroda usually hired old guys with bad knees and clipboards," He said, resetting his stance. 

"Sorry to disappoint." You taunt, and he lands a body shot into the back with a smack that you felt in your teeth. 

"The last one told me to ice my hands and take a week off. Lasted three days before I stopped showing up to his little check-ins." 

He landed a four-punch combo. Jab, Jab, Straight, Hook. The hook was his left, and it connected hard, but his elbow flared wider than it should have. Compensating for the range his shoulder wouldn't give him. 

He stopped, chest rising and falling. His eyes finally came to yours at the side of the bag, dark and direct. 

"You going to tell me to rest too, Y/N?" The way he used your name was deliberate. Testing how it sounded in his mouth. Testing whether you'd flinch at the familiarity, or whether you'd hold your ground the way you had held the bag. 

You shrug, leaning into the bag. "I don't think you'd rest if your arm was hanging from its socket. So why don't we figure out a plan that works for you and with you?" I shift my weight, "Finish the session, then meet me in the back treatment room. I'll get the physio bed set up, and you'll give me fifteen minutes." You raise your brows, "Deal?"

His fist hovered mid-air, retracted for a strike that never came. Something shifted in his eyes, so subtle and brief, you weren't entirely certain it had existed at all. But it had. You caught him off guard. 

"Fifteen minutes." He lowered his hands, his head tilting slightly, studying you with a different type of attention than before. Less defensive. More curious. "That's it?" He turned back to the bag, throwing a lazy jab. More rhythm than intent. Buying himself a moment to think. "Usually, I'm getting a lecture on recovery windows and the anatomy of inflammation at this point." Another jab. His breathing had settled into something nearly conversational. "You're telling me to finish hitting things first." 

You nod. 

He caught the bag on the backswing with his right palm, steadying it. The chains clinked once, then went quiet. 

"Alright, Y/N. Fifteen minutes." 

His eyes dragged from yours, and he returned to the bag. A silent dismissal. A small victory for you. 

He threw a sharp right hook at the bag as you walked away, the sound cracked through the gym's noise like a gunshot. 

(NSFW warning!!)

The base was deep. Heavy and vibrating through the floor and straight into your legs.

Lights flashed overhead, slow pulses of violet and blue that cut through the sea of bodies around you. The club was packed. Bodies pressed close, laughter spilling over the music and glasses clinking somewhere behind you. But none of it mattered.

Not when he was behind you.

Toji was leaning against the bar. Broad shoulders relaxed, black t-shirt stretched across his chest like he hadn’t bothered dressing up, but still looked better than every other man in the room. One elbow propped against the counter, his drink hanging loosely between his fingers. Watching you.

You were already on the dance floor when his eyes finally found you. Moving like the music lived in your bones, and tonight, it felt as though it did. Your hair was loose, catching the coloured lights with every turn. That dress, the one you wore just to tease him, it clung to your skin in all the right places, every movement drawing attention whether you meant it to or not.

It didn’t take long before you felt him behind you.

Heat first, then presence. Solid and unavoidable. One hand settled low on your waist, his fingers spreading slowly, claiming territory he already owned. The touch was firm, the confidence of it made your stomach tighten.

Without hesitation, you leaned back into him, like  you belonged there. You did.

The music swelled around you both, bass pounding harder, and you moved against him in a slow, deliberate grind that matched the rhythm. Your back was pressed against his chest, your body rolling in time with the beat.

Toji let out a quiet breath against your ear, half-amused, half-impressed. “Tch,” he muttered low, his voice rough from disuse. “You trying to start something, or you just showing off?”

His lips were on you, latching onto your neck, trailing wet, soft kisses along the length, from your shoulder up.

You grind back against him harder, looking over your shoulder at him with an incredulous smirk. “I’m hardly showing off.” Your eyes narrow at him slightly, your voice dropping lower, more intimate. “Even if I was, it’s only for you.”

His grip on your hip tightened, his fingers pressing into the fabric of your dress so hard that you felt each one individually. “Only for me,” he repeated, the words coming low and heavy from his lips, more of a growl than speech. His mouth continued its parth along the skin of your neck, sucking gently on that sensitive spot right beneath your ear. “Yeah,” he murmured against your skin, “that’s the right answer.”

His other hand grasped your opposite hip and pulled you flush against him, eliminating any space between your back and the solid wall of his chest. He matched the grind of your hips with a slow, steady roll of his own.

“You know what you look like out there?” his chin dipped again, allowing his lips to brush the curve of your neck without quite kissing it. A tease. “Walking around in that dress, moving like that.” His grip tightened fractionally. “Every guy in this place has been staring at you since you walked in here.”

His thumb traced a slow circle against your hipbone. “Pisses me off.” His words were dismissive, unbothered, but the grip he had on you told a different story. It was possessive and anchoring. The kind of hold that said mine louder than anything else he said.

