THE COLONEL'S KEEPER.

Art by ddongtongdrink on Twitter

Rhaenyra Targaryen and Daemon Targaryen HOUSE OF THE DRAGON S02E08 | dir. Geeta Vasant Patel

looks like i’m goin to paris !

ROOT ROT

possessed!scholar husband x reader|3.7k| 18+

following your cold and reticent husband's return from settling affairs with his deceased uncle's estate, he has changed and done things unheard of. once a great lover of botany and entomology, he has razed his garden to the ground as proof of his love to you. this man—this thing—os not your husband.

warnings;; pseudo-victorian setting, dubcon, mentioned dp, mentioned temperature play, cumshot on body, cum eating, other explicit sexual details, mentions of drug use (opium), unrequited love, hypnosis/trance, some horrific imagery, detail & prose heavy, roughly proofread.

this is a companion piece to imposter. you don't have to read it, but if you want a better idea of what is going on, I suggest you do!

a/n; I reappear after a month hiatus with this piece. I have questions and notes at the end of the fic that I'd love to have feedback to!

please reblog this if you've read it, guys! help keep your favorite writing and authors on this website by reblogging their work!!

“He is simply not himself!”

Bartolomé Medina knew his best friend better than you knew your husband, so you believed him when he said that your husband’s newly acquired, increasing eccentricities were not some fictitious imagining of yours.

Although, Medina himself could not explain the unexplainable and all of the oddness without growing visibly flustered.

A bit flushed in the face, singeing the roundness of his ears. He'd stamp out your justifications for strangeness in the same way he did the fine cigars he'd been accustomed to sharing with his friend, yet had not for quite sometime now.

“And you say his garden is dead?” Medina looked stricken with dread, suddenly ill by repeating something so blasphemous. “Now, my dear, please don't mistake my shock as disbelief. I very much believe in what you're saying. I've seen Solomon and his weirdness! Why, just this morning over breakfast, at a time where you were still tucked away in deep sleep, he wouldn't drink his coffee. So bizarre! That man knows the thousands of tastes and varieties of coffee beans, and he spat the very stuff out on the floor like it'd never once touched his tongue!

“But his garden? A botanist without his garden is like a bird without wings. A dog without a tail to wag. A newborn without his mother’s teat! Vulgar, I understand, but you see my point.” He drank from a heavy glass in his hand. The inside had nearly spilled over at one point with light brown which glittered gold under the overhead light, smelling slightly sour and earthy. “To think that Solomon would let it all die. Something is wrong. Something has happened to my only true friend and to your husband.”

You did not drink with any enthusiasm or anguish from your own cup, rather you used those seconds of delicate sipping to gap the conversation, separate yourself from it all for just a moment. You'd had your time to grieve and contend with knowing the man you had married and come to love was not the same one who kept you awake at night.

Solomon had once been a reclusive and reticent man, the only son of David Agrippa and sole heir of the Agrippa Diamond Mines and Jewelry Galleria. He'd never been able to replicate his father's ardor for business and entrepreneurship, choosing towards academic ventures of entomology and botany and most of everything belonging to the natural world instead.

Among his most prized things was a sprawling, domed greenhouse made of large sheets of pale blue-green glass soldered with metal which shifted rose-gold in bright daylight.

“I loved his garden, but I didn't much like to be in there with him,” you confessed, forgetting your manners as you kept your cup still against your lips, mumbling your words. “He liked to tell me about the plants and flowers he grew. Most of it I could never hope to understand, but… I loved seeing him come alive. He seemed to glow when he could tell me things, so I got into the habit of listening to him when he wanted to speak.”

Medina, not yet drunk or driven to any untoward behavior, set aside his empty vessel with jittering ice cubes and looked at you admiringly. “You said that you didn't like being in there with him? Why?”

“The bees. The bugs. The humidity. The fertilizer he liked to use because of the nitrogen content. He told me that it mattered what he used and couldn't just break up soil from the yard.” You said, tilting your cup.

After taking another sip, you determined you hated the taste of the liquor and how it slid down along your throat like fire trailing an oil spill, yet clung there with residual, syrupy stickiness that nearly made you gag.

“Why did you keep going inside?” Medina asked tranquilly, much of his previous frustration softened, body and soul warmed by the alcohol and how fondly he regarded your sweetness towards his friend.

You thought very little before answering, “I wanted to be where he was. It didn't matter to me if that meant his greenhouse or the coldest part of the arctic.”

That was the truth of it. Once you'd received the first crumbs of understanding who Solomon truly was beneath his stolid exterior built brick-by-brick from tragedy and grief and a lifetime of emotional ineptitude, you would've gone to any length to see more of him. To see his pale eyes gain a wild, flickering candlelight of passion, and the faintest of trembling smiles disguising how deeply your questions had aroused his soul.

In those moments, he revealed to you the things he loved the most and what you envied the most: the natural world.

The flittering, fat-bodied pollinators whose entire world were yellow and red flowers with succulent centers and lush, girthy leaves where they'd rest their weary, iridescent wings and could never understand your husband's appreciation of them.

The thousands of specimens he'd collected from every corner of the world and articulated thoughtfully against wood and felt. Their dead little limbs were pinned in place; perfect mimicry of how they would've been if still alive and crawling. He’d had them all meticulously framed and arranged across the walls in his office; trophies of his success, of his studies and hard work.

The innumerable plants and flowers he trimmed and watered in his greenhouse and the ones not contained within it. Some species he had planted in the yard, others in the cool shade of the nearby woods where they smothered native varieties with tendrils-like vines and climbed upside trees. More aquatic species were placed by the edge of the lake, growing into the water; buoyant; a woman's deep dark hair reaching forever for the surface.

He had turned the lonely, sprawling estate into a monument of life, of love that did not belong to you. And for that, sometimes you hated living there. Hated the things that he loved.

Choking the plants, poisoning their roots with any number of things from your father’s pharmacy crossed your mind more than once.

Feeding the bees something enticingly sweet and deadly; filling the greenhouse with noxious gas at night while they slept on their big leaves and your husband in his bed. It would've been such an easy thing for you to do—own your husband's grief as you held his face in your hands and comforted him in the morning when all had atrophied and rotted.

But, those feelings had become a reality you truly never wished to have seen after Solomon returned from his deceased uncle's estate months ago.

He was not the same man.

“Tell me what happened.” Medina’s voice buzzed in your ear from nearby, closer than it had been before. Your hand was caressed by tight warmth—his holding yours, his handsome face looking up at you from where he had crouched in front of your chair. “Tell me everything you've seen. It's of grave importance that you remember it all, as curing Solomon from his affliction relies solely upon you.”

You could not deny his earnestness, the squeeze of his fingers. A promise that he would not be easily shattered by what you had to say, and would think no less of his friend for it. Within his sincere stare, you saw the gleam of another, secret promise. The likes of which you pretended not to see, that he'd never speak of out loud.

“I…” you distracted yourself with the embroidery on your clothes, pinching loose threads and beads. “It was subtle, at first. I noticed some of the bees were dead on the ground. And then some plants had started developing spots. Leaves turned brown and yellow and fell off. A lot of them withered, even though their soil was still damp when I checked…”

And then, the morning came where you witnessed Solomon among a carnage of broken stalks weeping foul-smelling sap, leaves he'd ripped apart with his own hands, and some of his larger flowering plants with fiery manes completely severed. Their bountiful heads lay at his feet, flattened by the heel of his boot as he walked aimlessly, snipping and tearing indiscriminately.

“My god, Solomon! Stop!” you stepped around the countless tiny, contracted bodies of bees and other pollinators to reach him. He let go of the gardening shears as you grabbed them. “What are you doing?! What have you done?! Decades of work! Gone! Are you mad?!”

“Well, you've gone and ruined my surprise for you. I've been working on it for hours. I didn't expect you would be awake so soon.” Solomon said, sounding much like himself despite the savagery he stood surrounded by. He smiled at you in an unfamiliar way, as if trying to navigate his facial muscles around a mask. “Isn't it simply wonderful?”

The sweltering humidity trapped within this greenhouse of death had turned the air stagnant and foul, heavily pungent of detritus and mildew. Across all zones of the greenhouse, once painstakingly organized and labeled for the purpose of easier cataloging, no slithers of greenery or color remained. Each step you took in any direction seemed to sink you deeper into the decay, wet gurgling underfoot as you crossed stumpy mounds of plants and flowers he'd destroyed and thrown into piles.

“How could you? My husband spent almost twenty years building this garden and studying it. This was his life’s work!” You wished you could force life back into the severed plants; pray that the ground of yellow-brown waste would suddenly freckle with tiny, green sprouts and grow with thick stalks and thorns to keep his hands away.

“I am your husband.” Solomon took the gardening shears from your hand and tossed them aside. He leaned into your body, nose and lips pressed into the fabric covering your neck. “I've only done what you wanted. What you wished you could've done yourself, but never did.”

