#Control Locks Market

[tteokdoroki]

✎ᝰ. OCT 1ST ★ BONDAGE - satoru gojo .ᐟ

[CHAPTER ONE RAPUNZEL] satoru gojo as flynn rider + bondage. once upon a time, a girl trapped in a tower with nothing but her extremely lavish, long hair as company decides…fuck it and sleeps with a handsome stranger to get what she wants ( 9.1K ).

✧ chapter contents - minors, blank and ageless blogs do not interact ! nsfw, heavy smut, rapunzel!au, strangers to lovers, role reversal & switching, orgasm control, sensory deprivation, edging, thigh riding, spit kink, outer-course, begging, handjobs (m!recieving), reader's hair has blonde streaks but colour remains ambigous, rapunzel + fem!reader, flynn rider!satoru gojo.

✧ fairy godmother's note - yippieee!! kickstarting spooky season with this hefty boy. we have our glorious blue eyed king welcoming you all to our fourth annual tteokdoroki kinktober - i hope you all like what's planned this year and enjoy this piece to start with !! kissies hehe <3 - m.list ⋆ kinktober m.list ⋆ taglist ☆

“you’re going to take me to see the floating lights. or else.” 

“or else, what, honey?” 

ever since satoru gojo climbed the wooden lattice sewn to your tower by blooming, overgrown weeds and winding vines effectively invading the safest space in the world ( according to mother ), he’s been a pain in your fucking ass. when he’d first arrived, a towering and unfamiliar figure creeping about the main floor — your heart had dropped to the base of your stomach, pulsing rapidly with fear while he scoped the scene. you’d never come across a man before, mother had made sure of that, warning you of their cruelty and ugliness both inside and out. except satoru looked nothing like the descriptions your mother had left you with, you’d say that the man was stunning. not that you had much to compare him to.

his hair was a crisp white, appearing soft to the touch much like the snowfall that came in the winter months (something about playing in it. contrastingly, his eyes were a beautiful shade of baby blue — eerily similar to that of a summer sky free of cloudiness. he was too good looking to be human, for it to be natural, almost as if satoru had strolled straight out of one of the many fairytale books mother purchased for you from the markets. although, over the years you’ve probably read each book cover to cover a million times and not one fictional prince could even match this stranger’s sheer beauty.

though for now, this handsome stranger’s looks would get him nowhere with you. strangers always came with dangers, and since all you’d known throughout your years of living were these four walls, you weren’t going to take any chances with satoru and whatever problems he’d have brought with him.  initially and out of an unfamiliar fear, you’d  taken the nearest weapon to you (a frying pan) and cracked it right over his skull — watching the hunk of a human collapse to his knees and eventually black right out. if mother were around, she would have been proud. you’d tried not to feel any guilt trying to stuff his limp, lengthy limbs in your closet or under your bed because… well, what business does this stranger have with you? what the fuck is a man doing here? how did he get here? why is he here? 

your whole life you’ve been convinced that the outside word was treacherous and that you had to stay inside, where it was safe, because people were horrible and selfish — intent on hunting you down for the powers that lay intertwined in the coils of your hair. those specific streaks that glow a valuable gold between the usual  colour of your locks whenever you sang. mother would style them the way you liked every night — so long as you sung for her. you weren’t about to let mother down, nor risk the little life you built here together.

but, as it turns out, satoru wasn’t looking for the magic sprouting from your crown and entangled in your hair. it almost seemed like he had no idea about them either. rather, the moonlit haired man was looking for a place to lay low and hide after being chased through the forest for his satchel that seemingly carries something valuable. a crown… jewels that have a weight familiar to your head and sparkle like something you’ve seen before in a distant memory. 

“come to think of it, honey, where is my satchel?” cocking his head to the side, sky blue eyes peer up at you with a charm that sends a foreign swarm of butterflies ripping through your stomach.

you frown, accusingly pointing your weapon of choice at gojo’s head and puffing out your chest to appear as intimidating as possible while giving him your name. “i’ve hidden it in a secure location—“ 

“it’s in that pot…isn’t it?” 

as best as he can in the handcuffs he can call locks of your hair, the tower’s newfound infiltrator gestures towards a colourful pot in the corner of tne room. what? all you could think of in the moment is restraining him against the chair and why waste perfectly good rope when you’ve got such length to your own hair? the pot was the closest spot too.you knock him out swiftly after his guess, not giving gojo the satisfaction of finding his precious purse.

now, with the satchel hidden once more, satoru gojo semi-concussed and conscious once again — you realise that for the first time in your life, you have some kind of leverage to bargain with. you need someone to take you to see the floating lights that illuminate the sky on your birthday, every year. satoru needs his… crown? that so obviously doesn’t belong to him. of course, he would have stolen it, mother always said men were no good and always take what isn’t theirs (oh the irony). nonetheless, it  was the perfect match of desires.

this way, you could prove to mother that you weren’t weak like she said you were. that you could cope by yourself and go explore the outside world. it wouldn’t be how it usually is with mother — where you ask for something and instantly get denied because she believes you to be too naive to function in a world outside of her. not this time. this time you have a bargaining chip. a satchel containing a valuable so rare that satoru was willing to risk his life for.

your captive wriggles against the restraints of your hair, woven around the chair like tough knots of a rope to keep him at bay. while the silver haired fox may not have canines like your mother suggested, you have no idea how powerful he could be. contrastingly, gojo finds your hair to be soft against his skin, ticklish along the veins of his arms despite how secure it has him strapped down. he’s forced to listen and to follow your every move across the floor plan, guided by the strength of your hair tugging him about.

“i have a proposition for you. come, look.” drawing back a curtain to reveal a painting from earlier — you recite your plan to your intruder. tomorrow evening, he will take you to see the floating lights … ahem…lanterns that drift across the sky on your birthday every year and then, return you safely to the tower before mother returns. it’s an easy deal.  “i won’t give your satchel back until then,” you stutter out fiercely, adjusting your height and the grip you have on the cool metal frying pan. “you won’t get it back until you’ve taken me to see the lights.” 

“oh whatever, i can just take it back, honey,” satoru goads, cockily ripping his head back in patronising laughter. even though the melodious sound makes irritation bubble hot underneath your skin, you can’t help the way your eyes are immediately drawn to the man’s Adam’s apple as it bobs delectably along with his chuckles. “as soon as i get out of this…hair? hair.” pale blue eyes flicker up to your face when gojo fixes himself in the seat he’s fixed to. they bore deeply into your soul, reading you with as much ease as you have flicking through the same three books that you own. you feel the weight of your hair shift around satoru’s shoulders as he gestures down to it nearly wrapped around his bulging forearms (not that you’d been paying attention). “this is kinda freaky, hon. don’cha think?” a slow sexy smirk tugs at the corners of gojo’s plush, glossy lips, or rather, he smoulders attempting to woo you into giving him what he wants. “you don’t seem like the freaky type, sweetheart.”

once more, a frustrated flame flares up in the middle of your chest — you’d feel offended for sure if you know what gojo meant. “freaky?” 

“as in like… dubious?” he grins in response, running the pink tip of his tongue over his straight, perfectly white teeth. “this is basically bondage, yanno?”

you blink once. confused.

“improper?” 

nothing, not one of these synonyms or explanations from the smiling idiot makes any more sense to you — bringing you to tilt your head to the side, innocently like a puppy that makes satoru laugh once more. this time it actually does something to you. sends weird butterflies fluttering in your tummy.

with a shake of snow white locks and an inhale that sounds amused as it goes, your hostage clicks his tongue — letting those cooling blue eyes slink up and down your virtuous frame . the swell of his lower lip trapped between pretty perfect teeth. “as in sexy, sweet thing.” satoru’s sickly sweet and powdered sugar coo slips through one ear and out of the other like hot, viscous molasses, you immediately shudder — flustered down to the meat on your bones, curling in on yourself as your faux intimidation tactics melt from your body and slip between the floorboards beneath your bare feet. “gosh! you’re so innocent,” his gaze rips away from you, and you fight back an unexpected whimper, missing the intruder’s gaze on you. “guess that’s what being trapped in a place like this does to a darlin’ thing like you. you wouldn’t last a day out there.” 

he’s patronising you. speaking to you as though you’re no more than a child. however, being talked over and down on is all you’ve ever known, especially from your mother… but the way he acts reminds you of all of the advice she’s bestowed upon you over the years. mother tells you all the time, how naive and silly you are. how people will try and take advantage of your looks and your kindness. and so you decide to use your mother’s advice — if all humans, act like dogs, you’ll throw one a bone and wait for them to come back for more. 

steeling yourself, you use a loop of your hair to drag gojo’s chair toward you — positioning him like a puppet beneath your cold, hard stare. he man spreads on the chair as best as he can in his restraints, leaning back while his seat tilts backwards on a forty-five degree angle — drawing your eyes from his face to his thick thighs momentarily. “you are going to take me to see the lights. it’s a promise, not a threat,” you whisper into the air that buzzes with tension between you both, leaning down and pinning gojo in place. you’re so close, so little proximity between your faces, that you can practically feel his warm breath lingering on the damp skin of your lips. “and i promise, i’ll make this worth your while.” 

your voice lowers an octave, smooth and buttery and just right. like a snare for a wild white rabbit or bait on a hook — it peaks satoru’s interest, illicit thoughts and desires flashing behind his pupils like lightbulb ideas. “oh, honey. i can make you see stars alright,” he looks up at you then, with an expression of heat and thirst, dragging you into a pool of shining blue eyes that you barely manage to free yourself from. drowning in his attention once more. you stand over him proudly, between his legs smugly and all he wants to do is wipe the winning smile from your face and show you a real good time. 

if he could, gojo would reach up and grab at your hips possessively, if he could he’d cup your neck and let his fingers toy with your baby hairs to pull you into a sloppy kiss. he can’t help the way white hot desire spreads through his system like throwing gasoline on an open fire and pile of wood. he grins mischievously, and in response, a brand new sensation stirs within your lower tummy — blistering hot as it zips between your chest and your core.

you sense the change in the atmosphere and gojo does too. both of you dying to scratch the itch on the part of your brain that is the control centre for lust. but you remind yourself what this is truly about, tell yourself not to get lost in the haze of it all, and will yourself to throw a loop of your hair over daring blue eyes like a blindfold — acting fast to secure a seat in an unsuspecting satoru gojo’s vacant lap.

he grunts in surprise, flinches when he realises one out of five of his senses are down. “what the fuck—?” gojo spits, cocky smirk melting away. 

“shhh,” you taunt the man under your breath, leaning forward so that your voice coasts over the shell of his ear like a summery breeze. it invokes a sense of pride within your chest when your hostage tilts his head to follow your voice — his own breathing erratic and increasingly shallow with how he begins to struggle against your restraint on him. “you won’t get a chance to make me see those lights. not if i get you to see them first.” 

in truth, you've got nothing planned. you’ve never been in the same room as a man, let alone pleasure them the way that you’ve read in books you’d borrowed from your mother. 

the reality of the scene before you is daunting, giving up part of your virtue just to prove a point and get to see the floating lights like you’ve always wanted…but at the same time — it’s your one chance at freedom that’s at stake here. “you don’t sound so sure about that, sweetheart,” satoru taunts you with the peaks in his voice coltishly high. he continues to wrestle against the restraints of your hair — he’s strong and with a little more force he could escape but it’s like he senses your hesitancy. 

like he knows for certain you won’t make good on your promise. just like mother. 

that much is evident in the way his smooth, glossy lips tick upwards into an arrogant smirk. 

your determination to prove him wrong grows more and more by the second, so before you succumb to your nerves again, you let your free hand claw with way over gojo’s right shoulder — steadying him, forcing him to sit still as you make a comfortable seat out of his widespread lap. he tenses at first, unable to see you move, but his grin remains, you have no idea if it’s because he’s proud of you or doubting you — but the expression only serves to piss you off even more.

“what’s next, sweetheart?” 

a strangled growl is your only reply, the most menacing sound you can muster as you lift head upwards and his pool of loose silver-moon locks fall out of place. with a shuddering breath and a hold of gojo’s restraints, you press your lips to his in a shaky kiss — still unsure of where your lips go and what to do with your teeth and how to move your tongue. the captive beneath you knows it and takes advantage of your weakness, nipping at the swell of your lower lip gently — hardly enough to draw blood. satoru is testing you, telling you to be brave and take from him. prove to him that you’re willing to do whatever you want for him to make your silly childhood dream come true.

he allows you to fight back, despite this being your idea, lets you forcefully grab his angular jaw and capture him in a proper spit-swapping kiss. if he really wanted to, he’d find a way to escape from the tight bounds of your lengthy hair. but he doesn’t. gojo lets you swallow him down; push your tongue exploratively into his mouth and lap at his foreign flavour. he wants your tongue to take dominance from his, pink appendages sloppily rolling over one another, slipping and sliding as you take and take from satoru.

the kiss, already uncoordinated from your lack of experience, becomes hurried and hungry and wet the more you steal from satoru. you take and take and take until his glass his half full and his brain slowly becomes devoid of all logical thought. he comes the prey to your predatory mouth, missing the way your hand frees his pale cheek and fingers fluidly traverse down his broad shoulders, over his marble sculpted body to find purchase in the belt loops of his bothersome pants. now curious, you feel your way down the front of the fabric and grin into the hot and heavy kiss when satoru’s lets out a breathy, staggered moan into your open mouth. 

his swelling erection twitches in response to your inquisitive hand, slender hips involuntarily jumping upwards.

“fuuuck,” satoru chuckles airily, words featherlight as they breeze along your lips. his head keens upwards too, chasing the weight of your hot sticky tongue in his mouth — desperate to be closer, craving the feeling of your nose knocking against his and your breath on his cheek from just how pressed up against each other you are. “fuck baby that’s it. kiss me more, touch me harder…” he’s addicted before he even knows what you have to offer, what he’s getting himself into. if you could see his eyes from under his binding, you’d bare witness to pleading blue pools swirling with a painful desire as he twitches beneath you, wriggling his wrists to get free. “c’mon, touch me.” he adds between sloppy pecks.

backing your face out of satoru’s reach, you break the drooly lip lock — letting your lungs fill with oxygen it had once missed, while your heaving chest syncs up with the intruder you have strapped  to a chair. you pull away, connected to the man by not just your hair, but a string of saliva glazed across your lips — cautiously, your tongue dart out to break the the between your eager mouths, two sets of uneven panting filling the quiet air. 

the two of you remain unmoving and unwilling to back down while you catch your breath; but your hand remains in the centre of gojo’s lap — rocking it back and forth, back and forth over his growing bulge. you stare at him, observing the reactions that he tries so hard to control. little twitches to his pink swollen lips and the flare of his nostrils whenever your palm makes contact with a sensitive spot. all this waiting is agony, the white haired captive might die if he doesn’t get more from you soon. 

satoru whines impatiently as a result, knowing full well what you want and you won’t ask him again — not when you’re tauntingly squeezing his cock for a second, third, fourth, fifth time. he doesn’t fucking know — overwhelmed by waves of lust-infested blood rushes to its blistering hot tip. “fuck! okay, okay fine. i’ll take you! just—“ the chair rattles from the force of gojo’s struggle against your restraints, which hardly covers the low moan that escapes from between his plush glossy lips while his length pulses against the inside of his pants. “just fuck me. touch me. anything.”

something about his tone being all desperate and high activates a part of you that you never even knew existed. a part of you that knows what to do next… even if you haven’t acted it out, you’ve enough books to remember what the erotic ones say.

only then, after he pleads, do you use your shaky hands to tug down the garment — pulling them towards his knees as best as you can against your hair until the button pops free. the zipper follows easily and the waistband falls away from starlight skin and slender hips. everything gets hotter; any fresh air between your bodies becoming tinged with the need for sex as the scorching ghost of your fingertips leaves burn marks against satoru’s pelvis, and sends heatwaves of ardour from the base of his spine to the top of his skull.

satoru’s squirming pauses while he waits with uneven breathing for your next move — tongue pressing up against the barricade of his white teeth to prevent himself from taunting you further or perhaps to stop himself from belting out another pathetic set of whimpers. he wishes he could see you, those sweet innocent eyes looking down at him as you peel back the last layer of fabric stopping you from accessing his painfully hard erection. his underwear. 

when you gasp in shock, pride weaves itself between the bones that protect his heart and lungs like an uninvited weed, he knows that he’s decent. longer than he is thick, bright red at his mushroomed tip and leaky from just how turned on he is. there’s a trail of silver moon hair that leads you down a path from his belly button to the thickest part of his dick too. but oh, how satoru gojo wishes he could see.. the way you lick your lips as drool drowns your tongue, mouth watering at the sight of his length slapping against his clothed stomach while he manspreads for you. the way your pupils dilate, the colour in your eyes swallowed by a dark veil of carnality. 

this is a hunger you’ve never experienced before, a type of starvation that makes your hand lurch forward before your brain can control it, gripping satoru at the base of his milky, slender shaft. it’s the first time you’ve ever seen a cock; let alone held one between your tiny fingers — it’s much warmer than you anticipated, tacky to the touch from dribbles of precum running down from his untouched tip, but you like it. the weight, the wet sound it makes when you slightly flick your wrist around satoru. not to mention the stuttered groan he lets out, his head falling against the support of the chair and yanking slightly on the blindfold made of hair that covers his eyes.

if you weren’t sitting in his lap, you’d want him in your drooling mouth. you’d sink down to your knees like the girls in your naughty books and take him down your virgin throat, just so you could look up at satoru and watch the sweat bead down his jawline and run a track over his bobbing adam’s apple. but you’re not and you’ve got a point to prove, so you loop your hair around your other wrist to tighten his restraints and extend a thumb upward from his base to his seedy tip, jamming the pad of it through the slit where he pre forms in thick, creamy pearls. as white as those that come from an oyster.

“that’s it gorgeous, just like that…” satoru leers up at you huskily, voice tinged with neediness that he fails to mask. he seems to like the way you touch him and you’re sure to use a delicate hand when you smooth the supple pad of your thumb over the pad of his sensitive tip, rubbing his opaque precum into it sweetly. “touch me s’more? you can do it… i know you’re shy, can hear your breathing ‘n how heavy it is. shit, you’re new at this.” saliva slows down satoru’s salacious words as he rambles to you with swollen lips and rosy cheeks, angling his head in whatever direction your breath seems to be coming from. 

he’s in tatters, destroyed by a few simple touches with his hard on smearing white across the front of his clothes. you roll your palm over his mushroomed cockhead next to test the waters and take pleasure in admiring the way he trembles, grasping at the arms of the chair you have him strapped to in order to ground himself. it’s torture for satoru to be this patient, killing him slowly from the inside out like a virus spreading across his brain and other vital organs — but it doesn’t mean you’re in any better state. practically dripping in his lap with your panties dampening more and more every time satoru so much as whimpers. past the point of being turned on by the sight of a strong, powerful man weak and blindfolded underneath you.

satoru bucks upward at your command, sucking in a breath as his sensitive, seedy slit bumps your palm once more. “s-shit… please.”

the improper ness of the entire situation sends a zap of electricity to your swelling clit. you’ve only ever imagined being with someone like this as you have seeing the floating lights — touching yourself beneath your skirts and under your painted ceilings whenever you were brave enough. now you’re here, spread over the thick thighs of a possible thief who begs you to jerk him off. “s-shut up,” you hiss as embarrassment and  inexperience begins to shine through the deal you’ve struck with gojo, the fact that he can tell as much and still wants this has you soaked all the way through and aching for friction as well. 

you’ve never been in possession of so much power in your life. mother never let you have it. but right now, you can taste it sparking between you and gojo, smell it in the air teeming mixed with a cocktail of your arousals. in the moment you realise that the silver haired man would cling onto every one of your sugar-coated words (no matter how nervous) if it meant he got the fuck he wanted in the end. and you would get to see your lights too.