You rolled your hips again, more intentionally this time, and he exhaled deeply against you. “Keep doing that,” he said, voice dropping to something barely audible, “and we won’t be staying on this dancefloor much longer.” His teeth grazed the junction of your neck and shoulder, a light teasing motion.

You reach up and tangle your hand in his hair, desperately trying to hold his lips against your skin, to feel more of him.

“But I’m having so much fun.” You pout, a weak protest. Just as you move to turn in his arms, a friend approached. Someone from earlier in the night, but he’s messier now, stumbling in a direct line toward you and Toji, His speech slurred, and the words that leave his lips shatter the bubble of intimacy you had so carefully created.

“Toji, man!” He claps his shoulder, “Damn. I didn’t know she could move like that.” He jeers, spit flying from his thin lips. “I can see why you keep her around, man.” His smile is sleazy and lopsided, almost as grotesque as the insinuation behind his words.

The shift in Toji’s body is immediate. A stillness that had nothing to do with being calm. His hands stayed on you, but his touch changed. Where it was lazy and possessive only seconds ago, it was now anchoring and protective.

“Move like this,” Toji repeated. His voice came out flat, stripped of everything. No amusement, no warmth. He didn’t look at you, but his thumb gave your hip one deliberate press. A silent stay.  He shifted, moving to put himself between you and the drunk idiot in front of you.

Then his hands shot out. One grabbing the front of the man’s shirt. He pulled him close. “Say that again,” His mouth barely moved. His eyes had gone flat and hard. “Go ahead,” he ground out, “I want to make sure I heard you right.”

The man’s throat bobbed. “I was just —it was a compliment, man, I didn’t mean anything—”

“A compliment?” Toji’s head tilted, the scar on his lip curling into a snarl. “You look at her like she’s a thing, said you can see why I keep her around, and you think that’s a compliment?”

Then, without waiting for a response, Toji was moving. Weaving his way through the dense crowd with practiced ease. Your eyes widen and you’re moving too. Trying to push through the sea of pulsing bodies. “Excuse me.” “Sorry.” “Behind you, excuse me.” Slowly, you’re nearing the exit through which they disappeared. The chilled air drifting across to you.

Then it hits you. The cold. Like a wall, sharp and biting. The goosebumps prickle on your arms and legs instantly after the sweetening heat of the club.

The street in front of the club was narrow and dimly lit. And there was Toji. Shirt pulled taut across his back, one hand fisting in the man’s shirt while the other connected with his shaw. The sound was ugly. Bone meeting knuckle, meeting flesh.

The man crumpled against the brick wall, hands coming up too late. “Toji— fuck — I said I was sorry, man, I didn’t mean anything by it!”

“You didn’t mean it?” Toji hauled him upright, then slammed his back hard against the brick. “That’s your defence? You didn’t mean it?”

Another hit.

This one landed below his ribs, and the man folded. A choked wheeze punched out of him as his knees buckled. Toji let him fold, standing over him with blood on his knuckles and his chest rising and falling in slow, controlled breaths.

That was the terrifying part. Toji didn’t get angry in a way drunk men did. He wasn’t sloppy or reckless or loud. He was cold. Quiet. He had the kind of violence that came from a man who knew exactly how much damage he could inflict, and made a choice. Moment by moment, just how far he could take it.

“You don’t look at her,” Toji said, crouching down to his level. His voice was as if he was explaining something to a child. “You don’t talk about her. You don’t think about her when you’re jerking off in your apartment alone. She is not yours to comment on. You understand?”

The man nodded frantically.

“Good.” Toji stood then, rolling his shoulder as if this entire thing was a mild inconvenience. He flexed his grazed hand once, twice. The bruises already blooming. “Get out of here before I change my mind about leaving your nose where it is on that fucking face.”

The man scrambled, half-crawling before finding his feet and lurching back inside.

You step forward, a slow tentative movement. “Toji,” you breathe quietly.

He doesn’t turn. Not yet.

“Toji.” You repeat, firmer.

He wiped his bloodied knuckles against his thigh, then he turned. His grey eyes found you immediately. The hardness was still there, but the moment his gaze settled on your face, it cracked. Melted into something entirely different.

“You’re freezing.” He closed the distance in two strides and reached for his jacket on the floor. He draped it over your shoulders, the weight of it settling heavily around you. It still smelled like him. Smoke, cedar and something else you couldn’t quite name, but it just smelled of him.

“Don’t give me that look.” He murmured; his voice was rough but calmer now. His bloodied hand reached up, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear, despite the split skin across his knuckles. “He had it coming. You know he did.”

