#(on his lap ideally)

[hikeyzz]

draining his balls making him cum over and over again just so he'll pass out and finally get a good night's sleep >>>>

[qiu-yan]

wei wuxian vs. pragmatism: what MDZS intends to say about righteousness

copy/pasting most of my rather bitchy reply into its own individual post because i think it deserves to stand on its own.

so i think we can all agree that MXTX intends for us to read MDZS and conclude that wei wuxian is ultimately a deeply heroic and righteous person. whether you as the reader agree with this assessment of wei wuxian's moral character is another question entirely, but at the very least it is fairly obvious to all of us that MXTX intends for us to read him as a good person.

so why does MXTX call wei wuxian a good person? what aspects of his character and which of his choices make him a good person? what moral framework and what definition of morality does MXTX employ in order to call wei wuxian a good person?

i posit that MXTX argues that wei wuxian is heroic precisely because he is not pragmatic - because he adheres to his moral ideals despite the consequences, and because he did not make moral sacrifices at critical junctures of his life. the first half of this post will argue that wei wuxian is not pragmatic. the second half of this post will argue that this is exactly why wei wuxian is heroic, and that the moral framework employed by MXTX is deeply idealistic instead.

so let's begin.

let's start by establishing two things.

first: what MXTX argues about morality through the narrative of MDZS and the reader's own beliefs about morality are two different things. me saying "MDZS argues that xyz is righteousness" and me saying "i think xyz is righteousness" are two different statements. the following analysis is concerned not with what i myself consider to be righteous, but rather what MXTX argues through MDZS is righteous.

second: wei wuxian is not pragmatic.

what does it mean to be pragmatic? unless we are speaking about the school of philosophy specifically (which i am not here), being pragmatic means being grounded in reality and focused on practical outcomes. it means being result-oriented and considering the consequences of your actions before you act; it means acting only after you have considered the potential consequences of all possible courses of action and have then decided which outcomes are acceptable. being pragmatic also means recognizing when achieving everything you want is impossible. and, in such situations, being pragmatic thus entails compromising to achieve a desired outcome, even if that means you don’t get everything they want. to put it in edgier terms, being pragmatic means being able to make moral sacrifices.

an idealistic person attempts the impossible. a pragmatic person recognizes when something truly is impossible.

wei wuxian is not pragmatic.

first, wei wuxian is not someone who carefully considers the consequences of his actions before he acts. in fact, he displays a startling lack of consideration for consequences. it repeatedly falls upon other characters to either try (and fail) to hold him back.

when wei wuxian punched jin zixuan for insulting first jiang yanli and then jiang cheng, did he consider that jiang fengmian and jin guangshan might then dissolve the betrothal, and that jiang yanli might have wanted to make a decision regarding that on her own? no. he just punched jin zixuan because he was mad that jin zixuan had insulted two people he loved.

when wen chao threatened mianmian, and lan wangji and jin zixuan stood up for mianmian, and then wei wuxian stood up for them by holding wen chao hostage in turn - did he consider that there might be consequences for humiliating and threatening the life of the son of a warmongering great sect leader who has already proven capable of attacking other sects? no. did he stop and think "alright, wen ruohan has already attacked the cloud recesses, which proves that he's willing to wage war against the other sects. threatening the son of a sect leader is an easy way to earn any sect leader's ire, and since i'm the first disciple of the jiang sect, this puts not just me but the entire jiang sect on wen ruohan's shitlist"? no. it would be one thing if wei wuxian weighed this possibility and then decided that rescuing an innocent girl and the people who defended her was more important was worth the risk - that would show that he considered the consequences and then made his choice. but the thought simply never entered his mind. he acted simply because he wanted to save mianmian, jin zixuan, and lan wangji from the wens; he did not think beyond that.

when wei wuxian busted the wen remnants out of the qiongqi pass labor camp, did he have a clear plan as to how he was going to weather the political fallout? did he have a plan more detailed than "live quietly in the burial mounds until everyone forgets about us"? no. when jiang cheng challenged him as to how he was going to survive the situation, he did not in fact offer anything more concrete than "we'll just wait for everyone else to forget about us." he blustered about being a once-in-a-generation genius who could accomplish the impossible, but he provided no actual plan as to how he was going to do it. this leads me to conclude that wei wuxian did not in fact have a long-term plan for handling the consequences when he went ham at the qiongqi pass camp - that, instead of weighing the consequences and then making his decision, he instead decided immediately that this was something he had to do, consequences be damned.

and then - on top of this - all of his following actions then point in the exact opposite direction of his stated plan of waiting for everyone to forget about them. because instead of doing anything to fade into the background, everything wei wuxian did instead just convinced the jianghu he was an intolerable threat.

and this was not a sustainable strategy.

one thing i really appreciate about MXTX is that she does not make the rest of the jianghu into one-dimensional villainous morons. it's quite easy for lazy writers who want a persecution plotline to have the rest of the story's society magically start hating on the protagonist for no good reason, to make every background character in the story's world a three-braincell moron. but MXTX is not that author. it speaks to MXTX's skill as an author that, from the perspective of the rest of the jianghu, fearing wei wuxian as a mortal threat was an entirely reasonable conclusion for them to come to.

first, the gentry's most recent direct interaction with wei wuxian during this time period is him threatening to kill all of them. when jin zixun doesn't give him the information he wants, wei wuxian straight up says: "if i want to kill everyone here, who can stop me? who dares stop me?" this is a threat! and - surprise - threatening to kill people naturally makes people think that you want to kill them! 

next, wei wuxian refined wen ning's dead body into the first sentient fierce corpse in history, and also the strongest fierce corpse in living memory - and then took wen ning with him on night-hunts. that's where the reputation of "the yiling patriarch and his ghost general" comes from. this very naturally made the rest of society fear him even more, because now the guy who has just recently threatened to kill you has demonstrated even more of the power to easily do so! the unparalleled power to do so, which no one else possesses and it would be very hard for anyone else to counter! add in the fact that wei wuxian's activities were also attracting prospective disciples - people gathering outside the burial mounds because they wanted to learn demonic cultivation - and naturally the public is even more frightened, because now it looks like the guy who threatened to kill all of you is also gathering the political force to do so!

the public is incorrect about wei wuxian's intentions, of course. but what does wei wuxian do to correct these misconceptions? to rehabilitate his public image, because now his public image has the life of not just himself but also all the wen remnants under his protection riding on it? to prove to the public that he isn't an active threat to their lives - that he does not seek to murder them all in their beds - that it is safe for them to allow him to live, and that they can in fact survive if they don't kill him?

nothing.

it would be one thing if the story mentioned how wei wuxian tried to correct the malicious rumors about himself and failed. but that is not what happened. what happened is that wei wuxian sat on his corpse mountain and let everyone else say what they wanted to say. and when he left his corpse mountain, it was to bring his one-of-a-kind unparalleled sentient fierce corpse with him on night-hunts, which of course just fanned the flames of the rumors instead. he doesn't even tell the prospective pupils camped on his front door to fuck off - he just sneaks in through the back door.

this is not pragmatic behavior. though you can argue that wei wuxian's strategy here was to become so powerful and so scary that no one would dare try to fight him, anyone with a brain can tell you that this is not a sustainable solution in the long-term. first, if you want to use threats to keep someone from attacking you, you also need to promise stability - you need to give people the reassurance that if they don't start shit with you, then you'll leave them alone too. if you drive the "threat" factor too high, as wei wuxian did, you instead end up convincing people that if they do nothing you'll kill them anyways - that they have no choice but to kill you if they want to survive.

second, if you want to use threats to keep someone from attacking you, you also need to prepare for the inevitability that, if someone does end up getting hurt, everyone will blame you first and no one will want to hear your side of the story. after all, if someone gets hurt, then the first suspect everyone looks towards will be the guy who's been consistently saying "i'm strong enough to hurt you! i'm strong enough to hurt you! don't start shit with me because i'm strong enough to end you!" for the past few months. this is basic common sense. and yes, the society of MDZS is unfair - wei wuxian deserved a proper trial and investigation after the death of jin zixuan. but the fact that society is unfair is something a pragmatic person would have recognized and planned for.

wei wuxian did not recognize and plan for this reality. even after he accidentally kills jin zixuan, wei wuxian still insists that if only the jianghu investigates jin zixun's hundred holes curse, they'll see that wei wuxian didn't cast the hundred holes curse, they'll see that there was more scheming going on, etc etc. wen qing has to directly spell out for him that, at this point, society no longer cares about the truth of the matter. it seems that wei wuxian was actually oddly idealistic about the true nature of his society all the way until the very end.

all of this leads me to conclude that, when wei wuxian busted the wen remnants out of the qiongqi pass labor camp, he did so without considering the consequences of his actions. he assumed that he could improvise and weasel his way out of this situation, as he's always done in the past with his typical genius - only this time, he was wrong.

wei wuxian acts without considering the consequences of his actions. he does not make a decision only after carefully deliberating over all of the potential outcomes - not at all. instead, he acts in the moment - not out of any rational consideration of potential outcomes, but rather because it is simply something he must do. this by definition makes him a deeply unpragmatic person.

to put it into more familiar terms, for wei wuxian, the righteousness of an action comes not from its consequences, but are rather inherent to the action itself. even if he were doomed to fail, he could not give up on the wen remnants.

second, at critical junctures, wei wuxian is unable to make moral sacrifices. to be pragmatic is to know when you have to sacrifice: to know when, in order to achieve the most inalienable of your goals, you have to give up on some of your other goals. this is something wei wuxian is consistently unable to do.

of course, when it comes to his own wellbeing, wei wuxian is all too willing to sacrifice. he'll carve out any number of his internal organs to save those he loves. but this honestly speaks less to wei wuxian's moral framework and more to his lack of self-worth from a troubled upbringing.

because, when it comes to any moral cause, wei wuxian is entirely unable to sacrifice anything, even if being unable to sacrifice entails more negative consequences. wei wuxian could not sacrifice mianmian, jin zixuan, and lan wangji to wen chao and his goons, so he took action and took wen chao hostage himself. to sit back and do nothing as wen chao threatened the lives of those three was simply unthinkable for him - even if it meant taking a course of action that put yunmeng jiang in danger.

wei wuxian's relationship with jiang cheng deteriorated because jiang cheng did not know about the golden core transfer: because jiang cheng did not know that wei wuxian could no longer cultivate, from jiang cheng's point of view, it looked like wei wuxian was just refusing to help out and fulfill his promises for kicks. wei wuxian could have made things a lot easier for himself and also any wen remnants he chose to rescue had he simply told jiang cheng the truth - but he knew that finding out the truth of the golden core transfer would make jiang cheng miserable, and [jiang cheng's happiness] was not something he was willing to sacrifice.

wei wuxian's single most prominent moral decision is his refusal to allow the wen remnants to be sacrificed. anyone with a shred of political sense had to know that rescuing the wen remnants and then protecting them would be near impossible - that it entails making an enemy of the jin, and due to the jins' power, the entire jianghu. wei wuxian himself knew this; he is no moron. wei wuxian also had no long-term plan, no allies, and significantly less power than the rest of the world believed. yet, despite this all, he acted anyways, because he could not let the wen remnants be sacrificed.

the wen remnants wei wuxian rescued from the qiongqi pass labor camp included both regular civilians and cultivators. perhaps wei wuxian could have negotiated a proper release for the non-cultivating civilians, such as granny wen and a-yuan, had he chosen to give up on the cultivators. but - the question of whether this would have worked or not aside - this was not a sacrifice wei wuxian would be willing to make.

nor could wei wuxian sacrifice the safety of yunmeng jiang. i am firmly of the belief that, had yunmeng jiang formally stood by wei wuxian's side after wei wuxian attacked the jin-run labor camp, lanling jin would have eventually declared war on yunmeng jiang, and yunmeng jiang's would inevitably be destroyed. both wei wuxian and jiang cheng understood this as well - which is why wei wuxian told jiang cheng to let him go.