“just… tell me what to do,” you say without realising how husky your own voice has gotten. “i promised you your crown, to make you feel good if you took me to see the lights. and i never go back on a promise. s-so tell me.” talking yourself into it and building up some more confidence, you circle over satoru’s bulbous cockhead again — gaze laser focused on the burning bright red colour as it oozes. you know that he likes it and it makes his head spin so much that he starts to fight against the restraint of your hair again. “i won’t let you go, not until this is over. so tell me what i can do to make you cum.” 

despite not being able to see his entire face, gojo’s smug smile says it all — his perfect teeth cheerily on display, contrasting with the flustered pink tint to his cheeks. “cup it, make a fist around my cock so you can jerk me off’a little bit,” a haughty moan scratches at the walls of your captive’s throat when you follow his guidance and finally grip him fully, soft and supple hands easily dwarfed by the size of him. satoru’s shaft may be a little thinner, but he’s thick enough to fill your own throat and cause a stretch to your quivering hole with his balls being round, plump and full of white hot seed saved up just for you. “christ, squeeze my base a lil’ before you get movin’,” at first contact, satoru’s thighs tremble deliciously against your mound, blood rushing to your clit and through the forked veins that spiral down his length. 

your senses are overwhelmed, he smells so good — of peppermint and a musky twang of sex act like dangerous smelling salts or fumes. you could get addicted if you weren’t careful. you’re super aware of each ridge and firm vein that decorates him and as you start to palm satoru steadily, you notice just how sticky your hand is — movements guided by the wet cream of his cock. slipping and sliding as your closed fist moves up and down, up and down, occasionally squeezing the base of him just like he asked. your knuckles brushing the soft bush of pubic hair at his pelvis. you can only imagine how everything feels for him, not being able to see at all.

the thought just barely crosses your mind — too focused on speeding up your soiled hand around gojo just to hear more of his angelic gripes and groans that rise and fall from his heaving chest. how good all of this must feel for the man without being able to see. every touch must make him tick and drip and throb achingly. he must feel weak too, completely vulnerable to anything you might do to him while blindfolded and unable to touch you because of bonds formed by your hair. 

once you set a steady rhythm to your closed fist to jerk him off with, gojo takes a breather to announce his next command — head shaking side to side with moonlight locks sticking to his forehead in an attempt to alleviate the inferno of desire spreading through of his limbs. “now spit on it,” he states bluntly, an obvious dip to the octave in his voice. you can’t possibly imagine why he’d need spit; your hand is already glossed with a shiny layer of precum, tainting your knuckles from the viscosity. 

you swallow thickly, but don’t dare stop pleasuring your captive stranger. “w-what?” 

“are you kidding me just—“ leaning forward as best as he can while held back by the strong locks of your hair, like rope around his wrists. dopamine crackles over your brain like fireworks in an enclosed space at the scene that unfolds next, satoru pursing his lips to spit onto his own milky dick — letting the frothy mix from mouth join the mess that lubes the both of you up where connected. “just spit on it, honey. thought you wanted me to feel it.”  

licking your lips, you rub down satoru’s girth far enough to drag the glob of spit down to his tender weighty balls, that pulse at your gentle touch. the feeling makes satoru’s entire body jolt like an electric shock — a gargled groan clambering out from the depths of his panting chest as his jaw goes slack and mouth falls open. “please. please spit on it, honey. god please.. need you to wet my cock. i need it so bad, promise i’ll be fucking good.” blind but with his remaining senses in tact, gojo remains largely vulnerable to your touch, his entire world tilting on one axis when you grip his dick a little harder at his request. causing a ring of white to gather where the circle of your wrist envelopes him.

at his begging. which you swear makes you gush like a small, erotic stream — your juices sloshing about in the gusset of your panties while your sex goes unattended.

so you nod obediently, tilting your head forward and parting your swollen lips to let a thick, syrupy string of your own spit ooze onto his plump and sore balls, stroking him rapidly to spread it over his creamy tip as well. your spit is contrastingly cool in comparison to the natural lubricant smeared all over your captive’s palpitating dick — causing it to grow impossibly harder. it slickens up your hand, evidence of the silver haired man’s arousal seeping through the fabric of his crumpled shirt and coils of your restrictive hair. neither of you can bring yourselves to care in the moment — all you can think to do is relish in gojo’s size.

he’s so big, you’d be lying if you said you hadn’t wondered how satoru fit entirely inside your tight hole, stretching you out in the new future — earning yourself a fresh wave of liquid lava hot essence to your ruined panties. you dare to dream onwards, picturing the azure eyed stranger fucking you against the walls of the tower in every way the man knew possible… you have no idea what he’s capable of when untied. but the sight of him lazily thrusting into your filthied fist like it’s instinct, following it like a moth to a candle flame, is enough dream fuel to last you a lifetime. even after the deal is complete and the lights are just a distant memory. 

eventually, you decide to pull off of satoru to give your wrist a break — walking your fingers up the broad expanse of his built chest to tweak his nipples between your tingling bodies. his entire frame is wracked with a case of shivers, mouth parting in a high-pitched, whiny whimper with strings of saliva connecting its roof to his tongue. you’re so pathetically turned on, drool pooling on your tongue like a hot flash flood. 

it’s why you tighten your grip on your hair and thus his restraints, resulting in satoru staggering forward. closer, panting like a damn dog in rut. drawing your free hand up towards your lips and away from his pecs, the proximity between you becomes so little that satoru can practically smell the musky evidence of sex that you lick from your hand. “oh… you taste so good,” you lament in a dulcet tone, failing to miss the way gojo’s dangerous azure eyes dart about beneath his makeshift blindfold, probably dying to see you get a taste of him.

“d-don’t say that, you’ll make me fuckin’ cum, honey.” he gulps, involuntarily pumping his hips into the air, chasing your hand which he needs so desperately to feel good. “please don’t stop.” while begging you — satoru is the perfect picture of a ruined man, though you’re sure he would say the same about you if you hadn’t strapped your hair over his line of vision. his milky skin glistens as though it’s the very source of light for the silvery moon — illuminated by droplets of sweat from the exertion off fucking your fist like a squelching, welcoming pussy. his cheeks glow warmly with a dusty shade of pink and there’s a red ring forming around his lips from where he’s bitten them to control his wails of ecstasy.

succumbing to the obscenity of it all,  you reach forward and lick a stripe into his hellfire hot mouth. effectively sharing the saltine flavour of gojo’s own precum with him while he languidly sucks all the tang from your pink appendage. his angel white lashes flutter shut at the heaviness of your tongue against his own. the kiss is messy and mismatched, saliva seeps from the corners of your mouth and drags a sticky train down your chin. parting briefly, you spit it into the middle of your palm — happily taking satoru’s cock back into your talented hold and providing a solace to soothe its passionate ache. 

“ngh… i can feel you. f-fuck. feel you tryin’ not to grind against me, sweetheart.” somehow, gojo finds pockets of air to taunt you in — his voice an arousing mix of a raspy whine and cocky tone. “so wet, i can smell you too. so sweet. dripping all over your panties while you jerk me off. do you need that needy pussy taken care of?”

everything he’s said is true, while the man with the sweaty silver locks fought to escape the prison of your hair — desperate to see how you pleased him, you fought the growing pit in your stomach. the urge to use satoru for release. you’d never hit your peak with another person before, only your smaller-than-his fingers whenever mother left for more than a day or two. 

you admit to nothing, continuing to stroke satoru to his own high — his panted moans accompanied by the sound of skin slapping skin from your hand fisting him to the high heavens.  “please baby, i wanna help get you off. feel that wet little cunt. let me go, i’ll be so good to you if you let me touch your sweet c—“ 

“n-no! we had a deal. my rules.” you stutter, denying yourself. denying him.

“c’mon sweetheart,” a strained and petulant whine echoes throughout the tower — satoru thrusting shallowly through your closed hand in order to match his rhythm to the flick of your wrist. “please, god, baby. if you won’t let me touch you, or at least see you, then can you put that pretty pussy on my thigh? ride it real good? wanna know how you sound when you’re being pleasured…when you give into it all. please honey, give me somethin’ to work with. anythin’…”

gojo presses, like a disciple begging their god for mercy. begging you for mercy. there’s never been this much power in your reach, the ability to control a man who could easily over power you with your sex makes your mind feel egotistically weighty. your resolve crumbles just a tad, satoru’s neediness  chipping away at its foundation until your hips instinctively position themselves perfectly over the swell of his right thigh. how bad could it be? giving him an inch when you’ve taken a mile from him. mother says you’ve never been good at lying and right now, you can no longer pretend like your hips aren’t dying to slide back and forth over your capture like a desperate whore. 

like you don’t want to use him for more than just the floating lights, but to soothe the fire lit in your lower stomach — trailblazing down to your throbbing clit.

something clicks in your mind, all of your inhibitions are dashed from the tower as you briefly release satoru’s pathetically wet cock and restraints to pull up the skirts of your silk purple dress, exposing a slither of supple fat at your thighs. hurried movements deliver the same treatment to satoru’s pants. “this… this doesn’t change anything. doesn’t mean i’m letting you go just yet. it won’t affect our deal.” you warn the intruder but all sense of venom and authority is lost, evaporating into the temperate air and ending up as a piteous, meek mewl when your exposed mound makes first contact with man’s naked thigh.

if the sound of ruffling fabric hadn’t caught your hostage’s attention; the heat of your sopping sex against his moonlit skin definitely did. “fuck…that’s it. there we go, honey. put it on me,” a tinge of amusement lays evident in his gravelly voice, sets of slender digits peeking out of their hairy restraints to map out your doughy thighs and crawl their way up to the source of your essence. “i just knew you were wet for me, can feel how turned on you are.” as best as he can, gojo shifts until his knee is able to bump your clit — cooing in satisfaction when you ooze against him in response. you almost despise the way he laughs up at you condescendingly, as if he’s the one in control irregardless or the fact that you’re on top. 

maybe it’s the dopamine rush that makes your dynamic unclear — neither of you wanting to give up or take the lead. the lust fizzing in the cracks and crevices of your brain make you cute and pliant for gojo but hair woven over his body keeps him subdued and thirsty for you. 

like a gravitational pull, you buck downwards on the silver haired stranger’s toned thigh and smear the beginnings of your arousal all over him. you’ve barely been touched, oozing in viscous waves as you lose control over your body, rutting harder and faster. “watch your mouth.” you cry out, volume barely above a whisper, bottom lip trembling because it feels so good to use someone this way. 

resuming your hold on his dripping cock again as you rock your hips — you rearrange the loop of hair keeping gojo in place, covering his eyes just as your hair begins  to glow gold in time with your symphony of moans. “right, right, sorry. this doesn’t change things,” he flexes his thigh underneath your syrupy sex, strawberry tongue slipping out to wet his lips while your words fade away into a pretty little sigh. “but you wanna smack that messy clit all over my thigh, don’cha wanna make it creamy… even messier?” satoru all but jeers, the wisps of a smirk rising on the horizon of his lips now that your hips have formed their own rhythm over his leg.

they speed up their passionate dance on him, beads of glistening essence pearling between your two fat pussy lips. the slick smack of your naked cunt against his muscular thigh caused his dick to twitch in your hand — gojo thrusting up when you thrust down. he tilts his head down, catching a whiff of your heavenly scent in the air between you both. you hate that he’s right just as much as he hates not being able to see you and touch you properly — only catching glimpses of the golden light sparkling within your hair like a halo from underneath his makeshift blindfold.

you feel like you might be going insane, trapped underneath a non existent touch. like being pulled under waves of euphoria with aching lungs that don’t get enough air. near angelic screams of delight rip through the base of your throat contrast with the way you sinfully hump satoru and jerk him off to the point of his dick forming a creaminess in your hand. he bounces his thigh faster the higher you moan, rewarding you for all the hard work you put in to make this deal worth it.

“you’re no better… you’re filthy,” 

“that’s right honey, so dirty. all cause of you. messy with you, why won’t you let me see?”  the captive rambles, torn between fighting to break out of the bondage and listening to the lewd sticky noises your mound makes when gliding smoothly over his paled skin. satoru growls at how roughly your body moves above his own, face contorting lecherously, cheeks red and lips puffy — a mess from how long he’s been holding out for you. he’s a mess. it’s true. he won’t even deny it. “now fuckin’ stroke it baby, stroke me to the rhythm of your pussy bouncing up and down for me…please…” 

simpering slightly, gojo’s fingers twitch against the arm of the chair — itching to grab at your ass and slam you down against his shaky thigh. if you palm him more, grip him tighter… he can better imagine the warmth of your cunt if he got the chance to slip inside. for now, you oblige his request, pulling tighter on the bindings of your hair while you them use as leverage — throwing yourself down on satoru as the lewd pap of your drooling pussy fills the musky tower air. “that’s it honey, up ‘n down. uppp ‘n  down. keep goin’ just like that.” 

you don’t have the energy to chide him, jostling about in satoru’s lap with wet whimpers bubbling up on the seams of your lips. pleasure begins to twist nice and tightly in your tummy, scalding you from the inside out and burning any logical thought from your brain. head beginning to roll to the side, you think about fully submitting to your capture. letting go entirely — you’d be satisfied. you’d get to cum. your deal might fall through but at least you’d get to see a different kind of light. 

easily, you could just give up. it wouldn’t be hard to, not  when gojo firmly plants his feet into the tiled floor and the power from his hips has hip rutting upwards to chase your fleshlight-like fist. a beefy cry battles its way out of his broad chest, vibrating through you as his quivering thigh juts your pretty, syrupy cunt every time you lift off of him. 

it’s the perfect cycle; the ideal push and pull. you squeal in ecstasy, the hood of your clit dragged back so that your sensitive bundle of nerves is exposed to the blistering heat of satoru’s cool toned skin — taking you closer and closer to your high. streaks of your hair glow brighter than before, more intensely the louder you moan and just like they would if you were singing to help mother or while she brushed your hair. despite the strength in the light of your hair, everything else about you weakens, your grip on your hair, the pace of your hand as you palm satoru to the high heavens. you can’t think to care about any of it when you’re this close. 

if mother could see you now, you don’t think you’d mind if she was disappointed in you. 

but then you’re ripped away from the edge of cloud nine. satoru stops just short of the dam threatening to break. his thigh completely still with your juices splattering against him once your own hips come to a hault. a petulant howl echoes through the flower, frustrated tears stinging in your waterline as you feel your orgasm slip away from you cruelly. “what the fuck satoru?” 

“sorry honey….” he laughs heartily, a slight rasp coating each syllable from each word that leaves his mouth. “don’t think i like this deal very much. just ‘cause you feel good doesn’t mean you can forget about me,” gesturing to the way you gush on and stain his thigh, the captive with the silver moon hair shrugs. “you don’t get to cum or see the lights unless i get to see you.”

gojo’s been good so far, hardly challenging you this whole time and instead, goading you into a world of pleasure you would have never experienced under mother’s watchful eye. instead, he was content to have his cock touched and his name wailed a hundred different ways — he’d shown no indication of breaking your deal aside from this. so in turn, you halfheartedly let go of the loop of hair that kept his sapphire stained eyes away from the world and held his wrists down to the arms of his chair.  the restraints loosen just enough to please him and do what he needs to do. not enough to give him complete freedom. 

“fuck the deal.” you cast it all to the side, relentlessly resuming grinding all over gojo — pushing your hips back as far as his knee to smother your swollen pleasure against it.

this time, satoru is able witness the way your bambi doe eyes roll back into your emptying skull. 

with newfound motivation, the intruder begins quickly blinking away any darkness that caused a fuzz at the edge of his vision, gojo’s gaze immediately trickles down to your clenching hole, a treasure kept safe between your nectar glossed thighs; watching you ride him. “god, if i had my hands on you i’d rub that clit until you were squirting… i bet you’d like that, if i ruined that pussy. made her mine — you'd like that.” gojo’s stare returns to your eyes, flashing you his pearly whites through a condescending smile. his rushed and rambled teasing words make your creamy cunt wetter; body betraying you to violently shake above him. 

though you find strength to keep up your end of the bargain. you’d sworn to make satoru see stars, encapsulating his rigid, sloppy dick between your nimble fingers once more. you even spit on it, earning a haughty bleat from between the man’s pretty (yet chatty) mouth. his sturdy body seizes underneath your touch as you take a firmer grip on him, palming him faster and faster — seedy, hot precum webbing over your knuckles once more. that’s when you finally get to see it. how murky and dark your captive’s vibrant eyes grow, like a pond, swimming with desire for you and only you.

the rapture that had once melted away from you like butter in a pan begins to blossom within you once again — willing you to beg for a chance at a real orgasm. “yes satoru! oh, yes please!” you squeak, short of breath and not entirely sure or what you’re even begging for. the golden light emitting from strands of your hair flare up again and your pussy throbs with an aching need to hit release. “please…”

a self congratulatory thread of cobalt lust weaves its way between the darkening midnight flecks in this eyes. “now look who’s begging,” clicking his tongue, gojo cocks his head to the side, relishing in his ability to finally look at you. drink in the way your chest bounces beneath the bodice of your lace orchid gown. it’s completely fucked, darkened by a crude mix of your arousals but it’s the most beautiful thing satoru has ever seen — only serving to rial him up even more… his own orgasm coming up over the hill. it burns at his internal organs, the lining of his stomach and the only way to alleviate this almost painful yet delectable twinge to his system is through you. “bet you’re only being nice ‘cause you’re close. well guess what? me too, be a good girl, honey, and cum for me.” he says, voice rising in both pitch and breathiness through his gritted teeth. 

he’s going to cum. 

and you’re too far gone to form a response with words just yet. you stop your own ministrations, payback for edging you earlier. his own cock dribbles pitifully as you rip his high away from him like pulling a rug from beneath his feet. gojo thrashes in his hair in response, azure eyes wild and almost wet with a sheen of tears — just as desperate to cum ad you are. “wh-what the fuck was that for?” he winges as though he’s a child on punishment, slender hips rising up to chase your soiled hand and perfect grip — shaft standing needily at attention. “honey…”

“you don’t get to cum until i get to cum. so either you work with me, satoru, or we’ll go all day.” you snap, slowly working your drenched cunt over the meat of his thigh once again, your puffy folds spread either side of it — squelching with the way you salaciously wind your hips all over him. 

satoru basks in the sight, tongue poking out tauntingly between his teeth as he decides to test the waters. “fine, but at least let me help,” he suggests, watching eagerly as you throw your head back in the purest form of pleasure and grind on him harder. it’s clear as day that you need just as much of a push to cum as he does and he plans on giving it to you in just one condition. “untie me.”