“I know,” you whisper. “But I don’t want you getting into trouble again, Toji.” You stare up into his eyes, a small smile tugging at your lips. “You know you’re a bit insane. Right?” You shake your head, laughing lightly. “I want to go home, Toji.” You whisper then, leaning into his side.

Your laugh caught him off guard. The words? He expected those. The soft scolding, the quiet worry in your voice that you always had when he let the lash slip. He’s heard it before and would hear it again. But your laugh, the way your eyes crinkled, how your head shook. It landed somewhere behind his ribs and stayed.

“Trouble.” He said as if the word was unfamiliar. One eyebrow quirked. “Sweetheart, I am trouble, and you signed up for exactly this.”

He tugged the jacket tighter around you; all of his attention had narrowed onto the way you leaned into his side, the soft warmth of your body. How easy it was, as if it were where gravity itself pulled you.

He took your hand in his, interlacing your fingers. “I have something for you at home. Let’s go.”

He didn’t wait for a response. His hand squeezed yours tighter as he pulled you down the street and toward where the black car sat idle under a flickering streetlight. He opened the passenger door, holding it wide and let you slide in before closing it behind you.

The city lights smeared past the windows in streaks of amber and white. Toji’s free hand found your thigh, resting there, heavy and warm.

You pulled up to the townhouse, then, and before you could open the door, Toji was already rounding the car. He pulled it open and stepped back, offering you his hand. “Thanks, babe,” you sigh, exhaustion sinking into your muscles. You step out, hands intertwined, “I was just thinking—” Everything flips. You let out a yelp as Toji hauls you up over his shoulder, “Toji!” You squeal, his hand patting your ass as he paces toward the door. “Put me down, you brute!” You laugh, breathless and genuine.

The front door swung open. The hallway was dark, lit only by the amber glow bleeding through the curtains from the street outside.

“Brute,” he repeated, the words a rumble in his chest. His hand was still on your ass, simply resting there with casual ownership. It made your pulse jump. “That’s a new one. Usually, you just go with asshole.”

Your fists drummed uselessly against his back, the fabric of his shirt bunching under your fists. He didn’t slow. Didn’t even alter his grip. You might as well have been punching a wall for all the good it did.

“Keep squirming,” He said, turning toward the bedroom. His voice laced with that familiar, dark amusement, “I like it.”

He pushed the bedroom door open with his shoulder, and then the world tilted.

Your back hit the mattress with enough force that you bounced. Your hair fanned across the soft sheets, his jacket still tangled around your shoulders. The room spun for a split second before Toji filled your vision entirely. He was standing at the edge of the bed, looking down at you with steely grey eyes, blown nearly black with desire.

He braced one hand on the mattress beside your head and leaned in. His shirt rode up with the movement, exposing the hard lines of muscle below his navel, the chain around his neck swung forward, the cool metal brushing your collarbone.

“There,” he murmured, his gaze dragging slowly from your eyes to your lips. “Right where I want you.”

His knuckles came up and traced the line of your jaw, lightly, at odds with everything that had transpired that evening. “You look good in my jacket,” he said, quieter now. His thumb swept across your lower lip, pressing just enough to feel the softened give beneath it. “You’d look better in just my jacket.”

He pulled back and stood, the absence of his body weighing down on yours, nearly made you groan. He pulled his t-shirt off, slowly. Eyes never leaving yours. He tossed the fabric aside then, discarding it across the room somewhere.

His skin was bathed in a thin strip of light cutting through the curtains. Every ridge of muscle was carved, the deep lines of his abdomen shifting with each breath. Scars mapped his toros, faded burns and smaller nicks across his ribs. His chest rose and fell, steady. Watching your eyes devour him.

“You’re staring.” He said, amused. He leaned forward again, one knee pressed into the mattress beside your thigh, then the other. The bed groaned under his weight as he caged you in, an arm braced on either side of your body.

“You know what you do to me?” His voice was rough, like he was holding onto something too tightly and for far too long. “Walking around that club tonight,” His lips ghosted across your jaw, breath hot. “Dancing like that,” his hand slid higher up your thigh, inching your dress higher, “wearing this goddamn dress.” His hand squeezed your thigh. “I had to watch every idiot in that room try not to look at you. And all I could think about was getting you right here. Exactly like this.”

His lips found the hollow of your throat, kissing a slow line down to your collarbone. His fingers curled into the hem of your dress, and a sound rumbled in his chest. “Take this off.” He murmured, half command, half plea. “I want to see you.”

You let out a shaky exhale, throating bobbing as you swallow back your growing need. “Then take it off.” You whisper, turning slowly to lie on your front.

“Lift your hair for me.” He murmured, straddling your thighs.

You pulled your hair aside, exposing the back of your neck completely.

His mouth landed there first. Before the zipper. A slow, open press of lips against each vertebra at the top of your spine. He lingered, breathing you in.