(you can argue - successfully - that wei wuxian did in fact sacrifice [his obligations to yunmeng jiang and his promise to jiang cheng] by leaving yunmeng jiang to protect the wen remnants. this is true. but i think that - from wei wuxian's point of view - this was not much of a sacrifice, because due to wei wuxian lacking a golden core, he already viewed himself as mostly useless to yunmeng jiang. so him leaving - in his view - is not really that much of a loss for yunmeng jiang.)

wei wuxian promised wen qing that he would return wen ning's consciousness to his corpse. when wei wuxian made this promise, he had no idea if he could actually pull it off or not. but then he did - and, in the process, created the most dangerous weapon the jianghu had seen in living memory. wen ning specifically, or moreso wei wuxian's inability to control him, leads to so much of wei wuxian's eventual downfall: wei wuxian loses control of wen ning and accidentally kills jin zixuan; when wen ning goes to turn himself in at jinlintai, he ends up going berserk again and killing another 10-20 jin and lan cultivators, which leads to the nightless city pledge conference. frankly, wei wuxian could have avoided a lot of trouble - or at the very least, a lot of the public's fear - had he not raised wen ning from the dead. it's not like he'd be completely defenseless without wen ning, either. but wei wuxian promised wen qing he would resurrect wen ning - and he could not sacrifice his promise to wen qing because of what wen qing had already done for him.

a pragmatic person is able to make sacrifices, including moral ones. at the very least, a pragmatic person recognizes when sacrifice is inevitable, when all paths lead to something being lost. a pragmatic person, put in the trolley problem, would recognize that there were only two options and that both options involve sacrifice: either he must kill one person, or he must allow five people to die. there is no path forwards in which all six people live.

wei wuxian is unable to make moral sacrifices. he clings on to all of these moral causes, all of these promises and obligations, and it is precisely because he attempts to hold onto all of them that he ends up losing everything. to reuse the previous example, wei wuxian in the trolley problem tried to save all six people because he could not accept any of the sacrifices made inevitable by the trolley problem.

to put this all together - wei wuxian is not a pragmatic person. he makes decisions with his gut, not his head - he does not consider the consequences of his actions before he acts. nor is wei wuxian able to make sacrifices - even necessary ones in order to avoid greater tragedies.

but. none of this means that wei wuxian is not a deeply heroic person. rather, to do what you believe to be righteous and attempt to live up to your ideals despite the consequences is exactly what MXTX lauds as moral. and to be unable to make a moral sacrifice when everyone else in your society easily does so is in fact deeply heroic.

it is precisely because wei wuxian is not pragmatic that MXTX declares him a hero.

some people, including myself, favor a moral framework that centers pragmatism and reason as virtues. to us, the ideal moral character is someone who makes decisions based on reason and not emotion, who considers the potential consequences of every course of action before making a decision, and who then, based on these inferred future consequences, uses reason to deduce which of all of the possible outcomes is the most preferable.

but this does not in fact describe wei wuxian, nor is this how wei wuxian views ethics. and to be honest, i don't think this is how MXTX views ethics either.

in all three of her stories, MXTX repeatedly comes down harder on the characters who make pragmatic decisions, the characters who are willing to sacrifice. in fact, killing sunshot soldiers while acting as wen ruohan's spy, and then killing nie mingjue's men in order to ensure a chance at killing wen ruohan and saving nie mingjue, was the pragmatic thing for meng yao to do, because that was the least bloody path forwards towards a sunshot victory over qishan wen. in fact, cutting ties with wei wuxian after he attacked the jin-run qiongqi pass labor camp was the pragmatic thing for jiang cheng to do, because it was the only path forward that did not put yunmeng jiang, his first and foremost responsibility, in the line of fire. and yet (though the situation is less clear with jin guangyao), MDZS as a narrative criticizes both jin guangyao and jiang cheng for these decisions - because, to MDZS, righteousness does not lie in pragmatism.

(this is a statement i personally disagree with. but we are here to discuss what MDZS wants to say about pragmatism and righteousness, not what i want to say about pragmatism and righteousness.)

by contrast, the one single act for which deeply controversial jiang cheng is ultimately lauded for in the narrative is also his single least pragmatic, most emotional act. the one single act of jiang cheng's that MDZS does not criticize is when, after the fall of lotus pier, jiang cheng ran out from his hiding spot to distract the wen soldiers from seeing wei wuxian. from a filial, duty-based point of view, this was a deeply stupid and unpragmatic course of action: jiang cheng's first and foremost duty, as the sole surviving jiang and new sect leader jiang, was to survive, rebuild his sect, and avenge his parents. from a consequentialist point of view, this impulsive choice is also what led to the domino-fall of tragedy that followed, since jiang cheng then got captured and had his golden core melted, which then led to everything else. yet this stupid, unpragmatic, and impulsive decision is ultimately the one act MDZS considers to be jiang cheng's single most heroic.

the key as to what MDZS considers to be heroic, what it considers to be righteous, lies in the jiang family motto: 明知不可而为之, attempt the impossible. this line, taken from the analects of confucius, can be considered to be a deeply deontological ideal. i find this twitter thread (warning to my followers: does kind of dunk on JC) to be rather helpful in elucidating this line's meaning. 

to attempt the impossible, to try what shouldn't be tried. "ask yourself not whether you can do it, but whether you should...consider not the result but rather the journey - have a clear conscience regardless of outcome." in other words, what matters is less whether you succeeded or failed, or what sort of outcome your actions brought about - what matters is that you tried. what matters is that, in the face of overwhelming odds, you tried to do what you think is right. and even if you end up failing - even if everyone you sought to protect ended up dying - the fact that you tried still has moral weight.

this is why it was righteous of wei wuxian to save the wen remnants - even though the ultimate consequences of that decision were overall negative, even though everyone wei wuxian tried to protect died. in fact, if wei wuxian had died immediately - if he had been shot down by jin archers at the qiongqi pass labor camp the moment he came within their range - if he had died before any wen in the labor camp realized someone wanted to save him - he would still be a righteous person. because, for MDZS, what makes an action righteous is not its consequences. for MDZS, what makes a person righteous is not what impact their actions have on the world, but rather that they have the sort of moral character that leads them to never give up on their ideals.

wei wuxian does not consider the consequences of his actions before he acts. or, should i say - wei wuxian makes decisions despite their consequences, because despite the consequences there are simply some moral causes he simply cannot give up on. wei wuxian did not save the wen remnants because it was pragmatic to do so. it was in fact deeply unpragmatic to do so. no - wei wuxian saved the wen remnants without a concrete long-term plan, without having thought through anything beforehand, with the knowledge of how weak he was in reality - because he could not give up on the wen remnants, consequences be damned.

to have some moral causes you simply cannot give up on, no matter the consequences - to MXTX, is deeply heroic. in this sense, MXTX's moral philosophy is not pragmatic at all, because to be pragmatic is to be concerned with practical consequences. instead, both wei wuxian and MXTX herself are deeply idealistic, because what matters to them are ideals and principles that extend beyond consequence.

as the linked twitter thread notes, this is why MXTX waits until the very end of the book to reveal that wen yuan, now lan sizhui, lived. this is why wangxian only meet mianmian and her family at the end of the book. this is why all of the cumulative positive impacts of wei wuxian's resurrection -  jin ling forgiving wei wuxian, jin guangyao, and wen ning, for one - are kept to the end of the story: because MDZS needs to move away from the consequentialist argument. MDZS needs to establish that wei wuxian's righteousness is separate from the impact of his actions: that wei wuxian isn't righteous merely because his actions had a positive impact for which others can thank him, but rather because the actions he undertook were inherently righteous on their own. that even if none of these positive impacts existed - if wen yuan had also died, if mianmian hadn't made it - then wei wuxian's choices would still be moral.

this is also why MDZS ultimately comes down harder on characters like jiang cheng and jin guangyao, even though a more results-oriented moral framework would instead laud such characters. both jiang cheng and jin guangyao are deeply pragmatic characters: they put concrete results before abstract moral ideals, and they're willing to compromise on their ideals in order to achieve better results. i am a JC stan and a jiggy apologist because of these exact traits. but MDZS is a narrative that criticizes such pragmatism and instead holds up wei wuxian's idealism as a moral ideal - so, in order to advance its themes, the MDZS narrative ends up criticizing both jiang cheng and jin guangyao.

ultimately, this idealism - this criticism of pragmatism - lies at the heart of MDZS's themes. wei wuxian's righteousness is directly connected to the fact that he is not pragmatic. the fact that wei wuxian makes moral decisions despite the consequences, and that he is unable to sacrifice any moral cause - is all part of what makes him at once deeply unpragmatic and deeply heroic.

---

you see, the funny thing here is that i personally disagree with this theme. as i've said before, i'm a utilitarian. to me, the morality of an action does in fact arise from its consequences; to me, someone who compromises on their ideals to achieve better results is preferable to someone who adheres to all of their ideals and then loses everything. the character i consider to have had the greatest positive impact on this story's world is jin guangyao. the character i consider to have most dutifully fulfilled his obligations is jiang cheng.

therefore, i disagree with basically everything i wrote up there about "trying": i think that if you try to do the right thing, fail epically, and in the process of your failure get a bunch of other people killed as well, the fact that you failed this badly does in fact matter quite a bit. the bulk of my more haterish posts are born from this fundamental disagreement with what MDZS posits is righteousness.

however. as a reader i must recognize that [what i consider to be moral] and [what the author of this story considers to be moral] are two different things. my own moral philosophy may be heavily results-oriented, but MXTX's is much less so. therefore, regardless of what i think of wei wuxian, i conclude that MXTX ultimately intends for us to read wei wuxian as a heroic figure for the exact reasons i gave above - and that fact must then inform every analysis of MDZS i write.

[petrichorium]

also on my hands and knees dying to know about ur divorce (and perhaps reconciliation maybe…) with sir croc

Firstly I wanna say croc is THE reason for the divorced tier I had everyone in the husband/fiance/bf (and cusp + complicated) tiers I had the list downloaded and then I looked at croc in the husband tier and I was like no. Divorced………

Anyway I think you’re a marriage of convenience at first. Crocodile needs a wife to look more like An Upstanding Citizen Ready To Settle Down for his plans in Alabasta, you need the stability and rapport for your own reasons. A deal was struck (including a nice shiny prenup and an easy way out for both of you), the wedding goes off without a hitch, and now you’re cohabitating.

You’re all but a stranger, truthfully, though he’ll admit you were one of the most beautiful brides he’s seen walking down the aisle. And he finds your presence in his home less distracting than expected—you stay out of his way mostly, though the pair of you eat meals together and sleep in the same bed and you are always expected to be on his arm for formal occasions. You’re more than decent company, slowly warming to him and growing more open; willing to give advice on occasion, even, and it’s good advice he’s prone to heeding.

Which is why he’s blindsided when you drop the papers on his desk. There’s little he can do—they were practically already signed before the wedding, and in the surprise he can’t compose himself enough to think up a proper protest. All he can do is fold his hands together as you turn to leave, clear his throat, and call out, “Might I ask why?”

You shrug. It almost seems sad. “I want something more. You’re a very busy man, I don’t think you can give that to me.”

