If That Did Not Send On Anon I Will Be Logging OUT

The way you write Todoroki gives me so much serotonin and the reader actually has a personality which I love because 1) They're like me and 2) they're hilarious which had me trying not to laugh at 1am also Shoto is mildly chaotic which is great because I love chaotic bestie Shoto pls your writing is so good thank you for blessing us with your amazing writing

bro this gotta be about guppy love bc on god i love that one too its so fcuking chaotic definitely had 3 am and deliriously tired writing written all over it. glad you like it!

on god im glad u like my reader bc i hate when the reader can be so dull like bruh crackhead energy dont actually mean you gotta do drugs pls just do somethinggggg

You Accidentally Confess Over Text (Haikyuu!! Fake Texts)

(Bokuto and Akaashi Version)

A/N: I AM ALIVEEEE✨✨yalllll it’s been a fat minute, how’ve u been?? How’s school and all that Jazz? Mine is a goddamn nightmare, and its like even with the hybrid, I’m gettin claustrophobic🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️ anyways, I had the day off and about five minutes to myself, so here’s a lil thing to “check in” I guess. Thanks for 2.1k guys, and enjoy!

Waking Him Up to Tell Him You Love Him (Haikyuu!! Fake Texts)

(Libero and Wing Spiker Version) Part 2

A/N: part 2 with Konoha even tho I don’t know his character👀 the pictures just don’t freaking fitttt

Nishinoya, Tanaka, Goshiki, and Kyoutani

Are there any good x reader authors out there, or is everyone still being sold as a sex slave to one direction?

THE WAY YOU’RE FEEDING US WITH CONTENT IS VERY SEGGSY😩 AND EVEN WHEN YOU’RE JUST INTERACTING WITH US ITS VERY SEXCOF YOU❤️👄❤️ AND I LOVE YOU YOU ARE SO TALENTED WTF💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝 I would spam you with more hearts but my word limit is near👁💧👄💧👁

O MY GAH THANK YOU SO MUCH YOU ARE SO NICE AND AMAZING

I would try to max out my heart limit but I don’t think I got one so here’s a pic of literally me rn

your words make me very happi and I’m glad I got to see this message today🥺💜💜

so osamu x reader angst au where osamu is deeply in love with the reader and decided to dye his hair blonde so reader can cope with tsumu's death but didn't like this idea anymore, he wanted her to love him for who he truly is,,, 👉👈

Lapse in Judgement (Osamu x Reader)

*GIF not mine*

Summary: A car crash has taken Osamu’s brother away, the boy you liked so dearly. Osamu was dull to the pain, his crush on you blinding him from reality. But when he dyes his hair in hopes that he could make you feel the same, he realizes he may have gone too far. 

A/N: Sorry it took me a while. As per request, we got some major angst, but I gotta be honest, I don’t think Osamu’s evil enough to focus on a girl rather than his brother, so I focused more on his desperation to replace what he had lost than anything else. Hope you enjoy!

Word count: 1412

        Maybe it was a mistake. A screw up of the royal kind. 

        But at most, it was a lapse in judgement. 

        High school boy found dead in a car accident. That’s what the newspapers said, but it didn’t account for the total grief of it all. 

        Boy, dead. Drunk driver, critical condition. The navy blue truck totalled the small SUV at eight o’ clock at night after running a red light. Witnesses called for help, and that was it. 

        Except it wasn’t. 

        The journalists didn’t talk about the empty bedroom across from Osamu’s. They didn’t talk about the abandoned desk in Class 4b, the bare seat at the lunch table, the still-full locker in the hallway. 

        Atsumu was gone, with only an indifferent news article to his name. 

        Practice was never quite the same. Each time Osamu went, he couldn’t help but stare at the floor where his brother once stood. Deep down, he knew he should have cried by now. Bawled tears at the funeral, or maybe let one slip when he saw the first layer of dust settle onto his brother’s dresser. 

        But the truth was that he hadn’t. Yeah, it hurt, but he couldn’t… feel it. Every sense in his body was numb as he got through each passing day like turning the pages of a book without reading them. Things were happening, he just didn’t care enough to listen. 

        Osamu guessed the one who was visibly taking it the hardest was you, who won by a landslide. 

        The night he died, you had texted the quieter twin with wide-eyed innocence, revealing that the next day at school, you were going to give Atsumu a letter telling him how you feel. 

        I can do it! Just watch me, Samu!

        The chance never came, and when Osamu informed you of what had happened, you had broken down in his arms. 

        And he felt sick for the first time. 

        Disgust at himself for actually being happy that he was the one to hold you now, it was horrifying. The bile that had risen up his throat lost out to the joy. 

        Him, Osamu, he was the one you talked to now, each day asking him if he was okay, hugging him and confiding in him with your deepest thoughts. 

        You and Atsumu had been close in a way Osamu had always been envious of. Teasing and flirting, all of it turned him into a green-eyed monster.

        So maybe that was what forced away his ache of loss. Around him, you were almost as happy, almost as teasing and playful, but you had lost that glint in your eyes. You didn’t have that with Osamu.

        He knew that was what had sent him over the edge. 

        Two weeks after his brother’s death, still not a tear spilt. Instead, he spent all his time thinking about you. Your smile, less forced than before. The shine in your hair had returned, and your cheeks finally began to flush again. 

        Osamu entered the school and made a beeline for the classroom, praying that you had attended school today so he could see you. So you could validate what he had done. 

        And there you were, slipping into the classroom with the same dark circles under your eyes. They were no longer only from long nights of doing schoolwork. 

        “YN.” 

        Your head snapped up and your eyes met his in a split second. Then your gaze rose to his hair. Your lips separated to let out a single, quick breath of air while your brow twitched. 

        “At- Osamu?” 

        He nodded, the newly-blond hair shifting to hang in front of his eyes.

        “Your… you changed your hair.” 

        “Yeah, I did.”

        And that was that.

                                ~~~

        Having you by his side, Osamu could ignore all the stares he received. He never cared for attention, especially not now. Throughout the halls of school, people’s brows rose to their hairlines as they watched you both walk around, hand in hand and smile together. 

        It never seemed weird, and Osamu had never felt happier. 

        He wasn’t… he wasn’t alone anymore. 

        The bedroom across from his never bothered him when you stayed over at night. He hadn’t even travelled into it since the last time. 

        “Do you want to come over tonight?” Osamu didn’t really say it as a question, mostly because you were guaranteed to say yes anyways. 

