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hurlingdown · 2 days ago

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𝜗𝜚 BABY, FERVOUR! (FEVER)

synopsis. when new years baby fever strikes, the only thing you can do is make him juno. one of him is cute, yeah, but two, though? featuring you (yes, you!) thoroughly breeding the jjk men. wc. 5.2k

tags. top! reader, sub! gojo, toji, sukuna, geto separately. reader has a cock. baby fever, pregnancy kink, breeding kink. set in the a/b/o world as a plot device for mpreg. true-form sukuna & beast! reader, afab! geto, toji is a father of six (nine now). creampies, feminization, primal play, slut-shaming, dacryphilia, overstim, oviposition (only sukuna), daddy/mommy kink, full nelson, kitchen sex, mounting, nesting, size difference, belly bulging, mean tummy pushing, praise kink, degradation, rough anal & vaginal sex, extremely cockdrunk! suguru. whiny, needy jjk men.

a/n. you should know the drill by now . . . enjoy!

“. . . make a baby?” satoru whined, headily peering up at you between two spread, quivering thighs, held up invitingly for you. “heard it- it takes a lot of hard work to make one . . . ”

“yes,” you grunted, brows fixed together in concentration as you gazed down at your lustrous mate, his lidded eyes glazed over in pure bliss. he was spread prettily underneath you, lewd pants and whimpers tumbling out of kiss-bitten lips as your cock continued to stretch tautly at his pink, puffy rim, forcing its way in one fat inch by one fat inch. “‘s that mean you don’t wanna? m-make a baby. with me.”

satoru shook his head quickly, cheeks heating up as you repeated that phrase again.

“‘course i wanna!” he mewled out, glossy eyes peering up at you in mock offense, “if it’s with you… i th-think it’d be okay.” he glanced away, cheeks heating up as though he was embarrassed by the idea of carrying your child, but you weren’t having any of that.

satoru sobbed out a piteous whine as your girthy length dragged along his spongy walls as though it wanted to leave, feeling himself clench eagerly around it to restore the fullness. “noo, come back,” he whined, sharp nails raking down your back in pretty red trails, letting out a happy purr when you thrust to the hilt again, filling his stomach up.

“‘m talking ‘bout a baby, satoru, not some toy…” you huffed disapprovingly, pressing a gentle kiss to the sensitive underside of his jaw, to which he let out a shrilly gasp at. “a baby right here.” you gave his tummy a little prod, and he whimpered, his walls pulsating around you at the mere thought of you planting a seed right there… a dirty little secret buried deep inside him, where no one would know but the two of you. “that’s what i want. do you understand me, ‘toru?”

“i knoow what you’re talkin’ about,” satoru slurred sousedly, pupils dilated as proof of his intense arousal. he palmed his pudgy tummy with one hand, mimicking your earlier actions, before glaring up at you. “‘m not stupid, i‘m the best. ‘said i want a baby, so gimme one, ‘kay? your baby.”

“i heard it takes a lot of hard work to make one, though,” you carefully repeated his own words, a sly grin slowly etching itself onto your face. he mumbled something under his breath that sounded awfully like ‘meanie’ before it sharpened into a whine as you pressed harder into the curved cusp of his hips, the fullness making it almost hard to breathe. “hours and hours of labour and hard work non-stop, in fact.” you huffed out a soft laugh, “well, it’s me doing the hard work anyway, but you won’t get to rest at all. you sure you can handle that, baby? might as well keep you on my cock all night long if you’re up for it…”

he nodded enthusiastically, treating this like a challenge as he always would. satoru was the best. the best omega in all of the clans: tight sopping hole, negligible gag reflex, and a fertile womb that was always, always ready for breeding. and if you wanted a child, he was going to be the best child-bearer in the world.

“put a baby in me,” he told you, firmly. “and don’t you dare stop until you do.”

and that was all you needed to snap.

like a man possessed, you snarled a quick curse into his neck, nipping at the mating bite you had embedded there on the side with stark affection before getting to work. two sweaty palms found their way onto the thick of his hips, gripping and squeezing, roughly yanking him back to meet every violent nudge of your bulbous cockhead against his prostate gland, now throbbing sweetly and starting to swell.

satoru sobbed out your name loudly in querulous, broken syllables, thrashing wildly under your grip, but you didn’t let go—never would, only held on as your omega clutched on to your shoulders equally as tight. you would fulfil your promise, make him yours in every sense of the word. you would impregnate him.

“gonna make you a mommy,” you heaved out, pressing down onto his softened tummy. you wanted to make him feel you inside, thick and hefty and pulsing with life, and he wailed out, the pressure on his slightly distended stomach increasing tenfold with one single push of your hot palm. “gonna make you full and round n’ swollen with me. is that what you want, ‘toru? to get knocked up like a good cumslut?”

“yes,” satoru snivelled, tears dotting on his lashes as he whined pitifully at you. “a-alpha. ‘m your good cumslut omega. please...” he didn’t know what he was pleading for, he didn’t care, as long as at the end of the day, he would be stuffed to the brim with cum and seed with your knot plugging him up, a baby slowly starting to grow inside his womb as he dozes off to sweet, sweet dreams.

“shit,” you growled, stiff grip pressing bruises onto flawless skin while you plowed into his soppy cave, making him keen at the rough treatment. all of this was making you dizzy with desire. you couldn’t wait to see his pretty tummy grow round with the baby you put in him. “wanna knock you up so bad, baby,” you whined into his ear, “you have no idea. gonna make you mine, ruin you for anyone else…”

satoru sobbed out a moan, the sheer intensity of your words making his hole drool with want and anticipation, gummy walls squeezing around you with an obscene squelch. all he could feel was himself getting wetter and wetter, wetter and wetter… drenching the mattress with how much slick he was producing, the viscous substance practically pouring out of his birthing cavern like a waterslide.

he had never been so fucking aroused in his life. the idea of his body slowly growing plump and heavy with your child, all fat and waddling around in his pregnancy, hands poised underneath his huge stomach to support it…

you probably wouldn’t let him walk around much after pumping a baby into him, would you? you would probably strap him to the bed, keeping him pregnant and barefoot on your cock for the rest of the days to come. the strongest sorcerer in the world, reduced to nothing but a cumdump and a child-bearer.

fuck, he was going to cum so hard.

“gonna cum soon, baby,” you panted. “gonna cum in your pretty womb and you’ll take it, ‘kay?”

satoru shuddered, crying out as he felt you grow bigger, your knot thickening at the base, making his rim stretch impossibly wider. “p-please. want it inside,” he weeped, desperate tears dribbling down his rosy cheeks in salty globs, to which you lapped up eagerly. “want your baby so much…”

you gripped onto his hips harder, pressing them securely into the cushiony mattress while you pounded into the cramped space in his sloppy hole, making him yell out a filthy scream of your name, jackknifing off the bed and cumming all over his filled tummy in several, messy spurts.

“yeah. and ‘m gonna do exactly that, princess,” you panted, sloppily kissing his neck while continuing to plow at his taut, tumid hole, still greedily fluttering around you despite the mind-blowing orgasm, wanting to be bred. “gonna put a baby- in you. get this tummy nice n’ round for -me, yeah?”

“please,” satoru sobbed brokenly. he swore he couldn’t take it anymore if you didn’t cum inside him in the next minute. he was going to lose his fucking mind. “get me pregnant already!”

at his warbled consent, you couldn’t hold back a primal snarl of ‘omega’ into his ear before sending a harsh, well-aimed thrust against his tumefied sweet spot, the beefy tip crushing itself against the throbbing, overstimulated gland, causing a loud wail to ring from your pretty mate. with a loud, guttural grunt, you forced your knot deeper inside his puffy rim, seizing and trembling before filling him up with thick ropes of warm cum.

satoru gawped at you with watery eyes, keening and trembling with exhaustion as your knot settled deep and safely into his womb, stuffing him full of baby batter. you really had went and knocked him up now… and from the way you kept on crooning, greedy hands kneading his now swollen stomach with a terrible insistence, you definitely weren’t planning on stopping after one.

FUSHIGURO TOJI

“you wanna what,” toji snarled, breath coming out in soft, frisky puffs as you carefully folded the omega in his favourite position—the full nelson. “‘m not in the mood for your ngh, fuckin’ jokes.”

“i’m not playing with you,” you grit out, panting harshly into the valley of his neck and shoulder, licking a hot stripe from his dewy scent gland to the sensitive back of his ear, earning you a shiver. you mustered a low grunt as your cock slotted into his tight hole with a sloppy shlick, his walls instinctively closing in on you, keeping you safely tucked inside. “i want another baby, toji. wanna, heh, get you pregnant.”

“y’er actually serious.” toji gave a nonchalant wriggle, getting you to loosen your grip on him, before sharply rolling his hips down to fully settle onto your lap—the sticky back of his rear now flattened against your straining quads, groaning as your thick cock slid in deeper into his soaked cavern. “fuuck. that’s more like it. fuck the stomach—think i can feel your dumb cock all the way in my throat.”

the both of you panted wordlessly as you let his puffy rim get used to the heavy stretch, pleasured hums slipping from him as you smothered his neck and shoulders with red and purple love bites, tenderly licking over the teethmarks you had put on the side of his neck the first time you had consummated.

“y’said you want another baby? get me pregnant? that it, stupid alpha?” toji muttered, giving you an impassive side-glance, but you knew he was excited from the idea with how much slick was leaking, no, pouring out from around your shaft, drenching your cock with his arousal. “bet you just like, ah- the thought of seein’ me all round and useless. bein’ an absolute slut for your,” he bit back a whine as you thrusted up into his sopping hole, “c-cock. ah, your big, fuckin’ cock… good for nothin’ but gettin’ me pregnant. hah.”

a lewd ‘pap’ sounded as you bottomed out again, the convex tip weeping in unison with his fluttering walls, prodding him in places that sent stars swarming in his eyes. he could feel himself clench with every movement, his stretched hole growing wet and sticky at each drag of your thick girth, hot and throbbing inside him. it didn’t help that you were groaning and grunting in his ear, hips trembling every time you bucked up into his swollen, dripping hole, feverish body bounding his in such a taut, intimate position that allowed minimal movement on his half—that had his inner omega keening.

“he does more than that,” you muttered, rolling your hips up so you could rub your shaft directly against his sore stomach walls, “and you know it.” toji gave a dry sob, clinging on to his own thighs as the round bulge of your cock appeared on his abdomen, deep and sinfully thick. almost resembling a baby bump. you couldn’t help but croon at his reaction to your little trick, starting to thrust into his wet cave again. “h-he’s- definitely very good at getting you pregnant, though, heh…”

toji could feel his instincts acting up again at the way you were talking to him—making him want to fold his arms, press his chest into the mattress with his back arched like a good omega and raise his ass to the skies just so you could plunder him and put a baby inside his needy womb. fuck. he needed to get pregnant. he needed your seed inside him, filling him up to the brim of leaking, your bulbous knot securing the entrance of his slutty little hole, preventing anything from dripping out… and making sure he’d conceive.

“fuck me,” he growled, “as many times as it’ll take. fuck a baby into me. a-another one. i want a fucking litter, you hear me?”

“so demanding,” you panted, despite feeling yourself grow dizzy at his obscene words. “i’ll give you as many as you can take—don’t wanna tire you out, baby. y’remember last time when you had the, ah- twins? doubt we can fit more than- hn, three, though, in that little hole of yours.”

“it’s not little if even your stupidly big cock can fit inside,” he scoffed. “i said i want a litter. now shut up and fuck me ‘till you give me one.”

biting back instinctual dislike of this being not the traditional mounting position to mate and breed—it was your omega’s favourite after all, so it’d do—you continued to plow at his soppy hole, each filthy push and pull with the only intent of fulfilling your role as his sire. pumping a baby, a pup, into his sweet womb, making his tummy grow big and round with the product of your hard work. it was amazing, really, how all of this could occur from one spurt of hot cum deep into your beautiful mate.

you could feel toji’s body shuddering with pleasure, sharp claws sinking into your forearms and whichever part of you he could physically reach, small mewls punched out of him with every thrust. but that wouldn’t do. not while you were making love to him. you wanted to make him cry. make him scream, preferably, eyes crossing and back arching as he sobbed out his pleasure to the world.

adjusting the angle of your hips, you tightened your grappling hold on him before grinding up, a smirk cutting across your face as you heard him choke on a moan, legs quivering where they hung on the crook of your elbows, evidently overstimulated. he wasn’t going anywhere, now. not until you bred him properly like he had asked. this was your duty as mate.

“too much,” he gasped, “too fuckin’ much, slow down—”

“keep up, baby. you asked for this,” you hummed, nipping at his shoulder as he squirmed on your cock, rim flittering tirelessly around the bulk of your cock. “just let me do my job, yeah?”

“fuck—you.”

“in case you didn’t notice, i’m currently trying very hard.”

toji whimpered helplessly, tight walls squeezing the life out of your cock, as though he were trying to milk every last bit out of you. you could feel yourself dripping inside him with every heavy slosh—every push and pull of your shaft against his cramped hole, pre-cum mingling with his slick, creating one big, wet mess inside him that would soon grow into a tiny bundle of joy.

“gonna look sooo fucking pretty with my baby in you, toji,” you cooed into his ear, rewarding you with a feeble shiver and an answering whine. you bucked your hips, pushing deeper and deeper before allowing your knot to slowly take form, stretching him across the entrance with the heavy, swollen end of it. “like always. or maybe it’s gonna be twins this time. triplets. fuck, baby. you’re gonna look so beautiful.”

he sobbed out as thick, warm cum began to flood him, making him clamp around you intuitively to keep everything inside—the unexpected pleasure buzzing through you sharply and making you grunt and jerk, another hot spurt of cum into his pretty womb.

“if we don’t get triplets, we’re trying again,” toji mumbled, gaze hazy, almost cumdrunk, stomach flexing in anticipation as you poured the last of your seed into him with a soft sigh of agreement.

RYŌMEN SUKUNA

“put your fuckin’ spawn in me?” the curse scoffed, craning his neck to glare at you with his bottom left eye. “‘s about damn time you asked.”

you had him on all fours (sixes), back arched and hips raised like a proper omega presenting in heat, panting and shivering as you bent over his body with your lumbering own. you could feel the drool building up in your mouth from the mere anticipation of impregnating your mate, filling him to the brim with your eggs and cum, breeding little beasts into his eager, fertile womb.

you leaned down to nuzzle his neck in affirmation, clumsily canting your hips backwards before pushing them until they rested flush against his plush ass, choking a needy whine out of him. his walls squeezed around you in retaliation, still needing to adjust to the all-too-big intrusion despite having done this hundreds of times, the heaviness of your cock resting against inside him almost a familiar comfort.

“this better- not be just your rut talking,” sukuna muttered, a low growl reverbrating at the back of his throat, quietening after you let out a soothing croon of your own, tenderly licking over his mating bite. “i’ll f-fucking flay you alive if it is.”

“no,” you denied, but you think you’d let him do it anyway. you’d do anything for him. kill, slaughter, guard him with your life. you were his, heart, body and soul, and you’d slit your own throat if you left him wanting anything for a split second.

still struggling to find a rhythm with how much he was writhing and snarling underneath you, his mind unused to such open submission, with him freely exposing his back and neck to you, your claws being able to reach his stomach within a blink of an eye; and yet his body was practically vibrating with how much it yearned for the pleasure that came with yielding to you, having your big, clawed hands branding his body, the weight of your touch anchoring him to the present.

fuck. children, sukuna thought, a sob dragged out of his lips, wrecked, as the head of your cock rammed against his throbbing sweet spot. little yous, cute and fanged and savage, with your bruising grip on his hips and the feral snarl of his name into the sweaty scent gland of his neck, swollen cock working in and out of him with utmost devotion at one single directive that he had given you only moments ago—to get him pregnant.

what would they be like? would they inherit your gentleness? or the side of your angry beast? he wanted them all. wanted all that you could give him. wanted you to fill him up, make his tummy grow and grow, stuffed with your spawn and seed until he was positive he couldn’t take any more. to the edge of spilling, breaking, bursting.

sukuna let out a throaty groan at that, head thrown back as he gave a full-body shudder, his first orgasm burning through him as his cocks spurted onto the nest in enthusiasm. “fuck,” he panted, slumping down in exhaustion, a protesting whine tumbling out as you continued to move in and out of him despite the sensitive fluttering of his hole. “a-asshole, can’t you see—hnngh.”

you palmed at the fat of his ass, crooning as you heard your mate whimper, head ducked down to hide in the nest, almost shy. “it is okay,” you rumbled, forked tongue laving over his scent gland in comfort, the fragrant, oily tang of his scent making you muster out a low keen. he was so sweet, so perfect, as always. he deserved everything and more. “i will… take care of you.”

and you meant every word of it. until he was bathed in the making of your children, your spawn, you wouldn’t stop.

“sukuna,” you growled, rocking down into his waiting hole with meaning, wanting him to feel every girthy inch of you, the drag, the glide. “sukuna. sukuna.”

“yes, i fucking get it,” he bit back a snarl, turning his head to let you catch a glimpse of his teary eyes. “don’t stop. fuck. it feels so good. you feel so fucking good.”

he whined louder as you picked up your pace, nails ripping up the nest into near shreds, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care with the noises he was making, making the heat inside you grow ever hotter, making your hips move of their own accord, bucking into the warm, cosy chamber of his womb of their own accord.

you could hear with every gurgle inside his tummy, his slick intermixing with all the precome that was squirting out of your cock in frenzied arousal, making a comfy nest for your length to settle into for mere moments before sliding out again. soon, it would become home for your eggs, a soft cushion for them to rest upon until it was ready for them to hatch. all of them, inside him. you would have no one else bear them.

“sukuna,” you repeated, one clawed hand going around his torso to palm at his stomach, not quite full yet, but nonetheless bulging with your girthiness. “here, sukuna. please, please.” you pushed and kneaded at the swell of his tummy, strugging to tuck your claws away in the dizziness of heat and want clouding your instincts, but keeping them a safe distance from him and the seedbed of your spawn. “want to put them in here. make you full of me. want it so much.”

“yeah,” sukuna choked out, tears sliding down his cheeks from all four of his eyes, chest heaving with breath as you took and took from him, the curb of his hole puffy from all the stretching. he could feel you growing, still, your knot starting heavy and thick from the base, and he held back a keen of his own, wanting nothing but for you to plug him up and make him your personal breeding grounds. just you, him, and whatever you would give him tonight and in the coming weeks of your rut, whether it be a nestful of eggs, or stomachfuls of your cum.

he would take it all, like a good omega. he would do it for you. only for you.

“breed me,” sukuna whimpered, two hands reaching back to clutch at your shoulders, your neck—any part of you that he could reach. “t-tired of seein’ an empty nest. want eggs. was waitin’ for you to fucking ask. wanted them for ages. fuck them into me.” you could feel his thighs trembling with the strain of holding his hips up for you, strength long gone, and he would have collapsed if it weren’t for you dutifully grasping them, making sure they were pressed flush against yours.

you hissed out, low, soothing croons spilling out one after one as you heard the first pained cry coming from your mate, the sweet shape of his womb distending to make space for the first egg. “it is okay,” you whispered again and again throughout, lapping messily at his neck and cheek, a primal resemblance of a kiss. “you are okay.”

sukuna allowed two of his eyes to flutter shut (the other two on alert, now that he had something to protect), two hands joining yours, resting against his now bloated stomach. relishing in the vibrations of your purrs and trills, and responding with some of his own. he could feel the shape of the egg inside him, scaled and ovoid and perfect.

if this was the aftermath of pregnancy, if this was the outcome of hours and hours of lovemaking and feral snarls of pleasure into the crook of his neck, then sukuna would sacrifice anything, anything to feel this way again. this love, this tenderness, shaped by two hands cradling his soon-to-be newborn, the heartbeat of another pressed against his throbbing own.

GETO SUGURU

suguru couldn’t believe it. you were breeding him in the fucking kitchen, of all places.