And those words haunt him, all the more because every trace of you is gone in the span of a few days. He lays in his bed, alone, pondering how much you truly lived in his home and how much he truly had to give you. He thought he made sure you wanted for nothing—but, clearly, that wasn’t the case. And if he’d known you’d be gone in the span of a few years…

In hindsight perhaps he’d been a bit distant. His work took up the vast majority of his time. All those meals were more often than not spent in silence, with Crocodile leaving long before you finished your food; you were often asleep before he came to bed, still slumbering when he woke; he’d arrive to those formal events with you on his arm and part ways almost immediately, drawn to meet with some politician or another and leaving you on your own.

The bed feels empty.

And then he gets a report about Nefertari Vivi. It all goes downhill from there. The empire he spent years building crumbles beneath his feet, toppled by that godforsaken princess and the upstart pirate with a straw hat. And as he’s carted off to Impel Down… he still thinks of you.

It’s perhaps a good thing that you left when you did. In a certain sense it saved you, severing ties with him when you did. But foolishly he wonders about the timing—wonders if it would have happened at all if you’d stayed. Logically he knows the rationale is anything but sound.

Instinctively… whenever he gets out, whatever he intends to do next, he thinks he needs you at his side again.

So when the break-out happens, and Crocodile is given a freedom he’d nearly given up on, the first thing he does is begin to track you down.

It takes more than he thought it would. His web of informants isn’t half of what it once was, and his name no longer pulls as much weight, forced to remain in the shadows as he now is. You, meanwhile, catch onto the mystery person trying to keep tabs on you far too quickly for his liking—flighty thing, never quite setting down roots, quick to flee at the first sign of danger. A trait that has only seemed to worsen in his absence, it seems.

But it’s only a matter of time. He’s Sir Crocodile after all, back from banishment to the depths of the ocean, sure to see the sun again. His men close in on you within a year as he builds up his numbers again, but Crocodile ensures he’s the first to make contact.

He intends to show you immediately how things will be different this time.

You’ve made temporary home on a quaint little island, sharing a house with a little old granny who lets him in eagerly when he presents a bouquet and says it’s for you. There he waits, served tea and biscuits that he doesn’t taste.

And then the door opens. You pause when you see him, eyes wide—donning a breezy sundress you’d never have worn for him in Alabasta, your hair wind-tousled so unlike the meticulous updos he always saw you in, with a basket of produce under arm—and the sight of you has his chest unwinding. It’s like he can breathe again.

Not that he had any intentions to before, but the smell of your familiar perfume steels his resolve to never let you disappear again.

[dynamitekansai]

THE BLOODLINE WWE RAW (DECEMBER 23, 2024)

[etherealspacejelly]

revising for my exams with a plushie in my lap because its that kind of day

[wildsaltair]

not pictured: me lying at his feet in a melted puddle of desire

[quietwingsinthesky]

no i gotta say one more insane thing about them before i go to bed. she’s gotta be so touch-starved, right? like, she’s Always careful, she’s Always covered up, and that one moment where she allows herself to kiss bobby in x2, she goes in so hard and fast and hungry for it that she starts to drain him. but that’s it, that’s as far as she gets to sate it because it’ll always either end with her being pushed away for that person’s safety or with her hurting them so badly that they can’t come back from it.

except. well. that won’t happen with logan. because he’s not scared of her, and he won’t shove her away. he’d let her take and take and take and take. has.

so think about marie getting to feed her touch-starvation bit by bit with him. coaxes herself into hugs where she’s a little less careful, presses her face to his neck for a moment. rolls her sleeve up so he can hold her upper arm. gets to lay in his lap and get her hair pet, little shocks of her power latching onto his fingers as he runs fingers over her scalp. because he’s the only one she can have this with, so he has to let his own barriers down to give it to her. he can’t just let her starve. he wouldn’t. so the wolverine learns how to cuddle. for her.

[mielmoto]

It was rare when Monsters, especially from the Underworld, traveled this far out, but that's why, under Palutena's love and grace, she sends help from above… And that help was getting the ever-living crap beaten out of him.

Pit didn't expect the ambush, and even though he was vastly outnumbered, it did not deter him from protecting what appeared to be their target. Already, he made a mental note that this wasn't just a run-of-the-mill attack; there was an agenda behind this.

"I'm glad you're okay-icus! "

The Captain of Angels was able to gasp out before one of the leftover Mik's wet tongue wrapped around his ankle, the thick appendage pulling him away from the beautiful stranger.

"DON'T WORRY-ICUS, I GOT THIS!! EVERYTHING IS UNDER CON- WHOOOA!"

He is pulled into the thick of it, behind clustered shrubs and overgrown trees—invisible to the naked eye but not soundless. Sounds of monsters screeching and heroic, tired battle cries echo, and the ample foliage shakes and trembles, but all fall into silence and stillness. Heavy panting can be heard behind, ruffling the leaves and twigs as he stumbles in her view, bruised and bloody but victorious.

"Hah...ah... s-see? They didn't know-icus, what hit em'!"

He puffs out his chest in pride, acting as if nothing had happened, despite blood dripping from his nose to his soiled chiton, and then he faints.

The air shimmered, split, then sewed itself together again in less than a moment, depositing its traverser on the other side. A shape which is surreal, sublime, and nigh incomprehensible for only as long as the flicker which delivered her; the girl restored in all her unassuming, delicate glamour. If there'd been any mortal there to witness the affair, they might have thought their eyes played a trick on them, but be otherwise none-the-wiser...bar the fact that a pretty little lady had seemingly appeared out of nowhere.

Thankfully, she'd been careful enough to choose a spot to cross back into the Overworld where even that wouldn't be a concern: quiet, even remote by most standards.

A decision which may prove a little annoying—thinking of how long it would take to trundle her way back to the nearest town on newly-restored legs—but all for the better, as traces of the planes beyond still clung to her edges; an aura, a scent, which might still beguile minds and cause a haze in curious eyes...

...and, perhaps, attracting far more than just that. It felt as though she'd hardly concealed her wings and started navigating the mossy glade when the birdsong dissipated, an unusual quiet ushered in. Mid-day sunlight trickling in between leaves suddenly feels less bright than before, and she feels their arrival before she sees anything: a thick, baleful, fetid pall which assaults the senses and sets the freshly formed baby hairs on the back of her neck standing on end.

The feyling kept on for a few more paces, but fell still as the noxious aspect mounts to a peak. It seemed, despite all her best efforts, she was not as alone in these woods as she'd hoped.

As if on cue: the brush stirred with sound and presence; more sinister, by far, than the average predator lying in wait. Misshapen figures seeping out from the shadows, appearing to manifest from whatever blind-spot or crevice they could; uncanny in a way so much less enchanting than her own kind. Grotesque: all eyes, tongues, and bone; perhaps the occasional tentacle or spider-like limb for decoration.

There is a distance between them. Enough to get a head start if she wanted to run? Maybe. Maybe they'd done it intentionally, so they could enjoy a little chase before descending upon her. Either way, she wasn't about to make it easy on—

❝Ah!??❞ Stars above—what now?

What now? Why, the natural foil to the looming threat, of course: a flash of light from the sky, a visible spark, and the near-blinding glow of glittering wings enchanted by the Goddess, herself; all-but crashing into the space between. Golden flourishes and stark white cloth draped around an athletic (if a bit humble?) figure, and a weapon held tight in his hand. Why, he's the very image of a divine hero, isn't he? Down to the assuring smile he flicks her way, a confident look in his bright, blue eyes.

She's sure he was about to say something equally brave and inspiring, but his being yoinked away, rather unceremoniously, into the fray of battle sort of ruined the moment.

Not that he was going to let it fully stop him, it seemed.

"I'm glad you're okay-icus! "

He'd tumbled just close enough to chirp over a bloodied lip, gasping, only to be rewarded with a baffled blink of long lashes and a rather slimy pull back into the absolute beating at hand.

Some part of her thinks—as she watches (mostly listens) to the angel getting his blessed ass handed to him—that maybe she should try and help him... but she wouldn't want to hurt his pride, now would she? Not with him shouting assurances like that, (desperate for breath and between outbursts of pain), giving his all to the battle...

And, besides that: when the din fades and the thicket stills once more, darkness vanquished, and her 'hero' stumbles out from the brush looking like he just got trampled by a heard of wild beasts—

"Hah...ah... s-see? They didn't know-icus, what hit em'!"

—falling into a graceless, unconscious heap on the mossy floor; the fairy can only think one thing.

Oh. He's perfect.

[bumblingbabooshka]

Ok. Get closer why don’t you.

[im-still-watching-anime]

my dog has decided that this is how we should sleep tonight and ngl i love him but i have some critiques here

[normal-with-adhd-is-a-joke]

I also pet a sheltie today and the lady was talking about how he's super smart and friendly and rarely sheds and doesn't need brushed super often and I was like "I want to take your dog"

[meo-eiru]

Day 3 of Character Trivia Night!

For tonight we have Lavi

Lavi is the son of two high ranking demons

Beauty and power makes you attractive to other demons, so Lavi who had both right from birth was spoiled like no other his whole life

Due to his power and rank it's really hard to summon him so when you did it he assumed you went out of your way to do it and was targeting him specifically

His ideal partner is someone who does what he says and spoils him, if you don't fit that description he'll forcefully make you fit the mold

He likes to stay up late and laze around in bed until lunch time, he'll also force you to follow the same schedule as well

Out of all the boys he's the most likely to visibly get angry at you and take it out on you physically

A lot of stuff makes him angry but there are levels to it and each level brings out a different type of tantum

Low level ones are not including him in something you're doing, not watching the show he wanted to watch, complimenting animals and/or inanimate objects when he's right there, not kissing him as soon as you wake up etc. These don't cause big outbursts but will cause him to act extra needy

Mid level ones are going out without him, forcing him to wear something he doesn't like, not praising him properly, being in a room with other men, not having sex with him as soon as he shows signs of wanting it, not responding when he's talking to you etc. These ones will cause bigger outbursts, often public. He'll be crying, screaming and stomping his feet. He might pull your clothes or hair or physically attack someone near you

High level ones are actually sleeping with someone else, actively ignoring him to pay attention to someone else, badmouthing and/or insulting him, attempting or managing to summon another demon, attempting to exorcise him and/or physically hurting him with holy items etc. With these he'll be mad. It's pretty much over for everyone around. If the offense is tied to someone else like a man you were with or a demon you summoned he'll personally make their face unrecognizable, drag their bloodied body around in hell and hang it on a high spot to set an example. When it comes to you he won't be screaming like his normal tantrums, he'll just grab you by your hair and drag you to a bedroom. If you try to protest he'll pierce your skin with his nails deep and leave bleeding scratch marks to make sure you remember what he'll do to you forever. He might also dig his heels into your skin depending on how much you're fighting back.

He can burn others, charm them or suck out their life energy. He's small but does have inhumane strength and speed

His blood can work as a light aphrodisiac but is addictive

No matter what type of personality you have he'll force you to be on top of him during sex

He really likes it when you mark his skin and if it's for sex you're allowed to choke him too. The next day he'll run out half naked just to make the people around see the marks

Once you tried going to work/school while he was still asleep but he unfortunately raided the building as soon as he realized you were gone and threw the desks around until you let him sit on your lap as you worked

His wings and tail can be quite sensitive

He likes to wrap the tail around your leg while you two are having sex and squeeze it hard

He likes being manhandled if it's for foreplay

He wants you to spoil him and buy him all the clothes and accessories he wants and hasn't asked for yet, he doesn't really care if you end up in debt or something, he can always just drag your soul down to hell with him

But he lowkey enjoys watching you struggle to take care of him

He doesn't need to eat but he loves anything sweet, if a normal human tried eating the desserts he eats on a daily basis they'd die from sugar overdose

He loves to publicly shame anyone who shows interest in him while he's already with you and expects you to do the same

His skin is completely spotless, not a single scar which is something to proud of as a demon. It's one of the reasons why he exposes so much skin

[rafayelxsylusho]

LADS men and their kink$.