You flinched against the movement of his hands smoothing down your waist to the notches in your hips. Sliding inward, he unfastened the hook-and-loops and buttons holding your trousers up to push them down your thighs along with your undergarments.

“I know your thoughts and what you really think. I've been listening the entire time. I've always been listening.” Solomon let his hips roll along the back of his hand while he used his fingers to lay long, languid strokes on you. “It was tiring, wasn't it? Always competing for love and affection in a place like this. You were never going to have what you wanted. Not with this place still standing. Not with his ineptitudes and selfishness.”

His touch weakened you indescribably; like the caress of heat from the fireplace against your bare skin once the opium had taken effect. Swapping tiny pills on wet tongues with your maid until they'd dissolved into saliva and into your cheeks. You explored one another's bodies thoroughly on those cold nights, silky with sweat from the fire and exertion.

Yet, this was not the same as back then when the sexual appetite of two teenagers transcended societal morals.

Solomon encompassed you in a feeling; consumed you without ever digging into you with his teeth or nails. He could whisper hideous secrets and depravities to you to tip you over into searing euphoria. He had once penetrated you with a hot metal phallus resting on top of his own, thrusting with both until the metal cooled, and you still came anyway.

He'd put worse inside your body and done far worse than that in only a few short months since returning home, yet he never tired of the torture and you remained malleable and enthralled by it all.

“God, you are beautiful. And you are mine.” Solomon had maneuvered both your bodies to the ground, atop of the soggy detritus. Your back was exposed to the mush, leaves, and crushed flower petals, weight pushing an indentation in the loose soil. “This is the fruition of your desires, darling. Don't you love it? Destroying what he loved so you could have it all?”

The one who came back to you was not Solomon; the one fucking you into waste and dirt was not Solomon, either. You told yourself you needed to love imposter as well, because he looked like your husband; wore his signet ring, too.

At night, you imagined only his softest expressions behind clenched eyelids when he wanted to have his way with you, as something else entirely took his place. A creature so diabolical and unsightly that the servants now awaited your screams to rouse them awake in the murky midnight hours.

Every time they arrived with their candlesticks and oil lanterns, the thrusting spectre receded into the dark as a black mass hardly distinguishable from shadow.

Only Solomon would remain, and he was swift to send the servants away before they could see your improper, disheveled state sprawled across the bed sheets.

In the daytime light, his face stayed familiar and comforting to you and you could bear to see him, form some coherent words.

“Someone might—might see us out here, Solomon. Mr. Medina is supposed to—oh, oh, mmm—he’s due to arrive at any time.” You were given several long kisses, which turned into severe caresses of hot breath when his thrusts turned savage, cock reaching so deep you were starting to feel numb below the waist. A feverous response. “Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck…”

He adjusted himself to lay on your chest, the sweat on your bodies offering an effortless glide and new angle for his cock that made your moans deeper and dire. Such sounds, whether in agony or pleasure, were melodious to him. Addicting drags from a pipe in an opium den; an alcoholic's first sip at breakfast; a cheating man's night with a new lover.

“Wouldn't you like for them to see that? For someone to witness you being fucked into the ground? Surrounded by everything their master loved?” Solomon tucked his face into the curve of your neck and groaned, hips slow and stuttering. “Bartolomé would be the one to find it most tantalizing. His only friend in the world ruining the only person he's ever loved. Wouldn't that be a sight? We could invite him to watch.”

At the time, it had been quite jarring to learn Bartolomé harbored those silent, ardent feelings for you. It had sufficiently pulled you from whatever trance Solomon had lulled you into, reacquainting you with all the sounds of sex and the filth clinging to your skin. It was as though your mind had been locked into a mostly airless, noiseless void that he controlled and released at will.

You held tight to his shoulders as he molded you deeper into the muck and plant litter. The squat, friable walls of soil holding your shape like the cushions in a tomb, whereas Solomon was the man lowering you into the dark earth; the last to see your face before covering it in clay and dirt.

He was in your ear with loud moans that resonated through you, simultaneously as carnal as a beast amidst its seasonal rut, and velvety as the feathery smooth glide of fingers down your spine. His throat rumbled against you, resembling the intensity of a purring housecat nestled near your head in contentment.

At his tipping point, he removed his cock from your body and used the slippery stuff glistening off it to stroke himself; weepy, deep red tip to the base. You received the aftermath of his release in thick ropes across your abdomen and chest, the warmth of it already cooling on your skin while he continuously kneaded the head to force out what remained as if they were dewdrops made from pearls.

“How do you think Bartolomé would fare seeing you like this?” Solomon swept two fingers through the cum in an elegant curl to smear it around his cock. The viscous white thinned into pale gloss on his girth and a sticky residue inside his hand.

Your lips parted to give an answer, but his fingers and taste were faster than your words.

“And… that is all? Truly?” Bartolomé asked, shattering your visions of the recent past as he revealed a compact silver case from inside his vest, pulling a cigarette from within it. “You simply walked into the garden one morning and saw that he had destroyed everything? He gave you no explanation whatsoever?”

The imposter had stolen much of your dignity over the months, but enough of it remained for you to omit every significant detail from your story. You'd only told him that Solomon had cut the heads off of rare flowers, mumbled in a disorienting way, and gave you no difficulty with the gardening shears.

Bartolomé went away from your side for an open window across the spacious sitting room, matching his cigarette and blowing gray plumes out into the dense summer air.

“This is concerning.” He spoke loud enough for you to hear, even with his thumbnail tracing the underside of his lower lip, muffling him somewhat. “Solomon is considerably worse off than I first thought. We need to investigate this, retrace his every step since the moment he left you that night for his uncle's estate.”

“Oh, Bartolomé, that will be very unnecessary.” Solomon announced himself as he walked in through the open doors, offering you a tepid smile, which came nowhere close to reaching his eyes. Your chair jostled slightly as he stood behind it, a weighty hand landing on the tall back above your head. “Why trouble yourself with employing some ludicrous scheme when you could, ah, inquire as to what haunts you instead?”

Bartolomé tamped out his cigarette on the windowsill and pocketed it. “You are ill, Solomon. You may be suffering from some form of hysteria. It's time you visited a doctor, my old friend.”

“Well, that just isn't true.” Solomon kept the neutrality in his tone, but you tracked a rumble of agitation; a warning not far off. His hand followed the curvature of the chair down to the arm that you leaned against, fingers touching your shoulder, lightly kneading you through your clothes.

He was sure to be in Bartolomé’s eyesight as he did this, further aggravating the heavy disquiet. You didn't dare to move out of reach of his touch.

“But, it is true, Solomon!” Bartolomé insisted, gesturing toward the window. “What of your garden? All of your life's work now means nothing, you damned fool! You've snapped, old boy. See a doctor before you do something you regret.”

“That garden was more a source of misery than it was a boon. At any rate, I'm quite finished listening to you harp at me for one night, my dear friend.” Solomon lightly stroked down your cheek with bent fingers, coaxing you to look up at him. “It's time for bed, darling. Us impropertious brutes have kept you up for too long.”

You hesitated, and then stood when Solomon took your arm. “Alright.”

“As usual, your accommodations should exceed expectations. I'll have a servant wake you for breakfast again tomorrow.” It was too soon to call those Solomon's departing words to Bartolomé, as he stopped with you in the doorway, your hand caressing the meat of his forearm. “You know, Bartolomé, I would recommend marrying soon. There is no greater feeling than having the one you love so close to you, don't you think?”

Bartolomé became unreadable as he fished a hand into his vest pocket for the cigarette case again. You were led away for the bedroom before anything else could be said, but you knew that Solomon had struck a nerve.

“That was cruel.” you said.

Once in the bedroom, your back was pressed flush to the door while he unfastened the buttons to your outerwear and the blouse underneath it. Solomon kissed your lips slowly, first, before moving underside your jaw after shucking you down to your undergarments.

“And you are mine. You made your vows to me. Remember that, my sweet.”

You watched him strip out of his clothes and then stroke the length of his cock until it was hard.

“I married someone else. Not you.”

As he dimmed the lights within the space, sweeping the bedroom under a shroud of near pitch black, your annoyance shifted into a swell of anxiety both freezing cold and burning hot. Your body pulsed in rhythm with your wild heartbeat, throat clenched as tightly as infantile flower buds.

You waited for Solomon to touch you, startling once he finally did. His fingers had elongated and sharpened, his touch now far more delicate and methodical.