“too much,” suguru sobbed, hot tears clinging to his lashes as he glanced back at you, bent over the kitchen counter. he could hear every slosh and squelch inside his sore cunt, as though your cock were trying to whip all the baby batter stuffed inside him into shape. “puh-please. i can’t, daddy. ‘s too much.”

“nuh-uh, suguru. you can take it,” you gently reprimanded, one hand settling on his ass, squeezing the flesh lightly, making him jostle and whine. “you said you wanted a baby, right? daddy’s gonna give you a baby. now, we don’t tolerate going back on our word, do we, sweetheart?”

“no,” the omega keened, hips trembling lightly as you impaled him again and again, thick girth making his folds part and lips stretch just to accommodate you. you could feel him shivering against you, evidently overstimulated, but you couldn’t bring yourself to stop, with the piece of heaven that you were currently inside. tight, warm and extremely wet, a perfect, snug fit for your cock. you couldn’t wait to spill inside hm again, another load of cum inside his soaked womb, another chance of him getting pregnant. “but it’s too good, daddy, please…”

“do you wanna stop, suguru? does it hurt?” you paused, eyebrows fixing together in concern. a whine of protest tore from his throat almost immediately, hips squirming as he tried to fuck himself back onto your cock. he shook his head rapidly, mouthing ‘please, no’ while blinking up at you tearily. “okay, okay…”

he let out a sob of relief as you started moving again, despite how he could feel his toes clenching and hips shuddering with every overstimulating thrust, his core aching and swollen. he was practically relying on your firm grasp on his waist and the leverage he had on the counter to stay standing, the strength having long left his legs. but suguru had to endure. it was for the baby, of course. it would all be worth it in the end.

“good boy, suguru. just one more, and then we’ll take a break, okay?” you murmured soothingly, your hot palm a comfort on the small of his back, steadying him and making sure he won’t fall, grounding him to the present of your lovemaking. “daddy’s gonna take good care of you, just like always.” you rolled your hips in slow circles, making sure not to go too fast, watching his slick cling onto your girth in a wet, shiny sheen of sticky cream. you groaned your pleasure as you bottomed out, feeling him clench around you in rapid flutters, small whines slipping out from your lover in tumbles.

“okay,” he mumbled. “put a baby in me, daddy.”

that sent a pleasure-addled shiver down your spine and right down your cock, pre squirting out from the head, making him croon happily as more of your warmth settled inside his womb. “little brat,” you scolded, a playful lilt to your tone, pressing a kiss to the back of his neck, to which he shivered at. you couldn’t wait to get your hands on his swollen tummy once you were done with him. it was going to be round and full and perfect, pulsing with the perfect concoction of you and him.

“faster,” suguru whined, “harder. want it s-so much, daddy. give me a baby.”

you grunted in response, grip sliding onto his hips as you tugged him back onto your cock, the wet ‘pap’ of skin against skin ringing in the air, driving your length deeper into his welcoming hole with more force than before. he cried out as you sunk further into his sloppy pussy with another stroke of your shaft against his twitching, oversensitive walls, pulsating around you in rhythm.

suguru’s fingers clawed down the marble, soft whines and uneven breaths punched out of swollen lips as he struggled to hold himself up with your harsh, increasing thrusts, refusing to slump downright onto the table even as you pounded into him like you were pestle, and he was mortar.

“always biting off more than you can chew,” you huffed, palms smoothing over the thick of his hips and down to his round, plush ass, before giving it a little slap for good measure—and he whined out sharply, shuddering with arousal from the streak of pain. “you never learn, do you, baby?”

“‘s a lot,” suguru bit down on his lip, holding in the sob building at the back of his throat. the pleasure was simply too good, every strike of your bulbous head against his throbbing sweet spot setting his nerve ends on fire and flames, lust clouding his vision with how your hands were branding him as your own—your hips never once pausing in their mission to impregnate him even as he whined and sobbed and begged.

“but it’s okay. y’can do a-anything you want to me,” he mumbled, pausing to rub at his glossy eyes before peering at you from over his shoulder. “‘s long as you make me pregnant, ‘kay?”

it was at that moment that you realised, suguru with baby fever was a very dangerous thing. with a low, almost primal snarl into the bruised skin of his neck, you pulled out swiftly and flipped your omega around, sitting him on the counter just as he glanced down at you with wide, stunned eyes, a petulant whine on the edge of being uttered before you silenced him with a kiss.

“daddy,” suguru whined against your lips, clumsily grabbing at your shoulders, even as you mouthed messily at him, the kiss more tongue and spit than anything, feral and a little violent with his claws now gaining purchase in raking down your back. “‘nough kissing. put it back in. want your cock in me.”

lips parting with a wet smack, you guided your cock to rut against his sopping folds, making sure he could feel it, all of it—the hot, filthy drag of your girth against his needy cunt, stroking and teasing but never entering. he gawked up at you in betrayal, whining needily and nudging his hips forward, trying to entice you to fuck him, a frown pulling at the corners of his lips when it didn’t work.

it hit him, then, just what you were waiting for.

“‘m sorry, i forgot—” he rushed over his words, arms slung onto your shoulders in a half-cage, leaning forward to kiss your cheek sweetly. “please, daddy.”

“good,” you hummed. maybe you spoiled him a little too much, but now he sat, shivering and obedient, your cock spearing his cunt in one strong thrust. in this new position you were able to reach way deeper, the tapered tip delicately kissing the opening of his cervix, making your mate sob and croon with the fullness of it all.

“now hold on tight for me, okay?” you whispered into the sweaty curve of his neck, to which he nodded pliantly to with a pout, “‘cause daddy’s not gonna stop until he puts a baby in your tummy.”

masterlist!

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tritoch · 2 days ago

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one thing I find neat about Emet-Selch is that his chauvinism is so intense that it actually prevents him from making the strongest possible case for the unique moral goodness of the ancients, and that this same mental distortion ties into his classic final fantasy need to turn into a Horrible Final Form Monstrosity for your final fight

(for my part I think any minor unique moral goodness the ancients possess they have due to their status as demigods living in eden before the fall. even if they really are morally/intellectually/spiritually/magically/etc. superior to every modern eorzean on a 1:1 level it still doesn't change anything because 1) they are mythical and impossible, that's the whole point and 2) even if they weren't, they still have no particular claim to existence that is superior to anyone else's, no matter how good they are. but the point here is the case Emet-Selch is trying to make, which is that they are more "worthy" of life.)

when he's setting you up for the final amaurot sequence, Emet-Selch hits you with this one:

it's a solid line! stops the party cold for a second.

it's also...not that impressive. do I think if we called a big world meeting that half of everyone would just jump up to be chosen? maybe, maybe not. but, sorry: we're having a big world meeting? are we also demigods with their every material need fulfilled in this version? do we have a one world government that almost everyone seems to fully trust telling us that it knows for real a way to stop the meteor heading towards earth? because honestly i think as soon as we start creating structural similarities like that, it becomes a lot more likely. and every step you take towards making the comparison happen on level ground makes the idea that the ancients were possessed of some unique moral fiber that made them capable of this sacrifice (as opposed to the undeniable abilities in magic and global governance that actually enabled it) seem less and less likely.

and especially if you consider it in the context of what actual people are like. human (and presumably eorzean) history is replete with examples of people sacrificing themselves to save others, even though none of us are immortal wizard philosophers. i don't know how the white-room thought-experiment "will half of you die to save the others???" turns out. but do i think, across a grand rolling catastrophe, that half our population would sacrifice itself to save the other half in a million individual acts of sacrifice to save a parent, a child, a lover, a friend, a stranger? that seems significantly more plausible. altruism and sacrifice for others is even pretty frequent in animals! it's not a very unique moral behavior!

(stanford encyclopedia of philosophy on biological altruism)

but that's not the only sacrifice the ancients made. roll the tape, hythlodaeus!

...Yet oh how the star had suffered. So many species lost. The land was blighted, the waters poisoned, and even the wind had ceased to blow. Once more did our people give of themselves to Zodiark. Another half of our race sacrificed to cleanse the world; to ensure that trees and grasses and myriad tiny lives would sprout and grow and flourish.

(every time I read this speech and hit the ff1/3/5 ref about the land and waters and wind i become mylongestyeahboyever.avi)

this is the step beyond, and it's what separates the ancients from modern humans. they viewed themselves as stewards of the star and really meant it; whatever other criticisms you might level, you can't doubt the depths of their commitment. and this i think really does make them morally distinct from modern people, or at least raises that possibility in a much more compelling way than the first sacrifice. half of the living population sacrificing itself not in a moment of duress and apocalypse but in a moment of calm? when the sacrifice isn't for anything but plants and animals and some tiny proto-eorzeans? that kind of cold, calculated, long-term altruism, aimed at people and living beings that are nothing like you...that does feel like something a little more unique, more worth preserving. even in just the text of the game, we can say with real certainty that the ancients were at least more capable of facing their problems and had greater moral integrity and care for the world than, say, the people who made ra-la.

but emet-selch can't ever say that because rejecting and dishonoring the decision the ancients made as stewards of the star is his primary goal.

like, "my people were uniquely morally good. half the living population sacrificed themselves not for their loved ones or for the survival of their people but simply for the world. for the trees and grasses and the wind and the water. for the humblest insects and for the summer breeze and the tides." that fucks! damn, you got me there! i watch enough people throw aluminum cans in the trash on a weekly basis that i find this sincerely moving and beyond the seeming abilities of my own brethren! oh no, i'm being persuaded by the fascist immortal space wizard!

"and therefore, because they are uniquely morally good, we are going to sacrifice and kill the very things they gave their lives to save, so we can have them back :)" well, shit. i'm experiencing some dissonance here.

but you can't actually lie to yourself as long as emet-selch without distorting your understanding of the truth. you cannot choose to see the world falsely half the time and clearly the other half. in committing to self-deceit and willful ignorance regarding the value of the modern world, emet-selch blinds himself not just to the world as it is but to the ancients as they were. if he could describe accurately the ways in which the ancients were genuinely noble and benevolent, he would also have to able to see clearly how he has entirely deviated from that ideal. and he cannot do that and stay on the path he has chosen, so he simply chooses not to see things accurately.

i cannot help but link this blindness of his to his trial. here, at what seems to emet-selch to be the last stand of the ancients, he says to you "to be clear this fight IS a metaphor, and in that metaphor i stand in for the Entire Unsundered World."

and yet, in standing against you, he betrays both the customs of the ancients and his very title, itself a direct signifier of the mission he was charged with as one of the convocation of fourteen: "to ensure that all is right in creation, that our star may know a brighter future." contra elidibus, for whom remembering his duty to the ancients is one and the same act as remembering his name, emet-selch declares his own to be mere pretense. and that's before we even reach the matter of his transformation.

emet-selch believes the only way he can save the ancients is to betray their principles, forget their greatest triumphs, and abandon their trappings. he renounces almost everything of the ancients, save for his pale and sad and faceless amaurot, in the hopes of bringing them back.

i am reminded a little of borges's three versions of judas, a short story which uses the lens of fictional literary criticism (appropriate for a story as interested in competing narrative interpretations as shadowbringers is) to recast the betrayal of christ by judas not as the greatest of sins but as the greatest of sacrifices.

The ascetic, for the greater glory of God, vilifies and mortifies his flesh; Judas did the same with his spirit. He renounced honor, morality, peace and the kingdom of heaven, just as others, less heroically, renounce pleasure. With terrible lucidity he premeditated his sins.

and, in turn, the sardonic footnote to that very same line, which unsettles that sentiment as soon as it has been presented:

Borelius inquires mockingly: “Why didn’t he renounce his renunciation? Or renounce the idea of renouncing his renunciation?”

#i say this with a heavy heart but:#emet-selch. you have forgotten the face of your father.#emet-selch #ffxiv #okay now that we're in my tags i can share my little personal secret #i don't really like emet-selch all that much and thought i would never possibly write anything about him #but...but...i'm so annoyed by the execution of a certain parallel character in a certain franchise (let's call it wyvern era)#that i find myself liking emet a LOT more #he's certainly not my blorbo but that's because he's something much better than that (a well-written and dignified villain)#and i have consequently come to appreciate him much more

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gyuswhore · 2 days ago

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Cherry Picker [1]

«« "Do me a favour and forget your mouth guard next time. Let the puck punch you in the mouth if I can't." »»

Choi Seungcheol x reader | part of the winter with you collab hosted by @camandemstudios!

Part 1: 19k | Part 2

warnings: Hockey player! Seungcheol, figure skater! reader, *deep breath* ENEMIES TO LOVERS, angst, fluff, smut [MINORS DNI], toxic friends, cheol has anger issues, kkuma appearance, @miniseokminnies makes also makes a fluffy appearance, injuries, mentions of blood, smut tags in the next part

synopsis: Cherry Picking [ice hockey]: a manoeuver in which a player, the floater, literally loafs (spends time in idleness) or casually skates behind the opposing team's unsuspecting defencemen while they are in their attacking zone. There wasn't much you counted on in life; just your skates, your drive and how it felt to win. And of course, your local ice rink, that is now being colonised by an obnoxious hockey team in all their big, loud, stinking glory. Neither does it help that one particular red donned specimen forgets to leave his cherry picking on the ice.

[a/n] (it's a long one but PLEASE read) : ITS HERE FINALLY this was an extremely bumpy ride and I wouldn't have finished it without all of my friends who quite literally kept me going. I know I made an update saying this was gonna end up being 20k max but it turns out my yap-itis is for life </33

the posting schedule for this fic is going to be a little less predictable, I will try to get part 2 out asap but I do not currently have a date for you.

big thank you to @highvern for betaing and making me feel better about this fic, @amourcheol for talking me out of meltdowns multiple times and for giving me some really good scene pointers, @ugh-yoongi for being so patient w me and explaining how ice hockey works with so much patience. ty to @the-boy-meets-evil @tusswrites @lovetaroandtaemin for also proof reading for me 🥹

HUGE thank you to everyone at @camandemstudios who agreed to be part of this collab and being part of the journey as we grow 🫶 please check out the collab masterlist linked above, there's already so many amazing fics posted ready for you to read <33

that being said, I know more about figure skating than I do about hockey, but even so there are defo some inconsistencies in terms of accuracies in this, please bear with me 🫶 remember to reblog or send me an ask telling me your thoughts, id love to hear what you guys think 🥹 masterlist

“CAN I HELP YOU?”

“I’m sorry,” you gravel out.

“Sorry isn’t gonna give back my hour and thirteen minutes.”

The strap of your gym bag cuts into your bare shoulder where the collar had slipped, the tight threading sure to leave a scratch by the time this is bound to be done. You’d managed to avoid coach Carroll’s morning cornering for a couple months, going above and beyond by showing up to the icy rink before she could even pull up in the parking lot in her blaring red Porsche, let alone before her ten minute meditations in her cream coloured seats.

“There was an accident on the highway. Truck tipped over.”

“It’s eight in the morning,” Carroll points.

“Illegal truck, I guess.”

Teeth to tongue, you know you’ve done it.

She’s in her usual tracksuit, green today, that contrasts her bright red hair in its tight curls. Her glasses are her sensible Ralph Laurens, eyes piercing through the tinted lens as she holds her chin in her hands. Silent, calculating.

“Fine. Change.”

Your legs want to give out before you can even get your skates on.

There were many things Isabella Carroll was good at. The industry would have one of them be a good coach; one of the most expensive, the one that squeezed the life out of her students to inject into the golds, silvers and bronzes they would then bring her on an equally diamond encrusted platter.

She has also mastered the art of impeccable dressing downs.

The fact she chose to skip out on verbally humiliating you meant you’d managed to strike that cord. She might be leaving in the next 45 minutes, but she has a very particular way of stretching the minutes into years.

Like a whipped horse, you scurry into the locker rooms, skin crawling. Your gym bag is positively launched into your designated locker, shoes kicked off as you attempt to stick your right foot into your skates, narrowly missing your heel as it grazes right past the toe pick.

You slow down after that, not needing a scar on your heel to match the large one on the side of your calf.

By the time you jog back out, unzipping your jacket to throw onto one of the benches, coach is on the ice, following Marina who zips around on the other end of the rink in her step routine.

It’s difficult to not rush through your warmups when you’re already late, your splits hardly pushed out as you pray all that running around in the desolate locker rooms was enough to stretch everything out.

There’s a crash on the illuminated ice as you slip off your skate guards, Marina already practising her Salchows. “You’re in the air for enough time, why can’t you rotate?!”

Right blade first, you step into the cold encircling, gliding into the centre to begin making your usual rounds around the circumference.

There’s a positive screech of your name from across the ice, wind blowing in your hair as you turn to look. “Do I need to hire someone to hold up your free leg? Fix it, girl!”

Holding your left leg more taut, you attempt to transition into a jump and spin. You fail, landing on both feet. Somehow, falling on your ass felt like a better conclusion to that arc.

“Wonderfully executed! Let’s try both hands on the ice too next time, really complete the contemporary finish,” coach hollers out to you as she continues to follow Marina at the same time.

Trying again, you manage to land on your outer left blade. You receive no comment.

You try the jump again, pushing into a sit spin.

The momentum is enough to begin the familiar slack in your scalp, your bun loosening its grip on your hair. Biting your tongue would be dangerous right now, but you would if you could, especially considering the ramifications of your hair coming undone in front of her.

The crouch as you spin burns your thighs like you’re being branded, pulling yourself back up as you finish abruptly. Still no comment, the unintelligible string of nagging coming from the other side of the rink.

Marina stands hands on her hips, breathing so heavily she’s nearly heaving. Her blonde hair is loosening far worse than yours, strands framing her face. Coach Carroll waves her hands and shakes her head so quickly you wonder how her glasses haven’t flown off. You didn’t get to see what cardinal sin Marina committed to warrant this reaction, but you feel better knowing she’s exhausted enough to let her insults swim past.

Ten seconds is enough to catch your breath, moving to do something busy enough to avoid another being screamed at across the ice, again.

By the end of the remaining forty five minutes, you realised your punishment was also punishing Marina. Coach Carroll remained tailing Marina as you attempted to do everything that would please her, far away from her. Not a direction, praise or neutral comment in sight or sound, sealed with her always expected retorts.

She leaves without a word, leaving you scrambling to the benches for a seat. Putting your skate guards on is torture, your legs refusing to pull up to reach them. You hardly notice Marina slam down into the seat beside you to mimic you slumped down and head lolled back, eyes closed to the bright ceiling.

“These skates are gonna kill me,” you whine once you’ve caught your breath, unlacing them to inspect the blistering damage.

“They’re brand new, what did you expect?” she retorts, moving to sit up straighter. Of course, you were grappling at straws expecting anything akin to sympathy from Marina.

It was your misfortune that the day you had to break in your skates was the day you’d be late, your heavily bandaged foot still aching as you sit idle.

Your lungs are still burning when you pull yourself back up, knees buckling the absolute slightest bit as you attempt to take the first baby step back onto the ice.

“We need to get back to it,” Marina says, and you have half a mind to bite that you were up before her.

She’s faster at slipping off her skate guards though, and you watch her back as she glides back onto the ice. You follow suit, trailing her as you speak.

“Hey, I’m sorry Carroll was on your ass because of me. My alarm didn’t go off this morning, I overslept.”

She turns to look at you, ghost of a smile on her face. “Time to go old school I guess, I think my brother left behind his old alarm clock from college.”

“I guess—”

“Besides, I needed that. Wouldn’t have known my Salchows were sucky otherwise.”

She doesn’t let you respond and you’re left to watch as she takes off to warm herself back up.

Strange as it was, you’ve found her behaviour simply doesn’t affect you anymore, choosing to take her as she was. She pushed you to be better, to work harder. Even now, as your ankle burns and your hip screams, you brace yourself into another axel entry, trying your hardest to keep up with Marina.

It’s another couple hours when Marina leaves for her second appointment with her personal trainer, leaving you alone.

It’s less crowded now, despite the head count going from two to one, but you appreciate the alleviation as you continue to practise for the rest of the morning. The rink feels more vast and your hip has stopped its incessant aches.