Xavier🌟

Hair pulling: He loves it when you take charge, especially when his face is buried in between your pretty thighs, he thinks there is nothing better than feeling your fingers tangling, tugging, holding him in place as he eats your pussy The slight sting of pain as you grip tighter, urging him closer, demanding more.. and when he is buried deep inside you, he wants your nails digging into his scalp as he takes you hard and fast.

Face fucking: He loves seeing your pretty lips stretched wide around his cock to take him in, the softness of them against his shaft, taking him so deep and feeling your throat swallow around him, fighting to take him deeper even as he fucks into your face. Seeing tears spring to your eyes, your makeup running down your face as he fuck your throat raw. Knowing he reduced you to a sloppy, desperate mess.

He likes hearing the obscene sounds of his cock pounding your throat, the slick, sloppy noises of you choking on his dick, t's the headiest fucking turn-on.

Cockwarming: Feeling your soft, pliant body mold around his hard, aching length, It's like your pussy is welcoming him home, embracing him, enveloping him in the most exquisite way possible. He loves the way your walls flutter and clench around him, like they never want to let him go, like they're trying to keep him deep inside you. He likes this especially when he just needs to feel you, if he is exhausted after training he just wants you sitting on his lap, cock buried deep inside while he savours the feeling.

Cunnilingus: We all know he is a thighs man, he loves the feeling of your thighs trembling against his ears, hearing your breathy cries and needy whimpers echoing off the walls as he devours your pussy like a starving man at a feast. He takes pride in reducing you to a writhing, mewling mess, in knowing that he is the one driving you to the brink of ecstasy with just his mouth and tongue. But most of all, he loves worshipping you like this. Showing you with every lap of his tongue, every press of his lips, every suckle and nibble, just how much he fucking adores you. His deep blue eyes never leave your face.

Zayne🥼

Orgasm denial: This man will give you the world if you ask him to but ooohh how he loves knowing that he has the power to unravel you, to push you to the very brink of madness with pleasure, and yet hold you back, keep you teetering on that edge. He feels there's a certain thrill in pushing you to your limits, in watching your body tremble and your face contort as you beg so sweetly for release. He likes knowing that he is the one in control, the one dictating your pleasure, that with a word, a touch, he can either grant you the explosive climax you crave or deny you and leave you aching, wanting, needing. After all it's like he says "Patience is a virtue"

Bondage: Its the rush of knowing that he can do anything he wants to your body and you can only lie there and take it. Bondage is about trust and he loves knowing that you entrust yourself completely to his care, his guidance, his mercy, even as he pushes your boundaries, even as he takes you to the very limits of your endurance, you still have faith in him, faith that he would never truly hurt you, that he will always keep you safe, sated and utterly, completely satisfied. And he also likes to see your wrists and ankles bound, the delicate skin flushed and slightly chafed from the friction of the rope or satin ties.

Dry humping: Dry humping you in that damn rocking chair. It's the perfect combination of intimacy and tease. Having you straddled across his lap, your soft, pliant body pressed against his. The rocking chair provides the ideal rhythm, the constant, sensual undulation of bodies grinding together, building a delicious friction and pressure that sets your nerves alight. The way your cunt grinds against his cock, the damp heat of your arousal seeping through to soak his pants, marking him and letting him feel how fucking desperate you are.

Temp play: The contrast of heat and cold, he likes the way it makes your skin flush and your nerves sing, your body both yearning for and recoiling from the sensation. Watching your nipples harden and your skin prickle, seeing your body's instinctive reaction to the temperature shift is a fucking erotic spectacle to him. He loves the way the heat makes your cunt drip and your juices flow, your body preparing itself, readying itself for the pleasure to come and the way the coolness makes you clench and flutter, your greedy hole aching to be stretched and filled and stuffed full. The contrast is like a drug, a high like no other.

Caleb🪐

Uniforms: He likes the way the uniform looks on him, the way it showcases the power and the strength of his body, the way it screams that he is a man of action, a man who can protect you, cherish you, and fuck you in equal measure. The uniform represents a part of his life, a duty, a responsibility and the thrill of defiling it, of marking it with your touch, your scent, your juices drives him crazy. Besides he knows you like the way his uniform looks when it's slightly askew, his hair tousled, his shirt unbuttoned, as he pins you against the wall and fucks you hard, fast and deep.

Spit: Maybe it's the depravity of it, the absolute filth, the way it marks you as his, desperate for any taste of him, no matter how degrading. He loves watching you open your pretty mouth, your lips part and your tongue flick out to catch the first drop of his saliva, it drives him fucking crazy to know that you're so fucking eager, so hungry, that you'll take whatever he gives you, no matter what it is. Once he feels your throat under his thumb, swallowing, he is done for.

Overstimulation: He knows that even as you beg for a break, for a moment to breathe, you still crave more. Knows that your body is so hungry for it, greedy for every touch, every kiss, every thrust. He gets a rush knowing that he can take you to the edge of oblivion and back again, as many times as he wants, that he is the one dragging you kicking and screaming into a world of ecstasy you never even knew existed.

Brat taming: He hates it when you get all defiant and bratty, but he loves seeing you go from mouthy and defiant to a begging, cock-drunk mess in his arms. He loves every second of taming your fiery spirit, of breaking you down and building you back up exactly how he wants you. Every time it's like a red flag waved in front of a bull, a fucking challenge he can't resist taking up.

Rafayel 🐡

Choking: He gets hard the moment he sees your eyes roll back, your cheeks flushed, your mouth open and your tongue lolling out, it's like watching a piece of art come to life, a masterpiece painted in the colors of desperation and need. He loves feeling your pulse jump and race beneath his fingers, knowing that he is the one making your heart pound, making your lungs burn, making your world narrow down to the simple, primal sensation of his hands around your throat.

Semi public: He likes playing with fire after all, that's why he loves the thrill of it, the adrenaline that races through his veins when he has you pinned against a wall, or bent over a desk, knowing that anyone could walk by and see him claiming you, fucking you, ruining you in broad fucking daylight. He knows that no matter where you are, no matter who might see you, all you can focus on is the feeling of his cock splitting you open and claiming you.

Eye contact: Looking into your eyes while he is buried inside you, while he is claiming you, ruining you, wrecking you it's the most intimate and the most erotic work of art he could ever create

He needs to see your face when you come undone. He needs to watch the way your eyes glaze over with pleasure, the way they flutter shut and then fly open wide as you cum. He needs to witness the way your pupils dilate with each thrust, each push, each drag of his cock along your walls. And the way you look at him when you're coming, the way your eyes go blank, the way you just stare at him like he's the only thing that matters, the only thing that exists in that moment.

Wax play: He loves seeing the way the hot, molten wax paints your skin, watching it drip and slide over every dip and curve of your body, it's like an artist watching his masterpiece come to life, and the way it feels, the way it coats your body like a second skin, trapping your heat, your desire, your desperation. He likes to know that he's the one shaping it, the one molding it, the one creating something beautiful and erotic and completely for his pleasure.

Sylus 🐦‍⬛

Size: He is big in every sense of the word, he likes to see how small your hand is compared to his, how his much larger hand wraps around your slender throat, feeling your pulse race beneath his fingers as he squeezes, it's like holding your life in his hands, owning your very existence. He loves the way his cock splits your little mouth open, stretching your jaw wide, forcing you to take every inch of his thick, hard length. Seeing you gag and choke on his size, feeling your throat convulse around him as you struggle to take it all.

Body worship: He likes to map every single inch of your body with his hands, his lips, his tongue, he wants to learn it by heart, to know it better than he knows his own name. He want to worship at the altar of your flesh, to offer up every single sinful, delicious prayer he can think of to the goddess that is your body. This man could spend hours, days, fucking years just exploring your body with his hands, with his mouth, with every inch of his being.

Dirty talk: He loves to watch your eyes widen, see your cheeks blush, hear your breath hitch, knowing that he can reduce you to a needy, desperate, wanton mess with just his words alone turns him on. This man tells you exactly what he is going to do to your body. He wants you to hear every filthy, depraved, utterly fucking obscene thing that crosses his mind as he imagines all the ways he is going to claim you.

Breeding: he wants to fuck you full of his cum, he wants to pump you so full that you're dripping with it, that it's leaking out of you, that you're drenched in the proof of how thoroughly he bred you, but even better is the idea of pushing it all back inside with his fingers. And just the thought of putting a baby in you, of watching your body change and grow and blossom with new life is enough to drive him insane.

ALL 5 OF THEM 🐦‍⬛🐡🪐🥼🌟

Marking: He loves the red imprints of his fingers on your hips, ass and thighs, teeth marks littering the lush curves of your tits and neck, it's like a brand, a tattoo of his ownership etched into your flesh. He wants the world to look at you and know that your body belongs to him.

[vanillarosekiss]

sweet thoughts about each of tf141’s favourite positions 𝜗𝜚 ⋆˚࿔

warnings: this post contains descriptions of smut

simon's favourite position with you would definitely be mating press or doggy style. It depends on his mood, but he usually likes mating press for when he knows he’s going to fuck his load into your pussy over and over again, relentlessly. It gives him easy access to your core and allows him to really hit the spot deep in you, with the plus of being able to watch your sweet expressions as he drills your sopping hole with no mercy. He also ideally liked the way that mating press came with the added extra of seeing your stomach bulge with the outline of his cock, thick and deep, filling you up so nicely.

john's would be good ol’ missionary, preferring to have you underneath him and helpless as he assaulted your mound, his thick cock making your walls tighten around him, threatening to come right that very moment. However, he would also enjoy you being on top from time to time, maybe when he’s busy or just tired, he likes to watch his pretty girl ride him in cowgirl until you get flustered and overstimulated by the friction on your sensitive little clit.

johnny would have you in reverse cowgirl all day if he could, loving the sight of your peachy bum rippling as he guides your hips up and down hard on his lengthy cock. It also allows for him to pull your hair back, your body following, pressing into his chest as he groans and kisses your neck. He enjoyed reaching around to your stomach and feeling his dick pump in and out of your sweet pussy, tightening around him with every thrust.

kyle's favourite position would be the lotus, loving the feel of intimacy and romance that comes with it. You were sitting in his lap, his hands gently guiding your hips down onto his, pussy lapping up his cock like there was no tomorrow. The face to face contact only intensified both of your climax’s, allowing for extra passionate kissing in between thrusts, moans melting in your mouths as your orgasm began to build up, clit getting friction from rubbing against his lower abdomen.

[21280]

my first sauna experience, told with katsuki bakugo. warnings for nsfw, afab reader, no pronouns used tho! reader wears a bikini, semi public? (it's a sauna), bit of nipple play, kats likes boobs n booty, hickeys, uses of "babe" and "bitch", fingering, mentions of the pill.

katsuki bakugo despises saunas. he sweats like crazy during his day to day life, so him being trapped in a room that makes him sweat balls isn't ideal. unless, he's trapped inside with you.

what started out as a pool day to cool off led to to borderline suffocation, the vapor and eucalyptus leaves making your body tense up even more as you straddle the blond's lap. his lips clash against yours in a hungry, desperate kiss, as his hands roam over your thighs.

katsuki bakugo is intoxicating. once you kiss him, it suddenly becomes impossible to stop. the way his tongue slips past your lips to wrestle yours so easily, how he bites your bottom lip not too hard for it to bleed, but hard enough to leave a mark, how he always manages to find that sweet spot on your neck as he nibbles his way to your breasts—

katsuki bakugo is a fucking genius. sometimes.

there's a limit to his greatness. because you're katsuki's first everything, and he's fucking clueless. as his hand carefully (and cluelessly) fondles your breast beneath your bikini, you giggle. looking at him, you smile. "you can leave a mark on me, y'know? i don't bite."

he scoffs, "you think i wanna hear shit from my mom during lunch when she sees you?"