“You smell incredible,” he muttered against your neck. “Every goddamn time.”

His fingers found the metal zipper then. But he didn’t pull it straight away. Instead, his thumb traced the metal seam downward, following the zipper’s eventual path.

Then, he pulled.

Slow. Deliberately. The fabric loosened, falling open in the wake of his hand, revealing inch by inch, and his mouth followed the zipper down. Lips against your upper back, each kiss open and hot and unhurried.

“Jesus,” he breathed, the words coming out in a way he rarely allowed himself to sound. Like worship. His hands pulled the fabric down slowly, pooling it at your hips. His hand flattened against your bare side, fingers curving around your ribcage. “How are you real.”

His hands moved back to the pool of fabric, “Hips up, baby.” He said, voice low, and you shifted, lifting them for him.

He dragged the dress down your body with a kind of focused patience that bordered on worship. He peeled it free from your ankles and dropped it off the side of the bed without a second glance. You turned back over.

Then, he sat back on his heels and went still. His eyes moved over you in a way every man looks at something he isn’t entirely sure is real. “Fuck,” he said quietly, “Every time. Every fucking time, I think I’m used to it. To you, and then this.” He gestured to your body sprawled on the bed for him.

His palms slide up your calf, dragging upwards, his rough skin gliding along the smooth length of your legs. He leaned down and pressed his mouth to the soft skin just below your navel, his breath hot against you.

“Do you have any idea what I’m about to do to you?” He spoke against your skin, his hands slid beneath the small of your back, arching you closer to his mouth. “I’ve been thinking about this all night. Couldn’t focus on anything else.”

He kissed lower.

Then lower again.

Each press of his mouth slow and intentional.

“Toji,” you gasp out, breathless and needy. You sit up onto your elbows, watching his slow descent to your aching core. His fingers hooked into the lace and dragged it down with agonising slowness.

 “God, look at you.” He breathed. He pressed his lips to the inside of your thigh and pushed your legs further apart.

His tongue traced a slow line along the crease of your inner thigh; your hips bucked in response. “Toji, fuck. Come on!” You groan out, skin alight with desire.

“Patience,” he murmured. His free hand curved beneath your thigh and hooked it over his shoulder, opening you further. His mouth moved inward, kissing, tasting, each motion a deliberate drag closer and closer to where every nerve in your body needed him to be.

The first drag of his tongue was slow. A long line through your slick warmth, and it pulled a groan from both of you.

His lips sealed around your clit, and he sucked, focused, his tongue flicking in a pattern designed to make you writhe. His hand slid up your body, the rough skin skating over your ribs until his fingers found your breast and palmed it. His thumb circling your nipple with the same rhythm his tongue was working below.

“Let me hear it, baby,” he growled against you. “Let me hear those pretty sounds you make.

“Oh god, Toji!” You cry, back bowing off the bed. Your fingers thread through the dark strands of his hair and tug, a grounding tug of need. The sight of him between your thighs, the maddening swirl of his tongue over your clit was driving you insane. “Don’t stop,” you gasp out, “Right there,” you bite your lip, eyes rolling back, “Fuck, baby, right there!”

His grip on your thigh tightens at the sound of his name. “Right here?” he pulled back, just enough to speak. His lips were swollen and slick with your arousal, his chin glistening. His grey eyes locked onto your face in the dark, and the look in them was feral.

His mouth sealed over you again, tongue working in tight, relentless circles. Flattening and pressing in a rhythm that matched the desperate roll of your hips. He let you move now, his hands sliding beneath the curve of your ass and gripping you hard, tilting you tighter against his mouth so every stroke landed with devastating precision.

“You’re close,” he rumbles against you. “Come on, baby, make a mess all over my tongue. Let me taste it.” The murmur against your clit made you shudder, and you could feel that tight knot forming low in your belly.

He sucked harder, tongue pressing firmer against the bundle of nerves. His words undid you. You arched off the bed, legs trembling and clamped around his head. “Toji! Fuck, yes, yes, yes!” A strangled moan escapes you as pleasure erupts inside your body, every inch of your skin burning with the impact of your orgasm.

He didn’t pull away. His mouth stayed locked against you through every wave of pleasure, every clench of your thighs around his head. He rode it out with you, tongue softening just enough to draw out the aftershocks without tipping into overstimulation. He coaxed every last ounce of pleasure from your body, long strokes that made your hips jerk.

“Good girl.” He murmured into your slick flesh, the satisfaction in his voice, the dark glint in his eyes, his praise, it was all obscene. “So fucking beautiful when you come.” His lips pressed a slow, wet kiss to your inner thigh.

Then he moved.

Toji unhooked your leg from his shoulder and rose, moving up the length of your body. 