        “Again? I think someone likes having me around.” 

        He did. God, he loved that adoring look on your face whenever he said he wanted you. Those puppy dog eyes of yours that you never seemed to notice you were giving him made his heart thump in a frantic pattern. 

        Volleyball wasn’t really a concern anymore. The new setter pissed him off, so he didn’t bother attending practice. His jerseys hung in his closet, unworn for what might’ve been a month now. 

        It was maybe… two months? Three? Osamu wasn’t sure, but Atsumu had left a while ago. 

        So he never bothered with the sport, meaning you could come over right after school, or he could even walk with you there. 

        You both had a tradition now. Homework, then a movie or show, then a nap together. Then Osamu either walked you home or, if it was too late, let you sleep in his bed for the night. 

        He found that your warmth fended off the nightmares that leered in on him at all hours in a day. 

        Today was a day that you stayed the night. The moon was already falling from the sky by the time you two finished eating a dinner of box mac and cheese, and thus it was decided that you shouldn’t bother going home. 

        Osamu’s blond head rested on your chest, and one leg was intertwined with both of your own. His arm was strewn across your stomach, heavy enough to keep you in place for the night. 

        You had two hands in his hair, head propped up on a pillow so you could make out the shape of the tufts in the black room. It was three am, and Osamu’s breathing had finally slowed and leveled.

        “Atsumu,” you whispered, your own voice not even loud enough to hit your own ears. “Fuck, I miss you so much.” 

        Osamu shifted and your hands stilled, breath held in anticipation. Then he stopped and nuzzled his face back into your chest. 

        After waiting a couple more minutes just in case, you let out a sigh and combed through the long tufts again. “I’ll never stop loving you, Atsumu. I wish I could’ve told you that three months ago.” 

        Your eyelids grew heavy with sleep and you let out a yawn. 

        “I love you, Atsumu.” 

        And then you slipped into unconsciousness. 

        Atsumu was gone forever. 

        His bedroom was still empty, and a few spiders had probably claimed the corners of the room by now. Dust must have caked over every single picture and piece of furniture the boy had ever owned. 

        His bed was probably unmade, and would never be made again. 

        He was dead, and nobody could fill the holes his absence had left. 

        You couldn’t fix Osamu’s loneliness, no matter how much you latched onto him. 

        Osamu couldn’t replace his brother for you. He wasn’t really the boy you would love, no matter how hard he tried to be. Your words had confirmed that.

        Dying his hair was a lapse of judgement. A last ditch effort for both of you to keep his memory alive. 

        But that effort was futile. 

        And so, for the first time since he had lost his setter in volleyball, his friend in school, his rival in love, and his twin for life, Osamu let reality sink in. 

        Against your chest, in the hold of the woman he loved unrequitedly, Osamu cried.

On a Cold Winter’s Night (Oikawa x Reader)

*GIF not mine*

Summary: Trapped in the university library due to a raging blizzard outside, you are forced to endure the cold night with the man you hate the most: the player who lives in the dorm across from you, Tooru Oikawa. But with tensions and anxieties at an all-time high, you begin to realize your feelings for Oikawa aren’t quite what you thought they were, especially when all he wants to do is keep you warm. 

A/N: I took like six hours to write this??? Bruh callin’ amateur hour in this bitch 😑😑 eh, whatever, enjoy!

Word count: 5345

        Snow, layers upon layers, piled up outside of the library. The glass doors of the library had long frosted over, and inside the lights began to flicker. Outside every window was a blanket of white, everything in the distance far too foggy to see through the flurry of flakes. 

       The lone television suspended above the library’s main desk played the same succession of videos–static with white noise, a scrolling of text warning people to stay inside, three loud buzzes, then more static with white noise. It far overpowered the sound of the library’s heater kicking on, its automatic settings desperately trying to battle the cold that succeeded in invading the closed and locked library. 

       You sighed, sparing another glance at the exit and the wall of snow that kept rising against it. Minutes ago you’d tried pushing open the doors, only succeeding in chilling the tips of your fingers against the frozen metal. Ever since then, your fingers never truly seemed to recover. 

       Just your luck; first a small windstorm had delayed your flight back home for Christmas Break, and now, just when you’d given up and decided to work on a few research projects while being stuck at the university, you were trapped inside the library. 

       But you weren’t alone. No, of course not. As if fate had it out for you, you were stuck inside the building with the one guy you despised with your whole being. 

       “Gum?”

       Oikawa held out a piece, a small smirk dancing on the edge of his lips. When all he received in response was a blank stare, he shrugged and unwrapped it, tossing it in his mouth before toying with the wrapper. 

       The both of you sat behind the librarian’s desk in tall, wooden stools. It was the only place with service, and it was where you had both scurried to the second the storm warning chimed through the announcement speakers. 

       While you had attempted to push through the doors, Oikawa had called the school’s main office, warning them of your predicament. Of course, he’d cut himself off halfway through with a cackle at the sight of the door slamming back in your face, but nonetheless he’d gotten a simple, if completely undesirable response. 

       “The both of you need to stay in there and not leave. It’s far too dangerous to go out into the blizzard right now. Tomorrow morning it should be calmed down, and then we’ll send people over to get you. For now, try to stay warm.”

       When he relayed this message to you, you had him put them on speaker so you could hear it with your own two ears. 

       Pop.

       Alas, it was the truth. You were stuck.

       Pop.

       With your worst enemy. Alone. 

       Pop.

       During a blizzard. 

       “Will you stop doing that?” you hissed, heaving a glare at him. 

       Oikawa froze in his seat, a gum-bubble the size of a golf ball slowly deflating with a wheeze. He raised his hands in surrender. “Excuse me for trying to find some source of joy in this miserable place. Maybe you should try having fun once in a while, YN.”

       Your cheeks burned in shame at that. “I have fun!”

       A single brown brow rose. “Do you?”

       “Yes,” you folded your arms across your chest, “I do. But unlike you, I don’t do it at the expense of other people’s sanity.”

       Long ago, amidst your third week of your first year at the university, you learned that you and Oikawa were two vastly different people. In co-ed dorms, he lived just across from you, and it seemed he reminded you of that every other night. 

       While loud music boomed across the hall and eventually spread throughout the building, you sat inside your dorms, hands over the headphones over your ears. You were usually leant over a textbook, pencil and notes abandoned long ago as you tried to comprehend the words despite not being able to hear your own thoughts. 