"you can leave it somewhere she doesn't see, kats. i'll give you creative liberty, picasso."

katsuki retrives his hand as he starts to think. his looks your body up and down, looking for a spot. neck is a no-go, you never wear turtlenecks. thighs and stomach are off limits too, because half your closet is filled with cropped tshirts and shorts. you knew he had figured something out when his fingers gently pushed aside your bikini, driving his mouth to your breast. he suckles on a spot right above your nipple, as his fingers pinch to his liking.

your body's quick to react, back arching slightly as your hand is placed on katsuki's chest. "careful" you hiss, and he pays no mind. unconsciously, you buck your hips towards him, earning a groan in return. you let your hands roam through his hair, when he pulls away, a smirk is plastered on his face. "kinda looks like a heart. i did a damn good job."

his lips connect with yours once again, and his hands lower towards your ass. it's not unusual for katsuki to do so, but you notice their trajectory is a bit different this time. his fingers brush over the hem of your panties as you shudder, holding back a moan.

"let me see it" he demands, "just once."

and you nod, looking up at the ceiling from pure embarrassment. because it hasn't been too long since you and katsuki have been intimate. it drives you crazy how he's not shameful at all.

he pushes your panties to the side, groaning at the sight. his fingers ghost over your clit, two of them slowly sinking inside you. the sight of you taking his fingers is enough for katsuki to feel his cock twitch with excitement in his swim trunks. and as they begin to thrust, you lean closer to him, mewling his name right in his ear. it’s exhilarating, the thought that anyone could burst through the door is enough for katsuki to speed things up, just the way he likes it.

you curse your boyfriend’s coarse fingers, the sounds that escaped your lips were so raw, so lewd—you thought the security guard would bust you down at any second. and as you gripped desperately on katsuki's shoulders, he hums. it’s mostly during these moments when you see a side to katsuki bakugo the world has never seen.

“fuck—i need your pretty pussy. right now—please—just take me raw.”

katsuki bakugo begs.

your eyes widen at his statement, “katsuki, you do realize i’m not on the pill, right?”

he abruptly retrieves his fingers. “i’ll pull out, i swear—just fucking do it.”

you giggle at your boyfriend’s neediness, “you do realize if something goes wrong, we’ll have little me’s running around in a few months, right? it’s a no for now, kats. we’re still young.”

katsuki sighs, his hands guiding your hips as he aligned your entrance with his clothed cock. “then fucking use me. got that?”

you waste no time rocking your hips, slowly grinding against his bulge. with his hands still on you, katsuki throws his head back as he bucks his hips forward, helping you quicken the pace. “d’you know how good you feel? ‘s like you’re riding me, babe.”

you know katsuki is long gone from pleasure when he pulls out the names. when he’s a moaning mess, hungrily pulling you towards him, you know you have him right where you want him. a few slaps, rough kisses, and hair pulling, and katsuki is at his limit.

“fuck—bitch—i’m done” is what he manages to say before he comes undone, his forehead bumping against yours as he mutters a small ‘i love you.’

as you catch your breath, you plant a quick peck on your boyfriend’s cheek. “you ready for lunch with your parents, kats?”

“you shitting me?” he asks, bewildered. “you’re lucky i’m changing my trunks, cause i got nut all over.”

[rhaenyratargcryen]

you're my shotgun lover and i want it all | tyler owens (twisters)

masterlist ❈

summary: Every once in a while, the two of you will get a little too drunk, stay until last call, sneak back to your motel room, and fuck. Nobody knows – at least you don’t think they do – and you never talk about it when you’re sober. Tyler will generally stay until you fall asleep, but he’s always gone when you get up the next day. Only once has he woken up in bed with you the next morning, and you’ve never made that mistake again. There isn’t a name for what you feel for him, you don’t think, and you can’t tell what he thinks of the arrangement. Clearly he likes it, or he wouldn’t be making eyes at you from across three people’s laps as you pull these peanuts from their shells. author's note: i...wrote this...in one.......single......afternoon. my fingers hurt anyway he's so hot i have had a crush on glen powell since 2018 (set it up supremacy) but this movie reawakened something in me. i should probably watch top gun now

pairing: tyler owens x f!reader word count: 9,123 (...oopsie) warnings/tags: pWp (with, y'all!), alternate universe: canon divergence, friends to lovers, friends with benefits

also cross-posted to ao3 okay love you bye xoxo your comments and reblogs are appreciated but not required i will love you all the same i hope u like !!!! <3

all characters are 18+ these are 18+ activities minors pls do not interact my eye is twitching as i write this 

It has been one hell of a week.

The tornadic activity has been off the charts – more storms built up under ideal conditions for weather hell-bent on destruction in a multiple-day stretch than you can remember ever tracking before. Your team had obviously been up for the chase, but now that the storms have passed, and the sun shines on the cleanup efforts, you can’t help but wish you’d chosen a different life path. You love what you do, but God, were you tired. Blisters have formed on the palms of your hands despite the gloves you’d donned. You could practically feel the knots forming in your neck. You shovel one more load of leaf litter before heaving the blade into the ground and leaning against it. Across from you, a backhoe is demolishing and excavating the remains of a house.

You close your eyes and try to just let the sun warm your face, thinking about how fast it can all just be gone. Mother Nature’s a beautiful force, but she can be cruel.

“Hey, don’t be slowin’ down on me,” Tyler jokes, clapping a hand between your shoulder blades. You hadn’t heard him approach, and his voice has startled you, pulling you from your thoughts. “We’re ‘bout halfway done with our part, I think.”

“No,” you reply, swiping the back of your arm across your forehead, trying in vain to clear your bangs from your eyes, but they won’t budge. Tyler reaches up and, almost as if he isn’t even thinking about it, takes the unruly pieces of hair between his thumb and forefinger and tucks it behind your ear, underneath the temple of your sunglasses, to make sure it stays this time. The action is so intimate it sends a flush crawling up your neck. You chance a look around to make sure no one else has seen. “Not slowin’ down, I promise. Just thinking about how lucky we are to be alive. How sad it is that all these people just lost everything.”

You’ve known Tyler since the two of you were in college together, fast friends who’d stuck together through a lot that could've put a strain on any other relationship, although you hadn’t studied meteorology – you’d been in school to be a librarian. 

One night, he’d asked you to stay up and help him with a lab he’d missed for one of his classes, and he loves to say he knew it then – that you were hooked – but you were too far along in your degree to do anything about it now. Switching from an arts degree to one in STEM? You’d have had to start over from scratch. 

Tyler had formed his team while you were in grad school and he was working as a cowboy for the rodeo back home, and you’d dropped out without a second thought when he asked you to be a founding member, to travel the country with him every tornado season. Said he wouldn’t – couldn’t – think about doing it without you. You’ve been riding with him ever since.

The two of you share everything, always have, and sometimes you wonder if it might be too much for the professional relationship you’re supposed to have.

“That’s what we’re here for,” Tyler grins, the hand still glued to your back rubbing gently, sending goosebumps across your skin under your shirt. “To help ‘em feel like their luck is turnin’.”

Always the optimist, Tyler Owens. He clears his throat, the hand on your back pulling away, and steps slightly closer to you.

“One of the folks over there gave these to me,” he says, gesturing to a group of people gathering in front of a house that looks like something had tried to suck it into the ground from dead center. “I saved their cat from their screened-in porch, poor thing had been yowling all night apparently. Know these’re your favorite, so, here you go. I think you earned it.”

You take the tin from him and open it, your mouth instantly watering at the sight of the small, round butter cookies inside. “God,” you groan, picking one up and taking a bite, savoring it over your tongue. You can feel Tyler watching you carefully. “Thank you. You get me.”

“Do we get cookies, Tyler?”

Lily’s voice sounds from your left, and you glance over at her. The shit-eating look on her face tells you she did see Tyler fix your hair for you. Your stomach somersaults.

“If you’re good,” Tyler says, smirking, “after the sun sets, we can head back to the motel, find some shitty bar, and drinks’ll be on me, okay? How’s that sound?”

Lily whoops, turning to Dani, who’d since appeared beside her, and the two snicker and fist bump. 

“You need any help over here?”

You look back at Tyler, cupping one hand above your eyes to shield them from the sunlight. Despite your glasses, it shines bright from directly behind him, and you can hardly stand to look at him. 

“Yeah, I’m good,” you murmur in reply, bending down to toss some siding that had been blown off one of the houses on this street into the wheelbarrow you’ve been using. “You should go see what Boone’s up to – I don’t think anyone has seen him in a minute.”

No doubt Boone was hiding somewhere with one of the breakfast burritos Lily and Dani have been rolling since early that morning, seeing how long he can get away with not doing his part. He’s a good guy, but the manual labor side of the job isn’t really his thing.

“Eh, he’s better off wherever he is,” Tyler laughs, and a small smile takes over your face, too. “Hey, you sure you’re okay? You don’t need a break? You can take a minute to yourself, no one’ll judge. I know how this can all get to you a little more than it gets to everyone else.”

You know him well enough to know he’s not calling you weak-stomached, that he’s genuinely concerned for how you feel, but he’s right. It does all get to you. Settling in to help survivors of these natural disasters is just something that comes with the chasing – there isn’t one without the other for you and the rest of the crew. You nod, glancing back up at him. 

“I’m okay, Tyler. Go off and be the face of the operation – you don’t have to worry about me.”

Tyler’s eyes narrow, his gaze shifting between your eyes, trying to find evidence you’re withholding the truth from him, but he seems to find nothing. With a minute tip of his head, he turns to resume working through a long-term plan for rebuilding the town with the mayor and some other members of the local government. 

This is something else you know he loves to do – shmooze with higher-ups, show off his people skills. Not only are they higher-ups, they’re small-town folk. His kind of people. He knows how to get through to them, how to get them to trust him. You love that about Tyler. He’s never condescending – he always has a genuine desire to help. He’s been through this hundreds of times, and these people may only have been through it this one time. You look around at them, at the people of all ages picking up the pieces that remain of their community, then cross your fingers and send a thought out to anyone listening:

Please let it be the only time.

After a few more hours of genuinely back-breaking work, you hear Tyler’s sharp whistle and know it’s time, meandering over to his truck where it’s been parked for almost eighteen hours. Using your teeth, you pull your gloves from your hands and hiss. They’ve been rubbed raw, the skin blistering where each finger meets the palm. You try to ignore the throbbing sensation, leaning against the passenger side door and closing your eyes. The rest of the crew sidle up to you, taking long drags from water bottles and cigarettes and trying to make peace with how you’re leaving this place tonight.

“Does anyone else want to break off to shower first?”

It seems Dani’s the only one, and they shrug, putting their hand out, palm up, to Dexter, who hands them the keys to the RV.

“Meet y’all there,” they say, stifling a yawn, and you know it’ll be a bit before you see them. The rest of you will have to pile into Tyler’s truck, and before you can object, the other three crawl into the back seat and leave you on the front bench with Tyler. You let yourself in and close the door behind you, buckling and watching as Tyler shakes someone’s hand and hustles to meet the rest of you. His Texans cap hits the bench before he does, between the two of you, and he turns his keys in the ignition, buckling his own seatbelt.

“Where we headin’?”

“There’s a place with a mechanical bull nearby. I vote there.”

“How nearby is ‘nearby,’ Boone?”