Having finished a run through of your routine without music, you move towards the sound booth to turn on the tail end of your track, skating back to the echoing rink to brace yourself for the next four agonising minutes.

You’ve adjusted your starting position about ten times by the time the silence of the song restarting settles. And then it begins, soft piano as you push yourself off into the throngs of this hellsent routine.

It’s muscle memory by now, but your stomach lurches before you push into a jump anyway. There isn’t much time to ponder when you’re midair, tight yet contorted, trying to land on the right side of the blade. But there’s a phantom pain in your right ankle, right when you’re at the point of your arc, and you feel the all too dreaded panic flood in.

You land on both feet, less than ideal but with no one to watch the fail, it was better than falling on your ass. There’s been worse outcomes, so there’s little you can do but continue into the step sequence.

Trying to shake off that bout of panic, you briefly wonder if the music suddenly had more bass than you’d last checked. Perhaps you just hadn’t been practising like you should, but you make a mental note mid-spin to listen to the track again later tonight for any tidbits you’d missed.

Your heartbeat is trying to accommodate more air than you can let it, especially as you feel the pulse in your ears quicken as you approach your final jump sequence. The music is louder yet muffled all the same, there’s an incessant banging that you can’t figure out is from your head or a corrupted music file. But you find that sweet spot, deciphering through the ruckus in your brain, and you jump.

It happens again, the strange ache in your ankle that should be long gone, and just like that, all that panic you shook off in the interim comes hurtling back. The world’s gone silent, blaringly so, and for some heaven known reason, you’ve closed your eyes.

You aren’t so lucky this time round, landing directly on your back with a spectacular crash, the ice cutting cold through your thermals as you slide in the direction of your epic fall. Eyelids opening, they’re met with the spotlighted ceiling, head cushioned by the hard plane of ice beneath you.

The pain in your ankle’s escaped like a fugitive, done it’s damaged and left you crumpled on the floor. The adrenaline is rushing just enough to keep you from identifying any other awakened aches, but you have a sneaking feeling your hip is going to hate you after this.

You’re still laying flat on the ice when you realise you're laying in mostly silence. Your music is off, and has been since you came to on the floor. The banging, you realise, wasn’t just in your head either. The unmistakable reverberation of the locker rooms is loud and assuming, noises rattling all the way out onto the echoing rink.

It takes the strength of a village to pull yourself up, but you do it anyhow, ignoring the blatant protests of your mind and soul as you squint across the rink to the sound booth.

As you skate towards the gate, you assume it’s Hansol trying to get your attention by disrupting you mid session, but the figure shuffling into view is telling you otherwise.

It isn’t anyone you know, clearer as you grow closer to the gate. It’s obvious he’s the culprit that turned off your music, your laptop shut and the wire to the speakers disconnected from the port.

You stare at it pointedly as you grapple for your skate guards.

The man does nothing but remain with his hands in the pockets of his bright red hoodie, hovering over your laptop as he watches you struggle with your skates. SVT stitched onto the back in black. He’s as blank faced as ever, a stark contrast to your heavy breathing as you come round.

Standing up straight, you dart between your laptop and this person, waiting for an explanation that seems to be lost in the void. You’re still heaving slightly, scowl forming on your face as this strange man offers you nothing.

“Um, did you—”

“Yeah. It’s four,” he responds, like it was supposed to explain enough.

“And that means…?”

“We have the rink reserved.”

“But it’s Monday,” you respond. It sounds stupid, but it meant something. The rink was reserved on the weekdays for coach Carroll’s mentees, the weekends for the public.

This man and his big brown eyes gaze directly into your soul as he responds, “And that means…?”

You’re sweaty and tired, your feet ache with about five new blisters from the last time you checked, and you’re sure you need to get your hip checked out. Perhaps that’s why there’s this unreasonable surge of irritation that rises in the back of your head, irrational and half blinding.

“That means—”

“Seungcheol! Get your ass in the locker room before I drag you in there myself.” The voice that rings out is heavy and has you flinching, the man’s order echoing from somewhere in the tunnel that leads to the locker rooms.

The man you assume is named Seungcheol begins to walk away from you without a word or gesture, and you can only blink at his retreating back.

“Hey! Do you mind not touching my stuff next time round?” you call out as a last ditch attempt to have the last word. He turns his head to you, eyebrows raised and a smirk of mild disbelief growing on his face. Nothing is said as his head turns back to the front, strutting into the tunnel.

He lets you have your last word as he walks away, your gaze the same shade of crimson as his retreating form.

“AND THEN—THESE—HUGE dudes with fucking botox or fillers in their shoulders storm out—”

Your vent is interrupted by Lorelai who’s burst out laughing mid bite of her sandwich, “What?”

“Botox!” she muffles a shriek through a full mouth.

“They were shoulder pads or something, you get it!”

The air in the outside seating of this cafe is stellar, the perfect in between you wait for all year. The parasol above you is enough so you don’t have to squint your eyes in the late afternoon sun, the wind perfectly paced in a breeze. Your own sandwich remains untouched, the bread gone stale as you pick at the corner of the crust.

“Apologies,” she yips. “So you're saying we’re being partially colonised by hockey players?”

“I don’t know! Was it a one time thing, a weekly thing? It can’t be a weekly thing, Monday afternoons are routine practice days.”

“The routine you’ve been practising for the past year and a half?”

“I can’t afford getting rusty.”

Lorelai drops her head like she’s had enough, “Maybe these hockey jocks are a blessing.”

“What?”

“Nothing! Hey, do you want cake, they have cheesecake, I could get some!”

“Lorry!”

“Okay,” she huffs, dropping back into her seat with blown cheeks. “I’m sorry.”

Lorelai has a sense of humour that took you more than enough time to decipher, but that wasn’t nearly the first thing you noticed about her. She was beautiful, even more so with the sun gracing her like a loving embrace. The highlights in her otherwise dark hair make the hazel of her eyes pop like two perfectly welcoming cliffs to jump off from. She was the definition of spunk and valour, yet graceful in everything she does. Even now, as she picks up her smoked turkey on honey oat, complete with every fixing and condiment on earth, you question how she can wrench her mouth open to take a reasonable bite; but she does, not a crumb out of place.

“I have to share a rink with dudes whose hockey sticks are gonna make craters in the ice, why are you not mourning with me?”

“Pretty sure your toe picks do the same thing.”

“Lorelai!”

“Not the government name!” she wails as though woefully wounded.

“You’re impossible.”

“Carroll didn’t hate me for no reason.” She smiles in her pride.

Lorelai’s competitive skating career came to an end sometime last year before the Grand Prix, a decision she announced gracefully with the words BITE ME etched with sharpie on her brand new competition skates. It was difficult to erase the mental image of the scarlet of Carrol’s face when Lorelai marched in with her hair chopped so short it’d be impossible to pull into a bun, marked skates in hand and a mask of determined rebellion on her face. Of course, the whole ordeal could’ve been an email, but it simply wouldn’t have been Lorelai.

“It’s not like you were trying very hard to please her,” you grumble, nibbling on a fry.

“Why would I try pleasing that woman?”

“For one thing, your sponsors were paying a bucketload so you could have her.”

“I didn’t want Carroll as a coach. Ever. I wanted Jameson. The only reason they put me with Carroll was because they were putting you and Marina with her.” Her voice is hard, eyebrows raised the slightest bit.

“What does Jameson offer that Carroll doesn’t?!”

“Oh! I don’t know, let’s see,” she raises her voice as her sarcasm begins to simmer with a lethal edge. “Maybe the fact that an hour training with Jameson doesn’t feel like the subjected wrath of a world war two dictator!”

“Carroll is not that bad!”

“God, you become more like Marina everyday.”

You frown, “What does that mean?”

“It means—!” Lorelai pauses to close her eyes, and you can almost hear her counting in her head. “It means nothing. Eat your sandwich before the bread starts molding.”

“Ew.”

Lorelai smirks. “Bite me.”

You attempt to channel some of that Lorelai energy when you get to the rink past noon on a weekday. You hope you’re reasonable in your hope that Hansol will be in his office as you walk towards the door.

Three rapt knocks before you hear a muffled voice telling you to come in. The door creaks when you open it. Loudly, might you add.

“How long is it gonna sing every time I come in here?” you grimace.

Hansol looks at you from behind his laptop with a tight smile. “For as long as I keep forgetting to oil the hinges.”

Hansol, for as young and qualified as he is, is only the rink manager because his family owns the place. Having graduated the year before with a shiny new law degree, he opted to take a break from moving forward with his career to “slow down” as he put it. The rink was as slow as it could get for him, betting the only important thing on his laptop screen currently was solitaire.

“Did you also forget that I have the rink during the day on weekdays?

“Ah. You’ve encountered the hockey team.”

“Yes. They turned off my music mid routine.”

“They're only here till the renovations in their home rink are done, we’re the only other rink in town that’s closed to the public on weekdays.”

“But they’re cutting into my practice time?” you add, brows furrowed.

Hansol opens his mouth before closing it again, eyebrows raised. “You clock in here five days a week, ten hours a day.”

“And?”

Hansol huffs out a breath. “Listen, I know you and the other skaters like having the rink to yourselves, and I’d be happy if it was always just you guys. Trust me, these jocks are impossible to clean up after, let alone deal with. Between the launch pad calibre noise and the stupid plastic barriers I have to put up on the railings, I’d love for it to just be you guys. But the only times you officially have the rinks booked is in the mornings when you’re training with coach Carrol, the rest of the week is technically up for grabs.”

“Let me book the rest of the slots then.”

“SVT’s already booked most of the remaining hours.” Hansol’s voice is sympathetic, but his words seemed final. You aren’t sure how bad your face was contorted, because suddenly he’s adding, “But hey, you can look at the leftover hours if they work for you.”

He pulls out the roster on a tablet before handing it to you. It only takes you a minute to scroll before you realise the only viable options were past 10 PM. The rink closed at 11.

You sigh, shoulders visibly sagging as you let out a bated breath of tension. “It’s fine.” You hand the tablet back to Hansol. “I’ll figure it out.”

Turning on your heel, you make a move to leave the premises. Hansol calls out your name.

“I’m sorry. Really.”

You muster a smile, one that you cannot feel the slightest bit. “It’s alright.”

“Only a few months.”

Something in your smile sours, and you nod absentmindedly. “Only a few months.”

THERE WERE OTHER WAYS the universe could have let it happen, someplace where you might have forgiven yourself. Someplace you had reason to be.

You were accustomed to physical exertion, how could you not be when you were what you were, but hiking on an incline was never something you fancied yourself with. Gyms and coaches and paved running trails are nothing like rocky terrains and steep mountain paths with no guide but a mobile map.

The semi finals had passed you by, handing you a gold medal along the way as you thrust yourself into bliss. It was a job well done, so much so that you allowed yourself a weekend of something other than skating rinks and training sessions. So many nights that you can hardly remember, yet flash like lightning under your eyelids. Where you sobbed into your pillow and cursed yourself for ever having the gall to take a step back, to be so arrogant and blustering to announce yourself away from the thing that should’ve mattered the most.

It only took one tiny crater in the path to twist your ankle so hard you crumple to the ground with a scream you cannot remember. More hands than you have holding on to your searing ankle, like they were holding it together with nothing but their palms and fingers. Lorelai was talking, and talking and talking, but all you could hear was the roaring question in your mind.

Why did you bring me here?

Six weeks.

You watched with your own eyes as the Grand Prix final shuttered away on a reel, like you were watching a movie from an age you could not visit.

Six weeks.

Marina sat beside your bed and said words you’d never forget.

“I’m sorry, but…this is your own fault.”

Six weeks.

Lorelai wept, and said the same words for an entirely different reason.

“I’m sorry. This is my fault, it was my idea.”

Six weeks.

Carroll kept face, but you could see past the mask. A sigh that said more than any words of reassurance. Disappointed but not surprised.

Six weeks you were bedridden with an ankle that refused to support your weight on the surface area of your bare foot, let alone on the 3/16th of an inch on a blade.

Bedrest, meds, physical therapy, and still. The ache in your ankle follows you like a ghost haunting you of your worst mistake.

It was your fault. You chose to put whimsy above everything you laboured for, for years and years. You chose to look past your shortcomings like they would not become your achilles heel. You chose to get on that trail. You chose to walk out on crutches.

You, who could land a jump on a fraction of an inch of steel, could now barely stand on her own two feet.

You’d decided on that day, that you were as pathetic as they come.

IT WAS THE MOST natural decision to drag Lorelai out of where she rotted in bed to come with you to the rink.

“You want me to fight them?” She’s wearing her Winnie the Pooh fuzzy pyjama pants and a university hoodie on top, her short hair concealed in the hood she’s pulled up. “They are hockey players. We are twigs!”

“Lorry. Have you ever thrown a punch in your life?” you ask her as you pull your hair back into a loose bind.

“No?”

“Then why on earth would I ask you to fight goblins triple our size?”

Her mouth is gaping in disbelief. “Why am I here then?”

“You,” you start, grabbing your skates and moving out of the locker rooms. “Are gonna sit pretty in that sound booth and make sure nobody touches my laptop.”

“…you realise Hansol has security cameras right?”

“Are you planning on robbing my laptop?”

“No. Although it does have nice specs.”

You ignore her as you walk towards the benches. “That stupid hockey team needs to know I have reinforcements of my own.”

Lorelai stands there, brows furrowed and in clothes that drown her. She glances down at her outfit and then back up at you. She deadpans, “This is the most unthreatening I have ever looked.”

“Just—” You stand up too quickly and feel yourself wobble. The railing is hardly a foot away, your hand moving over to grab it. Except your palms feel nothing but the flat of something smooth and hard, fingers bumping into the feeling of something unfamiliar.

You manage to find your balance with a yelp, immediately snapping up to see where you missed the railing. The railing was still there, perfectly within arms reach. There’s a glare in your vision, like looking through a screen. Higher and higher, you realise quickly that you’ve been looking through a clear barrier so high up you can hardly find where it ends in its erect standing.

Lorelai speaks up first, her voice resonating loudly, “Isn’t that supposed to be on the other side of the railing. Stupid, stupid Hansol.”

It looks like it stretches throughout the circumference of the rink, wrapping whoever’s inside in a giant plastic fish bowl.

There’s a clench in your jaw you can’t control, something a little more than annoyance building in your senses. It should be an easy thing to ignore, especially regarding its practically invisible nature, but its presence is all you can think about, even as you step your right blade onto the ice.

Skating towards the middle of the rink, you feel claustrophobic.

“Woah! You look like a zoo animal,” Lorealai adds unnecessarily.

“Just play the track,” you grumble.

“There should be a don’t tap on the glass sign,” she says, voice muffled as yells from the benches. “You already look like a weasel, can’t have confused people in the stands.”

“Lorry!”

“What?” she yells, her voice muffled as she yells from the benches.

You curse the plastic that cages you as you yell louder, “Play the track!”

Lorelai nods and makes a noise of understanding, and you watch her as she disappears into the sound booth.

Taking your starting position, you wait for the quiet lull of the track before the beginning of the unmistakable piano; the low tremor in the beginning existing to prepare you to jump into the routine. You stand there with your arms out like a swan, waiting for your cue that won't seem to arrive.

You almost yell out at Lorelai again before you suddenly hear the resonating shrill of the piano notes, startling yourself out of your first push. It’s fine, you’ll recover. You’re distracted by your staggered start and it’s enough to have you miss your first jump. It’s fine. You’ll recover.

By the time the four minutes are up, you’ve missed two of your five jumps, a spin gone wrong, and nearly crashed into the plastic barrier. Not to mention, the aches in your body are enough to seem impossible to geographically pinpoint.

It’s pointed, the way you make a beeline for the benches, refusing to look at Lorelai. You can almost imagine her expression, the poker face she has when she’s trying to think of ways to structure her next words nicely.

“What was that?” she deadpans, voice a little far away. Your body hurts enough to take your focus away from her.

“I don’t know.”

“I thought your ankle was fine now?” she asks.

You grit your teeth. “It is.” Lies. The way it was hurting you right now was making sure to remind you of that.

“You know, you did pick back up a lot earlier than we thought—”

“I said I’m fine, Lorry,” you snap. “Now can you please play the track again.”

You finally look up, and she looks like she wants to say something. But you’re on the ice before she can.

You adapt to the excess muffle of the plastic barriers, ears straining to hear the beginning of the piano before you jump into the choreography smoother than last time. This time round, it’s better. The pain in your ankle and the budding one in your hip is apparent, but it’s suddenly easier to drown it out. Focusing on the music, keeping your centre of gravity, pushing into your jumps and spins with enough vigour to hold to what you are.

Another four minutes pass and it’s over. Immediately, you swing over to the soundbooth to find Lorelai, only to find her joined by an extra set of people.

Impossibly, your blood runs cold.

There’s a sneaking suspicion you know who it is despite the two men having their backs turned to you, especially judging by the obnoxious red jackets they have on. SVT. You can hear Lorelai speak indecipherably, her voice stern.

“And you are?” one of them asks. You don’t recognise him, but you do the other one. The one who turned your music off the first day him and his team stepped foot in here.

“Lorelai!” she yells it for no reason.

“Gilmore?” The one you recognise snorts. Seungcheol, that’s what they called him the last time you saw him in the sound booth.

“I’m worse,” she states.

“Lorry?” you interrupt, arms crossed and gaze directed at her.

“Lorry?” The one you don’t recognise says. “Like a truck?”

“You think you’re funny?” Lorelai takes a step towards him, a fair attempt to look threatening if it weren’t for her very unthreatening attire.

“Oh look at her pyjamas! It’s Pooh bear, Cheol,” he exclaims. That seems to irritate him.

“Can you replay the track, please, I have to smooth things over,” you intervene. In your mind, ignoring their presence in your space was the best solution, refusing to give them a way to merge into your lane.

“Woah, we have the rink booked today,” Seungcheol stops you. “4:30.”

Snapping around to find the clock on the adjacent wall, you read the time. “4:17. You can wait.”

He raises his eyebrows. “And thirteen minutes makes what difference?”

“You said 4:30. It is not 4:30 yet.”

The other one thumps him on the back, all smiles. “We can wait, right, Cheol? Besides, we have to put our skates on.”

His gaze is hard and doesn’t leave yours. “Fine.”

You break away first to find Lorelai still in the same position, staring at the exchange. You ignore the two men that stand there and address her, “Play the track.”

Before the music begins, you glance back to the benches where the two men have seated themselves, apparently strapping in to watch you. You dig your nails into your palm to reign yourself back in. No point in getting upset.

The piano begins, and you're determined to not mess up. Especially not right now.

It goes well for all of 45 seconds, you're hitting the right beats, you feel like water. But then the first jump comes along and you see a flash of red from the stands. An irrational feeling hits you as you push into the first jump, it’s enough to make you stumble when you land. You manage to not fall, but it’s obvious you’ve messed up.

Somewhere beyond the music you hear a distinct, “Solid 4!”

It distracts you again, and you miss a move. Somehow your second jump ends up worse, and you feel your bottom hit the hard ice.

“8 point 5! Nice!”

It doesn’t take long for you to realise what they’re doing, anger crashing into you like a flash flood. Scoring your falls? You’re determined to make the next jump combination. You make it fine, but your quad Salchow turns into a triple. The oafs are too shallow to notice, so you hear no jeer.

But you know that you messed up the only quad in your entire program.

The last jump goes from a triple axel to a double, and you want to break something.

The song ends, and you know you have another nine minutes left to yourself, but all you can think about is getting out of the vicinity as soon as possible. Away from all of the eyes that are trained on your hunched form.

There’s nothing you know about Seungcheol, and yet, the thought of him even looking at you right now is unbearable. Twice you fell, countless times you failed.

Lorelai says nothing while you pack up, and nothing as you leave the rink.

“CHOI SEUNGCHEOL, CENTER,” LORELAI reads aloud from your bed with her mouth still full of salt ‘n vinegar chips.