“deal.” chewing on your lower lip, you let more of your hair unwind your glowing hair from all points that keep gojo strapped to the chair. enough for more of his hands to escape. then, he’s on you within a flash, hot tongue swirling its way over your clothed bosom and biting at your peaked nipples while his hands shoot to the globes of your ass so that he can drag you in harsh circles across his lap. he’s ravenous, out of control, as if he’s been waiting for this moment the entire time. 

somewhere along the way, in one final burst of passion, your mouths find each other again — swapping streams of saliva as you lose yourselves to sex crazed minds teaming with lust hormones. with your lips smacking and bodies moving against each other in a delicious bump and grind — satoru forces a large hand between you both, fumbling against your cotton panties. the sound he lets out when he finally, finally gets his hands on your puffy clit is glutoral and animalistic, the simple touch sending a shock wave of electricity across every one of your synapses. dazing you for good. 

you bear witness to the silver haired stranger losing his mind, falling from grace like an angel with blackened wings. and for you, he does the same, commiting the sight of your glowing halo-like strands of hair to memory — the coils that shine brighter the more you sing and sin for him.

he can’t stop gabbling, gargling on the spit you pour into one another — followed by howls and screams of pleasure. “oh you like that, hm? i bet that feels so good… so sweet ‘n wet under my touch.” hot fingers belonging to satoru pick up the pace between your sticky folds, flicking your clit feverishly and writing his claim against your cunt at the same time that you jam a thumb into the tricking slit of his dirty red cockhead. the pair of you jolt in one another’s arms, taking one too many steps towards the edge of cloud nine before you’re even ready for you.  

“oh sweetheart, listen to you, sound so good. wish i could have you on my fat cock instead of my thigh. next time yeah? you’re gonna cum like this, aren’t you? gonna get my thigh nice and wet?” gojo growls, voice hoarse and layering perfectly over your whistle tone whines. his digits slow and start their greedy assault on your sex, edging you further and further as you wriggle and writhe at his words. 

the world escapes you, the knot of lust that had been warping within you finally coming undone. “gods… s-satoru! please!” you shriek as though your voice is a  gust of stormy wind — reverberating off of painted cobblestone walls. your free hand (no longer trapped by loops of your own hair) darts out to grab the intruder’s wrist, thighs locking around the hand that works you through an earth shattering high. the dam finally bursts, forcing open floodgates as your pussy releases streams of clear arousal in small spurts that soaks his entire lap and clothes.

gojo has no idea where to look, the smallest glimpse of your orgasm sending him hurtling over the edge as well — he doesn’t relent, viciously circling your precious pleasure mug and drawing out your release to match his own. his thick length spasms in your tiny hand, plump balls no longer able to contain the viscous, hot seed he has saved up all for you. just for you. he cums with a shout, abdomen contracting under your never-ending supple touch, ropes of white hot endlessly shoot from his overstimulated tip almost as though he’s a faucet that’s never been turned off.

he swears he almost blacks out, a white and sweaty mop of hair collapsing onto your shoulder as you slump in gojo’s lap — exhausted. as the air in the room cools, your hair no longer glowing and your chests syncing up to heave in an even rise and fall — you bring a lazy hand to the back of satoru’s head, toying with coils of his baby hair to help you both calm down.

a moment of quiet passes before you find the energy to whisper. “will you take me to see those floating lights now?” 

your innocent question causes satoru to snort sleepily, pressing a wet chaste kiss to your sweaty cheek as the sound breaks free from his cherry-bitten lips. “a deal’s a deal, honey. as soon as you untie me… we’ll hit the road.” 

neither of you move a muscle, however, still recovering from the sinful act you had just shared. 

you use the time to reflect, a sense of excitement dawning on you. you were going to leave the tower. you were going to see the floating lights on your birthday. and most importantly, you were directly disobeying your mother to prove your capableness. and all you had to do to get your fairytale happy ending was give a handjob to a very handsome, very willing stranger. 

the end.

꒰ end. — all rights reserved © tteokdoroki 2024. do not copy, repost, translate & recommend elsewhere.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Kickstarting a book to end enshittification, because Amazon will not carry it

My next book is The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation: it’s a Big Tech disassembly manual that explains how to disenshittify the web and bring back the old good internet. The hardcover comes from Verso on Sept 5, but the audiobook comes from me — because Amazon refuses to sell my audio:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doctorow/the-internet-con-how-to-seize-the-means-of-computation

Amazon owns Audible, the monopoly audiobook platform that controls >90% of the audio market. They require mandatory DRM for every book sold, locking those books forever to Amazon’s monopoly platform. If you break up with Amazon, you have to throw away your entire audiobook library.

That’s a hell of a lot of leverage to hand to any company, let alone a rapacious monopoly that ran a program targeting small publishers called “Project Gazelle,” where execs were ordered to attack indie publishers “the way a cheetah would pursue a sickly gazelle”:

https://www.businessinsider.com/sadistic-amazon-treated-book-sellers-the-way-a-cheetah-would-pursue-a-sickly-gazelle-2013-10

[Image ID: Journalist and novelist Doctorow (Red Team Blues) details a plan for how to break up Big Tech in this impassioned and perceptive manifesto….Doctorow’s sense of urgency is contagious -Publishers Weekly]

I won’t sell my work with DRM, because DRM is key to the enshittification of the internet. Enshittification is why the old, good internet died and became “five giant websites filled with screenshots of the other four” (h/t Tom Eastman). When a tech company can lock in its users and suppliers, it can drain value from both sides, using DRM and other lock-in gimmicks to keep their business even as they grow ever more miserable on the platform.

Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

[Image ID: A brilliant barn burner of a book. Cory is one of the sharpest tech critics, and he shows with fierce clarity how our computational future could be otherwise -Kate Crawford, author of The Atlas of AI”]

The Internet Con isn’t just an analysis of where enshittification comes from: it’s a detailed, shovel-ready policy prescription for halting enshittification, throwing it into reverse and bringing back the old, good internet.

How do we do that? With interoperability: the ability to plug new technology into those crapulent, decaying platform. Interop lets you choose which parts of the service you want and block the parts you don’t (think of how an adblocker lets you take the take-it-or-leave “offer” from a website and reply with “How about nah?”):

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/adblocking-how-about-nah

But interop isn’t just about making platforms less terrible — it’s an explosive charge that demolishes walled gardens. With interop, you can leave a social media service, but keep talking to the people who stay. With interop, you can leave your mobile platform, but bring your apps and media with you to a rival’s service. With interop, you can break up with Amazon, and still keep your audiobooks.

So, if interop is so great, why isn’t it everywhere?

Well, it used to be. Interop is how Microsoft became the dominant operating system:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/adversarial-interoperability-reviving-elegant-weapon-more-civilized-age-slay

[Image ID: Nobody gets the internet-both the nuts and bolts that make it hum and the laws that shaped it into the mess it is-quite like Cory, and no one’s better qualified to deliver us a user manual for fixing it. That’s The Internet Con: a rousing, imaginative, and accessible treatise for correcting our curdled online world. If you care about the internet, get ready to dedicate yourself to making interoperability a reality. -Brian Merchant, author of Blood in the Machine]

It’s how Apple saved itself from Microsoft’s vicious campaign to destroy it:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/adversarial-interoperability-reviving-elegant-weapon-more-civilized-age-slay

Every tech giant used interop to grow, and then every tech giant promptly turned around and attacked interoperators. Every pirate wants to be an admiral. When Big Tech did it, that was progress; when you do it back to Big Tech, that’s piracy. The tech giants used their monopoly power to make interop without permission illegal, creating a kind of “felony contempt of business model” (h/t Jay Freeman).

The Internet Con describes how this came to pass, but, more importantly, it tells us how to fix it. It lays out how we can combine different kinds of interop requirements (like the EU’s Digital Markets Act and Massachusetts’s Right to Repair law) with protections for reverse-engineering and other guerrilla tactics to create a system that is strong without being brittle, hard to cheat on and easy to enforce.

What’s more, this book explains how to get these policies: what existing legislative, regulatory and judicial powers can be invoked to make them a reality. Because we are living through the Great Enshittification, and crises erupt every ten seconds, and when those crises occur, the “good ideas lying around” can move from the fringes to the center in an eyeblink:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/12/only-a-crisis/#lets-gooooo

[Image ID: Thoughtfully written and patiently presented, The Internet Con explains how the promise of a free and open internet was lost to predatory business practices and the rush to commodify every aspect of our lives. An essential read for anyone that wants to understand how we lost control of our digital spaces and infrastructure to Silicon Valley’s tech giants, and how we can start fighting to get it back. -Tim Maughan, author of INFINITE DETAIL]

After all, we’ve known Big Tech was rotten for years, but we had no idea what to do about it. Every time a Big Tech colossus did something ghastly to millions or billions of people, we tried to fix the tech company. There’s no fixing the tech companies. They need to burn. The way to make users safe from Big Tech predators isn’t to make those predators behave better — it’s to evacuate those users:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/18/urban-wildlife-interface/#combustible-walled-gardens

I’ve been campaigning for human rights in the digital world for more than 20 years; I’ve been EFF’s European Director, representing the public interest at the EU, the UN, Westminster, Ottawa and DC. This is the subject I’ve devoted my life to, and I live my principles. I won’t let my books be sold with DRM, which means that Audible won’t carry my audiobooks. My agent tells me that this decision has cost me enough money to pay off my mortgage and put my kid through college. That’s a price I’m willing to pay if it means that my books aren’t enshittification bait.

But not selling on Audible has another cost, one that’s more important to me: a lot of readers prefer audiobooks and 9 out of 10 of those readers start and end their searches on Audible. When they don’t find an author there, they assume no audiobook exists, period. It got so bad I put up an audiobook on Amazon — me, reading an essay, explaining how Audible rips off writers and readers. It’s called “Why None of My Audiobooks Are For Sale on Audible”:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/25/can-you-hear-me-now/#acx-ripoff

[Image ID: Doctorow has been thinking longer and smarter than anyone else I know about how we create and exchange value in a digital age. -Douglas Rushkoff, author of Present Shock]

To get my audiobooks into readers’ ears, I pre-sell them on Kickstarter. This has been wildly successful, both financially and as a means of getting other prominent authors to break up with Amazon and use crowdfunding to fill the gap. Writers like Brandon Sanderson are doing heroic work, smashing Amazon’s monopoly:

https://www.brandonsanderson.com/guest-editorial-cory-doctorow-is-a-bestselling-author-but-audible-wont-carry-his-audiobooks/

And to be frank, I love audiobooks, too. I swim every day as physio for a chronic pain condition, and I listen to 2–3 books/month on my underwater MP3 player, disappearing into an imaginary world as I scull back and forth in my public pool. I’m able to get those audiobooks on my MP3 player thanks to Libro.fm, a DRM-free store that supports indie booksellers all over the world:

https://blog.libro.fm/a-qa-with-mark-pearson-libro-fm-ceo-and-co-founder/

Producing my own audiobooks has been a dream. Working with Skyboat Media, I’ve gotten narrators like @wilwheaton​, Amber Benson, @neil-gaiman​ and Stefan Rudnicki for my work:

https://craphound.com/shop/

[Image ID: “This book is the instruction manual Big Tech doesn’t want you to read. It deconstructs their crummy products, undemocratic business models, rigged legal regimes, and lies. Crack this book and help build something better. -Astra Taylor, author of Democracy May Not Exist, but We’ll Miss It When Its Gone”]

But for this title, I decided that I would read it myself. After all, I’ve been podcasting since 2006, reading my own work aloud every week or so, even as I traveled the world and gave thousands of speeches about the subject of this book. I was excited (and a little trepedatious) at the prospect, but how could I pass up a chance to work with director Gabrielle de Cuir, who has directed everyone from Anne Hathaway to LeVar Burton to Eric Idle?

Reader, I fucking nailed it. I went back to those daily recordings fully prepared to hate them, but they were good — even great (especially after my engineer John Taylor Williams mastered them). Listen for yourself!

https://archive.org/details/cory_doctorow_internet_con_chapter_01

I hope you’ll consider backing this Kickstarter. If you’ve ever read my free, open access, CC-licensed blog posts and novels, or listened to my podcasts, or come to one of my talks and wished there was a way to say thank you, this is it. These crowdfunders make my DRM-free publishing program viable, even as audiobooks grow more central to a writer’s income and even as a single company takes over nearly the entire audiobook market.

Backers can choose from the DRM-free audiobook, DRM-free ebook (EPUB and MOBI) and a hardcover — including a signed, personalized option, fulfilled through the great LA indie bookstore Book Soup:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doctorow/the-internet-con-how-to-seize-the-means-of-computation

What’s more, these ebooks and audiobooks are unlike any you’ll get anywhere else because they are sold without any terms of service or license agreements. As has been the case since time immemorial, when you buy these books, they’re yours, and you are allowed to do anything with them that copyright law permits — give them away, lend them to friends, or simply read them with any technology you choose.

As with my previous Kickstarters, backers can get their audiobooks delivered with an app (from libro.fm) or as a folder of MP3s. That helps people who struggle with “sideloading,” a process that Apple and Google have made progressively harder, even as they force audiobook and ebook sellers to hand over a 30% app tax on every dollar they make:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doctorow/red-team-blues-another-audiobook-that-amazon-wont-sell/posts/3788112

Enshittification is rotting every layer of the tech stack: mobile, payments, hosting, social, delivery, playback. Every tech company is pulling the rug out from under us, using the chokepoints they built between audiences and speakers, artists and fans, to pick all of our pockets.

The Internet Con isn’t just a lament for the internet we lost — it’s a plan to get it back. I hope you’ll get a copy and share it with the people you love, even as the tech platforms choke off your communities to pad their quarterly numbers.

Next weekend (Aug 4-6), I'll be in Austin for Armadillocon, a science fiction convention, where I'm the Guest of Honor:

https://armadillocon.org/d45/

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/31/seize-the-means-of-computation/#the-internet-con

[Image ID: My forthcoming book 'The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation' in various editions: Verso hardcover, audiobook displayed on a phone, and ebook displayed on an e-ink reader.]

[sushiyuzu]

bodyguard’s duty

bodyguard!sylus x reader

a/n: big thanks to @obahajimarkkeu for tagging me and requesting this fic! not the best but i tried lol. i had a blast writing it, and i hope you all love it. your support really means a lot! <3

- do check out my sylus fic book on wattpad if you haven’t already!

your father was always a man of control. every decision, every move he made was calculated, especially in his political career. as one of the most powerful figures running for office this year, he wasn’t just careful—he was cautious to the point of paranoia. so when the threats started rolling in—anonymous messages, rumors of danger—he did what he always did. he took action.

and that’s how sylus entered your life.

he wasn’t the first bodyguard your father had hired, but he was certainly the most intimidating. tall, broad-shouldered, and deadly silent, sylus was a man who carried an aura of danger around him like a cloak. from the moment he was assigned to you, his presence became impossible to ignore. he followed you everywhere, his eyes always scanning, always searching for any hint of trouble.

it was suffocating at first. you weren’t used to being shadowed so closely. and, more than that, you didn’t want to be. you hated feeling like a prisoner, your every move watched, your freedom stripped away because of something as abstract as “danger”. but no amount of complaining to your father helped. he simply insisted that sylus was the best—someone who would keep you alive when no one else could.

“he’s not just any bodyguard,” your father had told you. “he’s the best the market has to offer. you’ll be safe with him.”

you weren’t sure if you believed that at first. but there was something about sylus—something that made you pause, that made you think there was more to him than just a hired gun. something deeper.

you weren’t sure what to make of him at first. his presence was unsettling—there was something about the way he moved, always so precise, always so quiet, like a predator stalking its prey. he was tall, with broad shoulders and a lean, powerful frame. but it was his silver hair and crimson red eyes that stood out the most, giving him an almost otherworldly appearance. he was unlike anyone you had ever met, and from the moment he arrived, you knew that things would never be the same.

at first, you tried to keep your distance, telling yourself that he was just another bodyguard, someone hired to follow you around and make sure nothing happened. but it didn’t take long for you to realize that sylus wasn’t like the others. he didn’t just follow orders. he watched you—closely. too closely. every move you made, every word you said, you could feel his eyes on you, studying, calculating.

one evening, after a particularly tense day, you found yourself standing on the balcony of your room, staring out at the city lights below. the cool breeze did little to ease the heat that had been building inside you over the past few weeks. you couldn’t stop thinking about sylus—the way his gaze seemed to burn through you, the way his presence lingered even when he wasn’t around.

you heard the door behind you open, and your heart skipped a beat. you didn’t need to turn around to know it was him. his presence was unmistakable, his footsteps silent as he approached.

“you think i’m just some hired muscle, don’t you?” his voice was low, rough, sending a shiver down your spine.

you turned slightly, leaning against the railing, trying to keep your voice steady. “aren’t you?” you asked, half-joking, trying to mask the unease creeping into your chest.

he was close now, too close, his tall frame looming over you, his crimson eyes locked on yours. “i’ve been watching you for a long time,” he said, his voice almost a growl. “i know every little thing that makes you tick.”

your heart raced at his words, and despite yourself, you smirked. “sounds like you’re obsessed.”

in an instant, sylus closed the distance between you, his hand gripping the railing beside you, trapping you between him and the edge. his breath was hot against your ear, and when he spoke again, his voice was a dangerous whisper. “maybe i am.”

the closeness of his body, the heat radiating off him—it was overwhelming. your pulse quickened, and every nerve in your body seemed to come alive. you told yourself you should be scared, that you should pull away, but all you could think about was how much you wanted him closer.

his hand brushed lightly against your waist, the touch sending a jolt of electricity through you. you inhaled sharply, your body responding in ways you couldn’t control.

“you should be careful,” sylus murmured, his lips grazing the side of your neck. “because once i have you, there’s no going back.”

his words were a warning, but they only made you want him more. the tension between you was unbearable, the air thick with desire and danger. you could feel his breath against your skin, his body pressing ever so slightly against yours, and it took everything in you not to pull him closer, to close the gap entirely.

but before you could act on the impulse, something caught his attention. his entire body tensed, and in one swift motion, he pulled you back into the room, shutting the balcony door behind you. his eyes scanned the darkness outside, his crimson gaze sharp, focused.

“stay here,” he commanded, his tone leaving no room for argument. but you hated being treated like a delicate flower, hated feeling helpless. you took a step forward, determined to stand your ground, but sylus was faster. before you could even blink, he had you pinned against the wall, his body shielding yours.

“what did i just say?” he growled, his breath hot against your skin, his hand firm around your wrist. “next time, you stay behind me.”

your breath caught at the intensity in his voice, the way his eyes blazed with barely contained anger. and yet, despite the danger, you couldn’t help the thrill that ran through you at his protectiveness, at the way his body pressed so close to yours.