“Uh,” he pulls his phone from his pocket, does a quick Google to double-check. “Forty-five minutes?”

Dexter leans over and grips Boone’s phone, reading the screen. “In the opposite direction of the motel, Boone.”

Everyone groans, objecting, and you press your hand against your temple to alleviate the pressure there. The noise, God, the noise.

“Could we go somewhere closer to the motel, maybe?”

“It’s got a mechanical bull,” Boone stresses, and everyone rolls their eyes.

“Boone, you know damn well we’re not making it back to the motel if we go that far away.”

He groans, and you pull your own phone out, checking Maps to see what’s around the motel.

“This one’s three minutes from where we’re stayin’,” you say, showing Tyler your screen, and he nods, shifting into reverse, backing out, and starting down the one lane of the street that’s been cleared of debris. 

“Hey Boone,” you toss over your shoulder as Tyler shifts into second gear. “By the way. Long time no see.”

Lily snorts, smacking you on the shoulder to let you know she thought that was a good one. Boone shakes his head. 

“Hey, just because you didn’t see me all day doesn’t mean I wasn’t out there, too. How do I know you were workin’, weren’t sitting on your ass in the shade somewhere, hm?”

You hold your raw, red palms out for him to inspect and that shuts Boone up quick. Tyler whistles as he gets an eyeful of your skin.

“God damn, girl,” Lily murmurs. “That looks like it hurts. I think I might have Aquaphor in my bag back at the motel if you want some.”

“I’ll be alright,” you reply, knocking your elbow against her knee behind you in thanks. “Appreciate you.”

The rest of the drive is taken mostly in silence, everyone in the backseat trying to rest their eyes, but you stay up, your eyes on the road, so Tyler isn’t the only one making the thirty-ish minute drive back to where you’re staying, where you checked in only after it’d been decided which towns had been hit the worst, so you could reach all of them easily by truck.

“What’s goin’ on in your head? Hm?”

You turn to look at Tyler and he glances at you from out of the corner of his eye, then at your lap, at the fingernails you’ve picked down to the quick. “Real quiet over there.”

“Nothing,” you reply, your voice barely above a whisper.

“Don’t let Boone get to you,” Tyler says, tapping his right fist on your thigh once, twice, then letting it rest there. You brush your knuckles against his and he opens the fist immediately, taking your hand in his but not squeezing, careful not to put pressure on the blisters on your palms.

“It’s not that,” you start, then realize your mistake, your admission. “I really – I think I’m just tired. It’s been a long week.”

You’re acutely aware of your hand in Tyler’s. It’s not like you’ve ever been shy around him – your cheeks flush at the thought – but this is…different. Sweet. More.

“Yeah, that it has,” he sighs, adjusting his left hand on the steering wheel so he can drive a little more comfortably, but his right hand stays in yours. 

You settle back into silence, Tyler seemingly having dropped the subject, and your eyes return to the road, but you feel him looking over at you, checking on you, every once in a while. You try your hardest not to meet his gaze. 

Soon enough, Tyler is putting the truck in park, then shutting the thing off. The noise – or lack thereof, you guess – wakes Dexter in the back, then Lily, who snorts when she sees your hand in Tyler’s. You pull away and unbuckle your seatbelt, watching as Tyler, with a hurt look on his face, wipes his hand on his jeans and swings himself down and out of the truck.

“C’mon, Boone,” he shouts, slapping a hand on the door that Boone has his head resting against, and the man sits up straight, wiping sleep from his eyes. “The sun hasn’t even gone down yet. Drinks on me, pal!”

The motel really is that close to the bar, so you all decide you’ll leave the truck parked there and walk home at the end of the night. The unspoken verdict is that you will all be getting shitfaced tonight.

The lingering smell of cigarettes in the air seems to rejuvenate everyone and Lily pumps a fist when she spots the old-fashioned jukebox across the room, then claps a hand over her mouth when she realizes there’s a TouchTunes sitting right next to it.

“Oh, I am so forcing you fuckers to listen to Chappell Roan all night,” she says gleefully, and you laugh along with her, looping your arm in hers and letting her pull you across the room while the boys settle in at the bar.

“So what was that all about?”

“What was what all about?” You play dumb, shrugging when Lily gives you a hard look and unhooks her arm from yours.

“Girl, seriously,” Lily scoffs, bumping your hip with hers and slipping a twenty dollar bill into the TouchTunes. Evidently she wasn’t joking when she meant you’d be listening to Chappell Roan all night. “I saw that thing earlier, the hair thing, don’t think I didn’t. And y’all holding hands in the truck. What’s going on there?”

You shake your head but she grabs your wrist. “I’m serious, Lil. Nothing’s going on. We’re friends – good friends. He noticed I was having a hard time today, and wanted to make sure I was alright. That’s all.”

You can tell she doesn’t fully believe you, and when she opens her mouth to object, you cut her off.

“I’m gonna run to the bathroom, okay?”

Lily watches you, trying to read the small line between your eyebrows, but eventually she nods and lets go of you, letting you turn away from her. You push through the door to the women’s restroom, your nose wrinkling at the smell, but you ignore it. Standing in front of the sink, you watch yourself, hands shaking. This isn’t you. You’re better than this at shoving these feelings for Tyler down, way down – or, rather, you had been, up until this week broke you, apparently. Turning the knob for the cold water to the left, you let it run over your sore hands, hissing at the feeling. Carefully, you cup your palms and watch them fill, then splash the water onto your face, soothing the flush. There. That should help.

There’s a cold bottle of Coors in front of the seat next to Dexter when you arrive back to the group, “Red Wine Supernova” playing from the speakers. You almost snort at all the old men – regulars, no doubt – groaning out their distaste for whoever chose the music all across the room.

“Thanks,” you toss over your shoulder at Tyler, sitting on the other side of Dexter and Boone. He nods and nurses his own. You frown and settle onto the stool, leaning an elbow on the bartop so you can turn and face your friends. The cold beer against the palms of your hands feels so nice.

What’s wrong with him? He won’t make eye contact with you, and you notice his jaw clicking as he grits his teeth. What’s got his panties in a twist?

As the night unfolds, you find yourself laughing more and more, loosening up, letting the stress of the last week fade into memory. Someone has produced a deck of cards from God knows where and Dani – who did join the group eventually – is showing off card tricks you didn’t even know they knew. You feel a warmth spreading through your body, and you can’t stop thinking about how much you love all of these people. Your friends. Your family. Empty bottles are swiftly replaced with full, cold ones without notice, and everyone is languid, relaxed, unburdened by the work that you’re all doing.

You take a pull from your drink, using the cover of the bottle to risk a glance to Tyler three seats down from you to find that he’s already watching you, and the look in his eye tells you exactly what he’s thinking. That somersault-y feeling is lower than your stomach now. You’re only three beers deep, but the air in your head reminds you that you’ve barely eaten all day, so you’re a little more affected by the alcohol than you’d usually be. Impolitely, you reach across Dexter next to you to grab a handful of peanuts from the basket to his left.

Glancing back up at Tyler, you meet his heady gaze again, and he smirks around the lip of the bottle against his mouth. He knows he’s got you right where he wants you. You swallow nervously around another sip of beer.

Every once in a while, the two of you will get a little too drunk, stay until last call, sneak back to your motel room, and fuck. Nobody knows – at least you don’t think they do – and you never talk about it when you’re sober. Tyler will generally stay until you fall asleep, but he’s always gone when you get up the next day. Only once has he woken up in bed with you the next morning, and you’ve never made that mistake again. There isn’t a name for what you feel for him, you don’t think, and you can’t tell what he thinks of the arrangement. Clearly he likes it, or he wouldn’t be making eyes at you from across three people’s laps as you pull these peanuts from their shells.

“Alright, y’all,” Lily says, slapping a hand on the bar, startling you out of your thoughts. You watch her, popping a nut into your mouth. “Think I’m gonna head out. I suggest you all do, too, fuckers, it’s late.”

Everyone starts to protest, but one glance at the clock tells you you’ve all stayed much longer than you thought – it’s a quarter past midnight, and you’ve got to be up with the daylight. You balk, but if you want to talk to Tyler tonight, you know you’ve got to shoulder your exhaustion and stick it out a little longer.

“I think I might stay for a bit,” you murmur, watching everyone stand and gather their things. You glance over at Tyler, who you can see clearly now that everyone’s out of their seats, and he’s watching you, too. The look on his face reads plain, now – he wants you.

“I’ll stay with her,” he says, eyes on yours. The green in them has disappeared almost completely, you notice, his pupils blown wide. “Walk her back. Y’all head back if you want.”

“I might stay, too –” Boone’s voice cuts off, coughing as Lily elbows him in the stomach, maybe a little too hard. “What the fuck was that for?”

“You’re going to bed, too, Boone,” Dani interrupts, a hand on his shoulder, guiding him towards the door. They poke him once when he starts to protest. “C’mon, now.”

Everyone shuffles out the front, Dexter calling good night, and all of the sudden, it’s just you and Tyler. You don’t know why, but your palms begin to sweat at the thought of being alone with him again. He stands, palming his drink, and slides onto the seat next to you, his body angled towards yours.

He’s never made you nervous like this. You don’t know what the fuck is wrong with you.

“So,” Tyler starts, grinning at you. “You come here often?”

You snort, emboldened by the booze, and he chuckles in response. “Idiot.”

“God, but I do love making you laugh.”

You blush under his scrutinous gaze, and take a quick swig of the dregs of your drink, unsure what to say to that. He mirrors you, taking a sip of his own while his eyes bore into yours. Accusatory.

“You don’t do it much anymore, you know that?”

“Do what?”

“Laugh.”

You press your fingertips to your mouth and Tyler’s eyes follow your hand. “I guess I just haven’t had much to laugh about lately,” you start, sighing deeply. “Tornado season’s been hard this year, and you know how much that – it gets to me. As much as I love what we do. You know. Remember that family a couple weeks back whose daughter was stuck under her bunk bed when it pressed on her too long, lost her leg below the knee? That got to me, Tyler. It did.”

“It gets to me, too,” he murmurs, knocking his knee against yours. “I guess I’m just better at hiding how bad it affects me. You can talk to me about it, though. You can talk to any of us.”

“I know I can,” you breathe, trying to keep your hands from shaking. “I know. Sometimes I don’t know what to say, though, you know, what is there to say? It’s not fair to complain about how sad it makes me to watch these people lose everything.”

“You’re allowed to feel sad. And to feel frustrated. It’s not fair, you’re right, but we’re doing good work, yeah? Fighting the good fight. Figuring out what makes these things tick, how to warn people when they’re in the path, get them outta the way and safe. Maybe they lose their house, their car, but they won’t lose themselves, or each other. That’s what matters most. Just remember that.”

You look up at him, set your elbow on the bartop, and prop your chin on your open palm. Your hands don’t hurt so bad anymore, you notice. “Thanks, Tyler.”

“Anytime,” he smiles, but you shake your head. 

“Seriously. You always know what to say.”

A look crosses his face then, too quick for you to read, and he sets his drink down, flagging the bartender over to close out the team’s tab. You frown, wondering if you’d, ironically, said the wrong thing.

“What’s up?”

Tyler looks back to you, and this time, the look in his eyes is unmistakable. It burns. “Taking you home, sweetheart.”

The walk back to your motel is done in silence. Tyler’s hand swings next to yours, and you feel it searching for yours more than once, but you don’t take it. You climb the stairs together, slowly, and he walks you to your door. His room is one more floor up.