“Perfect, he already thinks he’s the center of the universe,” you grumble from your position on the floor of the bedroom. Your foam roller feels like heaven under your calves, but the position is beginning to cramp.

“Surprised you haven’t heard of him, he’s half a celebrity.”

You turn to her, “I have two gold medals and five podiums for every major skating event.”

“Do I ask for your autograph?”

“He’s not special.”

“Hm. His skill and popularity would beg to differ.”

“Why are you so hellbent on liking him?”

“Because he’s cute,” she grins wide. “Although the other one was cuter, very angel-like. And he liked my Pooh Bear trousers. Can’t find his name on the team roster though.”

“He was wearing the same stupid jacket—”

You’re cut off by a gasp, a loud one at that. “He coaches the babies!”

Her face is contorted into something between an “aw” and a sob.

Lorelai’s phone is dropped dramatically on the bed as she thrashes on your made (now unmade) bed. You swipe the phone and read. His picture is there, the name Yoon Jeonghan, Junior League Coach.

“Good for him.”

“He just got five times hotter,” she states like she’s out of breath.

“Give it another meeting and he’ll give you five other reasons to hate him.”

“God, you’re so negative,” she huffs.

“They’re hogging my rink!”

“It is not your rink.”

“It’s as good as!”

“Whatever.” Lorelai rolls her eyes and sets back on the bed, no doubt searching the man up by name.

“Ow!” you yelp as you stand up from the ground, ankle twisting slightly in the process.

Lorelai jumps. “What?”

“Nothing,” you mumble quickly, hoping she’d drop it. But she catches your lingering stare on your bad ankle.

“It’s still hurting, isn’t it?”

“I just twisted it weird,” you defend, walking to pack up your foam rollers.

You’re met with silence, but you know she’s thinking. Lorelai speaks, “Maybe you should skip out on the shelter today.”

You snort, “Why would I do that?”

Once, sometimes twice a week, you’d volunteer at the local pet shelter. It wasn’t hard work, mostly taking the bigger, more energetic dogs for their runs because it seemed you were the only one who could keep up with their stamina. And now Lorelai is trying to take that away from you.

“I saw how you struggled at the rink today, there’s not a day you don’t rest. Like, actually rest.”

“That has nothing to do with me struggling!” you retort.

“What is it then?” she asks, sitting up straighter, defiance in her gaze. “What is it that’s making you skate like you bought your first pair yesterday?”

The irritation is growing into something hotter, her defiance pushing you into a corner.

“I know what you want to hear from me.” Your voice is shaky. “I’m not going to say it.”

“Because it’s not true? Or because you’ve been convinced it’s not?”

You know what she’s talking about, and you know you’ve been avoiding the topic like it’s the plague. The ache in your ankle comes alive, and in that moment, you cannot tell if you’re imagining it or not.

“Convinced by who?” you snap, shoving the box of foam rollers under your desk.

“Does that have to come from me too?”

“Lorry, I don’t know what you want from me!”

“I—”

There’s a knock on your door, loud and demanding. Wrenching it open, you find Marina behind it.

She has a frown on her face. “You’re still here? I thought you were running with the dogs today?”

“It’s none of your business if she goes or not, Marina.” Lorelai’s tongue drips with venom most commonly reserved for her most hated people.

Marina, still in her workout clothes and duffel bag, furrows her eyebrows. “Who shoved a pole up your ass?”

“I’m leaving in five,” you hiss, before making a motion to close the door.

When you turn around, Lorelai is still on your bed, hands in fists like she’s holding herself back. There’s more behind her eyes than you could even consider unravelling.

She leaves before you.

THE ENTIRE WAY TO the rink was just one constant string of prayer.

All of them go unanswered when you walk in to find the rink full of hockey players in red and black gear.

The only thing you can do is curse under your breath, only watching frozen in your tracks as a million players skate across the rink passing and yelling at each other. No one you recognise, their helmets and gear eluding any semblance of individuality.

Where you stand, a little ways away from the plastic screen and the benches, a dark circular puck suddenly slams directly into the boundary at eye level. On instinct, you flinch at the loud bang, half expecting to get hit.

When you open your eyes, somebody’s skating up to the boundary, and you lock eyes through the cage of his helmet.

Your blood is suddenly charged with something electric, fingers curling into fists on instinct.

Suddenly, all that rings in your ears is the distinct jeers of numbers over the muffle of plastic as you continue to fall, and fall, and fall on the cold, unforgiving ice. The amusement in your failure, the joy in your defeat.

Spinning on your heel, you stalk to Hansol’s office.

In your blinding anger, you take a wrong turn, looking up to realise you’ve walked into the locker rooms. You’re one step into the men's locker room when you come back to your senses, startling yourself once again as you spin back from where you came, only you’ve been caught.

For all the luck you’ve received in this life, it seems to opt out at that exact moment as you hear the unmistakable noise of a herd of ogres walking in, the glare of red on the walls surrounding them. Frozen in your spot, you can only grip the straps of your duffel bag harder, tense up like you were preparing for impact. When they turn the corner, the brilliant idea of simply walking towards the women’s locker rooms befalls you. But it’s too late.

Seungcheol saunters into the hallway, leading the pack.

His helmet is in his hands instead of on his head, revealing a sopping mop of hair drenched in what you can only imagine is sweat. He’s laughing at his teammate who’s making futile attempts to escape his own helmet, not noticing you in the way.

Until he does. His smile fades immediately, eyebrows raised as he registers you in the doorway. You feel his gaze on you for a few silent moments, his teammates shushing at the shift in the air. Seungcheol opens his mouth, and you already know all that’s going to leave it is dung. “Didn’t realise the rink had a vacancy. Do I need to show you my ID to take a shower?”

A rustle of chortles and chuckles flitter from the group. “Go ahead. I don’t need an ID to tell you need a shower.”

Somebody ooh’s, despite it not being your best work. You suppose it was your delivery that did it. Deciding to continue riding that high, you simply turn towards the women’s locker rooms, refusing to give Seungcheol the luxury of your eyes on him.

Hurtling into the women’s locker room, you throw your duffel bag somewhere you’ll regret and crumple into one of the seats. You count to ten, attempting to take the image of Seungcheol out of your brain.

It was difficult to rile you up to this extent, a trait you needed to possess if you were to be coached by Carroll in any capacity. There was so much you heard from her mouth, swallowing it like a prescribed pill and nothing more. Take what you were given, because it was given by the best, bought for you by the best.

Yet for some reason, Seungcheol manages to irk you in ways you previously have never encountered. Irritating people come and go, but you doubt you could place him as something as simple as just irritating. His presence felt like an intrusion, his air was thick like a concentrated gas. Everything he’s said to you so far has come from nothing but disdain and condescension, his haughty personality the only takeaway when he enters a room.

You’re still in your outdoor shoes and jacket by the time twenty minutes are over, coming to a conclusion as you get up from the empty, soulless locker room. Hansol is in his office when you make the formality knock before barging in. His head is on the desk, like he’s asleep. It takes him a second, by he lifts his forehead from the papers on the tabletop to regard you at the door. You hear him sigh.

“The hockey team’s done. It’s two.”

“I wanna book a slot.”

“The rink’s empty you don’t—”

“Let me book the slot, Hansol.”

“For fuck’s sake, you’re turning out worse than those baboons,” he curses before setting his forehead back onto the table. “Write it on the sticky note, I’ll put it in the schedule.”

“Now. I wanna book a slot for right now,” you grit.

Hansol whips his head up again, eyes wide like he’s holding himself back, nodding furiously as he pulls his keyboard towards himself with an unnecessarily aggressive tug. “Fine. 2:16 till closing. Enter. Print. Here.”

He hands you the printed receipt of your slot, ripping it from the printer tray as he does it. You take it from him in the same vigour, hardly a thank you as you spin on your heels and walk out the door. You stop for a minute, turning back around to yell into the office.

“Go home if you’re just gonna nap on your desk!”

Not waiting for a response, you stalk towards the locker rooms. Within minutes you’ve tugged on your skates, laptop and shoes in each hand as you emerge out the tunnel to the rink.

The ice is empty, mostly. Placing your laptop in the sound booth and your shoes under the benches, you step foot on the ice. They’re there, on the other end, sitting on the cold ice with their jerseys still on, eating what looks like cups of dippin dots.

Seungcheol and Jeonghan, you remember from Lorelai’s squealing, either don’t notice you on the ice, or simply choose not to. Because it’s easy as you skate up to them, gaining speed from across the rink, you slide to a stop, sending a perfect spray of ice from your skates, directly into their ice cream cups.

Seungcheol’s full spoon hangs mid air, halfway to his mouth, now garnished with ice shavings.

“Thought you’d have the respect to keep the dippin dots out of this,” Jeonghan comments, disbelief in his eyes as he looks up at you.

“Ice is booked.”

“What time?” Seungcheol asks. Your gaze flickers to the left side of his face, a nasty bruise blooming purple and blue that you hadn’t noticed before.

“2:16. It’s nearly fifteen minutes past.”

“You’re only one person.” He’s significantly more annoyed than when you saw him outside the locker rooms just minutes ago.

“And?”

“And…you have about 97% of the rink to yourself.”

You raise your brows, hands on your hips. “But I booked 100% of it. So I’m gonna need that plane of ice you’re currently sitting on.”

“What if I don’t move?” Seungcheol presses. It’s menacing, the way he looks at you, like he’s a lion only waiting to be provoked. Maybe he’s already halfway there, because it sure looks like it.

“We’ll find out another day,” Jeonghan sings before you can snap back, grabbing onto the collar of Seungcheol’s red and white jersey to yank him up. He continues to glare as he obliges with his friend’s tugs, nearly as angry as you are. “Let’s go, sport.”

You watch as they walk to the exit of the ice, realising they’re wearing their shoes instead of their skates.

Jeonghan calls from the benches, right before he and Seungcheol move out of view. “Trash those for us, would you?”

Their half eaten dippin dots cups, with the ice now melting on them remains on the floor of the rink. Once again, the unexplainable urge to kick something befalls you, hearing them laugh and talk from far away as they exit the rink behind their long gone teammates.

You give in, swinging a leg over to kick the cups and spoons, dippin dots and plastic scattering across the ice. It’s another sprawl of mess you’ll have to clean up, but it feels good to ruin something of his, no matter how inconsequential. The empty rink encourages you, needing to scream so loud the plastic barriers crack and break. You know it’s impossible, but that doesn’t stop the urge.

You channel it into the most aggressive warmups on ice you’ve ever done. Your spins are faster, your jumps higher. But this also means you crash heavier, fall harder. It’s then, sitting on the bench to take a break, breathing so heavy you can hardly sip your water, you find an unmistakable headline on your browser home page.

Everything stops.

!HOT TOPIC!

SEAT AT RISK FOR SVT HOCKEY TEAM’S SHINING STAR? Read All About It Here!

!HOT TOPIC!

SEAT AT RISK FOR SVT HOCKEY TEAM’S SHINING STAR? Read All About It Here!

Choi Seungcheol’s seat for next season at risk? Insider reports that the hot headed center may be at risk of contract termination due to recent controversy. The hockey player, renowned for his aggressive playing tendencies, seems to be taking his temperament outside of the rink. Multiple games played by SVT have been subject to eventful halves and quarters, the center seen getting violent in the benches with opposing team members, and sometimes even team members of his own! While his short temper has always been a recurring subject in the news, his skills as a player have always remained top notch—we do wonder if he even has to try! The tables seem to turn a little differently this time around, because it looks that SVT higher ups have been fed up with the increasing reports of Choi’s aggressive behaviour. Insider sources report that talks of a contract termination may be coming into order. While he has proven to be an effective player on the ice, it seems as though it won’t be saving him from this particular ramification!

Stay tuned, hockey fanatics, as we bring you more updates on Choi’s sticky situation!

BEFORE EVERYTHING, BEFORE YOUR ankle, before it began to feel like your world was crumbling at your feet, came the scar on your leg.

In hindsight, it feels like it was the very thing that set the ball rolling, the beginning of your demise.

Coach Carroll was only on her first handful of sessions with you, Lorelai and Marina, all of you still learning her quirks and expectations as a coach.

It happened when you were on the sidelines, hanging over the boundary as Lorelai handed you a water bottle from the benches. Marina was practicing her routine, taking up most of the ice as Coach followed on the side. It seemed unclear, to this day, whether you’d drifted inwards on the ice as you sipped from the bottle, unaware. But when you felt the hot searing pain in your calf, there were only two people on the scene.

Marina skated past, her free leg in the air, meeting your calf as she skated past, effectively slicing into your leg in a deep gash. Blood was wiped off the ice, your leg bandaged and wrapped. Not without Coach and her comments, of course.

You heard her berate Marina from the other room, for moving closer to the boundary than what was required for her routine, heard the way she gave her the blame. And then she round up on you.

“Idiot! No reason to be on the ice when you aren’t practicing, did you want it to be your ankles too?!”

It was the first time you realised that Carroll was beyond your perception of the word demanding, her gaze remained in a high place, no regard for what it took to get there. Even if it meant destroying her skaters.

Marina apologised. “I’m sorry. I swear I didn’t see you there, I would’ve dropped my leg—”

“It’s okay, Marina. Really,” you smiled through the still aching wound. “I know you didn’t mean it.”

She smiled a little too, “Lesson learned, I guess. Don’t loiter on the ice.”

It was difficult to keep the smile from fading as you heard her say that.

“What shit apology is that?!” Lorelai yelled as soon as you mentioned it to her later. You cringe as you realise what slipped, and to whom it slipped to.

“It’s the best I’m gonna get from her, Lorry. Honestly, I don’t care.”

“You’re out of service for a week till that slice heals and that’s all she has to give you?”

Lorelai is breathing heavily, mostly because she’s been practicing her triple axels for her routine, but also because she’s extensively heated for you. You watch her from the benches.

“Lorry,” you sigh.

“Listen, I wanna win too but—”

“Are you trying to say she did it on purpose?” you ask.

“No! Let me finish, woman,” she snaps. “I wanna win, you wanna win. We’re doing everything we can because we want to win—”

“So this was a subconscious attack?” you interject.

“Fuck this, I’m leaving,” Lorelai begins to skate backwards and away, leaving you on the bench.

“NO! Wait, okay, I’m sorry I won’t interrupt.”

“Too late.”

“Lorry! Lorelai!”

It wasn’t until you were back in your shared apartment, Marina out doing whatever while Lorelai hijacked your bed that she got to finish her sentence. She was rubbing ointment on a bruise while you changed the bandage on your calf.

“Her need to win is ruining her. And it’s like she’s taking us down with her. I know she doesn’t mean it like that, doesn’t want to hurt us. But she thinks this kind of hurt is good, if it’s the kind of hurt that pushes you to win.”

You cringed at the sight of the wound, still red and ugly.

“She might not have meant to hurt your leg, but—don’t loiter on the ice? Really?”

“She only meant it as a reminder.”

“Exactly! You don’t need that reminder because I think you’ve learned better than anyone else to not stay on the rink when someone is practising. A couple weeks ago she made some stupid comment because I left the gym early. Nothing inherently rude, she’s never actually rude. But it was pointed anyway. I’ve been up since six in the morning I think I deserve slacking off a little, it was nearly midnight for fuck’s sake!”

Cleaning the wound was taking everything you had, the need to hiss at the contact of the wet cloth was near abominable.

“Her…her perception’s a little warped. But her heart’s in the right place!”

Lorelai had rolled her eyes, screwing the cap of her ointment tube back on with unnecessary force. “I never said it wasn’t, just—stop defending her! I’m sorry but half the reason she continues to act like this is because you listen to her.”

At that moment, you felt a little offended. Of course, Marina had her moments where she’d say something a little less than healthy, especially coming from a friend. But you’d always thought you handled it better than most.

You met Marina when you were still only splotchy faced preteens, during a competition where she came second and you came third. She’d been skating for longer, so it was expected, but you also couldn’t conceal your surprise when you’d found the state of her later on. You were ecstatic simply because you managed to make it to the podium, but it seemed Marina’s tears held another thought process for her.

You found her crying in the locker rooms later on, her coach who looked like she…should’ve been comforting her, but it was more like a stern talking to, to suck it up and work harder next time round.

When you tried to help her, out came words you felt oh so strange coming from a stranger. “What do you know? You came third!”

It hurt. Possibly the first genuine stab of the feeling you’d ever felt. In the following weeks, when Marina apologised and you’d begun to build a friendship, you felt something peculiar. Practice sessions on the ice became harder, your two hour sessions were suddenly extending to four, sometimes five hours a day. All of it, your own doing.

It was subconscious when it was happening, the silent tug of You came third! What you first considered an achievement became an intermediate step.

If there was anywhere that you’d pinpoint the shift, from when figure skating went from fun to a responsibility, you’d pick that exact moment. When someone congratulated you later on, it wasn’t a big smile and a thank you.

“I only came third.”

Your calf healed and all that was left was a scar, but there in the discolouration of your skin, also lay a realisation.

SEUNGCHEOL HOSTS ABSOLUTELY ZERO thoughts in his mind as he shoves the collar of his hoodie over his head. Slamming the door shut on the rest of his red SVT paraphernalia, he makes quick work of his hair, shoes on and out the door within the minute. Jeonghan is still fast asleep when he leaves, mouth open and drooling onto his pillow when Seungcheol walks into his room to let him know he’s leaving.

Jeonghan might tag along to practice for the fun of it despite leaving his competitive hockey career behind him, but his distaste for 6 AM practice remains forever unchanged. He’d see him later though, on the rink lingering once the sun is higher in the sky and Jeonghan deems it less of a sin to be awake.

Seungcheol leaves without a response from his friend.

By the time he gets to the rink, most of the team has already geared up. The locker room is splotched with red, moving towards the back of the room to get to his own locker. They weren’t assigned, but he liked to have his claim. He had one in the old rink, the one locker everyone knew was his. And now he has one here, despite the temporary nature of the ordeal. The rest of the boys know to steer clear, as does he for the others who have their lucky spots.

Mingyu bumps into his shoulder when Seungcheol is looking down, immediately whipping around to bow a full ninety degrees. He’s laughing as he apologises, not really sorry, but Seungcheol is too exhausted to humour him too much.

He’d been up playing games all night, under the covers in the dark, his phone brightness up too high and his eyes too wide open. He could feel the regret when his alarm blared while it was still dark outside, his eyelids stuck together, refusing to open. It cost him fifteen minutes of warming up, but he’d make it somehow.

Seungcheol can hear coach Mason’s booming voice from outside, moving closer and closer to hustle the rest of the boys out onto the rink. He shoves his foot into his skates, making sure all that’s left is to lace them up.

“Look alive, boys! I want you on the ice within the minute,” he booms into the locker room.

Seungcheol doesn’t look up. When he gets up to leave the locker rooms, his hockey stick and helmet in hand, he’s the last straggling few to leave. Chan earns himself a hard thump on the back from Coach as he scurries out.

There’s a hand on Seungcheol’s chest as he’s about to exit, Coach stopping him from leaving.

He looks up, expecting a hard look from Mason, ready to hear a mildly violent threat about being late to call time again. Except Seungcheol finds him with his own gaze on the floor.

“Rink manager said I could use his office. We should talk there.”

Seungcheol could’ve said he knows what this was going to be about. The game last weekend had less than ideal results, not because they didn’t win, but more so because of the WWE level brawl that went down in the benches during one of the intermissions.

He tenses, but it was more like he was squaring up. His shoulders are hard, his grip on his hockey stick tighter. Of course, he wasn’t about to swing at his coach, but one could say it was simply a subconscious response.

The entire walk to the office, Seungcheol thinks of new ways Coach could address his issue. But the gist was always simple.

Choi, stop fucking fighting.

He’d usually just rip Seungcheol a new one in front of the boys, berate him and verbally throttle him in the hopes that he’d keep his anger under check. But as they turn towards the door to the office, Seungcheol has to remind himself that this was a first. Being led aside, like he was being led into some formal meeting.