“and if i don’t?” you challenged, your voice barely a whisper.

for a moment, sylus said nothing, his gaze locked on yours, his chest rising and falling with deep, controlled breaths. then, with a swift, almost violent movement, he gripped your chin, tilting your head up so that you were forced to meet his eyes. “then i’ll remind you who’s in charge of keeping you alive.”

the raw dominance in his voice made your pulse race, your skin tingling under his touch. his grip was firm, possessive, but it wasn’t painful. if anything, it sent a wave of heat through you, making your heart pound even harder.

just as quickly as he had grabbed you, sylus released you, stepping back with a clenched jaw, his eyes still locked on yours. “don’t test me,” he warned, his voice quieter now, but no less intense.

you stood there, breathless, your body still buzzing with the adrenaline of the moment. you wanted to push him further, to see how far you could go, but something told you this wasn’t the time.

days passed, and the tension between you only grew stronger. every glance, every accidental touch, felt like a spark waiting to ignite. you knew you were playing with fire, but you couldn’t help it. there was something about sylus, something dark and magnetic that drew you in, despite your better judgment.

one night, after another close call, you found yourself alone with him in your room. the danger had passed, but the adrenaline still surged through your veins, leaving you restless. sylus stood near the window, his back to you, his posture tense. the silence between you was thick, filled with unspoken words and desires.

“i’m sorry,” you said softly, breaking the silence. “i didn’t mean to make things difficult.”

sylus turned to face you, his crimson eyes softening ever so slightly. he let out a low, humorless chuckle. “you think i’d complain? watching over you is the only thing keeping me sane.”

his words sent a thrill through you, and without thinking, you stepped closer, your hand brushing against his arm. his skin was warm, the muscles beneath it tense, and the moment your fingers made contact, you felt the familiar surge of heat between you.

“you’re a constant risk, you know that?” he muttered, his eyes fixed on the floor. “you make my job impossible.”

you looked at him, raising an eyebrow. “then why stay?” you asked, your voice challenging, though there was genuine curiosity behind it. why did he stay? with all the danger, the constant threats, why didn’t he just walk away?

“i’m not just a job to you, am i?” you asked, your voice barely above a whisper.

sylus’s eyes darkened, and before you could say anything else, he pulled you against him, his lips crashing down on yours with a hunger that left you breathless. the kiss was searing, possessive, and filled with all the tension that had been building between you for weeks. his hands gripped your waist, pulling you impossibly closer, his body pressed hard against yours.

every inch of you was on fire, your skin burning with the intensity of his touch. his lips moved against yours with a fierceness that made your head spin, and when he finally pulled away, you were left gasping for air, your heart racing.

“because i’d die before i let anything happen to you,” sylus muttered, his voice rough, his breath hot against your skin.

his words hit you like a punch to the chest, knocking the air from your lungs. you stared at him, speechless, unable to process the depth of what he had just said. sylus, the man who was supposed to be detached, professional, had just confessed something far more personal, far more intense.

and in that moment, you realized that this wasn’t just about a job for him. this wasn’t just about protecting you because your father paid him to. this was something more. something deeper.

backup acc: @sushibelle

[thekidsfromyestergay]

So now we're talking about fair pay and residuals for actors and writers can we start talking about fairer pay and streaming residuals for musicians. Particularly smaller musicians who are locked in unfair contracts and have no control over the licencing and usage of their music. And session artists who work for one day and receive no residuals, no matter how much revenue the music they created generates. And local "booking agents" who capitalise on the market while giving their artists almost none of the money from their ticket sales.

[momochanners]

After a good night's sleep, I think I can better solidify my thoughts in regards to the Dragon Age trailer.

First, let's start with the positives:

- Companion diversity: This has always been part of the series' DNA that has been clearly depicted with every iteration, so those who cry foul over "Asian & Black elves", prosthethics, etc etc...I really don't get that, because values and sensibilities evolve over time. Even the series itself has course corrected when needed, eg. Player character creation influencing the family ethnicity of the Couslands in DA:O vs the Hawkes in DA2.

- Unlocked romances: Letting players choose whoever they want to romance regardless of their sexuality and race has always been a positive for me. Allowing everyone to enjoy the experience equally is great (and I'm sure the nuances of player race & gender will be addressed through dialogue and banter). Moreover, CRPGs are long and time-consuming, so to be locked out of character romances mid-way through is never going to be a good time (from personal experience and observing fandom in the past).

Now the negatives:

- Maybe it's me being on the older side of the Bioware fandom (15 years in Dragon Age, 20 years if you count older games like KotOR and Jade Empire), but I cringed very hard watching the trailer. If you followed the development of this game in the past decade, the cancelled live service element that was to be DA4 in one of its iterations was so all over the way the companions were introduced that it brought out a visceral reaction in me. The tonal whiplash from how foreboding Dreadwolf was presented in the past to the patronising happy quippy MEET OUR LITTLE GUYS YOU'RE SURE TO LOVE also did not help as a first concrete look of what to expect after all this time (also poor anachronistic choice of soundtrack when you already have Trevor Morris' compositions right there). I was so dismayed when they went with a looter-shooter-esque lighthearted vibe when they could've leaned hard on the foreboding established mood and momentum they've already got going with Dreadwolf. 

- The branding switch this late in the game that comes with it, especially one as drastic as this will always come with questions and ambivalence. I feel that mitigating uncertainty from announced changes (party number, combat mechanics, setting and environment, etc) should've have been prioritised to reassure existing and lapsed fans before appealing to new ones in such a jarring way.

-  I'm simply baffled at the marketing suit who signed off on whatever this is to be their "best foot forward" at reintroducing the final form of this game? If only there were confident with the world they've already built instead of relying on trendy gimmicks, the amount of damage control I'm seeing prior to the gameplay reveal tonight was so avoidable. Controlling the narrative from the get go is so very important especially now as opinions can easily snowball overnight into behemoth-like proportions especially from bad faith actors. You would think that lessons were learned from DA:O's "THIS IS THE NEW SHIT" and DA2's "Press a button, something AWESOME happens" debacles.

(The thing is, despite it being my least favourite DA out of the three, imho Inquisition has the best marketing campaign in the franchise despite the developmental troubles going on in the background. So it has been pulled off successfully before!)

- I think the Bioware layoffs, especially the recent extensive gutting of senior staff in September 2023, significantly depleted my goodwill as a fan. To see Varric being paraded as a mascot in the trailer, game promotion and supplementary media while having his creator unceremoniously let go after years of building the franchise we love left me so very cold. And it's a me problem, but seeing many other fans barely acknowledging that save for few hollow words before getting back into the fun frustrated me so much. I get being excited to finally get something solid after years of false starts, but with what was lost along the way...I personally don't feel right to approach this installment without cynicism.

Idk, I'm just a bundle of conflicted feelings over this series I guess? When it's so good, it's really good and stays with you as memorable gaming experiences that stays with you for life, but when it stumbles and fumbles the bag...it hurts to see.

[ashessonfire]

Hello, i have a potential kaz x reader request for you!! I, for some reason, love the idea of a very soft/domestic kaz moment with reader who isn’t involved in the crime life. So what about y/n being married to kaz and for some reason she makes her way down to the crow club (maybe someone broke into the house or something) and kaz is extreamly confused and concerned and the rest if the crows are like "andddd who are you?"

if you don't feel it, feel free to ignore!

'Intruder' - Kaz Brekker x reader

Prompt - Kaz is a highly secretive man, even to his closest friends, but what happens when a panicked citizen rushes into the Crow Club demanding his presence? It could even suggest that he had the ability to love. - Pairing: Kaz Brekker x Civilian!Reader (Gender neautral)(married for at least a few years but not specified) - Warnings: Thief enters readers house, brief mention of fighting and injury, a knife?? Kaz just being super soft for you! <333 PART TWO NOW POSTED! (click here) - A/N: Thank you for ALL the love on the last post, and my first fic ever! I hope this does just as well and its enjoyed too. I know its not as fluffy as maybe expected but i really like how it turned out. PLEASE KEEP REQUESTING!!(some moonknight coming soon) <3333

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The chilling wind of Ketterdam rushed past your face, adding to your already watering eyes that couldn’t stop frantically searching around for further threats.

You had been enjoying a quiet morning, browsing the market, drinking tea with friends, and even finding a new hat for Kaz. All was serene, until you turned the lock in the front door, only to be confronted by a menacing figure, knife gripped in one hand, Kaz’s favourite (and most expensive) tea set in the other.

A small gasp escaped you, before your mind took control, rushing forward to land a harsh blow directly on the figure’s nose, just at the right angle like Kaz had demonstrated.

He let out a murderous scream whilst dropping the tea set onto the ground, the shattering of the pieces echoing in your heart and mind. However, this granted you enough time to grab the edge of his jacket and pull him through the doorframe, using every ounce of your strength.

He stumbled down the steps of the small apartment, loosing his footing and falling rapidly, landing brutally on the cobblestone street below and roaring in pain as a jolting crack resounded from where he landed.

Without thinking, you scrambled inside, bolted the door, and ran as fast as you possibly could out of the side entrance, internally crying as your boots struggled through the remains of your husband's most beloved item.

As you struggled through the tight alleyway, you prayed that the Stadwatch had noticed the commotion and apprehended the man. As you bolted down the poorly lit streets of the barrel, thoughts of terror began plaguing your mind.

What if Kaz hadn’t taught you to defend yourself? What if you had reacted too slowly? Would Kaz be angry with you for not finishing the job? How would ‘Dirtyhands’ react to your utter horror at one intruder?

You were abruptly ripped from your thoughts by the unmistakable image of a crow, hanging magnificently above the crowded street. Pushing your way through the crowd, you suppressed the nerves rising in your chest, threatening to choke you, as you entered the crow club for the first time.

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The unmistakable smell of alcohol and smoke clouded your senses immediately, as crowds of ‘pigeons,’ as Kaz may call them, wandered around the floor without a care for others around them.

As frightening as the previous events had been, you didn’t allow yourself to be overwhelmed by this too, shoving your violently shaking hands into your pockets to stop the visible nerves from showing.

Jesper and Wylan sat in close proximity at the bar edge, as far from the yelling and cheering of the customers as they possibly could. Your gazed locked onto the face of the tall Zemeni man, thinking back to the hundreds of times Kaz’s mask had slipped, and he had spoken fondly of his best friend.

Despite Kaz’s firm objection to verbal communication, he often fell victim to your warmth and comfort, his affections for his crew spilling into casual conversation, almost subconsciously. Of course, the Bastard of the Barrel couldn’t hold onto something as weak as friendship. However, this meant that you were very familiar with each of his ‘crows,’ despite never officially meeting any of them.

Mustering all the courage you could, you sucked in a sharp breath, preparing yourself for the challenging journey to your last hope at finding him.

You weaved your way cautiously between the rowdy groups, dodging drunken gestures and swinging arms, until you reached the pair sat at the bar, panic spreading through your body like wildfire. You made note to keep your hands firmly tucked within the safety of your jacket, in a feeble attempt to keep up a façade of confidence.

As their gazes turned towards you, you gently cleared your throat in the hopes of removing any indication of fright, and in turn, weakness from your voice.

“I’m looking for Kaz? Kaz Brekker?” you stuttered out, eyes darting around to avoid the quizzical gazes of the two men in front of you. Under different circumstances you wished to have met them when your usual air of joy blanketed not only you, but all of those who encountered you too. Yet it seemed like the Saints weren't on your side for that wish today.

You were snapped back from your thoughts, as they glanced at each other, sharing an unspoken but clear sense of bewilderment between them at your odd request. Often drunken pigeons, or rough street urchins would request to see the boss, but it wasn’t a common sight to see a regularly dressed citizen in such a state demanding an audience with Mr Brekker himself.

“I’m afraid it’s pretty difficult to get a meeting with the boss, always busy you know?” spoke the man you assumed to be Jesper, in a kind but skeptical tone, swirling the drink in his hand as he failed to decipher the reason for your visit.

Panic began to claw its way deeper into your chest, as you quickly blurted out “Please, its important, I need to see Kaz. Please bring me to see him.” The sudden outburst once again surprised the men, however Wylan’s gaze softened at the clear desperation on your features, and Jesper’s confusion morphed into something that resembled pity.

Wylan subtly leaned into Jesper, whispering “I think you should take her, she seems pretty desperate?” causing Jesper to let out a sigh before meeting your gaze yet again.

Reluctantly, Jesper stood up, stretching his limbs well, before letting out a dramatic sigh, followed by a feigned annoyance at the request, analyzing you for a moment before stating, “Let’s go see the boss then.”

He quickly turned back to you, flashing a lopsided, yet winning grin, which put to rest some of the bubbling anxiety that was becoming inescapable. As you ascended the stairs to his office, a skeptical looking woman glanced curiously up at the three of you, hopping out of her chair to trail behind you, whilst stuffing the remains of what looked like a waffle into her mouth.

Before you could inquire about the third individual following your small group, you were suddenly met with the dark oak door of Kaz Brekker’s office. Jesper shot another reassuring grin back at you, as he rapidly knocked on the office door and let himself in before an answer called out.

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The instant you saw your husband, the tears glossed over your eyes, shining with a dangerous threat of escaping. However, to your surprise, you were able to win the valiant battle for a little longer.

You knew how vital it was for your husband to keep his personal life separated from his work life; one wrong move, and you could end up in the hands of another gang, tortured in exchange for information on the Dregs. This knowledge was what kept you from barreling towards his desk without a second thought, with even the smallest slip from Jesper potentially ruining every bit of yours and Kaz’s struggle to break down his walls.

Kaz sat at his desk at the centre of the bleak room, a faint patch of light hitting his face from a glowing street lantern, casting deep shadows across his sharp features. His shoulders tensed as he remained solely focused on the blueprint in front of him, his harsh glare at the sheet almost seemed as if he was planning to murder it. Perhaps if you weren’t so shaken you may have let out a soft laugh at his pure concentration.

“What is it? I have no time for irrelevant interruption, this marksheet needs to be completed before twelve bells tonight,” A sharp voice suddenly cut through the thick silence. Jesper cleared his throat before confronting his boss, shifting his weight between each foot at the temper that Kaz was evidently displaying.

“Well, you see, I was sitting downstairs with Wylan at the bar, when all of a sudden…” Jesper started, but was cut off by a deadly look from Kaz to get to the point. As his gaze shot upwards towards the sharpshooter, he finally noticed the second figure in the room and his heart plummeted.

Why were you here?

Kaz’s mind began spinning, grasping for any logical reason as to why you were in the one of the most dangerous staves of the Barrel, requiring his assistance.

An identical panic to yours seized his chest as he inspected your state, your hair was windswept, eyes glossed over and glinting with a touch of fear, a visible shake to your arms and legs, which he had been fortunate enough to never experience until now.

You looked utterly terrified.

A single murderous look was enough for Jesper to throw his hands up in defense, and saunter quietly out of the room, glancing curiously back at the two of you as he shut the door. Jesper thought to himself that his life in the long run would be far more valuable than the price of his curiosity now.

Although Kaz is a man of few words, he seemed truly speechless, barely managing to register his own steps as he moved slowly towards you, each limp bringing his comfort closer and closer to you. Once he had reached your figure, he noticed you had curled in on yourself, hands clasped firmly together in front of you, and eyes darting rapidly around his face, searching for something, as it appeared to him.

He slowly reached towards you, and with a gloved hand, tenderly unwound your fingers from their iron grip, instead intertwining them with his own to bring you comfort and slow your light but swift breathing. Kaz remained tight-lipped, words rushing through his head, yet not formulating into any combination which he thought would be appropriate to calm you down.

He gazed intensely into your eyes, softening with each moment as he took in your shaken state, something that was rare due to his exceptional ability to keep you away from his violent life.

Until now.

Yet you had taught him not to run anymore when he encounters challenges, leading him to battle his mind later, and care for you in the present. Plus, you had the courage to make your way through the barrel in this condition, the least he could do was give you his everything.

You released a long, shaky sigh, staring only at Kaz’s chest now in order to match your breaths, imagining that your hearts were beating together too. You knew Kaz was struggling to find a grip within his thoughts, fingers twitching against your own as his body worked overtime, in a way it only did for you.

Several minutes passed in a strange silence, as the pair of you basked in each other's presence, the close distance allowing both of you to be assured the other is safe and within reach, yet the tension and anxiety still buzzed through the air.

“Someone broke in, I’m not sure who or from where. Tried to steal your favorite tea set, you know the one you brought back from Ravka once? I hit him square like you said. But it, but it boke. Shattered actually. It gave me enough time to run, but I don’t know. He may have followed or…” you suddenly burst out, the emotions flowing out of you through your words, and soon to follow were the tears.

You were cut off in your rambling however, as a feather-light kiss graced your temple, drawing you into a pool of warmth, suddenly able to feel the heat of the fire and the glow of the candles that surrounded Kaz’s office, likely gifts of yours.

Although Kaz’s voice was hardened, you knew he was holding back significantly to soothe you, building up wrath to unleash on the unfortunate man who entered your house earlier. The claws of the anxiety released their hold on you, allowing you to breathe deeply for the first time in hours.

“I’m here, darling, and you don’t need to think about that anymore,” he eventually breathed out, “I'll take care of it. I promise. I promise you,” he whispered against your forehead, again leaving the faintest outline of a kiss on the soft skin.

Whilst he was nowhere near healed, over the years you had opened up his deepest wounds and started to stitch them up, with each moment the pain easing ever so slightly. Direct touches were now common, with light pecks, or hand holding being Kaz's most favored actions.

Sometimes if you were lucky, you could get a short kiss on the lips, or a long hug through the safety of many layers; each being evident signs of his love for you, and how you were truly the only one to crack the code to the Bastard of the Barrel's heart.

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Kaz didn’t leave your side for the remainder of the night, bringing you anything you asked for, sitting the armchair closer to his desk to keep him company, hands held tightly until he deemed it safe enough to escort you home.

Wrapping you warmly with his largest coat, he gently placed his best hat atop your head, offering a small smile and breathy laugh as it tilted at an angle. Looking up to meet his gaze, you returned the grin, smile spreading to your eyes and cheeks. Kaz carefully adjusted the edges of the coat to obscure your face, being thorough in the process to avoid any identification of who was accompanying him.

As the door clicked open, and the pair stepped into the hallway, pinkies interlinked, a group of three snooping crows barreled backwards, hitting into each other and the walls. Kaz sent a deathly glare at each of them, as they stood in shock at the sight before them, Jesper gasping, Wylan gaping with fright, and Nina's smirk widening by the second.

After a series of extreme threats hurled at the group outside his office, Kaz pushed past them and dragged you with him, turning his coat collar upwards to hide the growing embarrassment colouring his face.

He crushed the feeling down, instead turning to his internal plotting to enact revenge on your behalf, inwardly smirking at the image of the man begging him for mercy as he pays for his offence in blood.

Meanwhile, Nina stood grinning to herself, proud of her newfound knowledge which she was certain she could use against Kaz at some point soon. Because from that office, she not only heard the hammering heart of the poor citizen girl, but also the one of a love-struck gang leader too.