       Your roommate would slip out to join the fun, meeting and laughing with someone who had knocked on your door. Then that someone had tapped a single finger on your shoulder, squatting down beside your desk and leaning his head to one side. 

       As usual, a teasing smile danced on his lips. “You gonna join us, or sit here studying like a Debbie Downer?”

       You’d be the first–and most certainly not the last–to admit that he was attractive. Brown hair exploding in tufts and swept across his forehead. Bronze eyes twinkling in the light of your lamp. Thin, pink lips pulled into a goading grin. 

       “Come on, I promise the water’s warm.”

       It was at that moment that you started to hate him.

       “Get out of my room.”

       The smugness blanketing his face had dropped for a split second, and you genuinely wondered if you were the first to ever resist his charms. But how could you not, when in every second of your interaction with him, it felt like he was laughing at you?

       Hesitantly, it seemed, he rose to his feet, stumbling a bit. You shouldn’t have been surprised that he was already drunk, but you hadn’t smelled it earlier when he was inches from your face. 

       “All right,” he chuckled, rising to his full height with his hands on his knees. Swiftly, he turned and made his way to your door, not bothering to look back at you again. “I know when I’m not wanted. Enjoy your studying, YN.”

       How he’d learned your name, you never really. You’d figured he caught it on the first day of the one class you shared with him, English, amidst mandatory introductions. Since then, every time your name fell on his lips, he more sang it than said it, always in that sly tone of his. 

       You hated it. You hated him. 

       And now, as you spent the third day of Christmas Break locked inside alone with him in a freezing library, you found yourself despising him even more. 

       Pop.

       “Well, YN, you should know better than anyone that I have a knack for driving people insane,” Oikawa hummed, long fingers folding the edges of his gum wrapper against the desk surface. Your eyes drawn to the action, you absentmindedly scoffed. 

       “Yes, I certainly do.”

       His eyes darted to yours, an emotion flitting across them before dropping back down to his miniature origami. A chill ran up your spine. 

       “I’m going to go look for some blankets,” you sputtered out of the blue. You found yourself reflecting his shocked look, a little surprised at yourself at the outburst. 

       “Okay,” he grinned after a pause. “Hurry back soon.”

       Ignoring the wink he offered you, you slipped out of your chair and left him alone behind the desk counter, effectively beginning your search for stray, abandoned coverings. 

       Instantly, you realized the rest of the library was significantly chillier than the desk up front. Though the heater was still pumping and hissing through the air vents above you, it was now rattling much more forcefully than before.

       Must be the snow piling on top of the electrical system or something. 

       The fluorescent lights buzzed above you, still cutting off and flickering every few seconds as you passed bookshelf after labeled bookshelf. Signs labeled with genres and areas of study swung from the ceiling over rows of different-colored bindings. So distracted, you let out a yelp of pain after stubbing your toe against an abandoned book cart, plenty of go-backs filed one after the other in no discernible order. 

       “YN?” Far off, Oikawa’s voice called after you. Despite the distance you’d created between the two of you, he still must have heard your pained shout. A small part of you was surprised he bothered to acknowledge the noise at all. 

       Maybe he’s not a complete pain in the ass.

       “Yeah, that was me, I’m fine! Just hit my foot on something!”

       “Do you need help finding your way around? I’m sorry, I forgot my walking rope, so we’ll have to hold hands!”

       Nevermind, still a dick. 

       “Fuck you!”

       “That’s why I’m here!”

       Rolling your eyes, you purse your lips to prevent giving in to his teasing further. With a few hissed curses under your breath, you continue venturing through the uninhabited building. Though you did find a few abandoned belongings, none of which were of much use. A few too small hoodies, one suspicious pair of sweatpants, and some stray sunglasses. One poor soul even forgot their backpack at one of the work tables, and despite your initial curiosity, you refrained from digging through it and instead left it where it was. 

       It was when you arrived at the individual work areas divided by wooden partitions that your search finally paid off. Because it was arranged against a line of floor-to-ceiling windows, it was significantly colder in this work area than any other place you’d come across. Luckily, that also meant there was a higher chance of you finding spare blankets–which you did. 

       One was still strewn across the back of a work chair, a black fur throw with no designs but a single tear at one corner, presumably where a tag had been. Another, this one cream-colored, knitted wool, sat in a crumpled pile on the very last desk of the entire area, arranged in the furthest corner of the library from the entrance. The bulb in the ceiling above this desk had been out ever since the first time you’d been in the library, so you weren’t surprised to figure that people crammed out naps between studying in this dark little corner.

       While gathering the two–scratch that, there was another on the ground next to you–three blankets in your arms, you spared a look outside the windows. Frost and a glaze of ice covered each corner where metal met glass, and, because you were on the first floor, you could see how high the snow had piled by now. It reached as high as your hips, with more flakes joining or splatting against the pane every second. 

       The sun, you could see, was just barely setting, the gray of the sky growing darker. Soon enough, it was darker inside than it was outside. 

       The power. It had gone out.

       “YN!”

       Because the heater sputtered a few more clicks before kicking the bucket, you could barely hear Oikawa’s voice, far off and muffled, over the large distance you’d covered in the library. The lights above you no longer buzzed, and instead an unsettling silence took over the building. 

       “Oikawa! The lights!” You hugged the blankets to your chest with one straining arm, the other fumbling with your phone flashlight. You began the trek back to the front desk, squinting to try and make out shelves and stray books along the way. Despite the long-sleeved T-shirt you wore, a chill was beginning to nip at your skin, and you slowed to wrap a blanket around your shoulders. 

       “I know, the weight of the snow must have taken out the electrical box or something!” His voice was getting closer; he must have been making his way towards you in return. 

       Passing through the towering bookshelves, you made it out and turned a corner onto the main path they created. A shadow of a figure stood inches from your face. 

       “Shit!” You flinched back, kicking a leg out blindly in self-defense. The tip of your snow boot struck something hard, and a strangled groan escaped the person as they dropped to the floor. Now level with the light of your flashlight, the person was finally visible–Oikawa hugged his shin to his chest with clenched eyes and gritted teeth. 

       “Ow, ow, ow, owie!” 

       You winced, your guilt growing worse after realizing he had just been searching for you. 

       “Oh, sorry,” you cringed, dropping the blankets and hovering your hands over his coiled form. You wanted to help, you just weren’t sure how. “Do you… do you want some ice for that?”

       The glare he threw you chilled you to the bone more than the weather outside.