His chest dragged against your stomach, your ribs, the swell of your breasts, bare skin on bare skin. 

The chain around his neck trailed cold between your breasts, and he settled over you, his mouth glistening and grey eyes blown black and burning with something that went past simple want.

"You're so fucking beautiful when you come." He said, and his voice was rough; he was barely holding it together. He kissed you, hard and deep. His tongue pushing past your lips so you could taste yourself

on him. He groaned into your mouth, fingers tangled in your hair. 

He broke the kiss with a heavy exhale, forehead to forehead, your noses touching. He rolled his hips, a slow grind, pressing the hard length of himself against your oversensitive core. "Feel that?"

His hand left your hair and moved to the button of his pants, knuckles brushing your belly as he worked it open with one hand. "Been this hard since you started grinding on med in that fucking club. Two hours of this. Two hours of watching you move and not being able to do a damn thing about it."

He shoved the material down his hips, kicking it off the rest of the way. The heat of his cock pressed against your slick pussy, and his entire body shuddered at the contact. 

"Look at me," The command was quiet, strained and stripped of all arrogance. "I want to see your face when I finally push inside you," he kissed your cheek, "want to watch every second of it."

His hips shifted, the thick head of his cocl nudging through your wetness, parting you just enough to make your breath hitch. His jaw clenched, veins standing rigid in his neck, and every ounce of his control was concentrated on not slamming forward the way his body was screaming at him to do. 

"Tell me you're mine," he breathed against your lips. "Say it, and I'll give you everything."

You inhale sharply, eyes locked onto his face, watching every flicker of restraint move across his features. "I'm yours," you breathe out, your hands cupping his face, "I'll always be yours, Toji." 

His eyes squeezed shut just for a second. Your palms were so warm against his jaw, your thumb resting atop the scar across his lip. He turned his face into your palm and pressed his lips against it, open, hot and unguarded. 

"Always," he echoed, and his hips pressed forward. 

The stretch was slow. Devastating. He sank into you inch by agonising inch, the wet heat of your body yielding to the thick length of him, and the sound that tore from him was guttural. 

"Christ, you feel—" he couldn't finish. His forehead dropped against yours, breath ragged against your lips and he pushed deeper, filling you so completely that the pressure blurred the edges of your vision. 

"Fuck. Fuck. Every single time it's like the first goddamn time with you." 

He bottomed out there, buried so deep you could almost feel his heartbeat pulsing inside you. His hand found yours against his face and pulled it away, pressing it into the pillow beside your head, fingers lacing through yours. 

He pulled back, a long, slow withdrawal that dragged every ridge and inch of him against your swollen walls until only the tip remained. Then he thrust home. 

The bed frame cracked against the wall. Your spine arched beneath him, and he swallowed the sounds you made with his mouth, kissing you deep and filthy while his hips set a punishing rhythm. Hard, deliberate strokes that bottomed out each time, his pelvis grinding against your swollen clit. His hand slid to your lower back, tilting you so he could move deeper He angled into that exact spot that made your vision go white, and hit it over and over again. 

"Say it again," he growled against your mouth between thrusts, "Tell me who you belong to. I want to hear it while I'm inside you."

Sweat beaded across his body, and his breathing fractured into ragged gasps against you cheek. The mask of composure finally crumbling under the weight of how you felt wrapped around his cock. 

"Toji," you gasp out, breathless and needy. "I'm yours. I'll never get sick of this," another low moan escapes you as he thrusts forward, "Never get sick of you." 

"Good." He rasped, and the pace didn't falter. His hand released yours from the pillow and found your jaw instead, gripping it firmly, tilting your face towards his. He wanted to see you glazed and unfocused, to watch the way your lashes fluttered every time he bottomed out. "I'd kill every damn person in this world before I let anyone else have you like this." His thumb pressed into your bottom lip, releasing it from where you had bitten it.  "You drive me out of my goddamn mind, you know that?" Each word was punctuated by a thrust that rocked you both up the mattress. "Walking around looking like this. Smiling at people, wearing that fucking dress tonight. Like you wanted me to lose it in front of everyone." 

His hand slid from your jaw down to your throat, squeezing. His forehead dropped against the curve of your neck, his pants scalding the skin across your collarbone. His hips were rolling with a desperate urgency now, an aching need. 

"Every time," he panted into the hollow of your throat, lips dragging across the skin there, "Every single time I'm inside you it gets worse. The wanting. Like a fucking sickness I never want cured. 

He pushed himself back up onto one arm, the other hooking beneath your knee and pressing it wide, opening you further beneath him. His jaw went slack, and his eyes gazed down at where your bodies were joined, watching himself disappear inside your tight, wet cunt. 

"Look at us." His voice was barely a whisper. "Look how perfectly you take me. Fucking made for me." His thumb traced your knee, where he held you open, and his hips found a slower, deeper rhythm. 