A plea deal, perhaps?

Choi, what is it going to take?

The office is barren, hardly looks like it’s used with how sparse the equipment is. The amount of dark brown gives it enough warmth to not make it look like some sick form of solitary confinement. That doesn't stop Seungcheol from feeling a hint of pity for whoever has to work here. There’s no nameplate.

Coach doesn’t take a seat, opting to lean against the table in front of him instead. His arms are folded, and he’s not looking him in the eye. A crawl of suspicion creeps up Seungcheol’s neck, as though in an attempt to ambush him.

It’s silent in the room as he waits for Coach to speak, refusing to be the one to break it.

When he does speak, it’s not in his usual Coach voice. Without the built in bass and tremors he was born with.

“There’s no easy way to break this,” he starts, eyes drifting up to somewhere on the barren walls. “But I’m gonna try my darndest.”

Finally, he feels Coach’s gaze lock with Seungcheol’s expecting pair.

“They wanna drop you.”

“What?”

Coach squeezes his eyes shut, like he’s recalibrating. “Your contract is up by the end of the season. And the tie wearers and the shoe shiners don't wanna re-sign you.”

Seungcheol’s eyebrows furrow. “What do you mean don’t wanna re-sign me, on what grounds?!”

“You’re temperament—”

“I’ve scored at least two goals for every game you’ve put me in, I’m your most consistent player!”

“They have no qualms with you when you’re on the ice.”

Seungcheol knows where this is going. He knows what knocked up alley this is turning to and he hates it. “Which is all that should matter.”

“In most cases.”

“Is this about last weekend? You didn’t hear him, he deserved more than a broken fucking nose—”

“I didn’t need to hear him, because I know. I know he’s a jackass, I know they’re all jackasses! They know that too. You need to learn to let things go, let them chirp—”

“He was coming on to my mother!” Seungcheol bellows, now properly angry. He remembers the guy’s name, Jason or something.

“His coach came onto my entire bloodline when we were young, this is Kim’s strategy! You’re playing right into their hands like a dog! For fuck’s sake, Choi! Punching someone in the chiclets isn’t always the answer!” Coach Mason is shaking his hands in front of him like some violent prayer.

Seungcheol drops his hockey stick and helmet, mouth open as he huffs and puffs. He wants to pace, wants to point his fingers at Coach and make a few threats of his own.

“Just—”

Seungcheol rounds up on him. “Seungkwan punched a guy in the mouth. Wonwoo kicked one in the balls.”

“Seungcheol. This is becoming nearly. Every. Single. Game. Not the occasional tousle we can pull people out of. You can’t keep sending people to the hospital, it’s a wonder nobody's pressed charges yet!”

“So that’s it? I’m being punished because some dick runs his mouth?”

“This is about you, Seungcheol. You need to get a fucking grip. You’ve started picking at your own teammates, shoving Mingyu around—seriously?”

Seungcheol’s mouth opens but nothing leaves it. He ends up gaping like a fish.

For all that it was worth, for everything he’d been through, Seungcheol always assumed his seat was safe. Always assumed he’d have the position he does. Because he showed results, won them nearly every game and put up a damn good fight in the ones they didn’t.

Seungcheol knew he was an asset, but not for one minute, stop to realise that this was all

conditional.

For everything he did for this team, for every fiber of his being he poured into its chalice, they were spitting it all right back into his face. Chewed and warped and rid of anything worth salvaging.

The red in his chest, back, stomach, spelling out the unmistakable letters of his team. The red in his helmet that rests beside the red in his hockey stick.

“Listen, as much of a pain in the ass you are, you’re good fucking player. And as far as I’m concerned, that’s all that matters. But it’s not up to me, so we need to work around that. They’re worried about the repercussions of your behaviour. And you are gonna make sure you keep yourself in check.”

Coach walks closer, finger digging into Seungcheol’s chest through his jersey. “I want no more fights, no more kicking and punching and swearing no matter how much that motherfucker deserves it, I don’t care. Do whatever it takes. God knows I’ll never forgive you if you make me agree to those prissy hands in suits.”

Coach left Seungcheol in the barren office, stepping over his stick and helmet as he exited the room, leaving him alone. His fingers flex under his gloves, like he’s trying to remind himself to stay in the moment. His exhales are stronger than his inhales, his vision blurring as the desk turns into two, and then disappears for a second.

He can hear the distinct sound of the puck slamming into hockey sticks. Practice had started. By the time Seungcheol walks out, he’s the last person to go through the mandatory drills.

The rink is mostly empty as the team gears up for a practice match, leaving Seungcheol enough reign to slam into every puck like he had some personal vendetta against every last one. It’s one after the other, sent directly into the open net, waiting.

Practice goes fine, as good as it could go with the scrambled eggs that had become of Seungcheol’s mental state. He found himself whipping his head around to Jun when he fumbled an assist, face scrunched under his helmet as he prepared to send him to hell in a handbasket.

He sees Jun physically tense up in defense, and the insult (for once) dies on Seungcheol’s tongue.

“Just—keep up, alright,” he says instead. His tone is empty, and on a downward slope.

If anyone finds it odd, they don’t say.

It’s a couple more hours of passes, assists and hollers across the ice, regrouping the teams every so often to keep the rotation consistent.

Over here, everyone is in red, everyone is on his side. The bleachers are empty, devoid of spectators to watch him lose his cool on anything. But he thinks of the way Jun recoiled, like he was preparing for the worst of his teammate’s words. He and Jun are friends.

Somewhere amidst his thoughts, the puck flies directly into Seungcheol’s face, banging into the cage of his helmet with a noise that resonates across the rink. He’s startled enough to skate back a little, not before hearing another resounding thwack! from next to him. The puck rebounded from his helmet and hit the plastic barrier with a noise that had everyone looking over.

Skating up to where the puck fell back onto the ice, he looks up to where it hit the barrier.

Through the plastic he sees…you. You're staring at the same spot he is, where there’s a slight mark from the force of the rubber.

And then your eyes drift up, locking with his own.

Like every other person he’s around, he watches you tense up. But it’s laced with something more than just bracing for impact.

It’s apprehension, your form turbulent and agitated. It’s all he can see when you spin on your heels and walk away in the opposite direction from him.

The all too familiar irritation sparks in the back of Seungcheol’s mind, as it does when you’re around. All he does is slam his stick into the ice with force, pushing the puck back into the middle of the rink.

They’re nearly done by that point, and he finds that Jeonghan has graced himself in the benches. He’s wearing his old jersey, likely because he doesn’t want Coach to notice him and accuse him of distracting his players.

Jeonghan would’ve gotten away with it anyway.

Seungcheol tells him to wait up, walking towards the locker room with the rest of the rest of the team to wash up. He finds some reprieve in Seungkwan’s attempts at fumbling with his helmet, letting out a laugh as he fights with it. Looking up as they take the turn towards the locker rooms as a group, he somehow finds himself in your presence, again.

It’s the same thing, like you’ve been connected to a faulty circuit and you’re trying not to show it. You look like you want to say something but all Seungcheol can do is send a snarky remark of his own.

Even as you walk away after the ordeal, he feels anything but settled.

It’s like the world has it out for him, because as he opts to stalk back to where Jeonghan was, forgoing a shower, there’s only another calamity waiting for him.

Jeonghan is in the rink, sitting on the ice with two cups of what looks like dippin dots. He looks up when he hears his treads on the ice, having taken his skates off already. Seungcheol crumples to the ground and on the ice next to his friend.

The first words he utters are the only ones that’ve been on his mind all day. “They want to drop me.”

Jeonghan only grimaces in response, only running his hands through his hair as he sighs loudly. “I know. I heard.”

Seungcheol perks up, head lifting from the ice. “...How?”

That’s how Seungcheol has Jeonghan’s phone so close to his face he’s hardly an inch away from the screen. He reads and reads and reads. And his blood boils and boils and boils.

!HOT TOPIC!

SEAT AT RISK FOR SVT HOCKEY TEAM’S SHINING STAR? Read All About It Here!

Choi Seungcheol’s seat for next season at risk? Insider reports that the hot headed centre may be at risk of contract termination due to recent controversy. The hockey player, renowned for his aggressive playing tendencies, seems to be taking his temperament outside of the rink. Multiple games played by SVT have been subject to eventful halves and quarters, the center seen getting violent in the benches with opposing team members, and sometimes even team members of his own! While his short temper has always been a recurring subject in the news, his skills as a player have always remained top notch—we do wonder if he even has to try! The tables seem to turn a little differently this time around though, because it looks that SVT higher ups have been fed up with the increasing reports of Choi’s aggressive behaviour. Insider sources report that talks of a contract termination may be coming into order. While he has proven to be an effective player on the ice, it seems as though it won’t be saving him from this particular ramification!

Stay tuned, hockey fanatics, as we bring you more updates on Choi’s sticky situation!

Of course, to add to the absolute media pandemonium, you had shown up on the rink itself after Seungcheol had to read through the entirety of that stupid article. Jeonghan was smart to pull him away from the situation before he wrapped both his hands around your neck in an ultimatum.

The way you stood there, hip popped like you owned the damn place, face haughty and demanding. You stood while they sat, looking down at Seungcheol like he was some pesky ant. There was nothing he would’ve rather done in that moment than swing his leg clean across your ankles, and watch in delight as you crash onto the ice in front of him.

“What the fuck is her problem?” he grits as soon as he’s in the locker rooms. Collecting his things to leave and take a shower at home.

Jeonghan walks behind him, hands in his pocket in idleness as he watches his friend pack up. He’s humming a tune that’s possibly too familiar to Seungcheol. “Hm. She does seem a little wound too tight.”

“Wound too tight?! I’ve seen her thrice just today and every single time she looks like she wants to skin my fucking hide!”

Jeonghan only snorts. “Thing two isn’t any better. She’s cute though.”

Seungcheol whips around. “Who gets that territorial over a sound booth?!”

“Down, boy,” Jeonghan soothes, half in jest. “Surprised she isn’t here today either.”

“Yeah, you’d like to see her.”

“I would, actually, yes. What was her name?”

“Something to do with a train or a bus or something—”

“Lorry! Right,” Jeonghan furrows his brows. “I don’t think that’s her real name.”

Seungcheol throws his duffle bag over his shoulder as he motions he’s done. “I don’t think anyone who actually loves their child would name them after a bus.”

Jeonghan halts in his steps. “My dead dog’s name was Lorry.”

Seungcheol is extra nice for the rest of the way home.

SEUNGCHEOL CAN'T SLEEP.

His dreams are full of voices, of every single teammate he’s ever had. The junior league, his high school team, up to his college team, and finally, his team right now.

They’re all murmuring like they were paid to do it, uttering the same things, over and over. He doesn’t belong here, they don’t want him here, he doesn’t deserve what he has.

And with the way his heart is racing when he jolts awake, cold sweat and all, he realises he’s kicked his blanket off of him sometime during the night. He looks over to his alarm clock that glares bright in the dark of his room; 5:08 AM.

He doesn’t need to be up, but it seems his own subconscious has given him a good enough scare to make sure every last essence of sleep escapes him. He lays on his back, catching his breath like he just ran a marathon.

Seungcheol hasn’t woken up from a nightmare like this since middle school, one that knocks the breath from his lungs and fills his head with all the horrible things in the world. With every moment that passes after that conversation with Coach Mason, his ordeal becomes increasingly real.

In that moment, laying in his bedroom, staring blankly at the dark ceiling above, he wonders if he’s made the right choice to come this far.

With all the confidence he’s exuded, the thought is downright terrifying.

Seungcheol was a difficult child. Too much energy, too much to say, too much to do. His parents didn’t know the first thing about hockey, just that it involved enough hitting and running and practice to let their son let out all that pent up energy, so maybe, just maybe, he’d sit still and do his homework. While they attempted to sign him up at the local rink, he was already zooming out towards the benches to see the fabled giant block of ice his parents told him about.

And there it was, just like in the movies, a giant expanse of ice that made him shiver even in his thick Winnie The Pooh puffer vest. There’s sounds, loud ones, of deep clacks that echo across the rink. It seems to be coming from the dozens of people skating on the rink, decked out in red gear.

SVT, he reads on their jerseys.

His mother chides him for straying when they finally find him near the gate, watching the team practice. The rink manager is there as well, showing his parents around.

“The SVT’s practice here and have a junior league too, but I’m afraid it’s full. But our coach is great too, I’m sure he’ll do well.”

Seungcheol’s parents didn’t mind, but he wanted those jerseys, wanted his name in red splashed across his back as he glided across the ice.

It didn’t take long for his coach and his parents to realise that putting him in a helmet was a good idea. He was smoking the rest of the kids from day one, his balance on the ice better than any other his age, his hold on a hockey stick like second nature, his aim as he hit his first puck, dazzling.

As he got older, entering his preteen and teen years, he had another realisation. That he was as horrible at school as he was good at hockey.

“Perhaps you should take a break from hockey,” his high school guidance counsellor had said. His grades were displayed in front of her like a case study, the hopeless clear in her intermittent sighs and the occasional purse of her lips. “Utilise that time to fix at least one of your grades. Pour all your eggs in one basket.”

The thought was absurd. No, he would not be dropping hockey when it was the only thing that pushed him to wake up in the morning.

He’d felt the tremble of irritation rise in himself, sitting there in that office. It angered him, made him feel like his success was measured by a criteria not made for him. He had said nothing as he slipped out of chair and left the room.

The day before his graduation, sweat dripping onto the ice as he sent free pucks into the net, he was missing more than he was getting in. It was making him more mad than it should, hands shaking with fury as he berated himself for not being able to succeed in something so simple.

His last puck was before him, and he swung his stick harder than ever and watched as it flew directly into the net. The sound is louder than usual, resonating across the rink. Seungcheol looked down at the detached pieces in his hand and quickly realised that he’d effectively broken his hockey stick.

It wasn’t expensive, so the quality wasn’t nearly what it should be, wasn’t nearly as durable. But this was new to him. He’d never broken a stick before.

Anger. Perhaps that was what he'd forgone, perhaps that was what he needed. To get on his knees from his back, to get on his feet from his knees.

When he graduated the next day, Seungcheol knew what he was going to do with his life. Finally had an answer for the infinite questions about his future.

Hockey. Seungcheol was going to play hockey for the rest of his life. He was going to get into SVT, he was going to become the best player they’ve ever had. He was going to make more money than what he would have as a doctor or a lawyer or whatever else the entire world wanted him to do instead.

Seungcheol was going to be on the ice wearing red if it’s the last thing he does.

That’s what pushes him out of bed at 8:45 in the morning, his dream that was once in his hands now flitting through the gaps of his fingers.

The anger that pushed him here, was now pushing him out.

He packs his things and leaves the house, welcoming the cold of the outdoors.

There’s the distinct sound of blade cutting through ice when he gets nearer to the rink itself, a shout of a shrill voice he can’t decipher. Official practice doesn’t start for another couple hours, and he doesn’t remember Coach Mason cutting the pitch in his voice for anything ever. There’s only one other person that could possibly be gracing the rink.

Seungcheol finds three people on the rink. The bright red curly mop of hair catches his eye first, her arms folded over her green puffer jacket, apprehension in her entire posture. He assumes this is your coach.

There’s a blonde one breathing heavily as she straightens out of a spin, listening to the coach as she shakes her head violently as she speaks.

Seungcheol finds you a little ways away from the pair, practising jumps.

He doesn’t emerge into the benches, remaining in the shadows where he wouldn’t be so blaringly obvious. There’s no reason for him to hide, but he doesn’t think of this as hiding.

Seungcheol watches for the next few minutes, watches you make most of your jumps, fall for some. Your coach shouts for particular names for jumps, something about axels and lutz’ that he can’t tell the difference from when put into action. At least he thinks that’s what you’re doing.

And then he hears it as your coach moves closer to the barriers. “What’s gotten into you? Keep acting this stupid and I’ll excuse myself from the job, I have better people to coach.”

Her tone, her words, the sharp edge of her tongue, it’s all triggering a very specific part of Seunghceol’s brain.

“Is it your ankle? Because if it is, then I’m here to tell you to get out of your own head. Your ankle is fine, you wouldn’t be able to get on the ice at all if it wasn’t.”

There it comes. Those words aren’t directed towards Seungcheol, nor could they apply to him in any capacity. But the way this coach is speaking is making him irrationally angry.

“Are you gonna keep pretending you have a handicap? Because if you are then I have no work here.”

“I’m sorry.”

For whatever reason, the sound of you apologising makes the fire rage doubly. It’s enough to blur his vision, enough to make him question what on earth this coach could have on you to let her speak to you in that way.

The choice words are already in his head as he claps back in his own head, like he was the one at the receiving end.

He doesn’t stay, disappearing even further into the tunnel to where the locker rooms are. He doesn’t understand why he’s huffing and puffing as much as he is. All that occupies him is what possible reasons you could have to just take it lying down.

Seungcheol’s phone vibrates in his pocket, slipping it out to realise it’s Jeonghan.

He picks up, and barely has time to say hello before his voice perks up from the other line. “Where are you?” He sounds like he just woke up.

“I’m at the rink.”

“Why is your angry voice on?”

“My angry voice is not—” he begins to grit, seething, but closes his eyes and takes a moment. “I’m not mad.”

“Do I need to sing?”

“No, you do not have to sing—”

“Everything is honey—”

“Jeonghan, stop!”

“—everywhere I see—”

Seungcheol hangs up before he can go on. To his utmost irritation, he feels significantly calmer.

The rink is devoid of your red headed coach when Seungcheol makes his way there after a few minutes. The blonde one is nowhere to be seen, leaving you alone in the rink as you skated across the expanse. He only watches as you land the couple attempts at jumps, the ice breaking ground in a spray every time you put pressure on your blades.

Seungcheol is just standing there, blank faced with an empty head. His mind was quiet for the first time since he’d woken up that morning.

He doesn’t know what he’s doing there, standing idle as he follows your figure around the rink like a fixation point.

The sound is more consistent, less of the loud jabs of hockey sticks meeting the ice, more constant lines of scraping as you migrate across the rink. The speakers boom no sound, but the musicality in the noise of the ice is enough to imagine a rhythm.

No part of him desires getting on the ice to oust you out, no part of him wants to touch his hockey stick that sits in the locker room. He doesn’t need extra practice, not with hockey at least.

And when you notice him, unmoving in the benches, he watches as something hard overcomes your expression. You skate over, and he keeps his gaze fixated on the ice.

Skating up to the gate, he sees in his peripheral vision as you slip on your skate guards, stepping out into the real world.

“You don’t have the rink booked, I checked,” you huff, moving to find your things on the other set of benches.

Seungcheol’s jaw tenses. “I don’t want the rink right now.”

“And yet the ghost loiters.”

“I’m here to tell you to start filling in the stupid craters your skates make in the ice. The guys keep tripping.”

“You big hockey thugs getting defeated by a toe pick?”

Seungcheol turns to finally look at you, and you look nothing as graceful as you did on the ice. He wants to scoff.

You continue, “I have to deal with your stupid barriers fucking up my sound system. I think your guys can deal with a couple digs in the ice.”

“Great, we’ll just lose a couple teeth, who really gives a fuck.”

“If this is about giving fucks,” you get up from your water break, leaving the bench. “Do me a favour and forget your mouth guard next time. Let the puck punch you in the mouth if I can't."

Seungcheol’s entire being is ablaze. He reshuffles his footing. “What the fuck is your problem?”

“My problem?” you repeat, voice moving a pitch higher. “My fucking problem is that you and your overgrown posse of baboons drop in here out of the blue and then act like you own the damn place!”

“Right, because it’s your name on the fucking lease. Excuse us for trespassing on public property!”

You’re yelling. Seungcheol is yelling. It’s either that or the hollow of the rink is now carrying your voices farther out.

“I’ve had enough of you acting like you don’t take up this entire fucking space!” Your arms wave wildly, gesturing to the large area of the rink. “You’re everywhere, all the fucking time, it’s sickening!”