       “C’mon,” you hid a snigger behind your hand, straightening up and offering him the other, “it was just a joke. I really am sorry. Let’s get back to the front desk; I’ll help you.”

       The huff he released ruffled the bangs on his forehead. “I should make you kiss it better,” he pouted, hand latching onto yours and pulling himself up. He almost yanked you down with him, but you’d stationed a hand on one of the shelves for support the second you felt his whole weight. You hadn’t expected it, but you supposed you should have guessed it–Oikawa’s body was packed with muscle from years of playing volleyball. 

       Even now, as the main setter of your school’s team, he had daily workouts that only made his body stronger. You’d passed him once during a warm autumn day; he was jogging around campus shirtless while you were on your way back to the dorms after just getting out of class. He was headed straight for you, and during that time, everything seemed to move in slow motion. 

       One, two, three… eight, you’d counted, eyes raking down his chest. The sweat glistened on his bare skin, bathing him in a glowing sheen due to the midday sun. A narrow waist trailed down, down to volleyball shorts hanging slanted on his hips. A smug snicker drew your gaze up, past a broad chest and shoulders and onto Oikawa’s simpering face.

       “Like what you see?” his lips mouthed, but you couldn’t hear over the pounding in your ears, blood rushing to your face. 

       “You’re disgusting” were the only words you could think to say, though they were the exact opposite of how you felt. Maybe you were actually speaking to yourself, ashamed at the way your body reacted to a man you hated with your entire mind. Nonetheless, his face fell in shock, and you brushed past him, ignoring how he’d stopped dead in his tracks and continuing back to your dorm. 

       The view from that day was still imprinted in your mind, as though somehow your mind was afraid of forgetting it. Forgetting him. 

       But you would never forget how much you despised his attitude. 

       You released his hand as quickly as you’d grabbed it, reaching back down and gathering the blankets off the floor. A red flush took over your cheeks, and for the first time you were glad the electricity had gone out. Maybe the rest of your body was beginning to freeze, but your face was completely warm. 

       “I’m not kissing anything, perv.”

       You tried to leave him stranded behind you, moving forward to return to the front desk through the darkness, but his longer strides easily caught up with you aside from a small limp. 

       “The night is still young, YN.”

       Instead of a proper response, you settled for a scoff, avoiding the gaze you knew was locked on your face. An amused hum escaped the man beside you, but you blocked it out. 

       Finally back at the front desk, you spared another look outside. The sun had set completely now, a dark blue hue now in the sky as more and more snow collected against the glass. It seemed the warmth of the room had been sucked away completely, leaving behind a stale, frigid atmosphere that dried up the back of your throat.

       “The blankets will certainly help,” Oikawa broke the silence behind you, “but we’ll need more than that. I snagged what I could from the backroom, some water bottles left in the fridge or so, but we need food.” When you shifted to face him, he nodded his head toward the vending machine next to the restrooms. 

       “You want to break into the vending machine?” you deadpanned. 

       “Unless you’ve got generous amounts of cash, of course,” he smiled sarcastically. 

       “Maybe we should wait until morning before we start committing crimes.”

       Oikawa shrugged. “Desperate times, YN.”

       “We’re not that desperate.”

       “Not yet.” He eyed the cloud of air his words left, releasing a larger, experimental breath and watching the fog that hung in the air afterward. 

       The sight made your stomach clench a little. If the cold from the outside had seeped in that quickly, you had a feeling three measly blankets weren’t going to last the two of you through the night. A wave of goosebumps ran along your skin when you thought about the cold too much. 

       You swallowed. “I’m sure we’ll be fine. We just have to make it till morning.” The strain in your arms from holding onto the blankets too long finally drew your attention back to them, and you busied yourself with arranging the throws on the floor. You handed one to Oikawa, saving one for yourself before spreading the last on the floor behind the front desk. 

       The rough carpet floor was less unforgiving when covered with a blanket, but you knew that in a matter of minutes your backside would be numb either way. Oikawa snagged the water bottles off the counter and passed them down to you before settling on the floor himself, a distance far too close for your comfort, but the heat he was giving off silenced any of your complaints. 

       Then it was too quiet. You cracked open a water bottle and took a sip, then you opened it again and took another sip. All the while, you saw Oikawa watch you in your peripheral vision, and when his staring came to be too much, you scrambled for your phone. 

       “Shit.”

       “What?”

       You patted your hands down your legging pockets once more, then along the ground. You flapped around your blanket, hoping to hear a weight thump against the floor, but there was nothing. 

       “My phone’s missing.”

       “When did you-”

       “Dammit, I left it on the ground after kicking you!”

       “Hey,” Oikawa screeched, offended. “You say that like it was my fault!”

       “Well,” you rose to your feet, Oikawa following suit, “you were the one who scared the shit out of me!”

       “Didn’t you know I was looking for you?” He followed you down the main walkway through the shelves, his presence inches from your back.

       “Yeah, but I didn’t expect you to materialize right in front of my face!” In effort to escape his suffocating presence, you quickened your pace, eyes on the ground but not really seeing anything.

       “Oh, I’m sorry, my bad. Next time you go missing during a snowstorm, I’ll be sure to wear a bell so you know exactly where I am at all times.”

       “That’s not what-”

       Crack.

       The both of you froze in place, argument out of mind in an instant. 

       “Was that…?”

       “Uh oh.”

       You both directed your attention to underneath your foot, where an object lay cracked from your aggressive stomping. 

       Dropping your face into your hands, you let out a loud groan. “Could this day get any worse?”

       Oikawa had squatted down to investigate, nudging your leg out of the way before picking up your cracked phone. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, it was useless anyway.” He tapped and poked at the screen, toying with the buttons. “Looks like it was out of battery.”

       “Fuckkkkk.” You tore it from his hands, performing your own investigations of pats and brushes along the screen before calling it quits. “Isn’t yours out too?”

       Solemnly, he nodded, taking his phone out and allowing you to tap around on it before throwing it back in his pocket.

       “So we’re fucked?”

       “Majorly.”

       The pair of you slumped back to the main desk, flopping onto the ground and wrapping back up in your blankets. A shiver of cold mixed with frustration had taken over your body in a short span of time, causing your breaths to escape with slight chatters of your teeth. 

       You could feel it now, on the tips of your fingers and the end of your nose. A chill seeped through your leggings and slid up your shirt sleeves, sinking into every pore and leaving your hair standing on end. Your muscles began that all-too familiar buzz, a slow but steady trembling in effort to get your blood moving. Your toes curled in your boots. 