“Don't worry, he’s still in here with me.”

a/n; so, some notes real quick

do not count this scene as canon bc idk how much I'm going to take from it to incorporate into the actual story. like, certain things will be there fs, but a good chunk won't.

tbh, this didn't go as hard as I thought it was going to. by comparison to the actual story, this is pretty tame. but I've already relented that the full story is just hopelessly slutty and pornographic lmaooo

bartolomé medina was actually included late into my current version of the story outline. I wanted a somewhat paralleling foil character for solomon, and he's who I came up with. in a lot of ways, bartolomé and solomon are very similar, which is why they get along so well as friends. but, they're also starkly different in other aspects (e.g. wealth differences, careers, bartolomé forces his sociability and personality, whereas solomon can't be fucking bothered). tbh, I love bartolomé as a character and this oneshot does not do him justice—at all.

sadiya, mc's maid, is actually the most important supporting character in the entire story and is completely different from her first appearance in imposter. like, completely. I'd like to do one more concept piece where I can actually introduce her.

men moaning is one of the hottest things imo. get out of here with that silent ejaculating bs.

NOW, ONTO QUESTIONS!!!

what are your thoughts on me incorporating the idea that bartolomé is in love with mc into the actual story? there is a possibility of an ending with him if enough folks show interest before the final chapters. or, would you prefer it strictly focused on solomon, the demon, and mc? this subplot would not come to fruition as a side romance or "cheating" plotline. like I said, bartolomé exists mainly as a parallel and foil for solomon.

are you guys interested in smut scenes with actual, explicit details of the demon in his true form (he ain't pretty y'all. this story is majorly psychological for a reason). but, if you kinky fucks want it, I'm happy to oblige.

would having a bolder mc who experimented with things (mainly opium) and has a bit more of a sexually promiscuous background take you out of immersion and be a deterrent, or would you be interested in me continuing that route? be honest.

I dropped several hints in this piece on the inspired identity of the demon in the story. have you guessed who? 👀

how depraved y'all want me to get with the smut scenes fr???

Love and Deepspace as text posts pt 1/?

idk i saw these tweets and thought of these gorgeous men 😍

CARNAL

werewolf husband x reader | 18+ | 3k

your husband is a painter who makes a meager, but comfortable living for you both creating portraits for nobles. his love of painting stems from his adoration of the night sky and the moon. he disappears one night and returns three days later—changed, distant, aggressive, and ravenous. not long after, you discover the reason for his behaviors and face the consequences of curiosity.

story warnings; dead dove do not eat, dubcon, explicit sexual content, explicit details of genitalia (werewolf), breeding, knotting, kinda cockwarming??, mentions of feeling "bloated", cumshot on body, brief piss kink mention, size difference, brief handjob, mc gets head a few times lmao, classism, mc is kinda a shitty spouse in this, detail + prose heavy (extreme), roughly proofread — you are warned.

so, this all started when I was talking to @/peachdues about her fic and idk, knotting has just been in my head since. awesome. now it's out of my system, I hope 😭

this is also my first official new piece of writing on this blog! everything before this has been reposts of older work. hopefully it doesn't disappoint!!!

would love, love, love to hear your feedback! reblogs are so tremendously appreciated!!.🙏🏻❤️

note: this is not my personal canon interpretation of werewolves. this is just a werewolf fic, y'know?

He was the wretched thing you kept behind locked doors with the rising of each full moon.

Once, the pale moonlight had been a thing of beauty to you both; an exquisite, lustrous pearl which seemed so small pinched between your fingers, squeezed and blurred through narrowed eyes. He, on the other hand, admired it differently from you by staring adoringly at its craggy features and the wan, white halo it emitted.

By trade, he was a painter and made a meager living for you both from it. His portraits were most popular as nobles found his style palatable, brushwork concealing of all flaws that showed in their faded clothes, their tarnished jewelry, their ravaged flesh and inbred faces. He knew what they'd wanted in a painting and created these fabrications as they wished because it meant more than old bread and leathery meats for dinner.

For you, he endured such mundanity if it meant you could eat well and dress warmly and in an enviable way to the neighbors. He enjoyed your simple delight; how little it truly took to keep you happy, how easy your marriage had been up until that point. You loved him and you loved the things he provided for you.

When it came nighttime, far into the blackest hours where the world seemed seized in so forceful a hush, you made no objections when he pulled you from bed to go outside with him to view the sky. There, he painted by the orange embers of lantern light and tried to capture all the likeness of the night sky with its misty moonlight and glittering, starry veil.

Sometimes you held the lantern for him, sometimes you did nothing but sit on his side holding the paint palette and lean into his hip, leaching away warmth from his body. Most nights, you were a handsome fixture and most beloved companion, trying to squash the moon like a grape with your fingers while speaking every thought out loud.

But, one night he went out alone and did not return for three days. He had left with his easel and stretched canvas and precious paint board, yet had come back to stand in the doorway with none of it.

“Darling,” you hesitated, starting out firm in case he was inebriated, altered aggressively in some way. You looked at him as though he were some strange person. “Where are your things? Your paints? Your canvas? My love, where have you been?”

“I—I don't have much of an answer to that. I'm sorry.” Then, he strode past you to the bedroom, shuttered the windows to muffle light and sound, declaring he needed rest. “Please, let me be. I'll look for my things another time.”

Later, he was ravenous at the dinner table and ate more than you thought it’d ever be possible for one man to do. You sacrificed your own portion in hopes he'd be sated, but he only turned irritable and mute, as if he were aware nothing good would come of his words to you. At the time, you'd feared that you had upset him in some way, perhaps no longer thought you lovely and fashionable or dependable as his partner and wanted to do away with your marriage.

That would mean you could only return home to rural hardship, or to the slums in the neighboring kingdom. The world would know your unwanted status, how much of a disappointment you'd been to satisfy your own husband, and you would never know another moment of quiet luxury again.

You couldn't accept such a fate, so you bathed him carefully that night. Purposeful with how you dragged the soapy sponge down along his back, fingernails a featherlight graze between the valleys of muscle and flesh protecting his spine. You kissed the back of his shoulders, lips a smouldering touch against his neck.

Then, you felt from stomach down to his hips, swirling your fingertips against the bony protrusions and in the fragrant water before wrapping your hand around his cock, stroking him to hardness. He still said nothing as he kissed your lips, tongue relentlessly pursuing your teeth to get inside your mouth, and pulled you into the tub with him fully clothed.

He fucked you deep and hard that night bent over the edge of the tub, hips pistoning up against your ass, skin slapping raw, thrusting into your wet walls at an angle that had you writhing with a face warped in equal parts exquisite bliss and agony. It wasn't until one of his hands gripped you around the neck, levering you against him, that you noticed a wound on his forearm right below where purple and green veins pulsed under his skin, translucent.

They were tooth marks—two rows of them. Crooked and sharp, arranged in a way that reminded you of the jagged spears wetted by sea spray at the base of a cliff. They looked deep, like whatever had bit him held on, yet hadn’t the intention to tear his arm off of the rest of him. The punctures were purple-red and abyssal as you studied them, vision jarred by his cock ramming you, his panting in the crook of your neck, and the bruise surrounding it bloomed a concentration of colors resembling an inkspill.

How had you not noticed it before?

“I fear what may come on certain nights from now on. When I ask it, lock the bedroom and shutter the windows from the outside. Don't ask me questions for I have no answers to give you.” He did not offer you the reassurance you had wanted, but it was enough to help you confidently stride through the days, knowing that your marriage wasn't in crisis.

Afterwards, it became imperative for you to act as someone educated because you needed to understand what was happening to your husband some nights.

It started days before a full moon: he became impatient, easy to displease, indignant upon any perceived blunder you made. He did not gorge on wine, but whatever meats were preserved in storage and what you could afford now with his inconsistent employment. You tried hiding these poor portions in thick stews with vegetables that had been infused in simmering beef stock for hours, but he was never fully sated by it.

At the same time he started to demand distance from you, he ravaged you at strange hours in your shared bed, tearing at your clothes to suck on your nipples, lap the glisten between your legs. New was his biting to leave marks and sup the blood mixed with his own saliva. More than once, he came on your body with hot, thick ropes and squirted piss on you like an animal marking territory.

When the night of the full moon arrived, he was transformed and horrifying. You had heard furniture crashing and shattering in the bedroom where he'd barricaded himself. Even his yowls throughout the evening had changed, no longer sounding like agony in the cries of the man you'd married, but something far more beastal. It came from within the chest, in the lungs behind the ribs, and was not human.

You had made the mistake only once to check in on him during this point in his shift, as you hadn't known any better. Your voice was a panicked flutter, a whisper of fear that something else might have broken through the fortress of wooden boards nailed against the windows from either side of it.

“My love? Darling, are you alright?”

He was there. You thought he was there because of the silhouette clambering across the broken remains of your shared dresser and vanity. The difference was that this thing was enormous. A creature with a bristling back, hair or spines standing out like a porcupine threatening with its quills.

It stood and was forced to hunch from the low ceiling of your house. A canine-like countenance glowered at you, red eyes partially obscured by patchy fur. Raw skin shined in the barren spots in the lantern light you'd forced into the room, and that hair didn't fully cover his abdomen nor his groin.