“Everywhere, huh?” He takes a step closer to you. And then another. He revels in the sight of your face turning a splotchy red. “Thought I was only a bother on the ice? Where else have I been plaguing you in mystic hallucinations?”

Seungcheol’s eyes give away nothing but provocation. He knows he didn’t start this, but in the true essence of who he is, he would be the one to end it.

It’s clear you’re taken aback. At this moment, he’s the closest he’s ever been to you. But it’s for nothing if it isn’t to press on you further, to tower over you and your outburst.

“Get your head out of the gutter, you brute.”

“Then is it not me taking up all your space?” he asks. “Because there’s three feet of air between us, and yet the least in our very short time together.”

He watches as you take a small step back.

“So where else have I been any closer, so consistently, if it wasn’t part of your imagination?”

There’s a certain kind of venom in your stare, in the sneer that lifts your mouth, enough to ensure that it’d render him six feet deep. But he lives in reality, so he deems it safe to take another step closer.

“You’re a screw up,” you almost whisper. Appalled and scandalised.

“So I’ve been told,” Seungcheol breathed. “But something tells me we’re not so different in that department.”

“You don’t know a thing about me.”

“I know that I’m all you can think about,” he says, eyebrows raised. “That feels like a lot. You’d agree, because everywhere, all the fucking time is a lot.”

Seungcheol has hardly finished his sentence before he feels the light breeze of you gathering your few things, shouldering him hard and walking away from him. Into the tunnel, into the locker rooms, into hell, wherever it was that you ended up by the close of the day.

He isn’t afraid to admit that he stumbled.

LORELAI HAD MADE IT quite clear that any figure skating talk was off the table, and talk surrounding Marina even more so. You tried not to point out the obvious predicament, but the fact that you lived with Marina did not affect her demand.

Miraculously, not talking about skating or Marina was the most free you’d felt in ages. It was mildly embarrassing in the beginning, when on a run with Lorealai who was also helping out at the dog shelter, because you realised all you talked about was, maybe not Marina, but definitely a lot of skating.

You slow down a little to give Kkuma a couple minutes to breathe, but Lorealai is still running at her pace with her significantly more energetic husky, Bennie.

“Stay there, I’ll catch up!” she yells over her shoulder as she takes the left around the block to circle back.

You oblige, moving to a walking pace as Lorelai appears from behind you after a couple minutes. She slows to a jog and loiters around you for a minute, you increase your speed to match hers.

“Jeonghan…” she pauses to take a breath. But your interest is piqued, especially if she was talking about the same Jeonghan you were thinking about. “Jeonghan invited me to the game this weekend.”

Hold.

“What?” you snap.

“Game. This weekend,” she huffs, still breathing heavily.

“Like, a hockey game?” you ask, brows furrowed.

“No, for disney on ice,” she announces. “They’re doing beauty and the beast, Jeonghan’s the beauty, Seungcheol is the beast. It’s a whole production, really. Real good stuff.”

You can only roll your eyes at the elaborate sarcasm. She continues, “Of course, it's a hockey game! What else do they do at that rink all day?”

“Gosh, sorry,” you frown. “Since when do you talk to Jeonghan?”

She looks over, wicked smile on her face. “Since I found him on Instagram.”

“You followed him?”

“No, why would I do that? Bumped into him at the gym a while ago, and we went out for coffee afterwards.”

Nothing of the ordeal is making sense, your brows still knit together and your mouth downturned in confusion.

“Catch you in a minute!” she yelps as she takes off into a run again, Bennie right next to her as she circles round again.

The few minutes that it’s just you and tiny Kkuma are flooded with questions. How did she just bump into Jeonghan? Lorelai hardly goes to the gym. Asking her to come to the hockey game?

And then worst of all.

Are they dating?

By the time Lorelai is back, she’s out of breath again, and fully unequipped to answer all of the questions you shoot at her like rapid fire.

“Why were you at the gym? He’s a junior league coach, he’s not even gonna be playing!”

“God!” she groans, heaving. “Slow…down.”

“Fine!” You stop in your tracks entirely, to which Lorelai is happy to oblige as she crouches with her hand on her knees. Bennie tugs at her leash, the big bounding ball of fluff ready to race the winds again.

You count to ten, hands on your hips as Kkuma lets out a small, confused yip now that you’re completely idle on the track.

“Talk.”

With an all too dramatic flip of her short hair, she pulls herself up and into an explanation. “I couldn’t tell you because we weren’t talking when it all happened.”

It’s true, it did take a while for you to go back to normal after that run in with Marina in your bedroom. You suppose it won’t be happening again with the new no-Marina-talk rule, since she seemed to be quite the common factor in many of your rifts over the years.

“I went to the gym to blow off some steam—don’t look like that, I’m being serious!”

You make an attempt at fixing your face as she continues.

“He saw me first and came up to say hi. Went our separate ways but once we finished up he asked if I wanted to grab a coffee since we were both done working out.”

“And you said yes?”

“I said yes. Because he is cute, and I had been stalking his very public Instagram and it was just the perfect opportunity!”

“So you’re dating?” you ask sharply.

“I don’t know.”

“He asked you to the game?” you point out.

“Well, yes, but he hasn’t asked me asked me.” Somewhere in her voice there’s the tiniest hint of disappointment. “Besides, he said to bring you as well.”

“Fuck no.”

“Come ooon! Jeonghan’s gonna be in the benches and I don’t know anyone else there!” she whines.

“Hey, we should switch dogs!” you announce as you yank Bennie’s leash out of Lorelai’s hands, stuffing Kkuma’s leash into her free hand.

You take off into a sprint, and Bennie is happy to keep up with you as you quite literally run away from the situation. Lorelai is yelling your name, her annoyance abundant.

Ignoring her is easy. Just the thought of walking into one of those games is enough to force a scoff, to watch your rink inhabited with like minded buffoonery as they ruin the bleachers and the ice.

By the time you make it back, the hilarity of the situation hasn’t left you. And it seems neither has Lorelai, who remains standing with Kkuma at her feet, waiting to trap you.

It’s the easiest thing to do, to turn right back around and circle the other way.

“You can’t run away from me forever!” she shouts behind you as you disappear again.

Maybe you couldn’t, but you wouldn’t go down without a fight.

“You can’t run away from Seungcheol forever! Quit pretending like you aren’t dying to fall into those giant arms!” Lorelai has a very specific talent of injecting all the drama in the world in the tone of her voice. She’s sure to utilize that skill as she hollers after you.

That seems to do it for you, slowing down, half ready to whip around and holler a profanity or two right back.

You’re more triggered than usual, but mostly because all the jab does is remind you of the last time you saw him. The arrogance in his demeanor, the way he belittled you with just his eyes, the shadow of his towering frame, caging you like a lost animal.

You hated it. Despised it. Despised him. His disgusting innuendos, the all so misleading innocence on his face as he cornered you with both his body and his words.

Lorelai could deal you whatever card there was tied up her sleeve, but getting you anywhere near the rink for the game this weekend was going to require more than just dessert bribes and sweet talking. Dragging you by the ankles could be a possibility, but all for naught when you dig your nails in anyway.

It was impossible. Not doable. Non-existent in the cards of your destiny. A repelling force.

So why, would one ask, were you decked out in the most heinous red scarf with the letters SVT stitched on like a warning, sitting in the bleachers and looking down at the same rink you practice your spins and jumps in everyday?

Neither you or Lorelai could answer that question, both your stories as blurry as fog as to how either of you managed to get you in that fabled seat.

You could see the exact place you and Seungcheol had your last showdown, the opposing team in black now occupying that side of the benches. The thought puts you in an impossibly sour mood. It’s not like Lorelai could say anything about it, half because she knows you’re one snide remark away from jumping into the merch table, and half because she was too busy making heart eyes at Jeonghan who’s just spotted her in her seat.

“I’ll be back,” she informs haphazardly as she positively bounds down the steps to the end of the bleachers, where Jeonghan waits for her. The people in their seats shuffle, annoyed at the overenthusiastic fan who practically slides down in front of their legs towards the railing. But Lorelai couldn’t care less, not with what stood beyond that very railing.

Tearing your eyes away from the lovebirds, you take in the hustle and bustle of the pregame happenings, most of the bleachers in disarray as they humour the merch stands and the food stalls. The rink smells different because of it, both the added number of food trucks and drink stands, but also with the amount of people that occupy the expanse.

The only times you see the rink this packed is when you’re too wracked with nerves to notice anything other than your own two feet. Hands wringing and head spinning, the chaos of the world is nothing against the pandemonium in your mind. You’re usually wearing a sparkly dress that glitters even from the very last row of bleachers, hair taut and makeup caked on like a layer of icing.

Taking your time, you let your eyes flit over all that you forgo the other times. The stands are a mix of red and black, and so are the benches and ice that are occupied by men in full hockey gear.

You’re too high up to make out the names on the back of all those jerseys, let alone a face underneath the already concealing helmets. The problem is forgotten when you feel the weight of two hands slam against your folded arms, tugging you out of your seat like it was stolen property.

“Jeonghan said we could sit closer to the benches downstairs!” Lorelai is frantic, like this wasn’t a matter of reserved seats but the last plane to leave hell itself.

“Lor—” Finishing a sentence when she’s in this state is a luxury you learn quickly to live without, because all that concerns her right now is getting closer to the man that seems to have enraptured her like never before.

It’s disgusting. But you follow her anyway, down the steps that you nearly eat shit on, gracefully of course, because what figure skater doesn’t fall with an epic crash worthy of an Expendables cameo. You stabilise yourself enough to get to the seats Lorelai is talking about, and sure enough, Jeonghan would barely have to get on his tiptoes to hoist himself into the bleachers altogether. You question the safety of the context but decide that it wasn’t your problem if someone decided to pounce on one of the players.

Besides, you’d be lying if you said you wouldn’t revel in the absolute scene of Seungcheol getting jumped by an over-passionate fan. You’re suddenly very grateful for the front row seats.

There’s a bucket of chicken tenders and fries in your lap out of nowhere, matching the one in Lorelai’s hands. “Also Jeonghan?” you hum as you inspect the sauce options.

“Mhm, he’s friends with the vendor outside,” she grins.

You narrow your eyes at the revelation, finding it utmost strange how close he seems to be with nearly everyone. “Why is he on the benches, again?” you ask.

“Because—” she draws before you cut her off.

“Friends with the coach?”

“How’d you know?!” she exclaims. Her attention is diverted as the speakers suddenly boom with something other than generic pop music. So is yours, when you hear a deep baritone of a commentator’s voice carries throughout the rink.

The shuffle around you is suddenly doubling in speed, everyone getting into their seats. You look over in front of you, where the benches are in an equally panicked shuffle. You spot Jeonghan easily, mostly because he’s one of the few in the vicinity without a helmet or what looks like a giant space suit. The next thing you note is the person he’s talking to, his back turned to you, but familiar all the same.

CHOI, 95, reads his jersey. Automatically, your jaw clenches. “Don’t look over there!” Lorelai chides, grabbing your jaw and moving it to force you to rip your eyes away from him.

“Lorelai, I’m not sure if you’re aware, but unlike your boy toy, he’s actually gonna be on the ice,” you verbalise through clenched teeth.

“Don’t look at the ice,” she blurts.

Rolling your eyes, you only listen as she realises what she’s said. “Okay, um, look at Jeon instead! Or Kim, or Boo, just. For god’s sake, there’s fifty other players on the ice, just don’t let one of them ruin your night!”

“I’m fine,” you grumble, sinking into your seat.

It isn’t long before your eyes trail over anyway, and Seungcheol still doesn’t have his helmet on. You can see his face now, and he looks like he’s mad at Jeonghan about something.

Inevitably, your mind wanders to the fated article that somehow made its way into your recommended, the certainty it put in you that Seungcheol didn’t stand a chance in his team anymore. It seemed true enough, his anger, that he continues to display, seemed to be his default emotional setting.

Your hockey knowledge was subpar at best, but one thing you did know was the aggression factor of the sport. Of all the things that could cut his career clean down the middle, this was the last of your guesses.

Even now, as you watch him absentmindedly point and jerk like his supposed friend had managed to bring him something that was personally offensive, it’s all connecting too well.

But when you snap into reality, you realise very quickly that he was pointing…at you.

Seungcheol is mad that Jeonghan (effectively) brought you to the match.

A chortle of disbelief is quick to make itself known, wanting to yell across the throng that you were every bit as upset that he was in your vicinity too. It also brings you satisfaction, a pure grain of hope, that maybe this would be enough for him to completely fuck up on the ice today.

You say a quick amen before the baritone of the commentator makes itself known again. The echo is too much for you to decipher what’s going on, but you have your answer when you watch the reds and the blacks form what looks like a line across the width of the rink, right in the center.

You don’t register when the puck landed, or if it was always there, just that the loud clacks and bangs are in tandem with the cheer from the crowds. The puck is an impossible commodity to keep up with, even with just your eyes. It appears for a moment before it’s lost again, shooting around in your peripheral vision like a pesky fly you can never get a hold of.

“What is happening?” you whisper to yourself.

Lorelai answers anyway, snorting, “Fuck if I know.”

The numbers on the lit screens are doing nothing to help out your predicament, too much happening for you to even begin to deconstruct. You choose to lay back and enjoy your chicken tenders and fries, complimenting the sauce choices to Lorelai along the way, who continues to calibrate her attention on the man that remains in the benches. Jeonghan looks over periodically to send her a wave and a blinding smile.

You’ve made a good enough dent in your chicken and fries bucket by the time it’s intermission, about ready for a drink by now. Lorelai makes herself useful and runs down to get you both something, mostly because Jeonghan was now more focused on the team that’s huddled around one another, another man you assume is their coach huddled right with them.

The scores are 2-2, as provided by the person behind you who was apparently sick of your placid obliviousness. It did feel slightly awkward to be the only person not as excited to be front and center, so you remind yourself to thank him profusely.

Your attention drifts back to the benches, inevitably as you’ve been so unfortunately placed to be able to breathe down the player’s necks. They’ve dispersed from their huddle, but are not yet on the ice. They’re sitting down, catching their breaths, drinking from water bottles. On the other side, the opposing team, a sea of black and white flooding their own end of the benches. It’s a sinking colour, not an ounce of depth in the shade. It’s taking over the benches.

Except it’s the players that are moving, like they’re diffusing into the scarlet territory.

You watch, as one player in black moves his mouth, speaking, upturned and eyebrows cocked. It’s clear he’s gone well past enemy lines, the front lines suddenly at attention. There’s not much you can make out, nothing much besides the very haughty expression on the player’s face. His eyes are covered by the sweaty mop on his head, but you don’t need to see them to find the malice that infiltrates his entire stance.

The scene, where both sides seem to be closing in on each other, has you automatically sitting up straighter. The air is going static, especially as you realise the player's mouth is moving faster as he jabs at — Seungcheol.

They’re fighting, only verbally for now, but it’s undeniable the way the heat grows by the second. All you can see is the back of Seugncheol’s jersey as he begins to step back from the ordeal, like he was fighting the urge to take a step forward instead.

Jeonghan’s hand is on Seungcheol’s elbow, and one glance at the rest of the players on this side shows every last one on edge. Their coach is nowhere to be seen.

But he doesn’t stop talking, still standing in their territory. He yells something loud enough to hear the pitch of his voice, but not nearly enough to understand what he’s saying.

You could see it on the player’s face. Hook, line and sinker.

It happens so suddenly. Seungcheol surges forward like a dart, something flies out and hits the player square in the face.

Seungcheol had spat his mouth guard into his face.

You gasp out loud as you register what’s happening. The player removes his hand from his face, and for some reason, emerges grinning.

Seungcheol swings first, his fist rising and coming down on his cheek with a sound you can hear. You feel nauseous.

It’s pandemonium. You can see Jeonghan practically on top of Seungcheol, a number of other players attempting to get him off the man he continues to grab and shake up like a fugitive. The other player is throwing his own punches.

For one, horrifying moment, the force of the punch pushes Seungcheol’s face towards the stands enough to let you get an eyeful. All you see is red, beyond just his jersey. His mouth is full of blood, the front of his jersey dripped with it, his knuckles clustered with it.

The hand clasped around your mouth is your own, eyes blown in horror.

All around you, the world has their phones out like it was some show meant just for them, like this was exactly what they came here for.

It’s sickening. Sickening.

You brave another look, and they’ve been yanked off of one another. Seungcheol is being pushed down the tunnel and away from sight. Jeonghan has his hands clutched around Seungcheol like he’s nearly ready for another outbreak, his face grim.

Your eyes keep away from Seungcheol’s face on purpose. “Goodness, what is going on, I could barely get through the crowd,” Lorelai’s irritated voice infiltrates your ears, and you’re immediately brought back down to earth.

Arms full of more snacks and drinks, it only takes her one look at your rattled self to know.

“What happened?”

“I…they were…fighting. I don’t know, it just—Seungcheol was throwing punches and there was…blood, so much blood.”

She’s gotten a grip on your hand, her fingers warm under your cold, shivering ones. “Do you wanna leave?” she asks slowly.

One look over her shoulder is enough to tell you it’d be impossible. Everyone was too excited to care to cater to two people going in the opposite direction of the action. So you tell her there was no point, and you attempt to calm your racing heart as she sits next to you.

Snagging one of the packs from her mountain of snacks, you rip it open and let the sickly sweet smell infiltrate your nostrils. Popping one of the confections in your mouth, it’s hard to not make a face. It’s the sourest thing you could’ve picked, the tartness enough to distract you from the outside world. Eyes scrunched closed, you swallow the rush of saliva to ask Lorelai what the fuck she brought.

You chortle, and it has Lorelai looking over. “Whoops! That one’s mine.”

She snags the bag from your loosened grip, replacing it with a tamer bag of original flavoured potato chips. The chips are trying, but there’s not much you can do besides wait for the residues of the godawful candy to subside.

The ordeal seems to have calmed you the slightest bit, finally able to turn back to the ice. The rink is back to being occupied, players from both ends pouring onto the ice. You note a minor shoulder shove at the gate, but look away like it’d stop the calamity from intensifying.

The game ensues as normal, but you note the blatant absence of CHOI in the sea of red and white jerseys. You don’t mention it, and neither does Lorelai.

You’re about to burst by the time the finals moments are upon the game, the overtime minutes beginning to tick as the crowd grows restless by the second. With the little you’ve managed to grasp, you’re sure that SVT is only one goal away from the overtake. It’s making you nervous, like you’re waiting for your own score to be announced after a free skate.

The puck is a mere percentage easier to navigate after a couple hours of keeping after it; it skips between players you’re beginning to recognise from the back of their jersey. Kim, Boo, Wen, Kim, Lee. The opposing team intercepts for a moment, and you find yourself letting out an irritated shake of the shoulders. Back to Kim, Lee, Lee, and then, right into the net.

The jittering crowd suddenly went so silent you could hear a pin drop.

And then the world around you erupts. It’s impossible to classify the sound as cheers when racketeers off your entire being like an unearthly sound, the stands on their feet hollering and screaming and yelling at their players that are fighting to keep their new overtake in the final seconds before the game officially ends.

And when it does, you’re sure you need to get your ears checked out.

Looking over, you catch Lorelai’s eye, and you can’t help but laugh. A delightful laugh that releases itself in the midst of the chaos of red, scarlet and cherry. Somebody’s thrown a red blanket over you, another has begun to hand out congratulatory cherry lollipops (you pass, but Lorealai would be damned if she did), people are hugging each other so tight and you get the inkling they’ve only met each other today.

The ice is one giant dogpile, red on red as they suffocate one another in celebration.

Perhaps you didn’t realise how important the game actually was, or maybe every game is like this, loud, proud and exultant. You find yourself imagining how they feel.

The lost feeling of bouquets and flowers whisked in your direction, stuffed animals and hundreds of other things that scream adoration as your performance comes to a close. It’s a physical manifestation of an adoring crowd, as though making it tangible makes it a little more real.

The rush, you can feel it resonate off of the scarlet side of the benches, and it’s enough for you to realise that yes, this was an important match. For them anyway.