       “It’s cold,” you commented, the words slipping out like an afterthought. 

       You thought he’d agree, hum, or even nod his head. Instead, Oikawa scooted closer to you on the blanket, enough that his upper arm brushed the end of your shoulder. Then, slowly, as though approaching a wounded animal, his arm rose and wrapped around you, not only covering you with his heat but also with his blanket, still soaked in the warmth from his body. 

       Mind blank, you didn’t move a muscle for what seemed to be five minutes after he’d moved to embrace you. 

       “Is this okay?” he’d whispered into the silence, voice soft yet hesitant. 

       “W-why?”

       “You said you were cold.” He shifted a little, but didn’t move away. And surprisingly enough, you didn’t want him to. “I–didn’t want you to be cold.”

       A blanket of silence falls over the two of you, an atmosphere of peace you never thought you’d experience with the brunette man in your life. His warmth left you in a sort of lethargic trance; you didn’t want to move away, though your mind was urging you to, nor did you have the energy to. For the first time, you wanted Oikawa close to you, and you didn’t want him to leave for a while.

       You were exhausted.

       Formerly, the two of you were both leaning back against the wall. Now, tucked into Oikawa’s side, your right arm pressed into the side of his chest while your left was cushioned a distance from the wall by Oikawa’s arm, wrapped sturdily around your shoulders and urging you to lean toward him instead. 

       Man, you were tired. 

       “YN?”

       “Hmm?” Your eyes cracked back open, and you shifted your gaze to him, waiting. 

       His head was leaned back against the wall, eyes still closed as a single brown tuft of hair fell across his forehead. In the light the moon reflected off the snow, you could see the length of his lashes brushing the apples of his cheeks, the sharp edge of his jawline that you yearned to run a finger along. He didn’t bother to look at you for a response when he muttered, “Why do you hate me?”

       The question zapped you to attention like a taser, guilt flooding your chest for a reason you didn’t quite think you knew. There was a strong urge in you to pull away from him, but the hand on your arm tightened, halting any drastic movements.

       “I… I don’t…”

       “I know you do,” he sighed, tongue running out along his lips. “Please, just tell me.” There was a sort of surrender in his voice you never thought you’d hear. For a second, you missed his smug tone. You missed the teasing lilt of his voice. You missed the Oikawa you knew. 

       You wanted him back. 

       “You’re weirding me out, Oikawa.” In this position, you couldn’t poke him in the cheek, so you settled for his thigh. He barely flinched, peeking a single eye open. “Go back to acting like that smug little shit I know you are.” His lips quirked up.

       “I promise I’m still me, YN. I’m just a bit curious is all.”

       “Yeah, well, it’s freaking me out. I want the normal you back.”

       Wrong words.

       “You do?” He was wide awake at that, head straightened up and eyes wide and at attention. If he was a dog, his tail would be wagging. 

       “Nevermind.” You twisted in his grip to get your back facing him. 

       “No, no, noooo.” Both of his hands grabbed onto your shoulders, shaking you back and forth. “Say it again. Say you want me again.”

       “God, you’re such a perv,” you stutter, voice wavering with his movements.

       “You’re so mean, YN!” he whines, finally releasing your shoulders. You think he’s given up and let down your guard slightly, a little curious at his expression. But when you turn your head to face him, two arms wrap around your waist, yanking you back and in between Oikawa’s outstretched legs. 

       “What the-” While you struggle in his arms, Oikawa only holds you closer, leaning back and taking you with him so your back rests against his front. He hooks his head over your shoulder, and you tense when you feel a breath of warm air against your ear. 

       A shiver tears through your body, but you’re relieved he doesn’t comment on it. 

       “Say it again, YN.” And he definitely feels the shiver that time. A breathless snicker heats up the skin of your neck, but you’re too trapped in his arms to escape the overwhelming feeling it erupts in you. 

       “God, I hate you,” you sigh instinctively. 

       Oikawa grows still. The fun and games are over, it seems, as he pulls his head away from your neck. The arms encircling your waist have become rigid. 

       There’s a thump against the wall. Then a pause. “Why?”

       You bite your lip, and though the words are on the tip of your tongue, you can’t seem to force them out. You’re ashamed, embarrassed, regretful. All of those ugly feelings he pulls out of you every other day, you draw out of yourself in this moment. 

       “Oikawa, I-”

       “Tooru,” he corrects.

       Flustered, you continue, “Tooru… whenever you… you always just… I never…” You groan at your lack of words, throwing frustrated hands over your face. The heat in your body, though small, rises. “I just feel stupid around you.”

       “Stupid?”

       “Like an idiot.”

       “Idiot?”

       “Yeah.”

       “Yeah?”

       “Stop it.”

       “Sorry,” he pauses, “I just… you think you feel stupid? Around me?”

       You don’t understand what he means, so you stay silent. 

       “So… you feel like an idiot around me… why, exactly?”

       “Because,” you wave your hands around, not really sure what your gestures are doing considering he can’t see them, “you just… you tease me all the time! And when we’re in class and you look at me and I just feel like I’ve got shit all over my face! And when you throw those stupid-ass parties, I feel so lame because it’s not like I don’t want to socialize, but I hate the way people act at parties! And then you come along and tell me that I should join, but I know it’s gonna fucking suck and I know you’re gonna see that I stick out during parties like a sore thumb and that makes me feel even worse and I-”

       “YN!” A hand slips from your waist, slapping over your mouth and effectively cutting off your rambling. A disbelieved breath sounds behind you. “Jesus Christ, YN.”

       And you feel like even more of an idiot. You take some pleasure in the fact that he can’t see you as tears begin springing in the corners of your eyes. 

       But then there’s a hard pressure against the back of your head. And then something soft against the back of your neck. “YN, YN, YN,” and you realize his lips are on your neck, his face buried into your hair, “God, you just… you drive me fucking crazy, you know that?”

       You didn’t know that.

       “The fact that you can say all of that, and think all of that, and feel all of that, without realizing why I even do it at all drives me insane.” You feel his mouth move against you with every word, your skin growing hot under his breath. You try to speak against his hand, and thankfully he pulls it away when you do, returning it to your waist as though it doesn’t muddle your mind. 

       “What are you talking about?” 

       And he laughs like it’s the dumbest question in the world. And maybe it is, but you have to know. 