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[b38rman]

READ YOUR MIND ᯓ★ Ollie Bearman

tags - ollie bearman x afab!reader, friends to lovers, fluff, slight miscommunication, loosely inspired by the sabrina carpenter song of the same name

synopsis - This was definitely not on the marketing internship job offering for Prema Racing. You swore you had everything under control before this—before Ollie Bearman took up most of the weekend's agenda.

rating - teen and up readers

warnings - slightly suggestive ending

a/n - i wrote this before ollie was announced as a 2025 f1 driver and the slight implications of dread related to that uncertainty are littered throughout this work so just keep that in mind (or not) enjoy!

Thursday — Spain, 2024

The unmistakable sound of the hotel doorbell rang through your room. Admittedly, the best time to go to sleep had already passed you by at this point, considering the 7 AM lobby call time the team had for you. Unfortunately, the restlessness that could only be attributed to constant location changes seeped into your bones.

You got up, trying to dispell the feeling populating your gut. Perhaps, more than anything, it was the dull influx of certainty. You were still learning how to get used to this.

You opened the door slightly, just enough to see who was on the other side. 

“Took you long enough.” The familiar rumble of Ollie’s voice filled your ears, as he pushed his way into your bedroom.

At this point, you were 100% sure that any of this was not part of any of the contracts Prema made you sign when they offered you the internship. No matter how much you looked between the lines of wage and non-disclosures, you wouldn’t find what you and Ollie had anywhere.

It was just that it was becoming a routine at this point. From the beginning of the season, Ollie seemingly couldn’t find a better victim than you for his late night musings. You tried to gently reprimand him at first, telling him off about his bedtime and his racing and all of the things he’d scoff at you for and turn a stubbornly deaf ear towards.

Ollie rounded the room slowly, his white sleep shirt and flannel pajamas contrasting against your worn summer camp shirt and cotton shorts. You felt overexposed, as you always did in these situations. 

“Wanna play Mario Kart?” Ollie asked, mindlessly making his way to your side of the bed.

You thought about it for a second before responding, “Nope, too tired to be that stressed out.”

Ollie hummed in acknowledgment before laying back onto your bed, phone in hand, with his legs still dangling over the edge. He always took your side of the bed, despite it very obviously being rumpled and occupied.

You climbed onto the other side and tucked yourself in under the sheets. As if on instinct, Ollie moved his head upward, resting it on your stomach, before locking his phone and setting it on his chest. 

“I just feel a bit odd, you know? Like everyone says so many good things about me but really, I haven’t done anything.” He looked to the ceiling as he rambled. “I have another FP1 tomorrow and all I can think about is how I don’t know how to be what people want me to be. I don’t know how to keep being good, or how to really be good; will people even look back and think I was good?” 

“That’s some bad imposter syndrome you got there, huh?” You stretched your hand out and lightly laid it on his head, stretching your fingers against the expanse of brown waves. Ollie leaned into the touch, shutting his eyes.

“The only thing that should matter is who you want to be.” You grinned fondly at him, even if he couldn’t see it. “Besides, you’re way too young to be worrying stuff like that.”

“We’re the same age.” He opened his eyes just to look at you as he said that. 

“And do you see me worrying about my legacy?” You joked, earning a toothy smile and a roll of eyes from Ollie. 

At every moment you’ve spent with Ollie so far, he’s not felt like someone that appears on national television broadcasts or on carefully curated Pinterest boards. You could almost see yourself looking across the lecture hall, seeing him, and wondering if he was really paying attention or just browsing on his laptop.

Instead, he was one of the boys you’d keep track of social media appearances for. You managed his filming schedules for both long-form and short-form videos, and wove through seas of people and motorhomes with him to find a spot to record his little post-race briefs. You weren’t assigned to him specifically, but it usually was you and him most of the time.

“It’s, um, getting late.” You tried not to be too awkward about untangling your hand from Ollie’s hair. “I think you should get some rest.”

You waited for him to complete the final part of this routine you had going, wherein he’d sleepily walk to his own bedroom and you’d fall asleep in your own fully warmed bed. 

Except for the fact that he didn’t do that at all. 

“Could I just stay here? I don’t really want to be alone right now.” You felt Ollie shift ever so slightly from where he was, head still resting on you.

Questions on professionality and ethics rang through your mind one after another. 

“Are you sure?” Was all you could muster. 

Ollie seemed to recognize your concern without you voicing it. After all, you weren’t particularly discreet about any of it. 

“I’ll just wake up earlier, it’ll be fine.” He finally raised his head and began setting an alarm for five in the morning. Part of you knew it was futile. Considering everything, it was a bold move, considering that it was just past midnight.

You watched him mindlessly, as he turned all the lights off, only leaving the light from the bathroom peaking out through a slight opening in its door. For a moment, you let yourself think of a time and place where this was a normal occurrence—one where him curling up in bed next to you in near complete darkness felt like a grounding force instead of a guilt-inducing one.

You turned to face away from where he was laying, opting to try and not make this any weirder than it could be. 

“Good night.” He said regardless. “Sweet dreams.” He said, in a softer voice, almost as if he didn’t want you to hear him. 

You could feel his body near yours, almost as if the full size bed was too cramped for the two of you. 

“Sweet dreams, Ollie.” You replied.

You felt him roll over to his back as you drifted off to sleep. 

Friday

Your eyes shot open at the sound of an iPhone alarm going off, obviously being the one Ollie set a few hours prior. What you didn’t immediately process was the arm wrapped around your waist, and the soft snores coming from the face that was nuzzled into your hair. Your heart was pounding. 

“Ollie,” You lightly shook the arm that was over you. “Ollie, wake up.”

You were only met with a long grunt and a tightened grip.

“Ollie, please, come on.” You tried sitting up to give him a bit more of a hint, displacing his arm on you.

Finally, he rolled over, turning off his alarm. The sun was barely out yet, and you saw him squinting at you through his sleepy eyes. 

“I don’t want to go.” He said softly and groggily, toying with a loose string on your worn shirt. 

“You have to.” You replied with every ounce of control in your body.

Ollie grunted faintly before stretching his arms over his head, silently sitting up and making his way out of the door as quickly as he came through it. 

Everything kept moving into the next day. You’d comprehensively briefed Kimi in the morning on his share of marketing activities over breakfast and sneaked some Live at Prema footage here and there, with Ollie notably paying less attention and getting called by some F1 media members midway. 

The constant elephant in the room was the tinge of disappointment the team felt due to Ollie’s slightly lackluster feeder performances in direct comparison to all of the F1 hype surrounding him, which no amount of sarcastic humor from the team could conceal. 

Despite everything that happened the night prior, everything remained calm and professional (he barely acknowledged you outside of what he needed to do, which was both a relief and a punch to the gut). 

Between photoshoots and practice sessions, you’d spotted Ollie from afar. Barely anyone could get a hold of him after free practice, as he was justifiably rushing between garages. 

He was up and down the paddock clad in his black Haas shirt, clearly moving with an air of confidence that filled your chest with something you couldn’t describe. This Ollie felt worlds away, which brought you as much joy and pride as it did a hint of melancholy. You were still figuring out what he was making you feel, but at times like this, he felt worlds away.

You were pulled away from your thoughts as quickly as they came to you, as you engrossed yourself in content with the F1 Academy drivers. When you weren’t doing that, you were organizing paperwork, analyzing metrics, and sifting through footage on your phone and camera.

The feeling you suppressed earlier only returned as the F1 cars hit the track. You thought about how near he felt at present, just at touching distance in the space between your hotel room and Grisignano de Zocco; but you also thought about how faraway everything would become after Prema, and how much you’d have to feel if you allowed yourself to let your guard down around Ollie.

After all, every sane racing driver would hope that feeder wouldn’t be forever. Deep inside you, though, you wished this feeling wouldn’t just be hidden in the footnotes of what would become Ollie’s career. Nevertheless, the sheer idea of wanting someone who was literally the face of a future generation of racing amidst the backdrop of him being capable of being wanted by every other person in the world felt incredibly absurd and daunting to say the least. 

(The two of you weren’t even anything. You weren’t really sure about these thoughts.)

After your rumination and the inevitable conclusion of the free practice session, you continued your work as you were directed to. It was entirely a coincidence, though, that your next duties included bringing parts of Ollie’s race kit and his water to his area in the shared driver’s area in preparation for qualifying. As every internship went, you often had miscellaneous work to fulfill.

Kimi had already finished his personal preparations for qualifying, already looking over last minute data, while Ollie was running late due to his prior commitment. The air was undeniably stress-ridden, as your first real encounter of the race day with Ollie was him scrambling to get into his overalls and suit, but you set everything down calmly while pointedly avoiding eye contact.

“Was starting to think you didn’t miss me at all.” Ollie was the first to break the silence, imploring you to look up at him.

Warmth filled your body at his words. For a moment, you worried that he knew he had some type of effect on you, but you quickly pulled yourself together mentally. 

“One less person to persuade to listen to my content briefs.” You shrugged, smiling at him playfully, almost daring him to retaliate. 

As the rush caught up to both of you, the only cohesive answer to your banter that he gave you before exiting into the garage was a soft squeeze on your forearm. 

“We’re friends, right?” Ollie asked, already tucking himself into your bed without hesitation.

Once Ollie was done slumping over in qualifying debriefs with the team, he made his way to your room again. It was the same routine as last night, just with a lot less talking.

The thing is, you weren’t saying anything either. That in itself said a lot.

You looked at him, eyebrows scrunched together. “Yes?”

Well, you were sharing a bed, tucked under the same sheets, staring face to face at each other in the dim yellow light of your Barcelona hotel room. 

“Maybe? I don’t know, Ollie—“ You second-guessed for a moment before continuing, “—I’m literally an intern. We work together, technically.” 

Ollie’s face twisted into something unreadable. His eyes shifted to the side as he mouthed the word ‘technically’ under his breath. 

“I mean, I guess we could be friends if you want.” You followed up. God, you felt ridiculous for having a conversation that sounded like this. 

He took a breath, deep and slow. “I want a lot of things,”He answered.

Ollie looked at right you, eyes so big, bright, and endless.

“I know.” You replied impulsively, in a voice barely above a whisper. 

He got so dangerously close to you that you could feel the warmths of his breaths on your face. 

“You don’t.” The weight of his gaze felt like it was melting you from the inside out. “You really don’t.” 

Ollie closed the gap between the two of you, his dry lips engulfing yours for what felt like an eternity, despite it being maybe a five-second peck at most. When he pulled away, you were breathing like he’d taken all of the air out of your lungs just from the sheer pace your heart was beating at.

A look of uncertainty flashed across his almost annoyingly pretty face. The kiss was so sweet, and you hated to be the one to make him question himself.

“We shouldn’t.” You said in conjuction with your uncontrollable heartbeats and air-filled breaths. 

“Then tell me you don’t want this.” Ollie challenged, laying one calloused, warm hand on your cheek.

“Ollie—“ You tried to protest. Every logical part of your brain was telling you how wrong all of this was, and how stupid you were for letting this happen in the first place.

In spite of all that, you couldn’t bring yourself to say it. You couldn’t lie to him for the life of you. 

You wanted this so bad. All you could do was want.

You laid your cold hand atop the one cupping your face, and let yourself look back at the earnest look on his face. You felt overexposed, sensitive all over like you’d been put out in the sun for too long.

“Please.” You could barley manage words, but you finally let yourself lean into him to erase every seed of doubt planted in his mind. 

The movement of your lips against one another quickly turned hot and heavy, and you let Ollie take and take everything he could’ve wanted. His hand wandered down to your neck and achingly close to your chest, as his kisses migrated down to your neck.

“We—ah—we really shouldn’t be doing this,” You weakly attempted to be rational, even if your hand was tangled in his hair and heat was quickly pooling between your thighs.

In response, he dove right below your collar bone, beginning with a bite and continuing with not-so-subtly marking you there, coaxing a mix between a gasp, wimper, and a soft moan out of you. 

It was glaringly obvious that he didn’t care all that much.

[rivkae-winters]

Edit: the app launched and Is down- I have the initial apology video in a post here and I’m working on getting a full archive of their TikTok up ASAP. I’m letting the rest of this post remain since I do still stand by most of it and also don’t like altering things already in circulation.

Warning for criticism and what I’d consider some harsh to outright mean words:

So I’ve just been made aware of the project known of as ‘lore.fm’ and I’m not a fan for multiple reasons. For one this ‘accessibility’ tool complicates the process of essentially just using a screen reader (something native to all I phones specifically because this is a proposed IOS app) in utterly needless and inaccessible ways. From what I have been seeing on Reddit they have been shielding themselves (or fans of the project have been defending them) with this claim of being an accessibility tool as well to which is infuriating for so many reasons.

I plan to make a longer post explaining why this is a terrible idea later but I’ll keep it short for tonight with my main three criticisms and a few extras:

1. Your service requires people to copy a url for a fic then open your app then paste it into your app and click a button then wait for your audio to be prepared to use. This is needlessly complicating a process that exists on IOS already and can be done IN BROWSER using an overlay that you can fully control the placement of.

2. This is potentially killing your own fandom if it catches on with the proposed target market of xreader smut enjoyers because of only needing the link as mentioned above. You don’t have to open a fic to get a link this the author may potentially not even get any hits much less any other feedback. At least when you download a pdf you leave a hit: the download button is on the page with the fic for a reason. Fandom is a self sustaining eco system and many authors get discouraged and post less/even stop writing all together if they get low interaction.

3. Maybe we shouldn’t put something marketed as turning smut fanfic into audio books on the IOS App Store right now. Maybe with KOSA that’s a bad idea? Just maybe? Sarcasm aside we could see fan fiction be under even more legal threat if minors use this to listen to the content we know they all consume via sites like ao3 (even if we ask them not to) and are caught with it. Auditory content has historically been considered much more obscene/inappropriate than written content: this is a recipe for a disaster and more internet regulations we are trying to avoid.

I also have many issues with the fact that this is obviously redistributing fanfiction (thus violating the copyright we hold over our words and our plots) and removing control the author should have over their content and digital footprint. Then there is the fact that even though the creator on TikTok SAYS you can email to have your fic ‘excluded’ based on the way the demo works (pasting a link) I’m gonna assume that’s just to cover her ass/is utter bullshit. I know that’s harsh but if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it’s probably a duck.

I am all for women in stem- I’ve BEEN a woman in Stem- but this is not a cool girl boss moment. This is someone naive enough to think this will go over well at best or many other things (security risks especially) at worst.

In conclusion for tonight: I hope this person is a troll but there is enough hype and enough paid for web domains that I don’t think that’s the case. There are a litany of reasons every fanfic reader and writer should be against something like this existing and I’ll outline them all in several other posts later.

Do not email their opt out email address there is no saying what is actually happening with that data and it is simply not worth the risks it could bring up. I hate treating seemingly well meaning people like potential cyber criminals but I’ve seen enough shit by now that it’s better to be safe than sorry. You’re much safer just locking all your fics to account only. I haven’t yet but I may in the future if that is the only option.

If anyone wants a screen reader tutorial and a walk through of my free favorites as well as the native IOS screen reader I can post that later as well. Sorry for the heavy content I know it’s not my normal fare.

[stargirlygirl]

Rut Suppressants pt.1

Alpha!Shoto x Omega!Fem!Reader

Summary: You find out that Shoto's been taking rut suppressants ever since you've been together. You take them off him and get to see a new side of your husband.

Word count: 5.2k

A/n: This is PART 1 of 2. Part 2 is hyperlinked. The second part ties up all the little plot points touched on here.

🚨Warnings: Smut, 18+, NSFW, p in v, masturbation, oral sex

------------₊✩‧₊˚౨ৎ˚₊✩‧₊------------

You were typing away at your computer, responding to some dry work emails about tomorrow’s presentation. You had been working in a small team to design a new marketing strategy for your company’s latest hero gadgets. Of course, you had been pulling the weight of the team, you little hard worker. Or maybe your HR team didn’t hire the right candidates, you decide. It was easy enough though. The hard part was just getting your colleagues to look like they knew what they were doing by 10am tomorrow.

After responding to another email of “What does this mean?”, you heard the front door click open, grocery bags scraping against it. Ah, your mate is home. Finally, you smile. You set your desktop to sleep before leaving the study. As you walk down the hallway, half-white half-red hair comes into view. He’s got his back to you. Black shirt clinging to his sweaty muscles. Must of been to the gym too, you thought. You rest your shoulder against the fridge, arms crossed underneath your chest, taking in the sight of you husband. He’s going through the bags, rummaging through them restlessly, clearly on the hunt for something.

“Need some help?” You smirk.

He turns around, blue-grey eyes wide. His expression visibly eases, slightly opened mouth forming a closed smile. “No, I’m fine. How was work?” He returns to his scavenger hunt in the bag right at his feet.

“Fine. I’ve got it under control for tomorrow’s meeting.” You push off of the fridge and come up behind him, hand on the edge of the island bench. You look over his shoulder, curious about what he could possibly be looking for. Shoto always gave you a kiss whenever he came home, regardless of what had happened during patrol or of what you were doing. For him to neglect you like this was rather odd.

“You didn’t do all the work again, did you?” His voice had an edge to it… Interesting.

“You know how it is—”

“Well, it shouldn’t be,” he almost growled, “You should all be doing it, not just you.” He cussed under his breath.

Okay, this was getting weird. Agitated over you working hard? I mean yea but, he usually reins it it, accepts that this job is just that for you, a job. One that you’ve talked to him about leaving. Swearing? Not Shoto. Only when y’all are… you know.

“Shoto, babe, what’s up?” Standing directly behind him, you run your hand through his locks. He hums.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine, “you whine.

You watch as he starts going through the fourth bag, pulling out a small box with the label “Rut suppressants. Take as needed. Maximum dosage: five per day."

This little fucker. You snatch it out of his hands immediately, sprinting from the scene into the back of your apartment.

“[Y/n]! [Y/n] stop!” You can hear him coming after you, the sound of his feet hitting the floorboards. “Give that to me now!”

You’re running frantically, heart pounding in your chest, hands getting sweaty around the evil cardboard box. You dash into your shared bedroom, slamming the door shut. Fuck! Where should I hide it? You look around, [e/c] eyes settling on the dresser. You race over to it, emptying the contents of the box into the first draw, beneath your bras and panties.

“[Y/n]!”

Shit, he’s close to the door. You slam the drawer shut and run-stumble into the ensuite. Leaning against the door, you lock it. Okay okay, think! Think! The door knob rattles.

“Y/n! Open this door right now or I swear—” The silver handle is shaking now.

The toilet! You open the lid and crush the box in your hands; it makes those crinkling noises before you toss it into the trash bin and flush the toilet. At that moment, the door bursts open.

Shoto’s chest is heaving. His eyes are unfocused, frenzied. He’s panting… with anger you decide as there’s no way that lil sprint could of worked up the number 3 pro hero that much. He stalks towards you, grabbing your wrists and leaning down to meet your eyes.

“What did you do with it?” His tone shocks you. His voice is so low now… and hoarse. It throws you off. “With-with what?” You breath out. You’re pretty puffed. “Don’t play dumb. You didn’t actually flush ‘em down the toilet, did you?”

His face is now inches from yours. You remain defiant, eyes staring back into his. The heat radiating from his left tickles your skin. “Um… well yea, yea I did. They’re um, yea, they’re down the toilet.” He laughs. More like barks. His breath hits your face. All you can smell is his sweat interlaced with his fresh scent.