The way out of the rink is reasonably packed, but you manage to squeeze through the doors and towards where Lorelai had parked with fewer than expected obstruction. “Thought you might wait to see Jeonghan before we leave,” you hum as you walk to the parking spot.

“I was going to, but he’s probably dealing with what happened,” she utters slowly. A flash of red at the mention, gone as soon as it came. Lorelai adds with a little extra pep to her voice, “It’s okay! I’ll send him a text, we were planning on dinner tomorrow anyway.”

The side eye you send is met with a light shove. “This one seems serious. Dragging me here for his sake and now dinner with him?”

Lorelai was infamous for taking it excruciatingly slow, the time between the talking stage and the first date stretching for months. She claims it’s to make sure she's not roping herself into something she’d regret, which you’ll admit has seemed to work out in her favour. Her last relationship lasted years before Josh had to move away.

Jeonghan seems to have her under some warped spell, because Lorelai was hurtling into this relationship like a too compressed cannon ball. There was nothing you knew about Jeonghan other than his friendship with Seungcheol, his position as junior league coach and his habit of loitering on the ice; which means there wasn’t much opinion to be had on the whole conquest. Regardless, you decide to caution her some other day, when she’s not glowing and over the moon like a robust teenager.

Slipping into the passenger seat, you slump like never before, already dreaming about the bedrotting session you’re about to have; glorious enough for the books.

“Do you wanna grab food and rot on the couch?” she asks.

“You’re still hungry after all that?” you huff, your mouth still flavoured with artificial sweetness paired with the savoury of the chicken and fries. You pull out your phone for the first time in nearly three hours, the home screen alarming full of missed notifications. Text messages, mentions and phone calls. For whatever reason, you swipe right past and open your browser.

“It’ll take about an hour till we’re settled, should be hungry enough by then,” she comments, a gentle growl coming from beneath you as the engine comes to life.

Somewhere between the lines of the seatbelt sign pinging, and the radio blaring itself into the space, you’ve read a headline that’s enough to halt your world.

“There’s this new Chinese place that opened nearby here. Or this Persian restaurant but it’s like 20 minutes in the other direction. Or do we just do soup—”

“Lorelai.”

She turns to look at you in the passenger seat, seatbelt alarm still dinging as you remain with your seatbelt off as she pulls out of the parking space, like the official soundtrack to your doom. She brakes, hard. Lorelai is always Lorry with you, her full name only ever when you’re feigning irritation.

There’s nothing irritating about the situation, but everything is wrong with it.

It’s like you were in the benches, taking punches while simultaneously throwing a few yourself. You’re out of breath still seated, your skin tingles like a million arachnids crawling under your skin under your layers. You’re in the eddy of a horrifying whirlpool, that’s pulling you down, down, down, down, down, down—

!HOT TOPIC!

FIGURE SKATER OR FIGURINE? NOTHING GRACEFUL ABOUT Y/N L/N’S FALL FROM THE PINNACLE OF THE SKATING WORLD. Read from the Source!

From a pocket princess, to a rising star. From a rising star to the top of the world. From the top of the world to… a bottomless hell? How did Y/N L/N end up here?

It’s nothing new that L/N’s presence was notable during the flashy ISU Grand Prix held in Beijing last year, the podium notably shuffled as a result. The skater’s ankle injury was never awarded a career ending title, but with the way her comeback remains as foggy as it did since the initial announcement, one must begin to wonder if we’ll ever see L/N on the competitive ice again.

Or perhaps she’s simply lost her spark?

Trusted sources report that L/N’s sponsors are growing weary of her extended vacation, and are just about ready to pull the rug! In addition, sources also report her floundering lack of consistency in practice sessions on the ice, her condition beyond someone as onerous as even Isabella Carroll to manoeuvre into success. Talk about futile!

Now, we’re all hoping that our glittering gold medalist is only a victim of mindless chatter, however, we must concede, neither we nor our sources are holding on to too much hope.

Keep on the lookout for more updates from us on our fallen (?) star!

[a/n]: hehehehehe remember to reblog and tell me your thoughts

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cookie-nom-nom · 2 days ago

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The idea trans mascs are embraced bc ‘yay more men’ kinda. Fundamentally doesn’t understand the patriarchy to me? Or hierarchies. I wonder if they’re thinking about it from the angle of how some white supremacists get into breeding, perceiving an increase in white population as crucial in maintaining a dominant majority group. But since the male and female populations are roughly equal, it’s not actually the concept of a majority that’s driving this particular hierarchy. There’s not exactly a shortage of men that causes misogynists to think they’re loosing a foothold on power, culture, and privilege; no, seeing more women in video games doesn’t count. So, there isn’t a broader incentive on swelling the numbers of men by accepting trans men.

Furthermore, generally the oppressor group does NOT want the oppressed group able to join it since that’s a dilution of resources (unless this is specifically a control mechanism; see the hyperbole of upwards mobility) (forced religious conversions being something else). And as we see with the patriarchy, there’s a great deal of effort to strip men of their social role of ‘man’ and its associated privileges. It’s one way men suffer under patriarchy, because when not deemed man enough they face social pressures like ostracization. It’s a way to consolidate resources and privileges while maintaining the in groups loyalty by removing those who can’t follow expectations.

This is the logic wherein gay men, effeminate men, and men of certain racial minorities are removed from the social category of ‘man’ regardless of their gender or sex. If they aren’t embraced and respected as men (social) just because they’re men (gender, sex), why would a trans man be? It’s an utter misunderstanding of how the patriarchy works, because it isn’t just Man=Good and Woman=Bad. (And no, you aren’t progressive just because you flipped the dichotomy)

Transphobes will parrot all day that there are only two genders, but in truth they have three: Man, Women, and Failure. Both trans mascs and trans fems and everyone else will only ever be in that Failure category, together, and so we can’t forget that our battles are also together.

The drastic separation between social positions of transfems and transmascs is a theoretical invention of writers who spoke to very few transmascs and tried to fill the gap by assumptions that stem from the "opposite gender" crap.

"Transmasculine transition is respected in the society because cis people see becoming a man as stepping up" is one of the most hilarious and sad examples of that, but there's also "coming out as a trans man leads to less sexual objectification" and "trans men are simultaneously respected more because they're men and protected more because they're afab".

None of it is real. This is just a calculated inverse of what transfems go through. We should abandon this framework for the sake of something that's actually rooted in reality.

#From my experience there’s also a layer of not being taken seriously bc ‘she’s just a tom boy’#Has a demeaning and infantilizing edge to it #But at the end of the day transphobes care about the trans part and not the word coming afterwards #I think there is certainly differences in some experiences and select strains of transphobia #But also that we share a lot more in common over all #I have some thoughts on the way afab people are given some more leeway in adopting masculine clothing but also that’s bc #Feminists fought like crazy for them to wear pants! And they were fought every step of the way because #Again #a privledged class is not inclined to expand unless under sharp pressure otherwise! Even if said privledge is something like being able to #Just wear pants!

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astonmartinii · 3 days ago

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other side of the moon: interlude - a tango in barcelona | formula one imagine

interlude: a tango in barcelona

pairing: fem retired formula one driver reader x ??? fem retired formula one driver reader x platonic!kimi antonelli

dancing around her teammate on and off track, y/n looks to boogie her troubles away.

MASTERLIST | TIP JAR | PART ONE | PART TWO | PART THREE

may 2020, spain.

life at mclaren hadn’t started the way y/n had hoped. the days were long and surprisingly quiet, the latter mostly due to her teammate and his aversion to acknowledging her existence. she was tired already this weekend and they hadn’t even raced yet.

the barcelona heat was making her race suit stick to her already just walking to the grid for the national anthem. “it’s hot as balls” y/n whined as she slipped between max and george while the choir set up ahead of them.

“oh my sweet summer child, we haven’t even gotten to singapore yet,” max said taking off his ice vest and fastening it to y/n.

“ugh don’t remind me,” y/n wiped more sweat off of her brow, “i think singapore might kill me.”

george laughed, moving his umbrella to the left so it covered y/n as well, “singapore is a baptism by fire, but you’ve done well so far this season so i don’t think you’ll have too hard a time.”

y/n smiled up at the taller brit, “thanks georgie, maybe if you’re such an expert in singapore you’ll be able to catch me.” she punctuated it with a wink, george nearly dropping the umbrella in response.

“do you mind? you nearly took my eye out with this thing!” max hissed at george, flicking the umbrella. george lifted the umbrella to get it out of eye range of the dutchman, who in turn saw it as an invitation to seek refuge in the shade.

“no way verstappen, this umbrella is for pretty people only,” george grabbed y/n’s hand and moved them a couple steps away.

“if that was so, only y/n would be allowed under it beanstalk.”

“if my height is the only thing you can think to insult me about, i can live.”

“oh believe me there’s a lot more stored up, i just wouldn’t want to give you any inspiration for when you take out a backmarker and blame everyone but yourself.”

y/n sighed dramatically, “already? i thought you two were going to cool it down this season. i don’t even understand how you have a rivalry, you’re nowhere near him on track george…” george let out a scandalised squeal, “oh my bad george, you know what i meant.”

“i think what y/n means is that she doesn’t rate you ‘mr saturday’”.

as george went to bite back but the loud horns of the national anthem cut their quarrel off early. y/n fought to keep her laugh in throughout the national anthem, seeing george seething in her peripheral vision. he was so easy to rattle it was practically a pastime of half the grid at this point.

before george could get a dig back in, y/n and max were back in deep conversation, discussing their approach to turn two with just minutes until the formation lap. he yearned to be the one that y/n spilled her tips, tricks and secrets to but like most of his life, the dutchman had beaten him to that honour. now he knew how lando felt.

lando, george and alex had bonded long before 2018, but their three-way title fight in formula two brought them closer rather than forcing them apart. george cherished that friendship, he found it invaluable to have two of his closest friends with him as they entered the cutthroat world of formula one - he just wished he could’ve been that person for y/n.

lando didn’t often articulate it well, but george understood his curly-haired friend’s struggles. lando had gushed all off season about having y/n as his teammate, chatting animatedly about potential roadtrips, shared flights and sleepovers before it was all snuffed out in a moment. george always suspected that lando felt more about their friend than he let on (or thought he let on). once he had thought it was a victim of circumstance, teenage boys discovering what these new hormones were doing to their body did tend to fixate on the one girl in their midst. but as they grew up, that puppy love crush didn’t seem to wain, not that anyone else around them seemed to notice.

a single comment from one max verstappen crushed that. a late night discord call between the rookie trio and max had naturally seen the topic of y/n arise. lando, as usual, started to wax lyrical about the season ahead, with his vision for their teammate relationship constructed in his head.

“mate, we’ve already started.”

“huh?” lando’s voice stuttered over the call, he cleared his throat, “what do you mean?”

“y/n and i,” max continued, “we’ve already started doing sim runs together, watching onboards and all that jazz.” the dutchman said it so casually, unaware of lando’s imminent heartbreak - george’s too, he just hid it better.

“but why? i’m going to be her teammate, not you? why would she even use your sim, she’s racing for mclaren next year not red bull.”

not noticing the path they were hurtling down, max dug his foot in, “no offence lando, but if y/n wants my tips, i’m going to give it to her. it’s noble for you to want to look out for her, but realistically what tips could you give her that are better than mine… i am the only one here who has actually won a race.”

alex loudly coughed, stopping max before he could continue. “it’s getting late, maybe we should call it a night?”

“it’s nine o’clock?” max questioned.

“no, i’m tired,” lando let out an undoubtedly fake yawn, “i think it’s time for bed.”

“okay suit yourselves,” max said, going back to his iracing, “lando, don’t take it too personally that she chose me. we’ve been friends for so long, we don’t know anything but each other.”

“i’ve known her just as long as you!”

it was starting to get a little heated and despite alex and george trying to interject, the two kept going.

“you may have known her just as long, but you don’t know her. we’ve been there for each other at our lowest and our highest. it’s not a competition. i honestly hope she comes to you next season, i don’t trust your team as far i can throw them. it will be good to have someone in her corner.”

“oh well if you’re that magnificent then why can’t you be her white knight all the way from red bull, huh?”

“you know what lando, we’ll talk about this again once you’ve shaken off this weird primal urge you have to ‘claim’ her. a piece of advice, she won’t like that.”

“oh you insufferable little shit-”

“goodbye everyone!” alex interjected, kicking max out of the call.

“what the fuck was that lando?”

“you heard him, posterising, peacocking and then having the gall to say that i’m being territorial over y/n.”

george sighed, his affection for the same girl was going to have to be buried even deeper after this. “max wasn’t peacocking about y/n, lando. if anything he was showing off his wins rather than her,” alex tried to reason.

“no! he can’t let us - can’t let me have anything. it’s always been this way and with y/n it’s like he knows deep down that i want her so he has to have her instead. he’s clinging on to her and shoving it in my face - it’s not my fault he has a shit dad and he attached himself to her because she was the only one not afraid of him - so why am i being punished for it?”

lando’s outburst rendered alex and george silent. the older one was horrified to say the least, the season hadn’t even started and lando’s jealousy was already out of hand.

“lando, that was too far…” alex said softly.

“no! he thinks that because he has a shitty sob story that he can just claim her? she’s her own person!”

“right. i’m going to stop you there before you say something that’ll make me hate you for real. you need to get over what ever the fuck this is so you can be a normal fucking human being next season,” alex tried to reason with lando.

“i am in love with her!”

“are you? or are you in love with the thought of what could happen? have you actually stopped and wondered whether y/n likes you or even likes men? for someone so protective over her, you haven’t considered her feelings too much.”

lando has the foresight to look a little guilty. george stayed silent, he knows alex is suspicious of him too, but that can of worms can wait until another day.

“you need to get a life and calm down. max is one of your best friends and i know deep down you didn’t mean a word you said tonight but you need to get a grip before you say any of that in front of him or y/n because i’m sorry but i won’t be stopping them if they try to hit you.”

lando doesn’t say anything, but the guilty look on his face says enough.

“goodnight.”

the call ended there and was never brought up again. george watched y/n waltz back towards the mclaren garage, a big gap between her and lando. there had been no more outbursts since that night but if what george overheard from daniel, lando had still managed to completely screw himself. was george that angry at that news? not really.

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔:･

the race was pretty uneventful, barcelona usually was. y/n started in sixth and managed to pip charles to fifth after ferrari screwed up his pitstop once again. despite her deep love for sangria, y/n didn’t really feel like leaving her hotel room after she had scrubbed all of the sweat and grime off in the shower.

she was pleased with her points haul, smiling to herself in debrief as they analysed lando’s first lap incident with pierre gasly that lando just insisted was no fault of his own…

her ring tone invaded her peaceful evening, the name ‘albono’ flashing up on her phone. pressing accept,

“how can i help you on this fine evening, mr albon?”

“well i find myself in this fine dancing establishment, looked around and thought it was crying out for a little y/n y/ln action.”

“dancing you say?”

“i’m 100% serious, sebastian of all people has dragged also to a bar where they’re attempting to teach us the tango…”

“oh i love the tango! it’s my favourite dance on strictly…”

“so what i’m hearing is that i should get a tequila sunrise in preparation for your arrival?”

y/n sighed, “yes you may.”

“score! i’ll send you the address and an uber. see you soon.”

so there goes her quiet night in, but who wouldn’t love the chance to tango with your close friends in under the stars? and she had packed her little red number… maybe the y/n who packed that suitcase all those days knew something current y/n didn’t.

y/n elected to skip most of her makeup routine, her skin sensitive from all the sweat in her balaclava, swiping on some mascara, lip gloss and a healthy dose of blush. like alex said, the uber was waiting for her outside the lobby.

the outside of the bar looked closer to a college dive bar than somewhere you’d expect to find a group of formula one drivers, but she suspects that’s why sebastian chose it.

“buenes noches senorita,” fernando alonso gave her a spin on entry.

“gracias nando,” she curtsied in front of the spaniard, drawing a laugh out of the elder driver, “i am sorry to cut this short, but i am tired and i fear i have already promised my one dance to another.”

“how will i ever recover?”

“i think you’ll find a way old man.”

“you wound me, but alex is waiting for you by the bar.”

y/n made her way through the bar, spotting several drivers caught up in their dancing lessons from the locals. she tapped alex on the shoulder, with the tall driver turning, wielding her tequila sunrise.

“nice of you to turn up at last,” alex teased, handing her the drink.

“i’ll have you know i was snuggled up ready for some netflix action before you called.”

“you came all this way for a dance with little ol’ me?”

“of course, alex. i have missed you.”

“i have missed you too, the red bull stuff is piling up and i have been neglecting my big brother duties, i’m sorry. not that it seems to be effecting your rookie season too much.”

“don’t worry about me alex, i’m proud of you and what you’re doing at red bull, even if they’re being unreasonably hard on you.”

alex led her to the middle of the dance floor and put one hand on her hip, the other on her shoulder. they started to move to the music,

“i just miss when it was more laidback. i barely have time to stop between sim sessions and media duties and performance meetings. i miss sitting in your driver room laughing at your instagram private messages and watching stupid adam sandler movies.”

alex spun her and as she came back to him she said, “we can still do that alex! you don’t have to be alone, we can still watch adam sandler movies and ignore calls from helmut.”

alex smiled at her as the music slowed down.

“i wish i was here for you more in your rookie season,” alex laments but y/n interjects, “it’s only the fourth race. you’re focused on you and i wouldn’t want anything else. there’s time for us to find our way back to each other. you're a brother to me, like blood, there’s nothing that can destroy that bond.”

“i’m sorry lando is being a prick.”

“it is what it is.”

“no it’s not. we had each other last year, he should be there for you.”

“it’s whatever, i have max, i have you, i’ll survive.”

the music came to an end. the two embraced but when they broke apart y/n started heading for the exit, picking up max on the way through, the dutchman having already booked them an uber. y/n turned and waved to alex, she meant it when she said it was just one dance. she made a ‘call me sign’ and mouthed ‘adam sandler’ before rushing out of the bar with max.

alex turned and made his way to george who was still nursing his first drink at the bar. george didn’t respond when alex prompted him. the thai man nudged george laughing about how ‘y/n knows how to make a short and sweet appearance’ but still got nothing.

“you’re not seriously angry about a tango are you george?”

“no.”

“you’re a terrible liar,” alex whispered, “not as bad as lando but terrible nonetheless.”

“at least i’m not taking it out on her like lando.”

“no, you just use max as target pratice on your dart board for shits and giggles.”

“whatever.”

“fine, deal with it how you wanna big boy, but if you turn out like lando right now, i’ll be down two best friends and up two murder charges.”

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔:･

fin.

note: my first interlude! @deviltsunoda and i came up with these ideas so i could write shorter things while i have work and you guys still get fed! so enjoy this lil exploration into y/n and alex's friendship (they are so precious to me!) and why lando is being such an asshole... enjoy! the weekend should bring chapter four.

taglist: @folkloresreputation @hc-dutch @shimmermotorsport @96mcobo @eclipsedcherry @formulaal @czennieszn @gothicwidowsworld @emily-b @suns3treading @henna006 @kazgirl20 @anotherapollokid @littlegrapejuice @daemyratwst @annimausi @yawn-zi @lulu-1998 @xsilkesworld @justaf1girl @daddyslittlevillain @evans-dejong @abq654 @elizamoe133 @wierdflowerpower @t1nkerbel1 @okcurran @raizelchrysanderoctavius @skepvids @multilovebot @fernandoalonso14 @jules-kup-172 @m4xgirlie @rorabelle15 @minkyungseokie @formula1-motogpfan @peterholland04 @miureiz @freyathehuntress @lighttsoutlewis @aleatorio1234 @chaosandevelyn @blueberry648579 @dog-and-cat-person230 @fastandcurious16 @obxstiles @cosmicwintr @becca388510 @savagittariuspy

#f1 imagine #f1 x reader #f1 instagram au #f1 x you #f1 #f1 social media au #f1 fic #f1 fanfic #formula1 #formula one #astonmartinii

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fishnapple · 2 days ago

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How they comfort you, their love languages

(Future spouse/partner/lover)

This is a mini reading about the things that your partner/spouse would do or say to comfort you.