       His lips are on your neck one last time before he pulls away, leaning back against the wall once more and taking you with him. “YN,” his fingers twitch against your skin, the cold of them biting through the fabric of your shirt, “do you have feelings for me?”

       And you feel like the biggest idiot of all, because you do. 

       You do have feelings for him, and you only just realized that now. 

       “Holy shit.” 

       Oikawa stiffens. “What?”

       “I have feelings for you.” The words slip out before you can stop them, mostly because you’re still in disbelief. Did you really? After all this time of thinking you hated him, of hating how he teased you, you seriously had feelings for him and you didn’t even notice?

       Stupid. So very stupid. 

       A loud scoff from Oikawa breaks you out of your stupor. 

       “Jesus Christ, you’re gonna drive me nuts.”

       And you can’t even turn around and call him an asshole because he’s turning you in his grip and pressing his lips against yours. The hand on your chin, the other on your hip, all to pull you closer, spin you around and tug you onto his lap without separating from you. 

       Your hands are in his hair, and you’re tugging, and it’s that whine you always hear whenever you don’t respond to his teasing, that needy one you thought you always hated because it just shakes you to your core but now you get it, you finally understand it. And those long fingers, the ones he always slams onto your notes drunkenly whenever he’s having a party and you’re not there but you forgot to lock your door so now he’s in your room and he’s bothering you, begging you and toying with you to get your attention, those fingers that have stolen your notebook away and held over your head while he smiles and stubbles around, getting you to chase him–they’re on your hips and you know they’re leaving bruises and you like that they’re leaving bruises. 

       You like it all because it’s so cold tonight and he’s so warm and he’s always so warm and you want more, more, more. 

       And he hovers over you, and you gasp. You hate how he teases you because he loves it so much, and that makes you love it. You love it. 

       It is cold tonight. There’s a blizzard raging right outside the doors to the library, stacking up snow higher and higher. You’re both trapped, but you don’t want to leave. Because despite all of the cold, you’re both very, very warm. 

                               ~~~

       The next morning, when people find the two of you, they blame it on that little notion that runs through everyone’s minds when people are stuck together during a cold blizzard, because surely that’s what it must be. 

       And surely that’s why your cheeks are flushed and full of embarrassment, because although everybody knows how weird it can be, during such a life-threatening situation, it’s a desperate attempt to stay warm.

       So when they found you the next morning, thankfully safe and sound and wrapped around each other to try and preserve warmth, they were glad that you two innocent, poor little students, who must have been so scared to be trapped in a building without electricity and heat, were going to be okay, and that they could safely escort you out of the building and back to your dormitories with an official apology. 

       Until one of you asked if they could leave so you could finish what you’d started. 

       “Tooru, you fucking pervert!”

Hi. Do you have any idea when you will continue the reborn series?

Yep, a new part is coming out on Christmas!

Hi, could I be added to the reborn taglist please ? Apparently I enjoy crying :’)

Definitely! I like crying too🤷‍♀️ But, I just wanna warn all of you that are preparing for the next chapter of Reborn that I’m kind of stuck. I have found a fatal flaw in my writing for this series, so I’m gonna take a little time on developing the story before I make my next chapter. I’m really sorry guys😔 but thank you so much for the support!💜

Look Me in the Eyes (Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw x Reader)

*GIF not mine*

Summary: During naval training, your jet crashed and burned, taking your memories with it. But the lieutenant who saved you seems to know you better than he lets on. The only issue is that he refuses to tell you his name.

A/N: pfft half yall don’t read this anyway so imma just say rooster’s hot, oreosmama out *drops mic*

Word count: 3345

It’s not the pervading scent of antiseptic and boredom that has carved its way into your skin, nestling deep into the creases of your brow and your sneering upper lip—

It’s his unflinching gaze.

The lieutenant hovering over you, with a spoonful of green, gelatinous “dinner” posed over your lips, mumbles, “Open the hatch, the F-18 needs to land.” 

He’s a staunchly built man ornamented in the same naval jacket he’d been wearing when you first came-to in the hospital room, his lofty shoulders embellished in unfamiliar patches. Over the last two days, most of which have consisted of him lording himself over you or sitting back in the chair beside your bed, his five o’clock shadow has thickened, and the wrinkles underneath his teasing eyes darkened a shade.

The F-18 bumps against your sneer, and he chortles to himself. 

You know why you’re here. 

Well, sort of.

You know that it must’ve hurt. Like a falling-unconscious-due-to-pain kind of hurt. Black and blue splotches paint your temple and upper left cheek, and each time you force a smile, it aches. The rest of your body looks the same. In the first shower you’d been allowed, you twisted and turned as much as your burning abdomen could handle and had come to the conclusion that you were glad you didn’t remember much of what had happened.

The only real issue was that you didn’t remember much of anything. 

The story you had been told was haphazardly crafted, not unlike if a toddler had drawn a house with crayons and passed it to you, insisting it looked exactly like the one you lived in. 

It goes something like this: you were flying your jet when the engine stalled, and when you ejected, your head smacked against the windshield. You were lucky—you were unconscious when you had crumpled in on yourself, snapping five of your ribs like pencils, and when you’d landed on the ground, face in the dirt—you were so, so lucky. 

But the lieutenant says differently. 

When he found you, you were awake. You were echoing his name into the stagnant desert air, screaming and sobbing in ways that still keep him up at night. 

You know because he sleeps with folded arms on the edge of your mattress, and he rattles the metal skeleton each time he flinches. And the times when he thinks you’re too buried in exhaustion and slumber, his hand finds yours, fingertips light as air against your skin.

These are the only times the lieutenant bares that part of himself to you. 

In the mornings, when you can look him in the eyes and see the guilt buried underneath, he winces a smile onto his lips and asks if you remember anything yet. 

You don't.

And he winces again. “Back to the drawing board, huh?”

The lieutenant is a nice-enough man when he wants to be. The only issue is that he doesn’t seem to want to be. 

“Tell me your name,” you snipe, dangling over the precipice of flinging Jell-O across the room. 

This is a game he never wants to play, despite how often he wins. He has the whole naval base’s hospital staff refer to him as Sir or Lieutenant-no-last-name, and each time you ask, he’ll give you the same response.

“You know my name.” 

You don't. He’s a complete stranger. He can hold you hand and feed you Jell-O and help you hobble to the bathroom; he can brush the hair from your sweat-crusted face in the mornings and, on some rare occasions where he thinks he’s woken up before you, he’ll graze a feather-soft kiss on your bruised temple.