You can tell he thinks you won’t invite him in, that you’ve changed your mind – or maybe that you never made it up. He hadn’t, after all, told you plainly that that was why he’d stayed with you at the bar. You unlock the room with your key card and step inside, opening the door only far enough for you to fit through it. You turn back to look at him, his face awash in the street lights shining into the hallway. You flip the lightswitch on next to you, illuminating the room behind you, too.

“Well,” he murmurs, making to head back down the stairs. “Good night.”

“Tyler?”

His head turns back to look at you, watching as you hold out one hand and he takes it, letting you pull him closer to you. You press yourself into him, push your whole face against his chest, your hip keeping the door from closing on the two of you. You inhale deeply, the smell of him overtaking your senses. His cologne, yes, but underneath that, the smell of dirt, earth. Home.

You feel his arms wrap around your back and you turn your head to the side, press your ear to his heartbeat. Your hands come up to scratch down his back and you feel it when he shudders.

“Stay?”

You hear his breath hitch in his chest, then the deep rumble of his voice as he says, “Alright, baby.”

With a short inhale, your eyes flutter, nearly closing at the term of endearment. You step back, pulling him with you, and as you close the door behind you, he pushes one hand up into your hair and pulls your head toward his.

“I, uh,” you whisper against his lips when they get close enough to yours, “I think I might shower first, if that’s okay with you?”

“Alright,” he murmurs, unlacing his hand from the strands of your hair before toeing his boots off and carefully setting them under the chair next to the front door. “You want company?”

You swallow. You’ve never done anything like that before. It’s always been quick. When you do this with him, you hardly ever have time for a chat before he’s got your shirt over your head and his mouth on your skin.

“Sure,” you reply. You feel him watch as you turn around and pull your shirt off, reaching back to unclasp your bra. The modesty feels redundant, but you can’t help it.

“Not gettin’ shy on me now, are you? S’not like I haven’t seen you naked before,” he chuckles, and you throw a look at him over your shoulder just as he’s pulling his own shirt over his head. He left his hat at the bar, you think. You’ll have to go back in for it when you pick up the truck.

“Tyler,” you scold, and he laughs at you, steps across the room to wrap an arm around your torso and press a kiss to where your neck meets your shoulder. The place he knows makes you melt. You sigh and push back against him, the feeling of his hard chest against your bare back a welcome one. This feels more like what you know, what you’re used to.

“Shower,” you remind him, and he nods, his forehead pressed into that spot now, and he pushes his fingers underneath the waistband of your jeans, running them along the bit of skin there around to the front, where the fabric splits at the button. He pops it undone, then uses his thumb and forefinger to grip the zipper and slowly – so slowly – pulls that down. He can’t help himself, you know that, and so you hold your breath and wait for him to push his hand into your panties. Ever a predictable man, he does just that, and you gasp at the feeling of his warm hand against you.

“Are you sure?” Tyler’s breath against your neck makes you shiver, and you press your ear to the side of his chin. He runs his fingers along the seam of you, finding first your clit, your legs twitching at the sudden rush of pleasure when he brushes his hand against it, then pushing down to find you wet and wanting. You cry out softly. “You don’t sound sure. You don’t feel sure.”

You hum, your neck stretching back until your head is pressed to his chest, and he pulls his hand back up to start working small circles on your clit, your wetness on his fingers allowing for smooth movement, with just enough friction to have you panting for more. 

“Sounds more to me like you kinda want me to fuck you with my fingers.”

“Tyler,” you whimper, telling him with just his name that you are getting close. He smiles against the side of your neck, pulling his hand away and shoving your jeans and underwear down just enough that his hand has room to smack your clit lightly. You squeal, right leg kicking out at the feeling, and he continues moving his hand in circles to soothe the hurt.

Your breath is coming out of you in short huffs, and before you can come, Tyler takes his hand off of you and wraps it around your stomach to join the other. You pant and whine, rubbing your thighs together to chase the feeling he’d had you practically pressed up against, now ebbing with the loss of his fingers.

“You said you wanted to shower,” he whispers in your ear, pulling your panties back up, and you scowl, pushing away from him. He laughs and holds his hands up in defense as you pick your t-shirt up off your bed and crack it at him like a whip. “Let’s shower, baby.”

“I might kick you out right now, Owens,” you snark, but the small smile on your face gives you away, and Tyler unbuttons his own jeans, leaving them in a pile on the floor at the end of the bed. Your jeans join his, and you’re both left in your underwear.

“You wouldn’t,” he replies, pulling his briefs off slowly, biting his bottom lip as you watch him. “You like this cock too much.”

You can’t help laughing at him, but the sight of him bare in front of you does have you biting your lip. You step forward to cup his growing length in your hand. Before you can move it, Tyler puts a hand on your wrist.

“How’s your hand?” He makes to pull it away, presumably to turn it over and appraise your blisters, but you shake your head.

“S’fine,” you whisper, tightening your grip. You tug once, twice, and press a kiss to his bare chest, then tip your head back to search out his lips. He leans down to oblige you, his lips parting against your mouth as you twist your fist. You love these moments you share with him, when you’re both bare, physically, emotionally, away from the real world, and you can pretend this is an everyday thing. When you’re not trying to tell yourself you feel nothing for him. Like this is just how it is between you.

Tyler groans when you pull your hand away from him and you click your tongue, press that same hand against his bicep.

“Doesn’t feel so good, now does it?”

Before you even know what’s happening, Tyler is picking you up, one arm underneath your back and the other around the backs of your knees. You look up at his face and laugh. “Put me down, Owens!”

He grins and carries you the few paces into the bathroom, placing you on your feet in front of the tub. Tyler leans down and pushes his thumbs underneath the waistband of your panties, waiting for you to put your hands on his shoulders and step out of them.

He lets you pull away from him to turn the hot water on, adjusting the cold side until the temperature is perfect, before pulling you against his chest once again. This time, you can feel his hard cock pressed against your backside, and you hum appraisingly. You reach behind you to fist him again, but he shakes his head – you feel his chin brush against the top of your head – and he groans out, “Mm-mm.”

“What?”

“We’re gonna shower, baby, c’mon.”

You glance back towards him and watch as he flicks the overhead light on. “So we don’t slip and die,” he says, and you laugh, pushing the shower curtain to the side. Holding Tyler’s hand, you step over the lip of the tub and under the steady stream of warm water, inhaling deeply when it hits the sore muscles in your shoulders and back. Tyler groans at the feeling, too, when he steps in behind you.

“Here, switch with me,” he murmurs, guiding you by your waist until you’re the one underneath the water. You let it fall onto the top of your head, over your face and down the back of your hair, for a moment, eyes closed, relishing the feeling. Tyler reaches both hands up and brushes the water out of your eyes, runs his hand over the top of your head. 

“Shampoo?”

You open one eye, the other shut against the water, and nod. You gaze up at him, heart squeezing at the way he’s watching you. His smile widens and he takes the tiny bottle in his hand – it looks even more comically small now – and dumps the product into his other palm, setting the bottle down onto the edge of the tub and rubbing his hands together.

“Turn around.”

You do as he asks, inhaling sharply through your nose when you feel his hands run through the hair at the crown of your head. Your stomach aches with longing as you register how unnaturally intimate this is. His fingers feel so good against your scalp, which is slightly sunburnt, you’re now realizing. He massages the shampoo further into your hair, running his fingers down the back of your neck and across the tops of your shoulders. When he’s satisfied with his shampoo job, he steers you by your arms to face him again, then carefully helps you tilt your head back and rinses it all from your hair.

You watch him pick up the other small bottle from the shelf, warm water still running down the back of your head. 

“I’ll do my conditioner,” you murmur, taking the bottle gently from his hands. “It’s a – it’s a science.”

“I am very good at science, if you can recall.”

You laugh, shaking your head. “It’s something I’ve gotten perfectly right. It’ll take just a sec.”

So you work the conditioner through the ends of your hair, avoiding his gaze as he watches your hands first coat your hair in the product, then rinse it out. He reaches forward to run his own fingers across it, as gently as he can.

“Hm,” he makes the noise in the back of his throat, pulling his hand away. “Soft.”

You can hardly look at him, the twisting feeling in your stomach shifting to something warmer, something further from apprehension, something that feels a lot like want. “You?”

Tyler shakes his head. “I’m good. Here,” he says, rubbing his hands across the plane of your upper back. “You’re tense. You worked hard today. Let me help.”

You weren’t going to protest, but before you can, Tyler guides you forward and out of the direct spray of the shower, then presses his thumbs into your muscle. You groan, your head falling forward onto his chest at the feeling, and he chuckles at you, continuing with his hands. “Feel good?”

“So good,” you whimper, and you feel his cock twitch against your stomach.

“You fucking dog,” you joke, and Tyler laughs against you, pushing your hair off the back of your neck and pressing his thumbs in there, too.

“Hey, what can I say? I like making my girl feel good.”

You freeze. His girl? His girl. He hasn’t noticed your reaction, and he keeps pressing his fingers into your sore muscles, pulling one hand away briefly to push the showerhead down and away from the two of you. You glance up, already missing its warmth, but you find that the steam rising around you is doing a good enough job at that.

“Here, baby,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to your forehead and guiding you to press your hands against the tiled wall to your left, running his hands down your back.

“What are you –”

Before you can finish the thought, you feel Tyler’s fingers parting the seam of your cunt from – from behind, and you groan at the feeling of his middle finger slipping inside of you.

“That’s it, sweetheart,” he groans, his knees hitting the floor behind you. You toss a glance at him over your shoulder and your own knees nearly buckle at the way he’s looking up at you – with hunger, and with reverence, and with something else entirely unrecognizable. He looks wild. He looks in love.

One of Tyler’s hands clamps down around your hips and he leans forward, pressing a kiss to the back of your thigh as his finger starts to shift in and out of you. You shiver and push your face into the cool tile, groaning softly when he finds that rough bit of flesh inside of you, the one that makes you come undone if he works it long enough.

“Yeah?” Tyler sounds fucked out already, his voice breathy against your skin, and you can picture the look on his face, the concentrated expression he gets when he’s trying to make you come. You try to focus on the feeling of the shower’s spray where it hits the edge of your foot rather than how good his finger feels inside you because if you think too closely about how good it feels, you’ll get lightheaded. And nobody wants that.

“Yeah,” you reply weakly, and for a few minutes it’s just like that, the only sound in the bathroom the shower, your panting moans, and the noise your pussy makes as he pulls his finger in and out.

“Sound so good for me, baby,” he says, pressing a kiss to the back of your thigh again, and you whine, trying to protest when he slips his finger from you. He laughs deep in his chest and lightly smacks the swell of your ass.

“Don’t complain when I’m doin’ somethin’ nice for you,” he jok, and you can feel then that he’s shifting himself around. You want to look over your shoulder, want to see for yourself what he’s doing, but freeze when you feel his palms cupping your ass, his nose pressing against the inside of your thighs.

Your mouth forms the word oh, but no sound comes out until you feel his mouth press against your cunt, tongue pushing inside of you, and then you cry out, chest heaving, when he presses a sloppy, wet kiss to your clit. You pull your face from where it’s still resting against the tile and look down at Tyler to find he’s already looking right up at you. His grip on your ass tightens when you make eye contact with him, and he spreads you open wider for him, eyes narrowing as his tongue flicks again, and again, and again.

“That’s it, sweetheart,” he moans against you, the vibrations causing your legs to twitch. You already thought you were going to burst, the steam from the shower, the way he’d washed your hair, the fact that he was in your room at all – it all made you feel slightly insane. To add insult to injury, he’s just pushed two fingers inside of you and immediately found the spot that takes you out, and you start to shake a little.

“Tyler,” you whine, pushing one hand down to grip his hair. He groans when you tighten your hold on it, fucking into you a little faster. “Tyler, fuck, gonna come.”

