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unicorns and pomegranates
summary: Suna x F!Reader. "Do you ever feel like you were born to serve and die for someone in glorious battle," Suna says, valiantly failing not to flick his eyes back to you. You're frowning at your drink, trying to pick a particle off its rim with a nail. "Sexually, I mean."
"You are not normal," Atsumu tells him.
word count: 1.4k
cw: angst to fluff, friends to lovers, mild objectification, suna has strange inclinations, intoxication, one or two references to sex, …hand mention
a/n: i almost titled this "stop picking fights with knights and come wear tunics with the eunuchs"
You can't believe you were actually looking forward to this team dinner. It's the stupid fancy gala EJP Raijin puts on annually, in a stupid beautiful venue covered in white marble and stupid crystal chandeliers. You'd been so excited when Suna said, offhandedly, I get a plus-one, you wanna come with?
You should've known it would end up like this, feeling self-conscious in your expensive clothes while Suna stands far away and doesn't pay attention to you at all. He's not your date, you're his plus-one, gifted a glimpse into the world of professional athletes for one night only. He expects you to mingle with his friends, maybe even get yourself a real date to the next team event. It's such a stupid, cruel joke of the stars that he's the only one of these talented, handsome men that you want.
You take a sip of champagne and try not to think about it. He'd come to pick you up in his ridiculous fancy red car and stared at you with his inscrutable features and said I don't know, I'm sure it's fine, when you asked what he thought. Glowing praise, you thought, sitting among models and Olympians.
Across the room, Suna is trying to pretend that he is a eunuch. Eunuchs don't throw their best friends over their shoulder and carry them home and make sweet, sweet love to them all night long.
"There's something wrong with your face," Atsumu says.
"Do you ever feel like you were born to serve and die for someone in glorious battle," Suna says, valiantly failing not to flick his eyes back to you. You're frowning at your drink, trying to pick a particle off its rim with a nail. "Sexually, I mean."
"You are not normal," Atsumu tells him, "but yeah, I get the feeling."
They lapse into silence for a moment. One of the guys who came stag walks up to you and jumps into conversation. Suna imagines spiking a ball into his face several times.
"Are you feeling like that because of—" Atsumu starts, but Suna cuts him off with a violent slashing motion across the throat.
"If you say the words out loud, they become true," Suna says. "Shut your fat mouth."
"She does look good," Atsumu muses. "Nice necklace."
"Don't look at her," Suna says. "I actually don't even know who you're talking about. She's wearing a necklace?"
He glances back. You aren't, which soothes his concern that he'd been so distracted by the generous amount of décolletage revealed by your top he'd missed major details of your appearance, which he planned to burn into his memory and then never speak about until he died. His last words were probably going to be "the top button was undone."
"Maybe you would be failing less miserably if you actually talked to your date," Atsumu says. "How did you ask her to be your date without actually dating her?"
"It takes a lot of skill to put yourself this deeply in the friendzone," Suna says. "Someday you'll understand."
"I hope not," Atsumu says with feeling. "Hey, look, they're doing shots."
The rando who’s talking to you is clinking his glass against yours, making unnecessarily intense eye contact. Suna frowns; staring at you like a weirdo is his job. You glance away from your drinking partner for a second, your gazes connecting, and that’s all the invitation Suna needs to cross the room in the space of a split second. He snatches your shot from you with two long fingers and tosses it back, grinning widely at the other man when he’s swallowed.
“That was mine,” you say without vitriol.
“That was vodka,” he says, feeling the warm buzz of it in his belly. “You’re allergic.”
“Not allergic,” you roll your eyes, “just a lightweight.”
It’s true. Vodka gets you way too drunk, way too fast. Why hadn’t you said anything to this other guy? You only ever drink such hard liquor when you’re upset.
Are you upset?
“I’ll buy you another drink,” he promises. He’s glad he took the drink from you. It’s having a strange, dizzying effect the longer he looks at you, your darkened eyes, your parted lips. He reaches up and sweeps the back of his hand just over the curve of your neck, a light touch. He’s pleased when it leaves goosebumps in its wake, a short-lived mark he can leave on you.
“It’s an open bar, dummy,” you roll your eyes. The guy you were talking to has faded into the distance, though you don’t even notice.
He’d meant to stay away from you tonight. He’d meant to be a respectful friend, one who didn’t steal glances at you that he shouldn’t, one who didn’t want to punch out anyone else who looked at you with lust on their face. Every time he steps away, though, you seem to be tossing back another drink, giggling and leaning on a new shoulder, and he’s back at your side, plucking your hand away and glaring at whoever tries to talk to you.
Finally, he follows you down the hall to the bathroom, where you spin and lean heavy on the wall, facing him. Your eyes are bright and teary, all the gloss rubbed off your downturned lips, but he still wants to kiss them, for some reason (because he’s a creep, he scolds himself).
“What are you doing,” you sigh, and he blinks, taken aback.
“Just watching out for you, I guess,” he says. You pout.
“You don’t even care,” you say, voice catching. “You’re hovering like a jealous boyfriend and I don’t even know why.”
“I’m not,” he protests lamely.
“I know!” You explode, pushing away from the wall and wobbling dangerously. He clamps a hand down on your arm and supports your body with his; you are a bamboo shoot and he’s the stake. “I know. You think I’m ugly, you’ll never like me. I get it.”
“What?” Your skin is warm to the touch, and you smell a touch sweet, a touch spicy. He wants to lick the skin behind your ears, where your perfume is spritzed strongest. You couldn’t be more wrong if you declared that Atsumu was going to win a prize for scientific achievement.
“This is stupid,” you say, and oh, oh, no, there are tears welling up and streaking down your face. He pulls you in firmly, playing with the short hairs on the back of your neck. You cry into his chest, even though he’s the reason. “I want to go home. I just wanted to have fun.”
“I know,” he says, voice low, like he’s talking to a wounded animal, “I’ll take you home.” For some reason this encourages a fresh bout of sobbing. “I’m sorry I ruined your night.”
“I just wanted you to think I was pretty,” you hiccup on the last word, and his heart stops.
“I think you’re so pretty,” Suna says. “I think you’re gorgeous. You don’t think you’re pretty?”
“I know I’m pretty,” you say, and he keeps trying to step back, walk away, pull himself out of a situation he has to be misunderstanding. “I thought you did, too, enough to invite me to this stupid thing, enough that I was so excited to pretend we were together or maybe that we would be together for real someday. Fuck, I’m an idiot.”
“You’re not,” he begs you to believe him.
“I thought just because you’re beautiful and you look at me—sometimes—like you want me or something and you touch me all the time, it might mean something. I am an idiot. And a bad friend. I even like your hands, Suna, you’ve made me so crazy I can’t even look at your hands without thinking about your fingers—”
Suna grabs you before you can finish a sentence that will surely land you pressed up against the wall with one of the hands in question in your pants. He says your name, serious, voice grating against all his instincts.
“You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I do,” you insist, looking like you’re going to start crying again. “I—fuck. I love you, Rintarō.”
It’s the final nail in the coffin.
“I’m going to enter noble and valorous combat to prove my worthiness,” he says instantaneously. You peer up at him, expression simultaneously baffled and cutting.
“What?”
“Nothing,” Suna says hurriedly. “Let’s go home. You should lie down, and tomorrow I need to clear some things up, repeatedly. Possibly for the rest of our lives.”