And you still haven't got a clue. 

Because whoever the lieutenant is, the tight grip he has on your heart is completely foreign to you. It’s a grip that says you and him aren’t just something definable—you were a we in this life; the pair of you have formed a way of living in tandem, your own intrinsic tango to which nobody else knows the steps. It’s not just like or a passing fancy. It’s not just hot static running through veins. 

This is fully fledged; this is oxygen now. The rise and fall of your chest is the rise and fall of his. The absence of it must be suffocating. 

So you don't know why he doesn’t like this game. He makes a question-answer into a back-and-forth, and then he winds and winds you up until you’re ready to snap. 

It’s not fair. God, it’s not fair. You deserve to know his name. Doesn’t he know it’s not just a tickle in the back of your mind anymore? If he was the one whose name you were screaming, didn’t you deserve to know what it was?

“Why do you keep doing this?” 

You watch his lips purse, the color bleeding out of them and into pink patches on his neck and cheeks. The spoon rattles against the tray, and the glob of green wavers in its curve. He refuses to hold your gaze like always. Self-inflicted torment disguises itself as burnt-sienna irises. The life you’ve forgotten is bowing his shoulders, and your crash, no matter the fact that he saved you, is eating away at him. 

Then the lieutenant smiles, in the fractured way—the way someone might laugh at a funeral. 

“Because knowing my name wouldn’t help you. You never called me by it, anyway.”

This, oh God—this is the closest you’ve ever gotten, and you’re still wading in the darkness. A name you’d never even call him by, what a wonder that does to your psyche. 

A name was a start; it was a first impression. There was a lot in a name. 

So you’d never called him by his name… so what?

So what, only lovers knew each other by more than a name? So what, he never called you by yours? So what, you didn’t want to ever call him by his name, never felt the urge, but felt it was rather proper considering you didn’t know what to call him at all?

He keeps you doggy-paddling for it.

The hospital room is polluted with silence for the rest of the night. Slowly, you finish the Jell-O as he sits back in his chair, watching, yet not quite seeing you. You missed when his staring felt like a buzzing fly. Now it’s a thunderstorm hanging over you, foggy and dampened, and you’re struck every few seconds with a shiver. 

He doesn’t reach out for your hand when you pretend you’ve fallen asleep. Twenty minutes past lights out, he stands and heads into the bathroom, slowly creaking the door closed and locking it before the shower faucet turns on and stays on for a long, long time. 

Where his hand should be is where he laid his jacket, one sewn patch erroneously rough against your palm. With another glance at the light underneath the bathroom door, you haul the leather jacket up into your lap, tracing the ridges and folds. You trails your fingertips along the jacket, searching for… something. Anything. 

Cold metal, a zipper slips underneath your fingers, and you sit up straighter despite the outcry of pain in your ribs. 

A pocket, and inside is a small plastic card—his ID. 

That, and a small, velvet box. 

No…

No, you won’t open it. 

No, no, because he shouldn’t even have that here. 

Why—dear God—why did he have that here?

It’s not for you. That’s for sure. You don’t even want to open it. No.

It’s not yours. It’s not yours to have, especially since he hasn’t offered it to you, and it’s not yours to wear, and it’s not yours to look at, to watch, iridescent, crystal devotion reflecting the moonlight from the room’s lone window. 

But when you lift the cover and curse the stars that the man whose name you don’t even know knows you so well, knows how beautiful it is in your eyes, and even worse, how well it fits on your finger, you know it’s yours. 

Well, not yours. 

It’s hers. The one before the crash’s. 

That’s her ring on your finger, and that’s her lieutenant grieving in the bathroom. 

This is her life, not yours. All you own anymore is the absence pulsing in your chest. 

You own the spasms in your veins, the brief and lasting panic of who am I, really?, the deficiency of life and past and love; the frail hold on this reality, on that man, on this ring. 

The rest is not yours, so you should let it go. 

Then, ideally, you should be able to float away, free from these junctions to a girl you don’t know. The man who loves her loves your face. He loves your body, and your voice, and each of the words falling from your lips, perhaps in the wrong order, yes, but he’ll rearrange them in his mind so that it matches hers.

Ideally. 

Ideally, it’s not this drowning feeling, a weight like a hand pressing hard against your chest, shoving you deeper and deeper under the current. She’s the one who breathes, not you. You don’t need to breathe. You’re an accident in this world. 

The I.D. slips from your grasp and falls to the floor. 

You’ve read it. You saw the name, the rank, the naval symbol. In the dim moonlight and the single glowing strip underneath the bathroom door, his not-really-a-smile smiles up at you from the vinyl floor. 

And now you see it, chrome duct tape peeling off the jagged stitches of a patch, the one over his heart. Another of his games: his missing call sign. 

It… fits him. Strangely enough. 

Is this what you called him?

The hospital room floods with a subdued yellow light carried out by the steam of the lieutenant’s shower. He emerges with a towel wrapped around his lower body, a sheen of wet on his cheeks you’re not certain was caused by the shower. 

Like you, this is his third shower in this room, but unlike him, he’s not wearing a smirk when he exits, bare feet padding along the cold tiles. He doesn’t spare you a glance while he pilfers through his black duffle bag, the one seated on the only other guest chair in the room—the one that never moves. 

Maybe it was a good thing he didn’t look, because you hadn’t thought to take off the ring. It was a plan as half-baked as when you’d first decided to put it on. Some barbaric, frenzied part of you, the same one that had slipped it on and hugged it close to your heart, refused to yank it off. It was another you—not her nor you, but a new one that had fallen in love with him, Rooster, without memory or qualms, the one that had no issue with him lingering in every corner of your mind; no, in fact, she preferred it.

You don’t listen to her when the lieutenant pivots back to face you, a fresh pair of jeans, a T-shirt, and the rest sourced from the duffel bag in tow, one fist curled into his towel at his waist. His eyes land on yours, and your fingers slicken with the sweat of your palms, tremble like the thumps beneath your ribcage. 

At the worst moment possible, you notice, in the hazy yellow light of 10:07 PM, that Lieutenant Bradley Bradshaw’s eyes are achingly akin to whiskey. It’s the dark, thick kind that coats your tongue and hits you five seconds after you sip it like a freight train; heady, terribly intoxicating, and in large doses, coaxes out the worst side of yourself at an even worse moment. 