"Fuck Toji," you moan out, your eyes rolling back in your head. "You feel so good...so deep inside me."

His body shuddered, and his hips faltered, buried deep. He ground them in a slow circle while your voice echoed through the room. 

"Yeah?" His voice was barely functional, his mouth dropped to the swell of your breast. "Only me?" His tongue dragged flat and hot across your nipple, teeth catching the peak in a slow scrape that made your spine bow higher. 

He pushed both knees back then, holding them there with his shoulders. One hand moved to your lower stomach, right above where you were joined. He pushed down gently. Just enough pressure to make you feel the fullness of him from the outside, his cock thick and pulsing against the walls of your belly. The groan he tore from your lips was obscene. 

"Feel me here?" His thumb stroked the skin, eyes dark and savagely delighted. "That's how deep you take me, baby. Every fucking inch. You were built for this, for me, and I swear I will never let you fucking forget it." 

He picked up the pace, sharper now. Harder. His free hand slid up your stomach, between the bounce of your breasts and wrapped around your throat. He leaned forward, folding your body beneath his. The base of his cock rubbed against your swollen clit, while the tip kissed the most sensitive parts of you deep inside your cunt. 

You whimper, eyes rolling. "Toji!" His name was a strangled cry, tears of pure, overwhelming pleasure streaked down your cheeks. "I'm close," you pant, "So fucking close."

His thumb caught the wetness against your cheek, smearing it across your skin. He brought his thumb to his lips and tasted it, salt and you. "Crying for me." His voice was splintering, "Most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life. You know that? Crying because my cocks fucking you so good. Christ, baby, you're going to kill me." 

His hand pressed harder against your lower stomach, and he felt his own cock inside you. He felt you clench around him, so tight the pleasure coiling at the base of his spine was ready to spring. \

His pace turned brutal. Unforgiving as he hammered into you. Skin slapping against skin. 

His hips drove forward one more time. His entire body locked above you. A sound tore from his chest, deep and guttural, your name and strangled moans of pleasure. The heat of him pulsed inside you, heavy flooding waves. Each throb pulled a ragged groan from his throat as his hips jerked in shallow stutters, spilling everything he had into you. 

You sigh, settling back against the edge of the physio bed. It was still warm, and the faint scent of eucalyptus hung in the air. 

"Damn boxers." You mutter to yourself as you clean up the room. "Fight themselves to the point of destruction and want me to fix years of neglect in six weeks." 

You wash the sink out, put away your equipment, spray the bed down, and flick the light switch; the faint hum from that overhead strip light finally dies. You lock the room and rattle the handle. Locked. 

You walk through the gym, it's quieter now, fewer bodies, fewer grunts. Just a few fighters stretching and coaches chatting amongst themselves. You wave to Kuroda from across the gym, and he raises his hand, never stopping his conversation. Your car keys jingle in your fingers as you head through the doors. The evening air hit you, and it was cool and sharp, more so after being in the stale warmth of the gym all day. Your car sat where you had left it this morning, tucked against the far wall near the chain-link fence.

You were halfway across the asphalt when you heard it. 

A low, rhythmic thudding. 

Not from inside the gym. But from around the side of the building, where a narrow alley ran between the gym wall and a neighbouring warehouse. You slowed, keys pressed between your fingers out of habit, and glanced toward the sound. 

Toji.

He was leaning against the brick wall, a heavy resistance band looped around a drainpipe at shoulder height. His left arm pulled against it in slow, controlled repetitions. The exact kind of isolated rotator cuff work that would undo everything you had just spent fifteen minutes fixing. 

"You're kidding me." You said. Feet halting in the gravel. 

His head turned, and the amber light of sunset caught the angles of his face. The crooked bridge of his nose, the hard line of his jaw. He didn't stop the repetitions. 

"It's just a band, Y/N. Relax." 

"I told you no more training tonight." You walk toward him, your bag bumping against your hip. "That includes resistance work. Especially isolated resistance work on an inflamed joint that I just spent my time treating."

He let the band go slack and straightened, rolling his neck. He looked at you with the same flat, measuring expression. But there was something else now, almost sheepish, but it was buried so deep you had to dig to even see it. 

"Couldn't sleep if I don't burn off the rest." He said. "Old habit."

"Well, find a new one." You bite back, holding his gaze. Your car keys still clenched in your fist. "Ice the shoulder when you get home. Twenty minutes on, twenty off. And if I catch you doing this again after a session, I swear to god I will tell Kuroda exactly how long this injury has actually been going on." 

His eyebrows lifted a fraction, and the corner of his lips twitched. 

"That's a threat, Y/N."

"That's a promise, Toji."