He was as much still human as he was this ugly beast. You'd thought to take another step into the room when he snarled and lunged towards the door. A shrill shriek pulled from your throat as you fully withdrew from the room, bolting the door shut with an iron key. He never made a ruckus against the door, and you left for the neighbor's right after, claiming that your husband had wanted space after an argument.

The next morning, your husband had somehow managed to escape the bedroom and sat in the kitchen clothed from the waist down, disoriented by the sunlight and his placement at the table. He didn't remember his transformation into the beast, but he did remember you.

Perhaps that's what gave you the courage to try to enter the bedroom the night of yet another shift. His yells of anger and pain had cooled after several hours, quieting to beastal groans and his heavy footfalls endlessly pacing the floorboards inside.

The door squealed, a call out to the darkness and creature within, and that creature responded with a growl—low, reverberating in darkness, a warning that you wouldn't be tolerated. You invaded the space carefully, meat and fish and other morsels for offering in a basket you'd woven yourself, that he had told you he thought was particularly artful at completion.

“Darling, I've brought you something. It's food. I've put fresh milk inside, too.” You caught sight of him near the boarded window, massive back rounded as he crouched low into a posture which looked as unnatural as when he tried to stand on his bent legs. “I know it—I know it won't ease your suffering, but you must still eat.”

He approached you, but it was unlike times before where he'd jump at the door to scare you away. This time he crawled towards you instead of intimidating you with his height—he wanted you to stay, and tried to appear small by dragging his long tail across the floor. The fur sounded like coarse bristles on a broomstick.

“Oh, my love. My love. My love. What has happened to you?” You moved away from the coverage of the door into the dark space, using your body to close it behind you so that he couldn't get out. You couldn't be sure how he'd behave if he could leave the house. “I'm here. Oh, you're so sweet. Look at you.”

You'd placed the basket aside neatly, making your movements obvious so as not to inspire ire, and didn't react when his long snout pressed into your abdomen. Stubble and whiskers pulled back to reveal long, stalagmite teeth which chewed mindlessly at your clothes. His damp nose nudged under your layers, pressing flush to your skin, startling you with a nasally gasp.

It was the instance where his nose left your stomach and went lower, pushing between your legs to lick you through your pants that you tried to cower, sidle out of his reach. He must've retained some semblance of himself because his arms rose to flank you at the waist, claws digging to the grain of the door, his strong snout pinning you, tongue knowing your shape even through cloth.

The fabric between your legs was wet, sticking flush to you, giving him as much nearness he could achieve without stripping off the layers separating him from your taste. The luscious imprint of you was unfulfilling, not even a teasing drop of what he instinctively knew he could have.

Your pants were removed unkindly; ripped at the waist, torn through impeccable artistry and threads and delicate fabric he had once paid for. Neither complete fear nor anger kept you silent, motionless for him to do as he pleased by yanking the pants off of your legs, but swelling curiosity. You wondered how much of your husband still remained inside this beast when the full moon was high.

The same unkindness followed him shredding through your underwear with his strange teeth, gnawing the fabric to a thin, sopping string before he could finally have you. Inhale you. Taste you with the paddle flatness of his tongue and make you squirm when his teeth skimmed that part.

“O-oh—” this wasn't like when he did it with his human tongue, as masterful as it was. He licked you with fervor you'd never felt, like he was reaching for something deep inside your viscera and blood and gore. Every subtle change of his immense nose and tongue was white heat behind your eyes, jostling pulses of electric, immodest moans, your hips driving forward on their own accord to help him find the treasure he sought within you.

Then, he stopped and hauled you to the floor with a single arm twice the thickness of that of his human counterpart. He knew no gentleness even now, dropping you onto your knees and palms against splintery floorboards which vented cool air up through the gaps, into your skin from the draft rising from underneath the house.

That cold reached deeper, seemed to lift off the ground to meet you as your husband—the beast—thrust your chest against the stiff boards and spread your legs apart with his mass. His claws sank around your hips without piercing your flesh, though their sharpness was undiminished to you regardless.

You knew agitation would not serve you here, neither would bursts of courage to escape. He would catch you with those talons, eat your insides with them and fuck you all the same.

He mounted you clumsily, then.

Enormous, coarse-haired hips grinding against your bare ass, prickling you, making you wince from where your face was nearly pressed into the wood below. You shivered at the first pass of his cock between your legs. Stiff and girthy, arched so well that you felt the moist tip drag across you, catching on spots he'd licked to flinching sensitivity, eagerly prodding at you.

The beast made a sound; a suffering groan with the tremble of his hips before he was thrusting inside of you. The sheer viciousness of his hips hammering against the globes of your ass and his heaviness forced you flat to the floor, where you reached out from the sides of your body for something to hold and grip for comfort. It was barren everywhere you touched.

Your walls were still tight around his cock even as the moments passed, growing no closer to accommodating his size than before, strokes animalistic and messy. While his fur muffled the friction of your skin, the airless dark of your bedroom was compacted with lewd squelching and moans you'd never known you were capable of making. Your noises were high-pitched and vile, paced with his hips, the curve of his cock stroking your velvety insides, and the wet suction releasing when he'd partially withdraw.

Above you, he panted with his long tongue lolling, dripping strings of saliva onto your back where they cooled upon contact and made you feel filthy. Your body ached from his weight pinning you to the inflexible floorboards, cold numbing your skin, hardening your nipples, grinding them down with each of his thrusts.

The enclosed space held an unusual smell, one apart from what you knew was sex. How sweat and salt and cum clung to the mustiness of old places. This was more pungent; earthier and heavier as it filled the room and leaked out of your hole, oozing down your thighs like nectar from a weeping peach.

You continued to let the beast—your husband—fuck you into the wood, the grain, to become an impression in the floor as nothing else could be done. But you were sore now and sure to be swollen, as you were an uncomfortable fit for him again; virgin tightness which gripped every vein and ridge in his cock.

The grinning beast bared even more of his teeth, clicking them together as he released a shuddering sound, too distant to be human but not entirely monstrous. He rutted you carnally, pushing your legs as far apart as they could go from where you were on your stomach, and went deeper inside of you still.

Something about the depth was so wrong—not meant to be, not meant to be experienced by a creature so simple as yourself. It was divine pleasure and pain, it was a threshold that shouldn't have been crossed, yet he had persevered and fucked you into screams.

His hips stuttered violently and he growled; he snarled; he whimpered like an actual beast mortally wounded. You gasped in awe at an enormity of sensations: his cum gushing inside of you, spurting out in thick ribbons to join the rest that had dried on your thighs, and his knot stretching your walls, locking his hips against your ass.

You fidgeted from the bulbous growth, clenching around it, whining wanly while he insistently humped you to burrow the knot as far as it could go. He was trying to breed you; plug his spend inside of you just as he would have had another creature of his sort. Because you were his spouse, perhaps he was only able to perceive you as his mate.

His movements soon slowed, calmed in a way of someone who'd been taken by blows of exhaustion and draped his large body across your back, prodding you with his spinose furs. There was some tenderness in how he kept his arms outside of you, bracing his weight onto them so as to not smother you. He did it to adjust his knot and half-hard cock inside you as well, unforgiving to the idea that you might have forgotten his fullness, that you were brimmed with his cum and felt bloated from it.

Nothing would come from this, only the shame of knowing you'd moaned and screamed for this beast, but not the human you'd married.

Rhaenyra Targaryen and Daemon Targaryen HOUSE OF THE DRAGON S02E08 | dir. Geeta Vasant Patel

𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐒𝐎𝐃𝐄 𝟏: 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐇

after a scandal that rocks the entire nation, itadori 'ryomen' sukuna is forced to marry a girl chosen by his brother in order to straighten him out. but, what jin doesn't expect is how much he's willing to destroy everything he knows just to get his freedom back—even at the expense of breaking his wife's soul.

warnings: misogyny, talks of ageism, unrequited love, dubious cheating, gaslighting, mentions of a/nal, e/xplicit smut, mentions of w/eed, mentions of a/lcohol, substance a/buse, toxic family dynamics, class differences, sukuna is anti-noveau riche, sukuna is a walking red flag, jin itadori supremacy, hiromi and nanami duke it out in court, exposition, mentions of a m/urder, negligence, court cases, MDNI

masterlist | playlist

Treading the world of marriage as a woman past her prime in a judgemental upper class society was a dance that left you exhausted and skittish; wishing you could put an end to its haunting melody. 

As you were ticking fast past the rotten age of twenty-seven, your family’s empire hung by a thread as nervous investors and stakeholders started to ask the golden question: When will your only daughter get married, Jiro? 

Suitors knocked on your door, only to be turned away by your snobbish mother and your equally weak-kneed father who tried to appease her. None of them good enough for you; handsome enough for you or rich enough to grow your family’s vaults. 

That was until Itadori Jin reached out to your family with an offer your father could not refuse.