“You’re so bad at lying, you know that?” He smirks, straightening back up. His muscles pull taut as he runs pale fingers through that snowy, silky hair. You watch as he looks around the bathroom. “Where’d you really put ‘em?” He looks back down at you, scrutinising you beneath his gaze. Your ragged breaths now hitch. “I don’t—”

“Don’t deny it!” He shouts. You shrink back instinctively.

You’ve never seen him like this before. He’s always so controlled. Even when you’re in heat, he’s always got it together. Always able to draw back or change the pace when you need him to. That’s why you took the pills off him in the first place. You’ve been getting suspicious for months now since the two of you got married that he’s been on rut suppressants. It just didn’t add up. After your first heat together, you had actually asked him about his ruts so you knew when you had to return the favour.

“I don’t really rut, babe.” His hand rubbed the back of his neck, heterochromatic eyes averting from yours.

You laughed in response. “You don’t rut?” Your eyebrows raised. “Should I be concerned or…”

“No,” he said shyly, “it’s not like that.”

You waited for him to continue, watching as his eyes fluttered from object to object.

“I don’t get very intense ruts.”

Your brow was still quirked. “You don’t get ‘very intense ruts’? Like, you don’t get super aggressive and horny when you rut.”

His muscles relaxed upon hearing that. He looked back at you now. “Yea, it’s a minor annoyance. Nothing to worry about.”

You relaxed too, seeing that he was more comfortable now. “Trust me.” He took your hands in his larger ones. The temperature difference of both something you weren’t used to yet. “You don’t ever have to worry about control with me.” He gave you a sweet reassuring smile.

“Are you sure? I mean—”

“Trust me.” He squeezed your hands and leaned over, planting a small kiss on your lips. You grinned as he pulled back, trusting his word, however odd it seemed.

Had he lied to you? When you had announced to your friends that you and Shoto were (finally) getting married, they had warned you about that post-wedding baby fever. The endless marathon sex you two would be having once your cycles synced up. You had been waiting your entire relationship for that to happen and it hadn’t. So, once you two tied the knot wink, you had been hoping that the talk of ‘pups’ would come up, but it just hadn’t. That’s when you had begun to think something was off. Even if he didn’t have “intense ruts”, he would still be feeling the urge to breed you, wouldn’t he? Or maybe he just didn’t—

“Where did you put my suppressants?” He stared you down, thin brows furrowed. “Babe…” You can see that he’s getting really agitated. His hands are trembling at his sides. Maybe you should try something else. Something else that’s gonna get you the result you want.

“Make me.”

At this, he frowns even more. “Make you what?”

“Make me tell you.” You take a step forward, feigning confidence, coming close to him again and tilting your head to the side, challenging him.

He scoffs. Those beautiful eyes, like solar eclipses, flickering away from you for a moment. “Make you…” He says quietly. He stares at you even more intensely now as he’s thinks it over.

It’s time to get cocky. “Yea, make me.” You stretch up towards him, arms wrapping around his neck. “I want you,” you move to whisper in his ear, your lips brushing his earlobe. “My sexy Alpha,” you run both of your hands through his hair now. He groans right back into your neck, large hands palming your lower back. “To make me submit to you.”

In an instant, your over his shoulder, his palm smacking your right cheek. He’s carrying you out of the ensuite. You’ve done it now hehe.

As he crosses the threshold, you notice the door knob was coated in ice, hanging there, limp. Looks like you’ve gotta add fixing that to your to-do list tomorrow. He throws you like a stuffed toy onto your plush bed. His shirt’s already coming off, rippling contours all for your pleasure. Yea, make that ‘to-do next week’. Large hands already besides your head. Lean arms, meaty thighs, delicious toned frame caging you in. You’re forced to stare into those mismatched eyes. Not like you’d want to do anything else anyways.

Your breaths intermingle, just like your scents. He just stares at you, pupils dilated. Afternoon light from the adjacent windows making your figures glow. You love the way it streaks through his hair, and he loves the way it catches on your full lips. He thumbs your lower lip, pulling it down to reveal your teeth. You lower your chin, taking his thumb into your mouth. You circle your tongue over top of thumb before tasting the pad of it. It’s cold, like a popsicle you suck on in summer. You can think of another ‘popsicle’ you’d rather be sucking on right—

“I… I-I don’t…” His brows are knitted together once more. Pupils wavering between dilated and contracted, showing off those blue and grey hues you love so much. You stop what you’re doing with your tongue, opting to place both of your hands on his cheeks. His thumb leaves your mouth but rests on your chin.

“I don’t know if… if this s-safe.” You can’t stop yourself from giggling a little. What a cutie. “Pookie, of course this is safe. I was made for you. You know that, right?” You smirk. You’re a feelin’ like a cocky little shit today btw if you didn’t get that. This man’s shyness inflating your big dick ego.

“Of course I do but…” He averts his gaze, looking at your ear instead. “But?” You continue. However, he doesn’t respond. He just moves his hand from your chin and tucks a strand of [h/c] behind your ear which has suddenly become the most interesting thing in the room.

“You don’t wanna hurt me? You do wanna hurt me but don’t wanna admit it?” You tease. “No! No, of course I don’t want to hurt you.” His eyes shift back to yours. “Shoto.” You squeeze his cheeks gently. “I’m your omega. If you hurt me then you can just make it better.” You bring his face closer to yours. “You can make it better, can’t you?” You whisper.

He gulps, his adam’s apply bobbing up and down with the motion. “Y-yea,” he replies, voice low, “I can.” That last part coming out with more confidence. “Good, then don’t make me dom you, Alpha. That’s kinda embarrassing for you.” You giggle whilst leaning up to him and finally, kiss him.

You both moan into it, feeling the relief washing through you two. But quickly, it’s not enough. It’s far from enough. He growls into your lips, changing his tilt. You follow his lead. You like that. His tongue grazing your bottom lip and your lips parting immediately for him. The tangle that ensues is soul-gripping, bone-shaking, mind-blanking, breath-taking… Your fingers are gripping his locks. His fingers are gripping the hem of your thin white tank top. Saliva, don’t know don’t care whose, if dripping from the corners of your mouth. His exhale is your inhale and vice versa. He catches your lower lip between his teeth. This sharp canines sending tingles throughout your entire being. There’s nothing that gets you slicked up like a lip bite from your Alpha.

He pulls away, you two panting. Not that the reprieve is sufficient or long-lived. Soon his lips are sucking and nipping your earlobe and that sensitive spot beneath your ear. You whimper out his name. “Shoto”, “Alpha”, “Daddy”, maybe “Babe” or “Honey”… yea, those, they’ll be the only words you know for the next week. He nips at your mating mark, the beautiful white scar just above your left collarbone. He continues biting it, almost re-piercing the scar. You can’t help the moan-mumbles that tumble out of your mouth. Already, your wetness is soaking your blue lace panties and beginning to slide down your inner thighs. “Fuck,” Shoto breathes out into your other ear. You shudder at the word, one hand sliding down to his shoulder.

He continues at it, licking and sucking and kissing and biting at your neck. Soon, his fingers are tearing through your top. You mewl at the sensation of him ripping the torn, flimsy fabric off your body. His hands reach for your bare breasts, cupping them completely. Those long fingers begin pinching at the sensitive flesh. Your body responds instinctively, moaning, tiny hands (cause you’re small af obvs) grasping his wrists, breaths catching in your chest and throat. He fingers your nipples before bringing his mouth down to you, lips ghosting the hard peaks between his fingertips. He takes one into his mouth, eliciting a whimper. His warm tongue circling your nipple as you did to his thumb, but just so much better.

You’ve barely gotten started and yet, you know never get enough of this. No matter how many times he’s done and will do this to you, and so much more, you’ll never be forever satiated. You just can’t be.

He moves to the other, keeping your now wet left breast covered by his cool palm. Fuck, you love that. More moans spill from your mouth as he continues his ministrations. That slick is at your knees, probably. You can’t really tell cause it just feels like a wet, sticky mess down there at this point.

“Shoto,” you whine. He groans in response. “Hurryyyyy up,” you drag out that ‘y’ as you mewl. You shudder as he chuckles against your tender skin. Tender from his bites and sucking, of course. “You want me to go faster?” He pulls away from your breast, face coming back close to yours. You whine and nod your affirmation.

“But if I go faster,” he strokes your cheek softly with the back of his index finger, “you’ll miss out on all the fun.” His finger trails down to your chin, gripping it tightly but playfully with his other fingers. Damn, you’re getting wetter by the second. He’s doesn’t usually tease you during your intimacy.

He just smirks at you before moving back to his painstakingly slow kisses and sucks on your breast. He only moves down to your ribs once he’s satisfied and you’ve probably soaked the bed sheets with how much he’s turning you on. It’s driving you insane. Shoto’s hands wrap around your ribs, feeling their rise and fall, and their ridges. “Beautiful,” he mumbles, kissing each rung. He keeps those eyes on you. All cocky. He knows what he’s doing to you and he likes how pathetic it makes you for him. And you can’t help but like it too.

After thoroughly kissing and touching every part of your torso, your arms, your everything really, he’s finally fingering your low waistband. You sigh relief and begin wriggling, trying to get those pants off as fast as possible, but your Alpha is still having none of it.

“Be patient,” he growls as he squeezes your inner thigh, your flesh perking up between his fingers. “But Alpha—”

“I said,” he stares you down, this dark look in his eyes, “be patient.” You whine, “Yes Alpha.”

Hearing your compliance, he loosens his grip on your thigh and begins kissing your hip bones and skin just above the band. Fuck, he’s really killing you this time. I thought alphas were all, “Let’s bang. Now. Hard.” when they’re rutting but, I guess not. Maybe, Shoto didn’t completely lie to you by hinting at that his ruts were different to other alphas. Or maybe, he just wants to tease you for once.

You’re brought back to reality when you gasp reflexively to him biting into your inner thigh through your wet pants. Wet as in soaked and clinging to your hot skin.

“You’re not focusing on me.” Shoto’s voice is low, raspy. Fuck, you love it when he talks like that. Especially just after he’s woken up and you two have some fun together before getting up—

“And you’re not even focusing on me right now.” He bites even harder into your thigh, breaking through the fabric and pulling little red dots to the surface of your now red, marked flesh. “I,” you breath out, so it sounds like ‘hi’ and not ‘I’, “I thought you wanted me to be patient.”

“I want you to do both. Can you manage that? Or is that too much for my little girl?” He’s got a shit-eating grin across face. Since when was your husband such a tease, and such a good fucking one at that? It’s the years of pills, you decide.

“N-no, I can’t manage. Help me m-manage.” You imagine that you must look like some blubbering, whimpering mess right now, and you’re not even naked yet. And he’s not even naked yet. “Okay,” his grin widens.

Licking those glorious lips, those lips that you want on yours and not the ones on your face if you know what I mean wink wink, he pulls away from your thighs. He gets up from the bed, taking off his grey sweatpants and briefs. And fuck, you’re not ready for what meets you. For real. Swollen, hard, precum dripping down the shaft.

He smirks at you as he grabs his cock with his hand, moaning on impact. His other hand comes up to his face, finger pointing to the side of his mouth. At this point, your sitting up, thighs to calves, legs spread wide, dragging your [e/c] up and down his body.

“You’re drooling.”

I would say that you blushed at hearing this, but you’re already red as fuck in the face with how hot he’s been making you. You’re embarrassed and laugh it off, hand coming to wipe that spit from the side of your mouth. Yea, that was definitely yours and not his from earlier. That had already dried. “W-well, how can I not when,” you take a deep breath in and look back up at him, “when my husband looks this good.”

“Have I got your attention now?” That rasp. That will be the end of you. Or the end of these bed sheets, whichever comes first. You nod feverishly. “Good girl.”

Ah fuck. He’s praising you. Fuck. That’s it. If that dick isn’t in you within the next three minutes, who knows what will happen next. You start shuffling over toward him when he stops you.

“No. You stay there. I want you to watch.” His eyes crinkle as he smiles, amused by your reaction as you realise what’s going on. Is this how this twisted fucker wants you to help you be patient? By not letting you touch him? And by not touching you?

“I can’t. No. Babe. No please.” You’re shaking your head vigorously, already raising from the bed when his hands find your shoulders and push you back to sit down on the edge. “Watch.” His voice is commanding, absolute.

You’re forced to obey your alpha and sit there helplessly as he pumps his veiny cock with those veiny hands. The precum now all over his dick with even more leaking from the tip. His dick that should be in you right now. His eyes are trained on you, observing every stuttered breath you take in, every time you bite the side of your lip, how focused you are on how he’s pleasuring himself. That feels even better than his hands ever could. Fucking hell.

“Can I—” You start.

“No. Just watch.”

“Not you but my—”

“No. Watch.” His tone is stern. His voice strained.

Fuck. If your hands were bound then this would be so much easier, but no, you’re forced to hold back from touching yourself by your alpha’s command and your own self-discipline. You doubt that you’re even allowed to rock your hips right now.

You watch as his movements get faster and now he’s panting. His eyes half-lidded and tongue darting out across his lower lip every so often. You can see the sweat beading on his chest. You start whining, wanting to be the one touching him like that. What you wouldn’t give to just… just have him right now.

“Please,” you begin. Which becomes a slew of please daddy, please, please let me touch you, please, I’m sorry that I took your suppressants, I’m sorry okay, I’m sorry Alpha, I’m sorry that I wasn’t being patient or f-focusing on you, please Alpha, please let me touch you, please, please, please, please… You don’t stop. You can’t stop. All you can do is sit there, slick drenching the sheets below you even though you’re lower half is still clothed, and plead for your alpha to fuck you.

His pale hips jerk forward and you can tell he’s really close. Would he even let you swallow it? But he stops. He stops and comes over to you, collapsing onto you, arms around your shoulders and neck. “Shoto,” you squeak, but it’s muffled by his weight falling onto you. He huffs into your ear and you just rub his back.

“Tired already,” you jest, but he’s not in the mood to play you anymore. “Enough. I can’t cuddle my wife?” He mumbles grumpily into your shoulder before taking the flesh between his teeth. You hum, “You can always cuddle your wife, but I’d like it more if you fucked me.” He chuckles low, right below your ear. You feel it vibrating through his throat. “Yea, I bet you would.”

He holds you a little longer before pulling back, peeling his sweaty body off yours.

“Alright, I’ll give you your reward,” he smiles lazily, even showing off one side of this pearly whites. You squeal with delight. “Finally!” “Oi, settle,” he says as positions you so that he’s between your legs, spread wide, slowly pulling both pants and panties off you. Oi? “So, you’ve been on patrol with Dynamight—”

“Don’t mention him,” Shoto growls. He’s been doin’ a lotta that today and you like it. A lot. “Or anyone else right now. It’s just you and me.” You nod submissively. You really should stop riling him up sometimes. But you can’t help it. You’re a cheeky little shit after all.

The relief that engulfs you once those dreadful clothes are off brings out a sigh of pleasure from you. He doesn’t make you wait any longer. He’s already at the source of your heat, lapping up your slick like it’s the elixir of life. To him, it is. You whimper and mewl as his tongue makes its’ way between your folds. It feels so warm and wet, perfect against your swollen lips. You relish in the feeling on what he’s doing to you. Shoto eats you out like he’s been starved. Greedily, hungrily, in a frenzy. Without a break for air, he keeps going. That tongue, those long digits curling inside of you, his lips, all making you shake and mew. The whimpers and words leaving your mouth are unholy and impure, some real nasty shit. Only he can get you like this. Only he can have you saying shit like, “Fuck me however you want, daddy.” Or, “Knot in me, alpha! Breed your little omega!”

Once he’s had his fill, he moves away from your core, grabbing your hips and flipping you over, onto your stomach. His fingers are back at your folds, playing with your clit and teasing your entrance, drawing more filthy moans from you. You feel him move on top of you, straddling you. He withdraws his fingers, replacing them with what you’ve been craving for this entire time. You moan loudly as he fills you up, completely, inch-by-inch. He groans as you draw him in, tight walls clenching around his girth. He stays still for a few moments, allowing you to get comfortable, before he sets a brutal pace. You hands are by your shoulders, gripping the sheets as he fucks you. You’re body is shaking, contorting to his every rough thrust in and out. It’s got your mind absolutely filled with how your mate can do this to you. You can’t even form a sentence. You mewl, over and over, to the sound of your skin slapping harshly together. Your mingled groans and moans all that dirty shit dripping from your mouths fill the room. It’s humid. Sweat coating your bodies. Your hair is stuck to your forehead. Your favourite part — besides from how tight he’s gripping your hips, likely (and hopefully) leaving bruises on your soft skin — is how deep he gets. His tip reaches that perfect spot, making you curl your toes and bend your knees, before he draws back out, and he does it again and again.

“Sh huff sho huff shot huff to,” you moan. He grunts out in response. “Sho huff sho huff I huff.” Fuck, you can’t even get the sentence out. That’s how brain fucked, how body fucked, this man’s got you. “What?” He growls. He’s breathing hard, you can hear it, it makes you drip even more and he can feel it. “Use your words, baby. Moan What is it?”

The filthy sounds of him pounding you fills your ears. The squelching of your juices around his length. You can’t even remember what you were trying to say. Oh! That’s right! “I-I whimper Shoto whimper Sho fuck moan I’m moan I-I’m gonna,” your voice is quiet and breathy, but he still hears you clearly.

He can feel your thighs beginning to shake, the way your pussy tightens and then releases, and he knows what you mean. “I know,” he grunts in response. You continue to moan, feeling your climax coming in hard n’ fast. You gotta know if— “Just hold on for me, alright. Just huff just hold on.” You whimper in response. Not cum yet? You don’t know if you can do that. “I’ll try—”

“You will wait for me.”

Your moans and mewls get louder as you get closer, as does his growls and grunts. Even if you can’t wait for him , it doesn’t really matter, you still benefit, whether he punishes you or not. Not that he’s ever punished you, but this rut seems to be bringing out a side of him you’ve never seen before. And you’re living for it.

He picks up the pace. You never even realised he had this kinda stamina. But, you should of known. He is THE pro hero ‘Shoto’. It feels impossibly more pleasurable. It’s like he’s surrounding you. Every thrust is godsent. You couldn’t escape the pleasure of this moment, even if you tried. Your orgasm is building and building, threatening to drown you any second now.

“Shoto!” You cry out. You’ve got tears in your eyes. Your shaking, trembling, convulsing as you climax. You squeeze around him hard, sending him over the edge with you. You’re sobbing and screaming at this point, as you feel his knot swell and plunge into you. Thick, white, hot ropes spilling into you. Filling you completely with his seed. Fuck. You ride out the high together, him rocking into you and you rocking as much as you can manage back into him. Breathing out, he leans down, pulling you back and laying you two on your sides. You groan at the movement, still experiencing those last minute tremors from your orgasm. His legs intertwine with yours, arms wrapping around you. He strokes your head, drawing you close into him as you both calm down. You sniffle and he takes this opportunity wipe the tears from your tears.