He studied you for a long moment, the resistance band hanging loose in his grip. Then he unhooled it from the drain and wound it around his fist in a tight coil. 

"Ice. Twenty on, twenty off." He pushed off the wall and walked past you toward the gym's entrance, close enough that you caught the faint smell of the massage oil on his skin. "Yes, m'am." 

The back room was small. Small but functional. Concrete walls painted over in a blue-ish white, a single overhead strip light buzzing faintly, and the physio bed you had set up took up most of the space. A small sink and cupboard unit sat against the wall near the head of the bed. Your medical bag sat open there, instruments laid out in the order you had learned to prefer over years of experience. Tape, resistance bands and a massage oil that smelled faintly of eucalyptus. 

The gym noise was muffled back here. Distant thuds and muted voices that bled through the walls like a pulse. 

But you heard him before you saw him.

Heavy footsteps across the gym floor. Unhurried. The door pushed open without a knock, and he filled the frame for a second before stepping inside. He'd pulled a towel around his neck, and his skin was still damp. The space across his chest was flushed from exertion. The tape on his hands was half unwound, trailing from his left wrist like a loose bandage. He looked around the room once, clinically. Assessing the space the same way he had assessed you. 

"Cozy." He said flatly. 

"Isn't it just?" You retort. 

He dropped the towel onto the side table without asking, then sat on the edge of the bed. The frame groaned under his weight, and he planted both hands on his knees, looking at you with an unreadable expression. 

"Your fifteen minutes started when I walked in." He pulled the remaining tape off his left hand and balled it up, tossing it toward the small bin in the corner. It went in clean. You rolled your eyes when he wasn't watching. "So talk while you work, or don't talk at all. Either way's fine with me." 

He waited, his posture was deceptively relaxed. Shoulders loose, spine straight, chin tipped up. But the left arm rested closer to his body. Guarded. The strip light hummed above you both, and he held still, watching your hands as they reached for the massage oil. "Where do you want me?"

You incline your head to the bed as you warm the oil between your hands. "Lie down, ideally. Or sit. Whatever's comfortable." You say to him over your shoulder. 

He considered the options for about half a second before swinging his legs up and lying face down on the bed. The frame made a low metallic creak that settled into the silence as he adjusted his weight. He folded his arms under his chin, face turned to the side so he could still see you in his peripheral vision. 

"Front it is." His voice came slightly muffled against his forearm. "Fair warning," he started, "the last person who tried to work on my shoulder made it worse. Some sports clinic guy we found online. Spent twenty minutes poking around, then said I need an MRI." He shifted, settling his chest flatter against the bed. 

You turn, standing at the bedside. "Did you get one?" 

"No." 

"Right." Fucking brilliant. 

You stepped closer, and the scent of eucalyptus cut through the stale gym air as you brought your hands to the base of his neck. The moment your fingers made contact with the muscle in his traps, you felt it. A wall of tension so dense it was almost more solid than the wall next to you. Layer upon layer of tightened, locked into place, compensating and overcompensating for something deeper underneath.

"Shirt needs to come off." You said, "I can't work through fabric, not with this much going on."

A beat of silence. Then he pushed himself up on one arm, grabbed the back of his collar and pulled the shirt over his head in a single motion. He dropped it off the side of the bed and lay back down without ceremony. 

"Happy?" He nearly growled. 

"Ecstatic." You retort sarcastically. 

His bare back was a landscape of hard work and damage. More scars than you had anticipated. Some surgical, some not. The muscle was impressive, but uneven. The left side visibly tighter, the shoulder blade sitting higher and more protracted than the right.

You pressed your thumbs into the muscle there, the infraspinatus, and his breathing changed. Subtle. A controlled inhale through the nose, held for a fraction too long. 

"That's where it catches," he said quietly. "When I throw the hook." 

"Hmm," you hum, applying more pressure, thumbs slowly sliding along the length of the muscle. "How does that feel?" you murmur, concentrating. 

His fingers curled against his forearm, knuckles whitening for a second before he forced them to relax. The muscle under your hands resisted at first. Dense and unyielding. But with each pass, it began to give. 

"Like you're trying to put your damn thumb through my back." His voice was low, stripped of any earlier edge. "But it's the right spot."

You work deeper along that muscle, following the grainy texture of muscle fibres. Each pass revealed more and more. Adhesions layered over old compensations, the kind of damage that occurred over months and months. He's been fighting through it. Rerouting his punch mechanics instead of simply fixing the problem. 

"How long has this actually been going on?" you asked, hands continuing to move. "And don't say three weeks."

A pause. His ribs expanded slowly beneath your palms. 

"Since the Gojo fight. Maybe before." He turned his face slightly into his forearm. "Took a shot on the ropes. Arm got pinned at a bad angle. Kept fighting. Won by the eighth." You found a particularly dense knot just below his scapula and held pressure on it. His breath caught, a sharp involuntary sound he swallowed almost immediately. 