His older twin brother, Itadori Sukuna, has just been released from an investigation and needed a bride to save the family name. 

They wanted to paint him in a good light to the press: partying bad boy turned a charming, married man who was now working towards building a family with another girl of his standing.

And, that was when you came into the picture.

The first time you saw Itadori “Ryomen” Sukuna was a moment you would never forget.

The tattoos swirling around his face should’ve given you pause; made you backtrack on the idea of marriage to the Itadori house the second it left your father’s lips—especially when it came to a man like him.

In his neatly pressed white button-down which strained over his (admittedly) impressive pecs, and pair of expensive Bottega slacks, he would’ve been the picture of sophisticated upper class if it weren’t for the tribal lines on his face and arms—the sight almost making you high tail it out of the cafe you were both seated in.

It was the first time you were meeting him without your parents to chaperone. Bodyguards stood by the doors, stationed close by in case the press got too nosy. 

With this being the first time you were talking to him without your mother lingering in the background, you were free to eye him up and down, unsure of what to make of the disdain setting his mouth into a hard line.

He was different from the men you had encountered before. Tall in an imposing way and with his shock of pink hair, you could spot him from a mile away in the middle of a crowded room. Sukuna carried himself with an air of princely cruelty, often staring down the line of his nose; astride the white stead of his borned privilege and high position in society. 

But, the one thing that stood out were his eyes.

The warmest brown dissolved into a shade of vermillion which shone blood-red under different lights.

You couldn’t quite keep your eyes off them or stare at them for too long, and you sensed rather than knew how much he enjoyed your discomfort. 

He swivels his coffee, spilling some down the pristine white cup. Somewhere behind him, a guard stifles a yawn.

“So… what do you like to do for fun?”

You sit up straighter, practiced to perfection with your reply. “I love watching horse races, Itadori-san. On some days, I prefer pottery and painting. I’ve always wanted to open my own art gallery.”

He glances at his nails, looking almost bored. “And why didn’t you open your own gallery?”

It’s a cordial question at best, but you bristle as if he had just mocked your interests.

“I… don’t have the time,” you mutter meekly. 

He looks up at you, and you think he might finally unleash the scathing remark he’s been holding back for the last few minutes.

“What does a prissy girl like you know about not having time? I thought you thrived on wasting your life away with hot pilates classes and private-jetting to islands?”

You bite back your fuming reply, masking your discomfort with a bright smile. “Itadori-san, you judge me so harshly. I only attend one hot pilates class per week.”

What you hoped was a light-hearted reply dissolves into a sour note when he sighs and sits back, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Look, sweetheart. I know this can’t be easy on you, too, but you don’t know what’s at stake here.” Sukuna leans forward, invading your space with the spicy sweetness of his cologne. “I have a reputation to change and you have daddy’s money to keep. We’re both each other’s salvation from the shit our family put us through so I need you to work with me here.”

You frown, unsure of what he was trying to get at. “But, I am trying to work with you. I’m here on this date, aren’t I?” 

“You gotta look decent,” he doesn’t beat around the bush. Gesturing to your modest midi floral dress and neutral beige Mary Janes, the look of disgust on his face breaks something in your chest. “You’re dressed like a goddamn Mormon college girl. For someone very rich, you sure don’t have taste.”

Offended, you stared at him, unable to fathom what he had just said—how he had just insulted you unprompted and in broad daylight.

But, Sukuna doesn't give you time to revel in his words. He grabs a cigarette from his pocket, ignores your wrinkling nose as he smokes openly in this establishment. The waiters don’t dare to cross him, pretending the smell of tobacco doesn’t faze them.

You, however, were finding it harder to mask your disgust. For the sake of your mother’s excitement at finding you a suitable match, you tried to tame down the anger frothing in your veins, slapping on a sweet, yet sardonic smile.

“And what is your definition of ‘taste’, Itadori-san?”

He peers at you over the veil of smoke, taking his time to piece together his reply. “Plunging necklines. Satin. Bows. Thinner heels. I need a mature woman by my side, not some plain old maid playing dress up as a prepubescent girl.”

His words stung, and you leaned back, suddenly feeling too small. The cafe lights felt like a pair of microscopic lenses studying your every move, highlighting your discomfort and sudden unease. Your skin flashed hot and cold, the anger cresting and ebbing. Whenever you were upset, you didn’t lash out or cry, preferring to fall silent until the storm passed.

Despite a tiny voice in the back of your mind telling you it would be useless to try, you attempted another shot at winning his validation; hoping Sukuna would bestow it unto you readily and without mockery.

“Then, why don’t you come and shop with me? I’m sure a man of your taste would help my image.”

He stares at you for a long moment, unblinking. You’re reminded of a snake—its tongue scenting the air to determine whether to strike, unlidded eyes locking onto its target. 

Sukuna thaws, tapping off the excess ash onto the floor. You try not to cringe at how the poor waiters would have to sweep all of that up once he had left.

“Fine. I’ll help,” he says like it's the biggest feat in his life to perform. “But, on one condition.”

Eager, you nod, not wanting to turn him off or jeopardize a moment with such a handsome man who wouldn’t look twice at you if it weren’t for your last name.

“We push the wedding back by a month.”

Flashback: One week ago

Tensions were running high in the courtroom.

Rows of judges and the impassive jury hollows out in shades of gray, fading into the white buzz of his mind as Sukuna glances at his brother’s ashen face. Outside, the hungry press waits, sharks roaming in deathly waters waiting for the first drop of blood.

Itadori Jin clenches his pen in his white-knuckled grip. Their defense attorney, Hiromi Higuruma leans close to him, whispering something under his breath. 

Sukuna can’t hear him from his vantage point on the testimonial seat, but he can venture a guess when his younger twin nods, pushing his glasses up the sweaty bridge of his nose.

“Higuruma-san, please take the floor,” the judge intones, allowing for their docketed defense to play out. 

The ruthless, cold lawyer clears his throat, and stands. 

He turns to face the jury, those soulless eyes sparking with a passion Sukuna has never seen before in all his twenty eight years of knowing the old lawyer.

“Your honor—Judge Itachi. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury. How many of us have often mistaken goodwill for evil? We don’t bite the hand that feeds us and yet, we have every right to question when something isn’t as sanctimonious as it seems.” He turns his dark gaze to the rows of people.

“Itadori Sukuna has devoted half of his life to the bolstering of young athletes. Football is one of his biggest passions and he often pays meticulous attention to the facilities that nurture the talent of our future sportsmen. The sole person to be blamed for the murder of young Masamichi Ryota isn’t the man sitting on that podium—it’s to be found in the coach who pushed him beyond his capabilities and forced him to play even with a ruptured spleen—”

“Objection, your honor.” Nanami Kento, an unctuous piece of shit in a neatly-pressed suit who thrives on taking cases pro-bono to bolster his spotless reputation, stands. He adjusts his tie, looking at the plaintiff’s family—the coach’s great mustache trembling as he holds back his anger. 

“The post-mortem report submitted shows that Coach Tanaka has explicitly asked for a leave of rest for the star player. But, the rejection letter—traced from Itadori Sukuna’s hand, I might add—explicitly denied that request on grounds of the millions of yen he has betted on that poor boy’s success.”

The crowd moves, a great sea snake whispering, scales rustling. Unsure of whether to attack or stand down.

“Your Honor, that is a stretch,” Hiromi drones. “The young man was known to have a history of smoking and a regrettable habit of shooting ecstasy. A fact, we found out later on, that was unearthed in the same autopsy reports you had just shared, Nanami-san.” 

This time, the two attorneys stare each other down. 

Sukuna fights back a smirk at the blonde man’s narrowed eyes. Beside him, Tanaka, the coach, hangs his head.

“While his death is very regrettable and a horror to his family and loved ones, Masamichi was not known for reigning in his… impulses. He has a weak will and a fondness for abusing substances.”

“Objection,” Nanami raised his voice. “Defaming the deceased’s name is a violation of—”

“Order, order,” Judge Itachi bangs his gavel, shaking his jowls as he glares down from the stand. The room quietens. Nanami takes a deep breath while Hiromi glances at his watch. 

“Nanami-san, the Defamation Act 2013 does not apply to this situation as Masamichi is not a minor. A lawyer of your caliber should know this.” Nodding towards Higuruma, he says, “Continue.”

This time, Sukuna can’t help the chuckle slipping from his mouth. 

Hearing him, Jin shakes his head with a glare, hazel eyes drilling Now’s not the time, asshole deep into his skull. 

Higuruma, having heard his slip, also narrows his eyes.

Nanami uses this moment to pounce on Sukuna’s perceived indifference.

“He openly mocks the death of one of Japan’s brightest football stars, and yet, we’re supposed to believe in his goodwill? If you were to speak of my client’s dead prodigy, you should take into account what kind of man Itadori Sukuna truly is.”