The ring clinks against the bed’s metal framework before shuddering against the tile floor, and his eyes leave yours to watch it rattle. The skin of your left ring finger burns from the swift twisting and tugging you’d employed in a state of tipsy panic—your plan had been to slip the ring unnoticed beneath his leather jacket, the same place you’d stuffed the velvet box. 

A breath tears itself out of the lieutenant’s chest. Tan skin rises and falls once, and his grip goes white-knuckle on his towel. 

Then he pads back toward the bathroom without a word and disappears behind the slammed door. Somehow, in some terrible way, it is even harder to breathe with him not in the room after that. 

But he bursts through the door a second later, completely negligent of the violent pacing of your heart, donned in clothes wrinkled and stretched in odd places from frantic dressing. He covers the distance with three long strides and slackens back into the plastic hospital chair, the heavy creases under his eyes never having looked so deep-seated. 

You see it now. The damage this whole experience has done to him. He’s been hollowed out, rigorously gutted to the point that one last revelation might finally crack him in half and let the despair pour out. 

You’re afraid to tell him all that you don’t know. That even though you had slid that ring on and off your finger, you still don’t know him. But, God, you want to tell him that you love him, despite knowing it won’t be enough. It’s not even enough to you, and it’s all that you have. 

Usually, he wears this sheen layer of tenderness over his face; it slips off every night when you close your eyes, and he smooths it back on in the mornings in the mirror. Some days he layers it on so thick you never even notice the grief hidden underneath. 

It must have gotten too heavy to bear. 

The silence hangs just as heavy. He runs both hands down his face, pressing hard enough that his skin emerges pink, and folds his hands, knocking them against his lips. Veins in his eyes grow redder by the second, and your heart begins a slow crawl up your throat at the watery levels of his eyelines, waiting to spill. The ring sits on the floor untouched. 

“Do you,” he faltered, clearing his throat. “Do you… remember anything?”

He’s looking at you so intensely that your skin is searing. Shame washes over you, grasping your shoulders and burying you deeply into its chest. You want to cry. 

“Nothing.”

The lieutenant stares at you a second longer, stretching it out until you’re trembling. Then he looks away, down, before reaching and retrieving the ring from the ground. He observes it for just a second, the way it glimmers in night’s imperfect lighting, and his eyes squeeze shut.

Lieutenant Bradley Bradshaw, you’ve learned, will draw things out until the perfect moment has come. He will wait until the ache swells and culminates, with a tolerance so inexhaustible you wonder if, in all your time loving him, you ever bothered to wait up. He’s noticed how the darkness has swallowed both of you wholly, and only now does he offer reprieve. 

Bradley tells you your name.

And he tells you that he’s been in love with you since the first second he saw you. 

He tells you that he can’t bear the thought of losing all that you’d had, and that his world had been crumbling apart before his own goddamned eyes ever since your jet’s engine had sputtered and died. He tells you that he’s so, so fucking sorry he couldn’t save you, sorry that your life ever got entangled so messily with his in the first place, and even more sorry that he’s so useless to help you find your way back, that you can’t seem to find your way back to him. 

And when you began to cry, he bolted up from his seat and held you, whispering apologies into your hair, and you cried a little harder, because you had found your way back to him, but he wouldn’t ever care, because it wasn’t the same path you’d taken before. 

You cry because it hurts to hold him, and even more because it hurts him to hold you. You want all of the I-love-yous he’s ever said to be for you, and you want that damned ring too. 

You want that goddamn ring on your finger right now because he’d promised you that it would be yours. That first moment he’d ever seen you, stumbling drunk in a crowded Hard Deck and spilling his beer half on his Hawaiian shirt, half on yours, that he’d make up for it by putting a spendy ring on your little finger right there, despite not actually knowing where right there was. The only one I’ll ever buy, he’d hiccuped, it’ll be yours, darlin’. 

“Rooster,” you croaked into his chest. “Roo.”

A provoked sob tore from your throat, your arms and ribs aching from how tightly you clung to him, even after he froze. You surfaced from the curve of his shoulder, hands sliding past his sides, over his thrumming chest, and up to cradle his damp jawline before drawing his face down to yours. He mumbled your name, whiskey eyes potent as ever, and you smothered the rest of his question against your lips. 

You couldn’t tell who was crying anymore. Your cheeks’ dampness was his, just the same as his lips pressed against yours so harshly, so numbingly you couldn’t quite tell where yours ended and his began. It must have been somewhere close to where his tongue met yours, making up for lost time as he fought hard and fiercely for everything he’d been starved of for three, going on four, unbearable days. His hands left their leverage against the bed and latched onto your hips, rough fingertips familiarly caressing the soft slopes of your sides, and when you offered an airy moan to him, he accepted eagerly with a tightening grip. 

You separated from him with a small cry, ribs twinging. Bradley pulled away in horror, and his dilated pupils struggled to sober up to join. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered, larger hands now grappling at yours and trying to remove your grasp. “You need—ice, I’ll go get you some ice–”

“Roo, no,” you mumbled, refusing to let go of him. 

He paused, and his body shivered under your touch. The familiarity of his name from your mouth seemed as comforting to him as it was to you. His lips twitched and curled, and he breathed a small sigh. The hard lines of his face grew tender as he slid his hands down to your wrists, turning and pressing a kiss to each palm. 

His heart jumped and throbbed against your fingertips, and you had no doubt he could feel the same from yours. The heat of his damp cheeks had grown infinitely warmer under your touch, and for all the nights you’d spent with just a grasp on his hand, the change was more and more welcome. 

“Don’t leave me again,” he pleaded against the skin of your palm, voice thick and bittersweet, like honey seeping through your ears. “I don’t think I can handle that again.”

He steeled himself against your mattress with one hand when you tugged his forehead down against yours, lips just whispering against one another. You smiled. 

“Was it all the Jell-O that did you in, or…?”

“Yeah, actually,” he nodded, tongue pressed against his cheek. “It was. I hope you know we’re never having Jell-O in our house ever again.”

“Not even lime?”

“Especially lime.”

You huffed, “Fine.” You pulled away, despite how desperate Bradley was to follow you. He let you fall back against the pillows with your hand still in his grasp, and he settled onto the edge of the mattress, letting his spare hand find home in the pliant skin of your thigh. Your eyes rose to the ceiling. “But it’ll cost you.”

Soft lips brushed the back of your left hand before cold metal slipped around your finger. “One of these?”

“Exactly.”

Bradley hummed. “Gladly.”