"That one's been there a while." You say, breathless. 

"Yeah." The single word came out rougher than he intended. 

You eased off, letting the tissue breathe, then came back with slower strokes to flush the area. His shoulder dropped a fraction. An unconscious release he wasn't even aware of. The left blade started to settle closer to its natural position, still higher than the right, but less obvious now. 

"You've been compensating with your right side," you told him, "that's why your cross is clean, but the hook is wide. Your body had to find a workaround, and it now thinks that is normal." 

Silence, then he exhaled.

"So, what's the fix?" He shifted his weight slightly, and you felt the muscle along his spine release and tense. 

"Ice and a week of rest should do the trick." You bite down on your cheek to suppress your laugh, and he shoots you a glare over his shoulder. 

"Comedian." He quips, "I've got six weeks until Reyes. I'm not pulling out, and I'm not scaling back. So whatever you're about to suggest, factor that in." 

His head turned again, enough for one dark green eye to find you. He was testing you. Would you push back or meet him where he stood?

You move to his traps, gently loosening the muscle there. "Full recovery is usually two to four weeks, but with training being as intense as it is, I put it at five weeks with a good routine, exercise and regular massage. Hot and cold therapy will be beneficial too." You apply more pressure as you speak. "Cold plunge and an infrared sauna. Four days a week. Two minutes in the cold plunge up to your neck. Fifteen in the sauna. Total of fifty minutes." You continue on the knots, slow and deep. "Massage after each training session. Just twenty minutes to get the blood flowing and release any inflammation around the muscles. It will keep any scar tissue from hardening."

"Five weeks." He repeated slowly. "That means I have one week at full capacity before the fight." His jaw worked against his forearm. You could practically feel the calculation happening beneath your hands. Then, something loosened. A deliberate release, starting at the base of his skull and rolling down through the muscular chords of his neck. 

"Cold plunge I already do twice a week." His voice settled into something quieter, more honest. The defensive edge from the gym floor was replaced with pragmatism. A man who understood his body was his career. "Sauna I can add. Kuroda's been on me about recovery protocols anyway. He'll probably take credit for the entire thing." 

You dug into a stubborn knot where his right trap met the base of his neck, and his breath stuttered for half a second. "Twenty minutes after every session, though." He exhaled slowly. "That's five days a week you're putting your hands on me. You sure you want that kind of commitment to someone like me?" 

You kept working, the tissue was responding, although grudgingly. Warmth was building under your fingers, circulation thumping through areas that had been locked down for months. 

"What did he say about me?"

"Who?" you ask. 

"Kuroda." 

"Do you actually want to know?" You tease. 

"Let me guess. 'Difficult'. 'Doesn't listen'. 'Best fighter I've ever trained.'" Toji drawls on. 

"Are we playing two truths and one lie?" 

"Almost forgot you were a comedian." He replied, but it was definitely a laugh disguised as a cough. "Six weeks," he said again, quieter now. "Alright, Y/N. Six weeks. But if I'm giving you twenty minutes after every session, I want to feel the difference by week three. That's the deal." 

You sigh and release the pressure. "We'll see," you reply and turn to rinse your hands in the sink. "No more training today, and a half session tomorrow. You need at least forty-eight hours to let the inflammation go down." 

The bed creaked as he pished himself up onto his elbows, watching you at the sink. 

"Half a session." He repeated it like you had asked him to cut off a limb. He sat up fully, swinging his legs over the edge, and the overhead light caught the sheen of oil still clinging to the planes of his back. "You realise Kuroda has me sparring tomorrow. Full rounds. He's bringing in a southpaw just to make it challenging." 

You dried your hands without turning around. "Tell him to push it to Thursday."

Silence. 

The kind that was a tangible weight against you. You could feel him staring at the back of your head, running through every possible argument he wanted to make. 

"You've had your hands on me for fifteen minutes and—"

"Twelve." You correct and turn, leaning against the sink. "Twelve minutes, but please, go on."

His jaw tightens. "Twelve minutes, and you're already rearranging my schedule." His feet hit the ground, and he reached for his shirt, pulling it on. "That's bold, Y/N. Even for someone Kuroda hired." He stood, and the room felt suddenly smaller. He rolled his shoulder, testing. It was a test, and a result. One he would never admit to you. It moved more easily, and you both knew it. 

"Thursday," he said finally, "I'll tell Kuroda it was my call. He doesn't need to know his new physio is running the show on day one." 

He picked up his towel from the side table and slung it over his shoulder, then paused at the dor. His hand rested on the frame, fingers curled loosely around the edge. He looked back at you, and for the first time, his gaze was something more than assessing. "Same time tomorrow for the half session?"