Commanding the floor, the sharply-dressed blonde man takes center stage. 

“Ladies and gentlemen. Judge and jury. Itadori Sukuna hails from an affluent family, but do not let that distract you from how he uses his position in society to silence those lower than him.” Looking straight into Sukuna’s eye with that infuriating, righteous stare these bootlickers always had, Kento seethes. 

“He is a drug-addled playboy who spends his time exploiting young talent for his own gain. These young men under his program are little more than betting fodder for him and his other rich friends. Wouldn’t you say that is correct? How many times have we seen him in the news because of his drunk folly? If he were an actor, we would’ve banned him from screens, and yet, because of his standing in society, we commend him for exploiting our sporting talents—and ultimately, playing in the negligence to cause someone’s death.”

Higuruma bristles, not expecting his opponent to pull out his client’s reputation and smear it across the courtroom floors.

“You claim defamation is uncouth, and yet, you’re doing the same thing to my client, Nanami-san—”

“Order,” Judge Itachi bangs his gavel again, this time looking irritated at how this case had turned.

Sukuna suddenly catches sight of a woman from across the room. She’s glaring at him with unabashed hatred, her dark eyes swollen and red-rimmed, lower lip wobbling. Beside her, the man he assumes is her husband wears a stony mask, his gaze locked on the floor, completely still except for the rapid rising and falling of his erratic breaths.

They were both clad in a dress, shirt and slacks that looked like they belonged to the 90s—neat and clean, but shabby in a way that only these lower class scum could pull off if the dress code given to them was business casual. 

These must be Ryota’s good-for-nothing power hungry parents who threw him into the harsh pits of Japanese football in hopes of improving their standing in society. How plain and old they look. Sukuna fights back the urge to sneer at them, keeping his expression neutral.

It’s like Jin’s voice is in his ear: Do not misbehave. Do not give them more reason to already hate you. Remember—Jin’s infuriatingly kind eyes were unflinching and serious. They’ve just lost their son. Have some compassion and remorse.

“Attorneys, return to your seat. The jury has already made their decision and I, for one, can vouch for it.”

Sukuna feels his palms going clammy, and suddenly, the idea of investing in sports from Ino’s advice was making his stomach turn.

I’m going to kill that bastard once I’m out of here.

Removing the slip of paper from the white envelope of justice, Judge Itachi clears his throat.

Higuruma sits back down, his viper-like eyes locked on the judge’s face. Trying to predict the outcome.

“The court today has deemed the case Itadori v Japan’s Football League a negligence in duty of care concerning Masamichi Ryota’s untimely death.”

No one is breathing, all attention on the judge with his pockmarked face. 

Sukuna is fixated on Jin, whose head is bowed, eyes closed. If this blew up in their faces, a case like this would cause Itadori Enterprises to suffer a major investor fallout.

And once again, the blame of their family’s bad fortune would be on him. 

Sukuna swears the last time he was this nervous, he was waiting for Este’s pregnancy test results to come back negative.

It was one time, ‘Kuna! She had tears in her eyes, the stupid white stick clenched in her hand. Can you lay off of me and take responsibility for once in your goddamn life?

He should call her after this—apologize to her. God knows it would be his last fuck before he has to spend half of his life behind bars for the death of some schmuck kid whose name he had already forgotten.

Judge Itachi speaks again, knocking him out of his reverie.

“Therefore, the jury and I have come to the conclusion. In the case of Itadori Itadori-san, we find him—”

The clock ticks. Every lung is constricted—jury, attorneys, a few press members who had managed to bribe their way in. Sukuna recognizes them with their obnoxious yellow press tags; thinks how many of these leeches would get a raise once they broke the scoop on him.

Oh, the irony, he muses. His downfall being their salvation to fighting back against the rising cost of living.

“—not guilty.”

…

Sukuna is unsure if he’s heard it right.

Not guilty. 

Not guilty. 

Not guilty.

He doesn’t react immediately, blinking slowly like a fish caught out of water. The oldest son of Itadori Wasuke tries to meet his twin’s eye, but Jin is as shocked as he was, frozen with his laser-sharp focus trailed on the stand—trying to digest this turn of events.

Higuruma is the one who finally breaks the ice, standing and bowing to Judge Itachi. On cue, the rest of the room follows suit, getting to their feet and showing the retreating judge their begrudging respect.

Sukuna bows jerkily, unused to such a humble gesture he had almost forgotten how to do it.

In front of him, the brat’s mother starts to bawl, her husband’s arms coming to wrap around her as they both shuffle out of the courtroom, looking older and grayer than when they had entered.

Sukuna doesn’t have much time to force a lick of sympathy for them, not when this farce of a trial was over and he was late for Ino’s party.

He hops down the stand, ambling easily to his younger brother who was whispering in low tones with their lawyer. A few feet away, Nanami Kento reassures the coach and his family, painting a picture of trying to achieve righteous justice for that good name—a feat Sukuna knew he would never achieve.

After all, the Itadori empire wasn’t built on rainbows on sunshine but pure, hard grit. And a little bit of blood and here and there to get what they want.

Jin looks up, frowns. “Let’s catch the sedan and have a smoke. You and I have a lot to discuss about.”

The way he said it made Sukuna feel like a kid again, about to be chastised for peeing the bed or killing off the pet goldfish.

Higuruma packed up his briefcase of documents, and a pack of bodyguards stationed around the different points of the courtroom swarmed to the middle, shielding the two brothers and their lawyers the second the doors opened and the press descended on them. 

Flashing lights went off in a wave of clicks, the vultures with their cameras snapping his humiliation at every angle for their publications; boldly throwing their questions at him without fear now that the great Itadori “Ryomen” Sukuna was knocked down a peg or two. 

Itadori-san, can you comment about Masamichi-san’s death at length? 

One woman with a silver bob shoved a mic in his face. The guard on his right quickly elbowed her out of the way, throwing his arm up to hide Sukuna’s visage from the bug-like chittering click of these press leeches and their expensive cameras.

Itadori-san, this news must come as a shock. What does this mean for the future of Itadori Enterprise?

Will this affect any future mergers, particularly a rumor circulating about a potential collaboration with Nara Corp? 

Itadori-san, do you ever regret investing in football?

A few sport reporters were also seen trying to push their way through the crowd, recorders in hand to glean some golden nuggets for their pathetic column.

Itadori-san, what does your verdict mean for the future of the Japan Football League?

Itadori-san, did you know that Masamichi-san was about to prepare for his university entrance exams? How does his death make you feel?

“No comment,” Higuruma intones, taking Jin and Sukuna both by the elbow to steer them towards their waiting car like they were teenagers again; back when he had to bring the twins straight into Wasuke’s study to discuss their future inheritance.

A fresh-faced rookie Sukuna had never seen before stumbles in front of their entourage, and he’s mortified to see a pink lipstick print on the front of the intern’s tag.

Royale News' first appearance in such a serious case.

“Itadori-san, you’re already approaching the ripe age of thirty," the dim-wit says. “Do you have your eye on a woman who can domesticate you? Can you ever be tamed?”

Amidst the overlapping voices and chaos, that question sticks to Sukuna like sweat on skin during an unbearable summer heat, unsettling him until he sinks into the sedan with Jin beside him and Higuruma on the opposite seat. 

The door closes shut, bodyguards standing in front of the heavily tinted side windows to keep the press from clamoring after them.

Once the chaos was left behind on the freeway in a cloud of smoke and ashes, did Jin lean forward to raise the privacy screen. With the driver unable to hear them, his younger twin reaches for his packet of Montecristos, lighting three of them up and passing one to each man.

Higuruma accepts his offer with a nod, while Sukuna grabs the nicotine-laced vice from him with a ferocity that takes his brother aback. He inhales deeply, exhaling rings of smoke which fogs up the car, tasting cherries, cedarwood, tobacco and his freedom. 

“Easy, ‘Kuna,” Jin mumbles tersely. Sukuna resists the urge to flip him off.

Instead, he drags his gaze to the lawyer smoking quietly in front of him, smiling sleazily in triumph. “You did a good job, Higuruma. If I were you, I’d ask for a raise.”

The Itadori scion expects his brother to join in the jest meekly, like he always does. Not glare at him with pure vitriol in his eyes, the kind Sukuna had never seen Jin harbor for him.

“You scumbag,” Jin mutters hotly. His brother half expects him to throw a curse word or two with how riled up he was. “You were supposed to dump this stupid hobby. I gave you the money to start a foundation for good press. Not throw it all into some useless human betting ring. Are you an imbecile?”

That was a new insult. Jin rarely ever threw him a good verbal uppercut, and Sukuna must’ve really fucked up to earn this side of his younger twin brother.

He plasters on a sleazy smile, giving his otouto a once over. 

“Well, aren’t you a fucking ray of sunshine? You should be glad Higuruma managed to avert the crisis and get me out of it. Or, are you going to piss in these blessings?”