You giggle, “Thanks, honey.” The words dampened by your sudden emotional outburst. “Anything for you, love.” He kisses the side of your forehead and moves to grab the blankets and pull them over you two, up to your chin. You snuggle back into him, hands grasping his forearms, a mindless smile spreading across your face. “You’re not done with me yet, are you?”

He remains silent for a few seconds, before groaning into your hair. It still smells like fresh cut strawberries in the midst of all the scents filling the room. “Only if you tell me where you hid my suppressants.”

“Than I’m never telling you!” You squeal. There ain’t no way you’re gonna give up this side of your alpha just yet. “Hey, that’s not what you should be saying.” His voice is low, bordering on a growl. “Sorry for not following your script.” And now you’re the one wearing a shit-eating grin.

“You know,” he shifts, now leaning over you and narrowing his doe eyes at you, “if you insist on acting up, then maybe I will just have to fuck you through this rut of mine.” “I hope you do,” you smirk even wider. “’Course you do,” he grumbles, laying back down again, nose buried in your hair.

You two lay in silence until his knot goes down, and he can finally pull out. He turn you back onto your stomach and pulls the blankets back, drawing out slowly, making you moan. His cum gushes out, further drawing moans from you. You can feel it dripping down your the back of your thigh. Shoto watches, enjoying the sight. Though, before he’s realise it, he’s got his fingers inside of you, finger-fucking that cum back into you. You can’t help but start whimpering and moaning even louder as you feel him fingering you.

“Shoto…”

He draws his fingers back out, letting the cum drip out again. He’s tempted to slide them back into you so that no more escapes, but he refrains from doing so, knowing that you two need to talk a bit more about kids than just “Do you want kids? Yea, I want kids. Do you? Yea, sounds good.”

He clears his throat, “I hope you’re ready, baby.” He wraps his hand around your waist and turns you over, onto your back. Your eyes find each other. The sun’s setting, illuminating how wet and dewy and bruised your soft flesh is. You breathe out, smiling happily.

“I’m ready.”

[thatnonameuser]

A Wonderland Of Yanderes

Twisted Wonderland AU - Inspired by @yandere-daydreams

Part 1 Part 2

Imagine…

A world where the behavior of Yanderes is completely acceptable, if not normal.

Where darlings are stalked, kidnapped, and kept by their Yanderes.

Where murder in the name of love can be pushed aside, as a simple accident.

Where it’s common for the Yanderes to learn about how to control their darlings as soon as they’re able.

Not all places in this Twisted Wonderland are equal though.

The Queendom of Roses and the Shaftlands are by far the best places to be if you’re a darling. Darling rights prevent Yandere’s from being horrifically abusive, locking them away from the outside world for good or using too harsh of punishments. Murder is a major no-no, and Yanderes can lose their darlings forever if they’ve committed such a heinous crime. Darlings can even be taken away for lesser crimes, placed in the care of the state far away from their abusive yanderes. 

But as we all know, people will find their ways to bend the rules. Manipulation and controlling techniques are common in these zones, often holding the darlings’ children over their heads, or bribing their way out of the law.

On the flipside, the Sunset Savannah and the Coral Sea are some of the worst places to be. While women are treated as equals, darlings are not. They’re considered the prey locked in the jaws of the predators. Whether they slip from the jaws is their own business. Darlings are free to run and hide, but nothing’s stopping their Yanderes from throwing them back over their shoulders back to their lives of captivity. Whether a darling’s punishment is fair or not, as long as they're not dead, Yandere’s do whatever they please. Murder is less bad of a crime here if done in a battle for a darling’s hand. 

The Sunset Savannah’s King’s own wife was a darling, and even she can’t get away from his ‘love’ and ‘affection’. Though she never complains, always by her husband’s or child’s side.

Though some Darlings are smart, running off to one of the nation’s that give them more freedoms. Still, if you can’t get them on your own, thanks to those stupid laws, there’s a whole list of Bounty Hunters willing to do it for you. They’re scary good, and your darling will be back before you know it.

The Scalding Sands rests safely in the middle of the spectrum. Darlings carry some rights and freedoms but that’s only in the most horrible of extremes. They’re treated as fragile, and it’s in everyone’s best interest to look after them. They’re traditionally spoiled with riches and wealth, but that’s just to cover up the bruises, both from pleasure and punishments.

Even with the few freedoms of the darlings, the sparkling sand of the desert can be so deceiving. A black market for darling recapture, whether taken legally or runaways. Hitmen who can hide corpses of rivals in the desert. 

The Isle of Lamentation is completely separate from the world, but it's full of Yandere’s all the same. So many of the staff are Yandere’s yet almost none have darlings. They’re practically voyeurs watching their darlings from afar, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. The Shroud family’s current matriarch was darling from the outside world, and most of the people there are certain that even her living son hasn't seen her since last spring. 

The isolation from the world is perfect for hiding away darlings. And they’ll go crazy for any interaction and affection, like a Persphone locked in the Underworld.

If the Sunset Savannah is old-fashioned in its treatment of darlings, then the Briar Valley is practically ancient.   The darlings’ lives are completely controlled by their yanderes, kept under lock and key for the remainder of their lives. Darlings rarely leave their homes without their yanderes acting as escorts, with beautiful collars of jewels and precious stones marking them as darlings and the fine, equally ornate leashes in their yanderes’ hands as their ‘owners’. Darlings are considered so fragile, that the outside world is far too dangerous for them, that it’s safer where they’re kept by their yanderes. Murder in the name of a darling is practically excused, as long as it was in the name of protecting their dainty darlings.

On Sage Island the two rival schools are polar opposites.

Royal Sword Academy is honestly full of delusional yanderes, looking for a darling to be their princess to save, their perfect damsels in distress. All they want is to fall in love at first sight with the darling of their dreams. The one who they'll be enchanted with and will sing a love song that will move the hearts of millions with.

They excuse all concerning actions with a simple wave of the hand. They followed you home? They were just looking out for you. They’ve been stalking you? They just want to make sure you’re ok! You caught them over your bed, pink faced, while you were asleep? They probably where just checking to make sure they could wake you up with a kiss, you know the love stories~

Night Raven College is more honest. They know what they are and they’re not hiding it. Since NRC’s full of different students, the crimes that were once illegal in their hometowns, are completely fine here. As long as you don’t get caught. Then you might have detention while we figure out how to make it look like an accident. 

Classes about proper Darling care and how to get away with other crimes are mandatory for first years, but after that it becomes an elective. Potion Classes teach how to make the best love potions, tranquilisers and the deadliest of poisons that kill without a trace. Animal Language to communicate with the local fauna if your darling runs away into the woods, and you can’t find them. Phys Ed to carry your darling away whether they're unconscious or kicking and screaming with ease.

But what about you? What does that mean for poor, little you? Lost in a world you barely know anything about. And worst yet, you’re a darling. Try your best to get back home……

…..If they let you that is.

[archiveofvirtue]

RECKLESS ⸻ sam winchester

content / sam winchester x fem!reader, bf!sam, angst, established relationship, sam being overprotective, fighting, lots of blaming each other, mentions of dean being in hell, some fluff, 1.9k words

summary / in which an innocent grocery store run ignites a fire in sam, spiraling him into panic and anger, leading to a heated argument between the two of you fueled by both worry and misunderstanding

YOU QUIETLY SLIPPED OUT OF THE MOTEL ROOM, careful not to wake Sam. You had been driving for days, hunting a wendigo near the outskirts of Iowa. The tension in Sam's body was palpable; the hunt wasn't even the hardest part—it was everything else. Ever since Dean's deal, since he was dragged into Hell, Sam had been on edge, more protective than ever. You could feel it creeping into every part of your lives.

You glanced at Sam one more time as he lay sprawled on the bed, finally getting some rest. He deserved that. Still, you knew you needed more supplies. Your salt lines were running low, and a few charms you used to keep you two safe needed replenishing. Plus, you figured a little food wouldn't hurt.

The grocery store wasn't far, just a tem-minute drive, so you grabbed the car keys, your bag, and left a mental note to be quick. On your way inside the store, you checked for your phone—"dang it", you cursed, you must've left it at the motel.

So you quickly breezed through the aisles, grabbing the salt, herbs, and other supplies before quickly swinging by the food section for some sandwiches and snacks. You hurried out of the store, juggling bags as you hopped back into the car.

But while you were on your way home, the goods and Sam's favorite snacks secured, he was already panicking.

Sam was pacing around the room, staring at the motel door as if willing you to walk through it. His mind raced with every worst-case scenario possible. You'd been gone for hours, hadn't told him where you were going, and your phone had been neatly sitting here on the counter.

Each passing minute had ratcheted up his worry until it had transformed into anger—an anger fueled by fear, jealousy, and the deep, gnawing ache of loss. Losing so many people did that to a person, and Sam had lost more than his fair share.

He couldn’t loose you too.

When you finally walked in, expecting Sam to be asleep, you were met by the intense sight of him, eyes locked on you the second you opened the door. His body was rigid, tension radiating off him.

"Where the hell were you?" Sam's voice was low, tight with barely controlled frustration and disappointment. You could feel the weight of his words immediately, like a physical blow.

"I... I went to grab some salt from the market. We were almost out," you answered, confused by his reaction. "Why? What's the matter?"

Sam rubbed over his face in frustration, walking toward you with purpose. His eyes scanned you from head to toe, as if ensuring you were in one piece. Even though you were back now, his heart still hadn't slowed its furious pace.

"Heck y/n, I woke up and you were just gone. Do you know what that feels like after everything? I thought something bad had happened to you." His voice was shaking with distress.

"I was literally gone for half an hour! I thought you'd be asleep. I didn't want to wake you," you explained, fumbling with your words under the intensity of his gaze. "I wanted to be quick in case we needed the salt. It took me longer because there was this huge crash on the highway—"

Sam cut in, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Wow, that's a perfect excuse." His tone softened just slightly, but the tension was still evident, his emotions a whirlwind of anger and fear. "And you didn't think of a way to call me? Let me know you'd be gone longer? No, no... the only thing on your mind was getting some damn salt."

His words stung, more than you expected. "You need to calm down." you said, voice tinged with disbelief. Was he really so distrustful? "I know I should've told you before leaving, but look at me—I'm fine. Everything's fine."

Sam ran a hand through his hair, rolling his eyes. His frustration was palpable, simmering just beneath the surface. "Goddamn it, I don't care if you're fine right now. It's the principle, y/n. You do shit without thinking, and I can't stand it." He took a deep breath, trying to rein in his anger. "There are so many things that could've happened to you out there. How can you be so careless?"

That accusation sparked something in you, and your frustration bubbled over. "Oh, so you think I can't protect myself? After everything we've been through—after all the times I've saved you and Dean—you think I can't handle something as simple as a grocery run?"

Sam's face darkened. His hazel eyes flared with something fierce, a raw emotion that made your heart skip a beat. "This isn't about your skills. I know you're a good hunter. But you're reckless, y/n. Careless. You don't understand what it's like to see someone you love get torn away from you because of one mistake, one slip-up. And then to wake up and think it's happening again..." His voice broke, frustration giving way to something more vulnerable, something desperate.

You softened slightly, realizing how deep Sam's fear went. But you weren't going to let him twist this into you being reckless. "I do understand, Sam. I know how much losing Dean broke you. But I'm not him. I'm not going to disappear, but you also can't suffocate me because of it."

"I'm not trying to suffocate you. Fuck, you really don't get it, do you?" Sam's voice rang in your ears, and for a second, he just looked at you with disappointment in his eyes. "Just forget it y/n."

The sudden intensity of his words, the way he yelled, startled you. Sam wasn't the type to lose his temper like this—not with you. Sure, you two had your disagreements, but this was different. He was on edge, and you could tell that this wasn't just about the salt. It was about everything that had been weighing on him since losing Dean.

You swallowed the lump forming in your throat, seeing his fists clench like that scared you, so the only thing you could do right now was walk away. Your voice was quieter now, the fight draining out of you. "I'll take a walk, clear my head."

Tears pricked at the corners of your eyes as you turned to leave the room. The last thing you wanted was to fight with Sam, especially not like this. But before you could reach the door, you felt his hand gently grasp your arm, pulling you back.

"Wait." His voice was softer now, the anger replaced by guilt.

Sam pulled you close, his arms wrapped tightly around your waist as if letting go would somehow mean losing you again. The heat of his body, the steady rise and fall of his chest, and the gentle pressure of his lips brushing your hair—all of it grounded you, soothed the frayed nerves that had been worn thin by the argument. You rested your head against his chest, listening to the sound of his heartbeat, strong and steady.

For a while, neither of you spoke. It was as if both of you needed that quiet, the space to breathe and let the tension dissipate. But Sam's hand never left your back, his fingers drawing small, absentminded circles, a reminder that he was still there, still holding you.

Eventually, you pulled back slightly, just enough to look up at him. His eyes were softer now, the earlier fire replaced by something gentler, more vulnerable. He seemed almost embarrassed by his outburst.

"You know," you said quietly, "I'm not going anywhere. You don't have to worry about losing me every time I step out the door. But you also have to let me breathe, Sam."

Sam let out a long sigh, his hand moving to tuck a stray strand of hair behind your ear. "I know," he murmured, though his voice still carried the weight of doubt. "I just... after Dean, I've been going nuts. Every hunt, every day, I'm constantly thinking about what could go wrong, what I could lose next. It's like I can't shut it off."

You reached up, cupping his face with both hands, your thumbs brushing gently along the stubble on his jaw. "Sam, I understand. I really do. But you can't live like this—constantly on high alert, constantly afraid. It's not fair to you. And it's not fair to us."

He leaned into your touch, closing his eyes for a moment, savoring the comfort of your hands on his skin. "I don't know how to stop," he admitted quietly, his voice barely above a whisper. "I don't know how to stop worrying."

"I think it's always going to be there," you said softly. "The fear. But you don't have to let it control you." You paused, searching his face for a moment before continuing. "I'm strong, Sam. I know how to handle myself. And I promise you, if I ever feel like I'm all up in my head, you'll be the first person I call. But you have to trust me. Can you do that?"

Sam opened his eyes, looking down at you, and for the first time that night, you saw a flicker of relief in his expression. He nodded, though you could tell it wasn't easy for him. "I can try," he said, his voice a little stronger now. "I'll try."

"That's all I'm asking," you whispered, giving him a small, reassuring smile.

For a few more moments, you stayed there in his arms, neither of you wanting to break the fragile peace that had settled between you. Finally, Sam spoke again, his tone lighter, though still tinged with a hint of guilt. "I guess I owe you for getting the salt."

You chuckled softly, leaning your head back against his chest. "Yeah, you do. I went through a lot of trouble for that salt."

"Next time, maybe wake me up before you leave," he said, his lips quirking up in a small smile. "Or at least don't forget your phone."

"Deal," you agreed with a playful grin. "No more disappearing acts. But you have to promise me something, too."

"What's that?" he asked, his brow furrowing slightly in curiosity.

"You have to promise to stop worrying so much. At least a little. You're going to give yourself a heart attack at this rate."

Sam chuckled, the sound low and warm in his chest. "I'll do my best," he promised, though there was still a glimmer of doubt in his eyes. "But no guarantees."

You smiled, reaching up to kiss him gently. "I'll take it."

He kissed you back, soft and slow, as if savoring the moment. When he pulled away, there was a warmth in his eyes that hadn't been there earlier, a quiet appreciation for you, for the way you understood him, even when he didn't always know how to explain himself.

"Come on," you said, tugging him toward the table. "I got your favorite sandwiches, you need to eat."

Sam hesitated for a moment, glancing at the filled grocery bags. But then he let out a sigh and nodded, he definitely needed these sandwiches now.

"Thank you, baby." He mumbled, pressing a kiss to your forehead before grabbing the plastic bags and putting everything away.

The room still felt heavy with the weight of what you were both going through, but at least you were in it together. You knew that for now, everything was okay. You were safe. He was safe. And together, you'd face whatever came next.

kinda need to fight with Sam just for him to be all soft and cutesy with me after and make up..

feedback and requests are greatly appreciated !!

tags 🏷️ @gibson-g1rl @nuemanfilms @beausling @angelicjackles @sammyluvr @samwinchesterswifu @sampilled @seasons-of-death @starkeysprincess @rubyvhs @deansenvy @ribbonprincess @mxltifxnd0m

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Epic Systems, a lethal health record monopolist

Epic Systems makes the dominant electronic health record (EHR) system in America; if you're a doctor, chances are you are required to use it, and for every hour a doctor spends with a patient, they have to spend two hours doing clinically useless bureaucratic data-entry on an Epic EHR.

How could a product so manifestly unfit for purpose be the absolute market leader? Simple: as Robert Kuttner describes in an excellent feature in The American Prospect, Epic may be a clinical disaster, but it's a profit-generating miracle:

https://prospect.org/health/2024-10-01-epic-dystopia/

At the core of Epic's value proposition is "upcoding," a form of billing fraud that is beloved of hospital administrators, including the "nonprofit" hospitals that generate vast fortunes that are somehow not characterized as profits. Here's a particularly egregious form of upcoding: back in 2020, the Poudre Valley Hospital in Ft Collins, CO locked all its doors except the ER entrance. Every patient entering the hospital, including those receiving absolutely routine care, was therefore processed as an "emergency."

In April 2020, Caitlin Wells Salerno – a pregnant biologist – drove to Poudre Valley with normal labor pains. She walked herself up to obstetrics, declining the offer of a wheelchair, stopping only to snap a cheeky selfie. Nevertheless, the hospital recorded her normal, uncomplicated birth as a Level 5 emergency – comparable to a major heart-attack – and whacked her with a $2755 bill for emergency care:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/27/crossing-a-line/#zero-fucks-given

Upcoding has its origins in the Reagan revolution, when the market-worshipping cultists he'd put in charge of health care created the "Prospective Payment System," which paid a lump sum for care. The idea was to incentivize hospitals to provide efficient care, since they could keep the difference between whatever they spent getting you better and the set PPS amount that Medicare would reimburse them. Hospitals responded by inventing upcoding: a patient with controlled, long-term coronary disease who showed up with a broken leg would get coded for the coronary condition and the cast, and the hospital would pocket both lump sums:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/13/a-punch-in-the-guts/#hayek-pilled

The reason hospital administrators love Epic, and pay gigantic sums for systemwide software licenses, is directly connected to the two hours that doctors spent filling in Epic forms for every hour they spend treating patients. Epic collects all that extra information in order to identify potential sources of plausible upcodes, which allows hospitals to bill patients, insurers, and Medicare through the nose for routine care. Epic can automatically recode "diabetes with no complications" from a Hierarchical Condition Category code 19 (worth $894.40) as "diabetes with kidney failure," code 18 and 136, which gooses the reimbursement to $1273.60.

Epic snitches on doctors to their bosses, giving them a dashboard to track doctors' compliance with upcoding suggestions. One of Kuttner's doctor sources says her supervisor contacts her with questions like, "That appointment was a 2. Don’t you think it might be a 3?"

Robert Kuttner is the perfect journalist to unravel the Epic scam. As a journalist who wrote for The New England Journal of Medicine, he's got an insider's knowledge of the health industry, and plenty of sources among health professionals. As he tells it, Epic is a cultlike, insular company that employs 12.500 people in its hometown of Verona, WI.