“So come, baby,” comes his reply, and you do, you come so hard that the toes on your right foot curl until you’re on tiptoe and Tyler has to reach up and grip your waist to steady you. You feel it crest, and peak, then subside, but he keeps working you through it, his mouth moving against you still, and a second, smaller – though still good – orgasm wracks your body right after the first.

You breathe through it, push your foot down so you’re standing flat on the surface of the tub again, and wait for Tyler to pull his fingers out of you. 

“Baby,” Tyler groans, squeezing your hips, his fingernails biting slightly into your skin. “You gotta let go’a me, if you want me to get up.”

His voice, fuck, his voice, you think, releasing your grip on his hair and turning to watch him rise from his knees, the tile cold against your back. You surge forward to kiss him square on the mouth and he catches you, smiles against you when you part your lips to taste yourself on his tongue.

“Was that good?”

“Yeah,” you breathe, pressing one, two, three more quick kisses to his mouth, before he reaches behind you to turn off the water. “So fucking good.”

Neither of you bother with a towel, instead opting to stumble toward the queen bed in the middle of the room and climb right underneath the covers.

“Hi,” you whisper when you’re settled in, the duvet pulled up under your chin. Your eyes rove over his face, then glance over to the alarm clock behind him. 1:56 in the morning. “You still wanna fuck?”

Tyler snorts, reaching over to poke you in the side, gripping the skin there until you start to laugh. “You still wanna fuck?”

“Yeah,” you reply, grinning, when you catch your breath. “Wanna?”

He’s quiet for a second, watching the duvet rise and fall with each breath you take, before he peels it off of you, using his elbow to push himself up until he’s leaning over you. There’s a rosy flush on your chest, your breasts heaving and it’s all he can do not to lean down and take one of your nipples in his mouth, the one closest to him. Instead, he runs the back of his other hand across your chest, catching against the hard peak, and watches your breath stick to the inside of your throat. You feel yourself subconsciously leaning toward him as his face comes toward you. You want him to kiss you, but instead, he angles his mouth to kiss the skin below your chin.

“You’re so beautiful,” he breathes against your neck, pressing his open mouth to you there, and you gasp at the feeling – of his mouth against you, and of his praise. It all feels so nice. He just made you come in the shower, and now he’s going to make you come in this bed, hopefully more than once. 

You wrap your hands around his back and pull him toward you, watch as he settles in between your thighs. You can feel his thick cock, heavy, insistent, where it presses against you, and you want to take him into your hands, but he has other plans. 

With one hand pressed into the pillow on either side of your head, Tyler uses his knees to knock your legs out further, sitting back against his heels when he’s satisfied. He wraps his big hands around your thighs and pulls you closer, smiling down at you. “You’re so beautiful.”

You blush when he repeats himself, suddenly feeling very bare. He’s just as naked as you are, but you can’t help but feel like he’s seen your whole hand, meanwhile you hardly have any idea what cards he might hold. In the dim light from the lamp beside your head, you notice that you can see the green of his irises again. It seems like the shower sobered the two of you up very quickly.

His gaze locked on yours, Tyler takes himself into his hand, groaning at the pressure of his grip after neglecting his own want for so long, but he suddenly curses, pausing just as he’s about to press inside of you.

“What?”

“I don’t have a condom,” he breathes, sitting back again. He runs one hand through his hair, visibly weighing the options.

“It’s okay, Tyler,” you murmur, leaning up onto your elbows. “It’s okay. I have an IUD, and I got screened after the last time I was with someone. I’m good. I’m good if you’re good.”

Tyler heaves a heavy sigh, running his hands up your thighs. “You’re sure? I’m clean, too, cross my heart. But only if you’re sure.”

You nod. “My head is clear. I think I shook off my drunk an orgasm or two ago.”

A grin crosses his face, and you roll your eyes at him before he even opens his mouth. Two? he mouths, then whistles lowly. You smack his stomach, and he grabs your wrist in his hand, lightning quick, pressing a kiss to the pulse point there. Your jaw falls slack, and you go all soft and pliant, letting him pin your hands above your head. His body comes down over yours, and his mouth presses to your cheek, then your forehead, and when your eyes flutter shut, the ghost of a kiss crosses them, too.

“I’m gonna fuck you so good,” he murmurs, and normally if a man were to say that to you, you would immediately regret letting him into your bed. But for some reason, when Tyler says it, it sends that familiar warmth spiraling down into your gut. You know he means it.

Slowly – too slowly – he guides himself back to your entrance, shifting his hips so they’re resting comfortably against yours, and he presses himself inside of you. You hiss; the girth of him, although a welcome stretch, is also a bit of an uncomfortable one. He leans down to kiss you, working you through it with a thumb pressing circles into your clit, sliding himself in bit by bit until he’s fully seated. 

A groan pushes out of him when you clench around him, testing the waters.

“Careful,” he murmurs, easing his hips back. “I’d like it if this lasted longer than ten seconds, please.”

You laugh against the side of his head, pull your hands down from where he’d left them above you and wrap yourself around his shoulders, pulling him flush against you. Tyler grips your thighs and starts to work himself in and out of you, carefully, gently, but you squeeze his waist with your knees. Encouraging him. Asking him to pick it up. You can handle it.

His hips start to pull back and snap against yours quicker and quicker, Tyler panting in your ear, lifting up onto his palms and pushing himself off of you. He sits up onto his knees and tilts your hips up for a different angle, one that sets sparks dancing in front of your eyes. You groan, head tossed back, and dig your nails into his thighs as his pace picks up.

“Fuck, yeah, that it, baby? I can feel you – fuck, feel you squeezin’ me.”

You hardly have a voice with the rate he’s slipping in and out of you, barely enough to squeak out, “Fuck,” before your cunt has him in a vice grip, working through another orgasm.

“Ohhh, that’s it, huh, that’s it.” His mouth is going a mile a minute, neither of you really paying much attention to anything he’s actually saying. You’re both focused on his own mounting orgasm – you don’t feel like your body is capable of much more than that – and you weakly clamp down around him once more. His eyes squeeze shut, his hips stutter, and he grits out, “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck fuck,” before he slots against you and you feel him filling you. You run a hand down his back, soothing him as he comes, biting your lip at the feeling, foreign but enjoyable.

Tyler groans and glances down to where his cock is softening inside of you. He eases his hips back, cupping your face and pressing a kiss to your forehead as he does. “Shit, I’m sorry, are you okay?”

You nod meagerly, pressing the back of your hand against your warm cheek. He watches you and, assured that you’re not going to pass out on him or anything, stands and hobbles into the bathroom. The sink turns on out of sight, and you close your eyes, listening to the water run. Tyler returns with a warm, wet towel and wipes the inside of your thighs, swiping gently across your cunt, before folding the towel and letting it fall to the floor at your bedside.

You feel loose, calm. Safe. You hardly notice him turn the light off, but you do feel the bed dip beside you as he rejoins you under the covers and pulls you into his arms. You melt against his sturdy chest, his heartbeat under your face a comfort, the rhythmic tick tick tick of it lulling you to sleep. But there’s still one thing you have to know before you can relax completely.

His breathing has started to even out, but he hasn’t snored yet, so you know he’ll still hear you when you ask, “Are you gonna leave?”

He grunts an acknowledgement of your question, nuzzling down into the top of your head.

“Do you want me to stay?”

You know your answer, but you still bite your lip, considering the question. You hadn’t thought before that maybe he left after every night you spent together because he thought you didn’t want to wake up with him. “Yes.”

“Okay,” he murmurs against your hair, pressing a kiss to your temple. “Then I’ll stay.”

If he’s at all worried about what will happen when you wake up tomorrow, he doesn’t show it, but anxiety courses through you at the thought of anyone finding out. Does he want the others to know? Because that’s what it feels like.

“Stop thinking about it,” he whispers, like he can hear your thoughts racing. “It’ll be fine. Just go to sleep.”

Easy for him to say. He’s out like a light. And you’re left alone with your thoughts until you fall into fitful, dissatisfying sleep sometime around when the world outside starts to turn blue.

A pounding on your door wakes you from deep sleep – the deepest you’d gotten all night, at least – and you try to sit up but find there’s a heavy weight on your chest blocking you. You rub the sleep from your eyes, glancing down at the sleeping body next to you. It takes a second for it to register: Tyler’s here. 

Tyler’s here. Sidled up against you, arm thrown over your stomach like this is where he belongs. He didn’t leave. He stayed, like he said he would. His face looks so peaceful – so beautiful – you almost hate to wake him.

“Come on, sleepyhead! Time to get a move on!”

Almost. You scramble to push Tyler off of you, ignoring his noises of protest, jumping out from under the covers and grabbing various articles of clothing off the floor to pull over your naked form. You plop back down on the bed, this time on his side, right next to where he’s starting to wake.

“Dude, get up, they’re gonna know you’re not in your room. They’re gonna know you’re in here.”

“So what,” he grumbles, rolling over as you push him and settling deeper into the bed. “Let ‘em.”

You sit up straight, one hand on his arm. “You mean that?”

He hums and turns his neck to glance at you over his shoulder. “Yeah, ‘course I do. You’re my girl.”

Your face flushes a deep pink and Tyler grins, reaching over to wrap an arm around you and drag you back down into the bed, pinning you under him and peppering an assault of open-mouthed kisses all over your face. You grin, thinking that you could get used to this – just not right now.

“Seriously, Tyler,” you laugh, pushing a hand against the side of his face. He squeezes your hip. “We have to get up. We gotta get back out there.”

Tyler sighs, loosening his grip on your body and kneeling over you. “Yeah, you’re right. Alright, alright.”

He stands and takes the top sheet with him, wrapped around his waist, and heads to the bathroom. To brush his teeth, you hope. God.

“You know,” he says, head popping back out into the room, mouth full of toothpaste. “Yesterday. I wanted them to see us holding hands.”

You watch as he smiles at you and disappears back into the bathroom, then fall back onto the bed, hands pressed over your eyes. 

Fifteen minutes later, the two of you are dressed, teeth brushed, hair taken care of, day packs slung over your shoulder, and you’re pulling the door closed behind you when you hear a whistle that pulls your attention to the parking lot.

“Damn, Owens!”

The voice makes you jump, and you groan. You thought you were going to get away with the sneaking around, but the rest of your team is watching from next to the RV as the two of you descend the stairs together.

Lily and Dani turn to Boone with smug looks on both their faces, and he rolls his eyes and pulls his wallet from his back pocket. They hold their hands out for him to slap two twenty dollar bills down into.

“What’s that?” You ask when you get close enough to them.

“We had a bet that you and Owens would come out of that room together. Well, that one or his. Didn’t matter which.”

“A bet I just lost,” Boone groans, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes. “I thought for sure…”

The rest of the crew snickers, including Tyler, who won’t look at you. You poke a finger into his chest.

“Did you know about this?”

“No, I swear,” he says, hands up, and you don’t know why, but you believe him. “That doesn’t mean I didn’t drunkenly confess to Lily weeks ago that sometimes we, you know…”

You scoff, almost mad, but then Boone shouts and the scoff turns into a snicker because, hey, you love him, but you can’t help but relish in his defeat.

“So they knew?! That’s cheating!”

He storms off while the rest of you laugh, Dani clutching their side and following him around the side of the building to try to make amends, trailing off, “If it makes you feel any better…”

Lily looks over at you, then at Tyler, a grin swallowing her face. “So, are you guys, like, together now? Or something?”

You look up at Tyler, who’s smiling softly at you, clearly deferring to you to answer that question. You feel a surge of affection for him swell in your chest. Clearing your throat, you turn to Lily.

“Or something.”