“I would rather you didn’t embroil yourself in such a shit show in the first place.”

Jin sighs, sags into the seat and massages his temple. “One day, Sukuna, you’re going to give me a heart attack and you’ll have to take over oto-san’s company. Then, you will know true responsibility. True suffering.”

Sukuna hums, staring outside at the scenery flying by.

“Neither the company nor its investors would last a day with me at the helm. So, for your sake and mine, I’m going to ask the doctor to keep the life support machine going even if you’re hanging onto your last breath, dear brother.”

“Good luck with that,” Jin refutes with a slight snarl. “I would explicitly mention it in my will to refute your efforts at reviving me.”

“Then, I will rebuke your will.”

“You can’t because I actually have a son to execute it.”

“Yuuji is two. He can’t even hold a pencil.”

Any insult towards his beloved son would never be tolerated by the famed Itadori family man. Jin puffs out his chest, about to berate his older brother, when Higuruma stops them both with a sigh.

“If only your parents could see the both of you now. How disappointed they would be in you, Sukuna.”

Hiromi sucks in a deep breath of the sweet cigar, turning his head and exhaling lightly out of politeness for smoking in his employer’s car. 

Despite his hulking muscles and blase attitude, Sukuna can’t help but glower in petulance at any mention of Wasuke and Kasumi’s disappointment in him. Growing up as the black sheep has casted a permanent cloud over him—his best efforts were seen as second tier in comparison with his perfect, golden brother. And Sukuna resents any mention of it.

Their family lawyer continues on, as if he hadn’t made two of them heel to an uneasy stop.

“At your age, you should be taking over Jin’s part. But, your brother is too nice. He took up the burden so you could do what, exactly? Party every night? Sleep with models? Get involved in scandals?”

Hiromi sighs, and Sukuna turns his glare outside the window, unwilling to take such a personal beat down. 

“Your mother had hoped you would snap out of your selfish streak. She even thought you would settle down and give her some grandchildren by the time you turned twenty five. But, you had to be pictured… fucking… the mayor’s daughter during a gala. How crude.”

“Stop talking down to me like you’re even at my level, Higuruma.” Sukuna snaps and something in his tone catches the other two men off guard. “You think just because we employ you in our good graces, you have the fucking right—”

“What Hiromi is trying to say is this,” Jin interjects before this could escalate into a full fist fight. “Both of us have come up with the best way for our family to get past this scandal.”

Sukuna has heard this a thousand times before. The Itadori pockets were bottomless when it came to preserving their good name.

“How?” He sneers, dismissive and mildly insulted that the two of them had made a decision for him without his input. “Don’t tell me you’re going to flush out more money to keep the press quiet. We can’t keep using the same strategy over and over again.”

In answer, Hiromi and Jin share a look. Sukuna suddenly feels like the car seat he’s on is about to be pulled from under him.

Wilted ash drips from the tip of his neglected cigar. He tenses, darts his vermillion eyes between his two conspirators and wardens.

“Hiromi and I have come up with a better idea,” Jin begins his pitches like he always does—with a little smile and a sniffle. “The idea is—”

“Marriage,” Hiromi intones, taking one brother aback and the other on a guilt trip. 

Jin grimaces. Sukuna stumbles with the words stuttering out like a reckless oil spill.

So, the only thing he could spout was, “M-marriage?! What kind of trickery is this? Jin—” He looks to his otouto, hoping against hope his ears are just fucked up and he didn’t actually hear Hiromi saying the tragic, forbidden ‘M’ word.

“—this has to be a mistake.”

“No, it’s not,” Hiromi steps in to cover Jin’s ass, placing himself at the front to take the bullets of rage that would no doubt rain down on him once the whole plan was laid bare to the older, hot-headed twin. 

“We believe that with your souring reputation and increasing questions surrounding your perpetual bachelorhood, settling down with someone would be in the interest of the family business. And of course, your inheritance.”

Hiromi makes sure to dangle the most effective carrot in front of him; that sadistic bastard.

Sukuna seethes—confusion, anger, disappointment and fear coalescing to overtake his first instinct to run. Numbing him with his inaction of thoughts and body. 

Hiromi lifts his heavy-bagged eyes, pinning him right to the spot. The knife slices deeper, cutting him from the inside out; hammering in this decision he absolutely had no say in unless he would want to kiss his lavish lifestyle goodbye.

“We need to get you married off by the end of the year.” A death sentence knells right into his chest; Hiromi digs the pain deeper. 

“In fact, the sooner, the better.” 

Sukuna remembers the very first time he had seen you in your wedding dress. 

It was a chance encounter as he passed by a Morinaga boutique in downtown Shibuya; his brother having orchestrated the entire meeting so Sukuna would catch a glance of his future bride trying on her custom-made dress.

With her head bowed, and shoulders bare under the light, the older Itadori twin thought her figure was appeasing and pleasing to the eyes. That is, until she turned around with her naked face and he had to physically stop himself from recoiling.

“Is that her?” he demands, unwilling to believe Jin would sell him out like this. Shades of disgust lines his tone, and he tries not to put his stupid twin in a headlock and break his neck.

Jin notices his reluctance and makes a face. “She’s unlike the girls you whore yourself out to, that’s for sure.”

The more he looks at you, the more Sukuna is starting to think this was a mistake.

“She’s so… boring. Vanilla. Are you sure this is what you think is best for me?”

Since their father passed on and the business went to his younger twin, Sukuna was often painted in their society and by the media as the irresponsible Itadori—the audacious older brother, the partier.

The playboy.

Often having a gaggle of girls at his mercy, he was not exempted from warming beautiful model’s beds, and having flings with other trust fund babes—bad habits his younger brother was desperately trying to get him to shrug off to take on more of the family business mantle. 

“You’re almost thirty, ‘Kuna. It’s time to act like it.” 

Jin sighs, removes his glasses. The action reminds him so much of their father that Sukuna pauses for a second, blinking away the mirage of that senile, old man.

Sukuna hadn’t noticed just how old his younger brother had gotten.

Dressed in a sleek trench coat costing four times more than a McDonald workers’ monthly salary, Itadori Jin was quiet and unassuming, yet only his twin brother knew that still waters ran the deepest.

An inch shorter than him and with a kid from his old, dead wife, Itadori Jin was the antithesis of Sukuna’s recklessness. Where the older twin was all hulking machismo and a massive ego, his brother was soft-spoken and with a sharp mind that was always one step ahead of his, bringing their father’s company back from the brink of bankruptcy and launching it into international waters from his sheer will. 

Sukuna respects the guy, and as much as he wants to rile Jin up and pop a vein on his younger brother’s temple, he tempers down his sarcasm, preferring to roll his eyes.

“Whatever. So, her daddy wants the merger money and you want me to settle down with some ugly chick?”

Jin winces, wishing his brother wasn’t being this curt and lewd. 

“Her father wants an heir. And he wants 40% of our shares. That’s a whole different game.”

“He can’t have those.” Sukuna was irresponsible as they came, but even he understood the basic math of divesting half of your company’s assets to a party other than your stipulated stakeholders. “The Nara family already holds 22% of our board and the Ikina’s are up close with 15%. If those vultures take 40, how’re we gonna break even in the next quarter? We’ll be bleeding red if we give into their whims.”

In answer, the corners of his brother’s mouth twitches. “I see you’ve been doing your homework. Impressive.”

They both have stopped in their tracks, standing a little ways on the sidewalk where prying ears couldn’t hear their discussion.

Jin suddenly turns serious. “L/N-san has struck gold with new fintech models. We need to curry his favor if he wants to reduce the patent price for us to move on with Project Armstrong. I hope you understand the gravity of this situation.”

Usually, Sukuna prefers not talking business with his brother in such broad daylight without a drink in hand. But, seeing as how Jin has left him no choice, he relents to this impromptu exchange, feeling more and more like some wild stock being sold in a farm the longer he speaks to his brother. 

“And she’s nicknamed the Wisteria Woman because her entire family latches onto fame and power like leeches,” he bristles, catching Jin by surprise. 

See? Even a useless ass like him could bother with basic research. And the rumors were nastier than he imagined.

“I already don’t like the sound of that—of her.”

The younger Itadori cocks his head. “Then, I think you should be honest with her if that is how you feel. That this is a business arrangement and nothing else.”

Sukuna flicks a cigarette from his leather coat’s pocket, sticking it between his teeth.

“Say I agree to this plan. What’s in it for me?”

Without a beat of hesitation, Jin replies: 

“110% of the profit.”

Sukuna nearly spits out his stick. 

The amount yawns before him, looming zeros and zeros staring him in the face. 

“What? Cat got your tongue?” Jin teases, though there’s tension crinkling in the corner of his eyes.

Switching gears, Sukuna turns mellow; even slaps on a smile. “I see. Interesting.”

“So. Are you on board with this?” 