The EHR industry's origins start with a GW Bush-era law called the HITECH Act, which was later folded into Obama's Recovery Act in 2009. Obama provided $27b to hospitals that installed EHR systems. These systems had to more than track patient outcomes – they also provided the data for pay-for-performance incentives. EHRs were already trying to do something very complicated – track health outcomes – but now they were also meant to underpin a cockamamie "incentives" program that was supposed to provide a carrot to the health industry so it would stop killing people and ripping off Medicare. EHRs devolved into obscenely complex spaghetti systems that doctors and nurses loathed on sight.

But there was one group that loved EHRs: hospital administrators and the private companies offering Medicare Advantage plans (which also benefited from upcoding patients in order to soak Uncle Sucker):

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8649706/

The spread of EHRs neatly tracks with a spike in upcharging: "from 2014 through 2019, the number of hospital stays billed at the highest severity level increased almost 20 percent…the number of stays billed at each of the other severity levels decreased":

https://oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/OEI-02-18-00380.pdf

The purpose of a system is what it does. Epic's industry-dominating EHR is great at price-gouging, but it sucks as a clinical tool – it takes 18 keystrokes just to enter a prescription:

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2729481

Doctors need to see patients, but their bosses demand that they satisfy Epic's endless red tape. Doctors now routinely stay late after work and show up hours early, just to do paperwork. It's not enough. According to another one of Kuttner's sources, doctors routinely copy-and-paste earlier entries into the current one, a practice that generates rampant errors. Some just make up random numbers to fulfill Epic's nonsensical requirements: the same source told Kuttner that when prompted to enter a pain score for his TB patients, he just enters "zero."

Don't worry, Epic has a solution: AI. They've rolled out an "ambient listening" tool that attempts to transcribe everything the doctor and patient say during an exam and then bash it into a visit report. Not only is this prone to the customary mistakes that make AI unsuited to high-stakes, error-sensitive applications, it also represents a profound misunderstanding of the purpose of clinical notes.

The very exercise of organizing your thoughts and reflections about an event – such as a medical exam – into a coherent report makes you apply rigor and perspective to events that otherwise arrive as a series of fleeting impressions and reactions. That's why blogging is such an effective practice:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/09/the-memex-method/

The answer to doctors not having time to reflect and organize good notes is to give them more time – not more AI. As another doctor told Kuttner: "Ambient listening is a solution to a self-created problem of requiring too much data entry by clinicians."

EHRs are one of those especially hellish public-private partnerships. Health care doctrine from Reagan to Obama insisted that the system just needed to be exposed to market forces and incentives. EHRs are designed to allow hospitals to win as many of these incentives as possible. Epic's clinical care modules do this by bombarding doctors with low-quality diagnostic suggestions with "little to do with a patient’s actual condition and risks," leading to "alert fatigue," so doctors miss the important alerts in the storm of nonsense elbow-jostling:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5058605/

Clinicians who actually want to improve the quality of care in their facilities end up recording data manually and keying it into spreadsheets, because they can't get Epic to give them the data they need. Meanwhile, an army of high-priced consultants stand ready to give clinicians advise on getting Epic to do what they need, but can't seem to deliver.

Ironically, one of the benefits that Epic touts is its interoperability: hospitals that buy Epic systems can interconnect those with other Epic systems, and there's a large ecosystem of aftermarket add-ons that work with Epic. But Epic is a product, not a protocol, so its much-touted interop exists entirely on its terms, and at its sufferance. If Epic chooses, a doctor using its products can send files to a doctor using a rival product. But Epic can also veto that activity – and its veto extends to deciding whether a hospital can export their patient records to a competing service and get off Epic altogether.

One major selling point for Epic is its capacity to export "anonymized" data for medical research. Very large patient data-sets like Epic's are reasonably believed to contain many potential medical insights, so medical researchers are very excited at the prospect of interrogating that data.

But Epic's approach – anonymizing files containing the most sensitive information imaginable, about millions of people, and then releasing them to third parties – is a nightmare. "De-identified" data-sets are notoriously vulnerable to "re-identification" and the threat of re-identification only increases every time there's another release or breach, which can used to reveal the identities of people in anonymized records. For example, if you have a database of all the prescribing at a given hospital – a numeric identifier representing the patient, and the time and date when they saw a doctor and got a scrip. At any time in the future, a big location-data breach – say, from Uber or a transit system – can show you which people went back and forth to the hospital at the times that line up with those doctor's appointments, unmasking the person who got abortion meds, cancer meds, psychiatric meds or other sensitive prescriptions.

The fact that anonymized data can – will! – be re-identified doesn't mean we have to give up on the prospect of gleaning insight from medical records. In the UK, the eminent doctor Ben Goldacre and colleagues built an incredible effective, privacy-preserving "trusted research environment" (TRE) to operate on millions of NHS records across a decentralized system of hospitals and trusts without ever moving the data off their own servers:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/08/the-fire-of-orodruin/#are-we-the-baddies

The TRE is an open source, transparent server that accepts complex research questions in the form of database queries. These queries are posted to a public server for peer-review and revision, and when they're ready, the TRE sends them to each of the databases where the records are held. Those databases transmit responses to the TRE, which then publishes them. This has been unimaginably successful: the prototype of the TRE launched during the lockdown generated sixty papers in Nature in a matter of months.

Monopolies are inefficient, and Epic's outmoded and dangerous approach to research, along with the roadblocks it puts in the way of clinical excellence, epitomizes the problems with monopoly. America's health care industry is a dumpster fire from top to bottom – from Medicare Advantage to hospital cartels – and allowing Epic to dominate the EHR market has somehow, incredibly, made that system even worse.

Naturally, Kuttner finishes out his article with some antitrust analysis, sketching out how the Sherman Act could be brought to bear on Epic. Something has to be done. Epic's software is one of the many reasons that MDs are leaving the medical profession in droves.

Epic epitomizes the long-standing class war between doctors who want to take care of their patients and hospital executives who want to make a buck off of those patients.

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/02/upcoded-to-death/#thanks-obama

Image: Flying Logos (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Over_$1,000,000_dollars_in_USD_$100_bill_stacks.png

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

[straylightdream]

delicate

𝐟𝐞𝐚𝐭: joshua hong x cam girl reader

Long night, with your hands up in my hair. Echoes of your footsteps on the stairs. Stay here, honey, I don't wanna share

𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: established relationship, non idol au

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: so much angst, emotional joshua, unprotected sex(mc is on birth control), creampie, breed kink, body worship, jealous joshua, oral (both rec), slut shaming not by joshua, recording sexual acts, masturbation, guided/mutual masturbation

an: my next story for SVT inspired by reputation songs by taylor swift.

if you would like to be tagged please fill out this form.

PREVIEW

Your first month of doing it you weren’t very sure of what you should do and decided to wear a mask that covered part of your face. After your first month you really started doing well and making lots of money. You finally didn’t have to worry about paying rent. You wouldn’t have stressed out Jeonghan like you have a couple times about missing rent.

You managed to fully keep your job a secret from everyone you knew, even Joshua you had you had been seeing for about three months. Everyone thought you had an online marketing job that let you work from home. It was your little secret for the first two years you started doing it. Everything fell apart when Seokmin, Chan, and Joshua found out about your job.

It turns out a girl that went to college who had a crush on Joshua back in the day, that never liked you discovered your secret. She took it upon herself to share you secret when she ran into Joshua while he was out with Seokmin and Chan getting coffee one day.

You and Joshua have always been close. You became friends in college and you still share the same friend group to this day. Four months ago you decided to give dating a try. You planned on telling him at some point about your job but you weren’t sure when would be a good time.

As soon as he finished getting coffee with the boys, he asked them to keep what they had been told to themselves even though he knew deep down inside they were going to go home and look up your page. Something didn’t sit right about his friend seeing his girlfriend naked online. He knew it was a matter of time before one of them accidentally let someone else know.

Walking into his apartment he slipped off into his room locking the door. Putting his headphones on he went onto the site the girl had told him he would find your account on. Opening his laptop he searched the user name he was told he could find you by. Your username you went by “kittenqt”. The moment the page opened his mouth went dry. Even with half your face covered he could tell it was you. He knew he should close his laptop and just let it go. You had chosen not to share this information with him for a reason, but this all just didn’t sit right with him. He didn’t care that you were a sex worker. He cared more that you hid this from him. He wished you would have trusted him enough to let him know.

Staring at your home page he reached up to close his laptop, but he couldn’t. He instead clicked the button to open your live stream. The moment the page loaded his eyes focused on your naked form laying on your bed with your legs spread. You were dressed in pink sheer crotchless panties and sheer bra that was completely see through that matched.

Silently he listened to you pleasuring yourself with a pink sparkly dildo he’s never seen before.

Your sex life with Joshua was passionate, but you had never brought in toys or anything like that.

READ THE FULL STORY HERE

[moondirti]

Pleaaaase more farmer! Price, I BEG OF YOU

hybrid reader. mean price. brief daddy kink.

farmer price who is mercurial at his worst.

whose temper froths, bubbles beneath sun-hardened skin on market days, when he spends overlong lugging produce to and from his beat up truck. its the heat, or the sweat weaving his chest hair, or the customers who refuse to believe that, despite this year's asparagus being slightly paler than the lasts', it is still just as good. it's a medley of things, each marginally more vexing given their immutable nature. and where he's tailored patience like a glove — watering crops so that they may come alive in the next season, or moulding a perfectly credulous thing to his will — it does no good when his hands are tied.

he's keen to get home. unwind under the cool roof of his ranch. scrub the muck off and knock back a glass of scotch. the august sun might be beastly to work underneath, but he admits it makes for a pleasant sight as it sets. you're so easily awed, at least, bleating softly when he combs his fingers around your ears and calls out marigold rays. it's just the thing to make up for his day. a drink, a view, and a fuzzy pussy to occupy his hands with.

only you're not indulgent. not soft on the idea of sitting still for hours as you're swung to and from the precipice of climax. a strange restlessness has worked its way through your blood in the past week, spoiling the docility that keeps his collar fastened firm around your neck. he credits it to the encroach of autumn. expectation, leaden on your dumbed conscience, that you'll soon be bred and plump with lambs. the swollen heat between your legs is enough signal to the fact, bucking up into his hand when he pets it.

but if not that, then it's the little feet kicking off his lap, disturbing the stable footing he lends to your bottom. it’s the way your fat thighs quiver, locking around his hand to keep him there, to keep his callouses grinding against your clit. and despite the layer of soaked wool nested along your lips, the squelches of your over-eager cunt are clear in the conditioned air. loud, lewd. sticky sounding when he buffs his heavy fingers over the hard bud poking out.

“y’proud of this? huh?” he grunts, singling on that one point where your nerve ending are too exposed. too concentrated. it must be torture when the rough pad of his thumb swipes over it, skinning you alive, flaying you open so that you’re a steaming mess on his lap. damp baby hairs mat by your crown, smelling of salt when he presses a curled lip to your temple. “dumb little lamb. can’t think of anyone ‘cept yourself, mm? making a mess on daddy’s lap after he’s had such a hard day. i should slap this needy thing silly, ‘till you can’t piss without regrettin’ it. call in kyle to tear you apart to his heart’s content. he’s been good lately. deserves it.”

“nnngh! s’too mu- muhh.”

but he thrusts two fingers into your tense hole anyway, feeling you up from the inside. the heat between your legs, the hot fervour of it sucking his fingers deeper, rapidly blossoms up your body. his chest itches with the sweat seeping off your back, beard soaking in the puddle of it that pools off your neck. he would have it in him to be worried, but today is not that sort of day.

the heel of his hand makes good work of kneading into your clit, the poor thing throbbing under the crushing pressure. it all grows to be too much, too fast. you’d been begging for something gentle, no doubt. a merciful address to a heat you can’t control, this recurring cycle of which he was already made aware of. but you’ve been with him long enough to know better.

if this were his break day, he might have stuffed you with a toy. fed your whines with his cock. wiped your tears with scarred knuckles, and kissed your eyes shut as you worked through your desperation.

if it were autumn, if the weather were any cooler, and mating season brought with it a new, soft coat of wool and the right conditions for your pregnancy — including the freeing of his time — he might have even laid you down on the hardwood floors and given you what you so desperately crave.

but for now, he’s holding out, waiting, keeping his little lamb in line.

just as good farmers do.

(and if it hurts, that’s fine. he doesn’t expect an animal to understand, anyway.)

[libingan]

im literally writing this in the middle of an online meeting LMFAO your bitch is in college, yall!!!!!!! and i'll be on this laptop until 8:30PM hahaha..... anw this is abt reader who wants kyle to be rougher in bed so she deliberately riles him up by getting him jealous there is no sex sorry guys

sex with kyle has always been good—better than good, in fact. he’s gentle, considerate, and utterly devoted to making sure you unravel with pleasure under his touch. every time, he focuses on you, putting your needs above his, ensuring you’re satisfied before he even considers his own desires. it’s sweet, thoughtful, and exactly what you’ve always wanted. but sometimes… sometimes, you crave something different.

you can’t help but fantasize about kyle taking what he wants from you, losing control, fucking into you like you’re just a toy for him to use. you want him to be rough and domineering, to show you a side of him you’ve never seen in the bedroom. you’ve tried everything—being bratty, sassing him out, sometimes even deliberately annoying him in hopes of pushing him over the edge. but it never works. he always brushes you off with a patient smile, calm as ever, as if he’s completely immune to your provocations.

that’s when you get the idea to flirt with another man during one of your shopping trips.

the market is bustling with activity, people moving around, chatting, haggling with vendors. kyle had just excused himself to the restroom, leaving you alone to browse. it’s then that you see your opportunity.

a man about your age, maybe a bit older, with a friendly smile and an easygoing manner, starts a conversation with you as you look over a display of fresh produce.

“hey there,” he says, giving you a once-over before focusing on the vegetables in front of you. “you new around here? don’t think i’ve seen you before.”

you smile back, trying to put just enough charm into it. “yeah, just passing through with a friend. figured we’d stop by and pick up a few things.”

he nods, leaning a little closer. “well, you’re in for a treat. this market has the best stuff. need any recommendations?”

you tilt your head, pretending to consider it. “i wouldn’t mind some suggestions. maybe you could help me find something good?”

the man grins, clearly pleased with the attention. “sure thing. name’s mike, by the way.”

you introduce yourself, and the two of you chat for a bit longer. he’s friendly, flirty in a harmless kind of way, but you notice the way he keeps inching closer, his eyes lingering on you. it’s exactly what you were hoping for.

then kyle returns. you spot him out of the corner of your eye, and for a moment, you feel a pang of guilt. but you push it aside, determined to see this through. mike suddenly wraps an arm around your shoulder, pulling you closer in a way that’s casual but undeniably possessive.

kyle’s expression shifts as he watches, his brows furrowing in confusion, then anger when you do nothing to stop the man’s touch. you can see it in the way his jaw tightens, his posture stiffening as he approaches.

“hey, love,” kyle says as he comes up to you both, his voice cool but with an edge to it.

you look up at him with a smile, but before you can introduce him, mike speaks first. “oh, hey there. you must be the friend they mentioned.”

kyle’s eyes flicker with something dark, and you can practically feel the tension radiating off him. “friend?” he echoes, his voice a low rumble.

you nod, trying to keep the situation light. “yeah, this is kyle. we’re just out doing some shopping.”

kyle’s gaze locks onto yours, his eyes narrowing slightly. “right. just shopping.”

there’s a moment of silence, the air between the three of you heavy with unspoken tension. mike, seemingly oblivious, starts talking again, but you barely register his words. all you can focus on is kyle, the way his usually warm eyes have gone cold.

“let’s go,” kyle finally says, cutting mike off mid-sentence. his hand wraps around your wrist, not harshly but with enough force to make it clear he’s done playing along.

you barely manage a goodbye to mike as kyle pulls you away, his grip on your wrist firm as he leads you out of the market and towards home. the silence between you is deafening, and your heart pounds in your chest, but it’s not the thrill of anticipation you’d been hoping for. it’s something else—something almost like fear.

when you finally reach the apartment, kyle lets go of your wrist, taking a step back as he runs a hand over his face. but he says nothing. he doesn’t even look at you, just stands there, his back to you, the silence hanging heavy in the air.

“kyle…” you begin, your voice trembling as you take a step toward him. “say something, please.”

but he doesn’t respond, doesn’t turn around. the stillness is unbearable, his silence so intense it’s like a physical presence in the room. you feel your heart pounding in your chest, your stomach twisting into knots as you wait for him to react in some way—any way.

“kyle,” you try again, desperation creeping into your voice. “please, talk to me.”

still, nothing. he’s like a statue, immobile and eerily silent, his shoulders tense, his fists clenched at his sides. tears prick at your eyes as the guilt and fear overwhelm you. this isn’t how it was supposed to go. you wanted to push him, to see a different side of him, but now… now you just want him to speak, to tell you everything’s going to be okay.

“i’m sorry,” you whisper, your voice breaking as you move closer to him. “i’m so, so sorry.”

finally, kyle turns to face you, his expression unreadable, his eyes dark and troubled. he’s still silent, his gaze piercing as he looks at you, waiting.

you can’t take it anymore. the words tumble out of you in a rush, your voice shaky and filled with regret. “i just wanted to rile you up. i wanted you to be rougher in bed, and i didn’t know how else to tell you. i thought if i pushed you, maybe you’d… i don’t know… take control or something.”

for a long moment, he just stares at you, and you feel yourself crumbling under the weight of his silence. then, finally, he speaks, his voice calm but laced with frustration. “you should’ve told me that. communicated instead of pulling this little stunt.”

his words cut through you, the calmness of his tone almost worse than if he’d yelled at you. there’s no anger, no shouting, just a quiet, controlled disappointment that makes you feel small.

“kyle, i didn’t—” you start, but he cuts you off with a shake of his head.

“you didn’t think,” he finishes for you, his voice still infuriatingly calm. “i get it, i do. but this? what you did? it wasn’t the way to go about it.”

you bite your lip, tears slipping down your cheeks. “i’m so sorry. i didn’t mean for it to go this far. i just didn’t know how to ask for what i wanted.”

he sighs, running a hand through his hair, clearly trying to keep his emotions in check. “you could’ve just asked,” he says softly. “i would’ve listened. i’m willing to try it for you, but not like this. not when you’re trying to push me into something i’m not prepared for.”

you nod, wiping at your eyes, feeling utterly ashamed of yourself. “i know. i was stupid, and i’m so, so sorry.”

kyle steps closer, his hands gentle as he cups your face, wiping away your tears with his thumbs. “we’ll figure this out,” he murmurs, his voice softer now, the tension easing slightly from his frame. “but you have to talk to me. no more games, alright?”

“alright,” you whisper, leaning into his touch, relieved beyond words that he’s still here, still willing to work through this with you.

he presses a kiss to your forehead, his lips lingering there for a moment. “i love you,” he says quietly, and you can hear the exhaustion in his voice, the emotional toll this has taken on him.

“i love you too,” you reply, your voice thick with emotion as you cling to him, vowing to never put him—or yourself—through something like this again.