In the distance, he sees your silhouette exiting the bridal shop, bags in hand with your maids or girlfriends following behind. The sunlight does little to bring any depth to your expression or features, but he appreciates that you look semi-decent from his vantage point.

“Fine,” he says, clicking open his vintage Dupont to light the tip of his cigarette. “Count me in.”

He supposes that even with such an embarrassing family background that will drag the Itadori name through the mud, the high stakes more than made up for such a lackluster wife.

His favorite whore sighs right into his shoulder, the smell of his cum, sweat and her expensive perfume strong on her skin.

After ejaculating right onto her tits and smearing it everywhere down her belly, Sukuna was exhausted and in a need for something stronger than nicotine. Rolling over, he picks up a joint Ino had passed to him as congratulations for making it out of that nasty as fuck trial, lighting it up and inhaling with a tremendous sigh.

Este’s lips are right on his shoulder, kissing a path from his deltoid to collarbone. Sukuna wraps a hand in her soft, brown hair, holding her firmly in place as he makes a move like he was about to kiss her; her lips parting and smoke pouring into her waiting mouth, her hitched inhale pulling a cruel smile across his own lips. 

She turns her face away, eyes watering and fighting back a coughing fit. “Asshole.”

“An invitation for anal? Gladly, baby.” He turns her onto her belly, peals of laughter muffled by the pillow, strong arms holding her down as he positions her on her hands and knees, joint stuck in between his teeth.

Este turns her face to the side, catching his eye. Mascara smudges around her eyes, her red lipstick feathering at the corners of her impishly smiling mouth.

“What’re you doing, ‘Kuna?” 

“Y’know what I’m doing,” he murmurs, cock stirring at her wiggling hips and devilish grin.

“Are you really going to take my ass?” 

He sucks in another inhale of the joint, feeling the high slowly unlocking his muscles and turning his brain fuzzy. “Scared? Afraid daddy might find out his daughter is going around offering her virgin hole to any rich man who’s on the marriage market?” 

Condescension drips in poisonous tendrils, and she bristles. “Fuck you, ‘Kuna.”

In one swift motion, he’s sheathed inside of her, feeling her walls choke down on his cock. His head tosses back, sweat glistening off the tribal tattoos on his chest, hips drawing back and snapping forward in languid thrusts. 

The moon shines strong. Cheap Southern alcohol pumps in his blood, his sweat soaks through her skin and hair, damp skin illuminated by the ember tip of his joint. 

“Isn’t that what I’m already doing to you?” He drawls, and her body starts to shake. 

“We still—mhm—h-haven’t talked about your m-marriage…” 

Her voice fades; cracks on the reality of him no longer sharing a bed with her.

Jesus. Does everyone know about this? 

Sukuna doesn’t do anything to comfort her, except for slipping a hand between her legs to rub soft circles on her clit as a flimsy apology.

She keens, white-knuckled grip fisting the soft blankets. Her mediterranean mix shows under the weak light, tan skin stretching over defined back muscles, dark roots growing past the brown dye job she gets done once every two weeks.

In another life, Sukuna thinks he could’ve been in love with her.

Este screams his name as she shatters around him. Sukuna tosses the half-smoked joint back on the side table, not caring if it would catch on something and burn her room down. He’d just fuck her through the flames until she asphyxiates and succumbs to both the lack of oxygen and her orgasm.

She clings onto him, a second layer of skin he wants nothing to do with. 

Sukuna pushes her away not so gently, grabbing his joint and snuffing it out with the heel of his palm. 

“I gotta go,” he mumbles, reaching for his shirt, pants. She watches as he dresses, still dazed and starry-eyed from her release.

“Are you going back to her? To Y/N?” 

Sukuna crinkles his nose, as if the mention of your name was enough to make him lose his appetite. “Don’t be stupid. No. I’m going back to my place for a shower and a nightcap. I’ll see you around.”

Tossing her a nonchalant wave, Sukuna leaves Este’s sheets, knowing that in a few more days, he would be back here again.

That’s the thing he likes about Este Nara—she’s easy. Not just to get in bed, but to get away from. She doesn’t bitch or moan about him being distant and aloof. She takes his cruelty without much flinching, seeing the dangerous man lurking under his tattoos and barely thinking anything of it. 

If she even had half a brain to think.

He revs the engine of his Ducati Superleggera, hightails it past her condominium with his helmet buckled haphazardly around his neck; not slowing down, wishing he could leave his problems in the dust being kicked up by his tires.

“What do you mean he’s trying to push the marriage to a month later?” your mother seethes over her coffee, glaring at you.

You shrink from her anger, pushing around a soggy banana with your fork tines. “It’s what he told me,” you argue back weakly. “What was I going to say?”

“What about actually standing up for yourself and doing what is best for our agreement?” 

She arches a perfectly groomed brow, waiting for you to respond. You cast a despairing look to your father who picks up his glass of bourbon, sipping on it while he listlessly scrolls through his iPad. 

“Listen to your mother, my little light.”

“I did,” you tried again, willing them both to understand. Bunching your fists over your lap, you take a deep breath, hoping they would listen. “I did everything you asked me to: not interrupt him. Let him talk. Laugh at his jokes. Everything,” you emphasize. “And yet he asked me to consider pushing the marriage back by a few weeks. What else could I say?”

You reiterate your question, growing hotter in the cheeks. Finally understanding why some people could have a heart attack in the middle of dinner when the entire situation was spun around to paint you as a villain when you had tried your best to be as cooperative as you could. 

A grimace stretches across her plastic-filled cheeks. People often said your mother could win a beauty pageant on her worst days; rising above other beautiful women with her wit, charm and charisma. Of course, she was also the daughter of a department store king, so the money graciously ‘donated’ to these glittery showcases put her many steps forward compared to other contestants.

“I don’t know where I went wrong in raising you,” she sighs, dramatic as always. “Jiro, please. Can you speak to Itadori Jin-san and tell him what our daughter told us? There is no way his brother can resist this offer.”

Offer. Like you were a cow to be traded in the market.

“Lia, I told you, Itadori Jin-san has no control over Itadori-san. That’s his nii-san. It would be a perversion of authority if he forces Sukana-san’s hand in any way.”

Her expression sours. “Well, isn’t there some way we can orchestrate a reunion, perhaps? A dinner or getaway to officially welcome them to the family?” 

You blanch at the idea of seeing Sukuna again, stewing in your mortification and humiliation when he had already made it clear how distasteful he finds you.

You’re about to say you don’t mind going with Sukuna’s timeline when he sets his glass down with a pensive look on his face.

Ten years older than your mother and with a brilliant mind born from the best business school in Tokyo, your father was not a man to be played with; his word was law, and that was how he spearheaded the tech scene at the tender age of twenty-five with nothing but a dream and his gritty determination. 

Knowing he had to prove himself to your grandfather—your mother’s father, on his capabilities to build a home and a better life for a woman who already had everything—made you wonder how he did it.

From nobody to somebody. It’s why no matter how he treated you, he would always have your respect.

“A getaway?” Jiro murmurs, an idea darkening his thoughts. “That could be interesting. Very interesting indeed. I’ll make some plans and we’ll play it by ear.”

He went back to scrolling, ignoring his smugly beaming wife.

Pacified that she had gotten what she wanted, your mother turns nurturing once more, cooing and touching your shoulder.

“We should get you a spa treatment and a light makeover before Itadori-san sees you. Do you have something to wear in mind?” 

As if you were a doll whose only purpose was to be dressed up, this was the reality you were living in for the past twenty-seven years of your life. If Itadori-san didn’t want to marry you fast enough and get you out of your childhood home, you were sure a swift bullet to the head would be the best alternative.

Plastering on a smile, you ponder for a second on your choice. 

“I want to try something new,” you decide. A furrow appears in her brow. 

“What do you mean by new, my dear?” 

“Something Itadori-san would like,” you try to curry her approval, feeling lighter and happier when her solemn face breaks into a knowing smile. 

“He says he loves dresses with satin and plunging necklines. Thinner heels. I think Okuta-san would understand.”

Referring to your personal stylist, your mother nods her approval.

“That’s perfect. I’ll get her to do some digging on some of Itadori-san’s past girlfriends and see what they wore.”

Unruffled by how audacious that statement was, you were truly reminded that this marriage was a cruelty of convenience when her smile deepens.

“I’m proud of you for taking this step, my dear,” your mother’s voice warms, though the implications of them make you freeze. 

“You’re finally proving your worth to the L/N family.”

a.n. OKAY WE'RE SO BACK. ive deleted the first chapter due to low interaction and decided to give this series a second chance by starting with y/n's pov !! this series will rely heavily on feedback and reblogs (my adhd ass cant work on something if i and other people dont care for it) or else it'll be scraped and we keep things moving (i sincerely hope u loved this <3)

©️ lalunanymph. do not copy, repost, change the sentence structures, translate across any other platforms

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