This is a general reading meant for multiple people. Take only what resonates and leave out the rest.

Your feedback is much appreciated. If you find the reading resonated with you, leave a comment, I’d love to know 🎐

About me | Masterpost

Book a reading with me - KO-FI (→ personal reading)

CUBE 1

"Our life together is the most important thing"

"You're alive, I'm alive and that's good"

Tickle

Clumsy jokes that make your belly hurt

"Let's go to the beach"

"Whatever you do, I'm right beside you"

"Don't worry"

"Don't be afraid to fall, I will catch you"

"I'm your biggest fan"

Silent understanding

Scary movies that make you jump into their arms

Passionate, emotional sex

The warmth of their body

Holding you in the dark

Holding your hands whenever you go out together

Warm breads and fresh flowers

Board games

Forehead kiss

"Let's run away"

"I will find you again even when you've become a star on the heavenly sky"

CUBE 2

Surprise gifts, this person could spoil you a lot with material gifts

"I will get it for you"

They would do many things to make your life easier without you knowing: take care of your routines, pack your lunch, iron your clothes, etc

Change the colour of the curtains and bed sheets to cheer you up,

Date nights

Take you to see the sunset, to somewhere dark and windy, surrounded by nature

"No problem "

"Let's me take care of it"

They comfort you in your dreams

Intuitively guess your thoughts

Whisper loving words when you are in public places

Be with you through every social events

"My greatest achievement is to be their partner"

Boast about you everywhere they go

"I command you to love me", then proceed to massage your feet

Holding you silently while you spill out your darkest secrets

Direct in displaying their desire for you

CUBE 3

Act all tough and intimidating with other people but become a mushy romantic when they're with you, especially in private

Never fail to notice and compliment your effort at taking care and beautifying yourself

Getting heart eyes both when seeing you in leisurewear and in glamorous clothes

Try to sing for you even if they hate singing or not good at it

Love poems

When they find it hard to express their feelings through words, they express through material gifts and sensory pleasures instead

Just buying you stuffs and pretend to not know about it or act oblivious and nonchalant

Wrap you in softest blanket

"Let's go into the bathtub together"

Drying your hair

Take lots of pictures, of you alone, of you guys together, of your memories

"You're my best friend, let's me be your best friend"

"I love you "

CUBE 4

"I've loved you before and I will love you again"

"See you in our next life together "

Appear right when you need them

Act more confident and tough

The heat of their body

Pull you into them

"Lean on me"

Witty jokes

Irrelevant stories to distract you from whatever negative feelings you're having

Hand holding

Lots of notes

Phone calls throughout the day

Try to talk in the softest voice when they're with you

"Let's play video game"

"Let's me draw your silly face"

"Let's take a day off and go to where nobody knows us"

The meadows, the sea, the mountains

Take your pleasure as their top priority

Love making

"I'm afraid that this is all a dream, but as I go to sleep and wake up everyday, you're still there"

"Your pain is my pain "

Warn anyone dares to come in between you two

CUBE 5

"Nothing can stand between us"

"We can go anywhere we want"

"I believe in us"

"Hey, teach me how to do this"

Make plan for both of you

"Let's me read Tarot for you"

Always on time

Keep their promises, from smallest one to biggest one

Cakes and sweets

Warmth food

Hype you up

Eager to hear you talk

Patience

Try to be silly just to cheer you up even though they seem to be a pretty serious person

Laughter

Refer to you as "my love" when talking with other people

PDA

"I think I'd done good deeds in my past lives, that's why I met you"

Looking deep into your eyes

"I believe this relationship has changed us for the better"

Ride of die

"Till death do us apart "

CUBE 6

"You were alone, but now you have me"

Act childish and cute to get your attention

Also love it when you do the same to them

"Let's get married "/ "Let's get married every year"

Tell you about their childhood nightmares and how embarrassing they were

"I was told to wait for you when I was a kid"

Has no shame in acting embarrassing or silly just to make you laugh, even in public

"Do you want to date me" (even when you guys have been married for a long time)

Handmade gifts

Corny pickup lines

Genius at solving problems

Try to get you to debate about odd topics

Looking intimidating and professional in public but don't care about people's opinions, especially about you and your relationship

Will defend you in any conflicts

Take your side unconditionally

Willing to share everything with you

Honesty

Think of a new way to affirm their love everyday

"We make a great team"

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vivimura · 2 days ago

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belly button piercing fixated boyfriend!riki ♡

PAIRING ~ bf!nrk x gf!reader

SUMMARY ~ something about the little jewel adorning your belly button has riki fascinated in more ways than one.

GENRE ~ smut, fluff

WORD COUNT ~ 2.113k

ᯓ★ requested. ahh, this is kinda mid but i haven't posted a lot lately so pls bare with me and comment, follow and reblog! ily guys

riki was never one to be controlling of what kind of clothes you chose to wear. he thought you were absolutely beautiful and would only encourage you to dress however you wanted, and would even shower you with compliments every chance he got.

though in all honesty, if he was ever given the power to, he'd give absolutely anything up to see you in that cute little pink tank top of yours.

maybe it was the way its straps, so thin, seemed to be falling off your shoulders constantly. or maybe how thin and fitted it was, its neckline low enough to give him a boner if he stared at it for too long.

but— if there was one reason riki was sure of why he loved that top so damn much, was how cropped it was, giving him all the access he needed to the little diamond piercing your belly button he loved oh so much.

he swiftly took the baseball cap snug on the top of his head off, tossing it in a temporary park, his intense eyes never leaving your figure on his bed as he did so. running a hand through his hair, he broke the seemingly comfortable silence with his deep voice.

"what're you doing?"

you, slouched back against a pillow by the headboard of riki’s bed, peaked at riki from over the top of your book.

“just reading.”

riki hummed in acknowledgment, his eyes tracing over the way of which you were positioned. he leaned against the doorframe, his arms folded over his chest. he watched the way your eyes lingered on the book, then at the way your pretty lips gently parted as you spoke.

he pushed himself off the frame, approaching the side of the bed. a small smirk grazed his features as he sat on the end, facing in your direction. when you didn’t look up, he made an effort to grab your attention with a firm grip on your ankle.

“hey—” you yelped when he suddenly yanked at your ankle, the action not harsh enough to actually hurt you but powerful enough to make your body lie down completely on the bed.

you huffed and rolled your eyes, biting back a smile over how proud riki seemed of being able to have caught you off guard as you closed your book, gently placing it on the night stand beside.

“there. i’m paying attention to you now, you big baby.” you opened your arms as an invitation for him to join you on the bed.

the satisfied smirk plastered on his face widened into a grin. riki’s eyes followed the way your arms stretched out. he took note of how you watched him stare at the sliver of skin and the glimmer stud in the middle that was exposed from the stretched out fabric of your top. with a subtle laugh he quickly took his place in the space on the bed you left for him. he leaned over, caging you in between his arms as he gently lowered himself on top of you, shifting down just enough so that he was face front with your stomach. his arms found their way around your waist as he settled himself in between your legs. his palms pressed against the sides of your lower torso, his thumbs tracing gentle circles against your skin. he laid his head against your stomach with a sigh, his eyes fluttering shut for a brief moment. he was quiet for a second, but broke the silence with his usual deep, sultry voice. “comfy.”

you laughed softly over how it was basically second nature for him to cuddle up to you. you extended one hand to reach his scalp, gently scratching it and playing with the hair there.

riki’s eyelids fluttered at the feeling of your fingers threading through his hair. a small hum left his lips, and to the average ear it would’ve sounded like he was in complete bliss— maybe even relaxed. but he wasn’t. every slight touch from you was only serving to rile him up. he nuzzled his whole face against your stomach, his nose and lips pressing onto your skin. his thumbs crept under the tank top you were wearing, slowly caressing the soft skin beneath. he lifted his head to lick his lips, once again leaning down to begin peppering soft, wet kisses on the skin surrounding your navel. riki chuckled at the way your stomach flinched every time his warm, wet lips would meet your skin.

“pretty..” he commented, planting yet another kiss on your warm skin. he lifted his head slightly and glanced up at you, making eye contact as he flicked his tongue and swirled it around the bottom gem of your piercing.

your breath hitched, and you let out a quiet exhale to muffle the moan that had built up in your throat. you tilted your head back and shut your eyes to calm yourself down, soon craning your neck back down at him.

“you're really obsessed with that thing, aren't you?”

‘obsessed’ might've been an understatement on your part, riki thought. riki let out a huff of laughter before trailing more kisses along the skin just around your piercing. when he eventually pulled away and looked back up at you, his eyes darkened almost completely. they had gone from their usual sparkly, dark brown to half-lidded obsidian ones. one with desires. “what can i say?” he shrugged, licking his lips. “it's pretty.”

you always thought about how unfair it was, the way riki was able to hold eye contact without wavering, no matter what the situation he was in. the little teasing glint in his orbs, his mouth almost permanently attached to your skin, the way your stomach glistened with his saliva, it was going to be all the slow but apparent death of you. you bit down on your lower lip, seeing through his reasoning of it being ‘pretty’ to ‘i wanna turn you on’. “stop it, riki..”

a low hum left riki as his eyes watched the wet trail his tongue left behind. his hands began to wander again, his fingers dipping under the waistband of the shorts you were wearing— that, too, were driving him crazy. “stop what?” he asked, his voice sultry and deep as he started to move his head down, peppering kisses on your lower abdomen. one of his hands held the left side of your hips, the other snuck up your loose shorts and teasing the edge of your panties.

without giving you any time to process or respond, he further started to kiss his way down and reached your skin right above the waistband of your shorts, his hand still holding onto the left side of your hip to keep you from squirming away. all the while, his fingers sneakily trailed up, ‘accidentally’ brushing by the folds of your pussy.

you let out a sharp gasp, whimpering at the sudden stimulation. your hand caressing his hair tightened in grip, your head now unable to form coherent thoughts, falling back onto the pillow.

he watched your reaction intently, the sight of it causing a low chuckle to escape his mouth. he loved watching the way your body reacted to his touch. the way you were already unraveling beneath him, the needy look in your eyes, the heavy breathing, your soft tugs on his hair.

“yeah, thought so.” the tips of his fingers began tracing the curves of your clothed pussy in a manner excruciatingly slow, causing it to flinch and clench under his touch.

“riki..” you mumbled out his name almost as a whine of need, earning a string of sultry chuckles from him. he hummed in acknowledgement, the sound of it having an edge of playful mockery.

he pulled his hand out of your shorts and sat up on his knees, shifting forward to kneel between your legs instead. the new posture revealed the probably painful erection outlined by his gray sweats. “tell me what you want, baby..” he purred out, untying the knot of the drawstrings of your shorts and beginning to tug it down.

you bit down on your lower lip in anticipation, spreading your legs wide to accommodate for his large frame. you took the action of him undoing your drawstrings as a silent command to lift your hips and let him take off the shorts, and so you did. “you..”

the single word, so pure and deprived of explicit, conveyed a clear sense of need to riki in such a way that caused his cock to twitch. he let out a hoarse chuckle as an attempt to keep his own behavior in check and nodded. “mm.. yea, i’ll give you what you want...”

by the end of his sentence, riki had tossed the flimsy material of your shorts away and had begun to fumble with his own clothes. riki held back a groan at how visibly wet you’d gotten, busying himself by pulling his tee off and pushing down his pants and boxers in one motion. the angry, mauvish tip of his cock bounced by his abdomen and riki moved forward, pressing one hand beside your head to support his weight.

riki teasingly began rubbing the head of his cock up and down your clothed folds, coating it in your arousal.

you let out a sound between a whimper and whine, hands forming fists of the sheets below. your arousal mixed with his precum drenched the material of your underwear, thinning it in a way that made every sensation of his touch so apparent to be felt, but not enough to please.

“so, so pretty..” riki repeated for the nth time, continuing to toy his tip to your pussy no matter how impatient it made him.

however, the soft whimpers escaping your lips and the way your pussy pulsated was too much for riki to keep up with. he let go of his cock, hooking a finger into the elastic of your panties and began pulling it down.

with a satisfied sigh, he tossed it away, taking in the sight of your wetness all for him to ravish. he aligned his cock, holding onto your hips as he slowly slid into you.

you moaned out his name, your back arching as a reflex as you got yourself used to the feeling of him inside you. his fingers dug into your hips in a way somehow pleasing, and he slowly began to thrust himself in and out of you.

riki groaned and threw his head back at the familiar, nevertheless incredibly pleasing sensation of your tight pussy. he let out a silent curse every time you’d clench a little around him, fucking you with deep strokes.

the pretty sounds of your moans were like music to his ears, as his hips snapped forward over and over again, draining your mind of any thoughts except for him, and how good he made you feel.

one of his hands gripping your hips moved to lay flat against your stomach, and he groaned at the cool sensation of your piercing under his warm palm, and how it was protruding out from the effect his cock stuffed deep inside you. “fuck, baby..”

he flicked the jewel with his finger and continued pounding into you, leaning forward to capture your lips into a bruising kiss that muffled both your sounds of pleasure. he swallowed your moans and invaded his tongue into your mouth, picking up the speed at which he slammed into you balls deep. he could feel you flutter and clench around him as evidence that you were close, so he slid his hand from your stomach down to your clit, rubbing the sensitive nub in hard, fast circles.

the kiss, initiated by him, was broken by you when he began pleasuring your clit, feeling the need to be able to moan freely. your legs trembled and bucked just a little over how he could make you feel so damn good.

“riki, shit-.. i’m gonna..”

“fuuuck..”

he groaned out at the feeling of your cum beginning to coat his cock. riki’s dark eyes bore into yours, and with a feral groan, he slammed himself deep into you, burying his cock into your pussy as his own release overtook him.

grinding his hips into you, he pushed every bit of his release back into you, letting go of your clit and hip to interlock his hands with yours. for a few moments, the two of you savored the moment of high and panted to catch your breath.

he leaned forward and kissed you once again, this one more sweet and intimate than the last one.

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storm-and-starlight · 2 days ago

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Oh, absolutely, I 100% agree that fanfic has huge amounts of interiority, "looking at the characters' thoughts that we never get to see" is a huge part of why it's written! What I'm referring to with "fanfiction bad habits" (if they can even really be called that, because they're not always bad habits if you're actually writing fic!) is stuff like overdescription of appearance or gesture. Fic authors are trying to indicate that the character on the page is the same character as is on the screen, and part of what is distinctive about the character on the screen is their appearance/physicality. For instance, in SPN Sam Winchester has long(ish) hair as... more of an appearance note than anything else? you can dig for character meaning but the show really doesn't do that, but it's one of the most iconic elements of his character, so it gets referenced in fic a LOT and often in places where on a technical level it's either unnecessary or actively slows down a scene. Same goes for trying to exactly describe character outfits. If you switch to original prose and aren't trying to match a character who primarily exists in visual media, you don't need to be constantly describing their hairstyle or walk or appearance, but the habit is there and might be hard to notice or break.

HOWEVER I also completely agree with your statement that a lot of authors (ahem ahem SANDERSON) are writing like they really want to make a movie or TV show, I don't have anything to add but. yeah. that's definitely something I've noticed as well.

A lot of fiction these days reads as if—as I saw Peter Raleigh put it the other day, and as I’ve discussed it before—the author is trying to describe a video playing in their mind. Often there is little or no interiority. Scenes play out in “real time” without summary. First-person POV stories describe things the character can’t see, but a distant camera could. There’s an overemphasis on characters’ outfits and facial expressions, including my personal pet peeve: the “reaction shot round-up” in which we get a description of every character’s reaction to something as if a camera was cutting between sitcom actors.

When I talk with other creative writing professors, we all seem to agree that interiority is disappearing. Even in first-person POV stories, younger writers often skip describing their character’s hopes, dreams, fears, thoughts, memories, or reactions. This trend is hardly limited to young writers though. I was speaking to an editor yesterday who agreed interiority has largely vanished from commercial fiction, and I think you increasingly notice its absence even in works shelved as “literary fiction.” When interiority does appear on the page, it is often brief and redundant with the dialogue and action. All of this is a great shame. Interiority is perhaps the prime example of an advantage prose as a medium holds over other artforms.

fascinated by this article, "Turning Off the TV in Your Mind," about the influences of visual narratives on writing prose narratives. i def notice the two things i excerpted above in fanfic, which i guess makes even more sense as most of the fic i read is for tv and film. i will also be thinking about its discussion of time in prose - i think that's something i often struggle with and i will try to be more conscious of the differences between screen and page next time i'm writing.

#hi yes I'm going through the notes because I am actually fascinated by this discussion don't mind me #it's a balance. not all fic writers do this #there are a LOT of good ones (both fic and authors) that are enormously talented and don't #but it's an attempt to translate visuals into words and what is good in that specific scenario isn't always good #when you're starting with words to begin with #anyways as a fanfic writer myself I HAVE noticed that yeah I do have a nasty tendency to overdescribe How The Imaginary Actors Are Moving #bc I'm THINKING in terms of How The Actual Actors Are Moving #which leads to both complications with physical description AND with depictions of other characters #like if I want to get REALLY technical about it coming up through fanfic has DEFINITELY affected how I show emotion in characters #bc film/TV doesn't just state emotion or conflict or describe the thought patterns that can be interpreted #the actor has to SHOW it by acting #and so when I write I feel like the character has to also show it via body language that needs to be described #which CAN lead to some cool passages but as I mentioned earlier #I have a huge problem with constantly describing where everyone in the scene is Looking bc I'm trying to describe Subtle Acting #even though acting isn't a part of the artform I'm working in at all!#...anyways wow apparently I have a lot of thoughts on this issue um. feel free to ignore me if you don't like them I guess?#writing

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fushiguho · 2 days ago

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✰ finally domming toji & he’s a brat about it… at first!

cw fem! reader, dom! reader, light bondage, premature orgasm, a little cum feeding :/

“you’re a mean little thing.” toji grouses between little pants of incredulity as you push him in his chest, forcing his bare back against the silken sheets. “c’monnn, this isn’t you. what happened to my sweet girl?”

“jesus, do you ever stop talking?” you bite, throwing a leg over his burly hips, straddling him. “should’ve gagged you.”

he sucks his teeth, scoffing. “doll, i don’t think that’s necessary.”

you huff an agitated breath. “then shut up. you promised to let me have this.”

tonight, your boyfriend has finally, finally given you the chance to call the shots… or try to, rather. however, he’s having a hard time letting go, relinquishing his inborn desire to assume power. it’s rare to see him like this, beneath you. still, he’s grasping at straws, hanging on to any fleeting shred of power that he can muster as you begin to tie his wrists.

nervously, you fumble with the thick piece of rope that you hold in your hands. a sleazy little grin kisses his beautifully scarred lips. toji almost can’t help but to laugh as you attempt to bind his wrists to the wooden headboard. something between a wince of pain and a groan of pleasure leaves him as you pull through the final loop, finishing your double column tie.

he groans. “a little tighter, yeah?” it’s hardly a joke, but he pulls at his restraints roughly, wrists aching.

you pout, dropping your head to the right in feigned concern and you can hear the breath that catches in his throat. toji, far too stubborn to admit, loves you like this, bad. it took a lot to get here—days of begging, bribery, orgasms. he’d only be kidding himself if he said this isn’t turning him into such a… whore. after all, how could he say no to his pretty girl?

something warm and dangerous twitches against your inner thigh. the sweet tune you hum as you trail an idle finger down, down, down his heaving chest makes his hips rut beneath you, a fruitless attempt at finding release. a guttural sound is parting his lips when you take one of his hardening nipples between your thumb and index.

“you know, i could get out if i wanted.” it’s breathless, a wicked grin pulling at the corner of his mouth. “you did a good job…” he pauses, gaze flickering up to observe his bounded wrists before tugging at his restraints, “but this won’t hold me, pretty girl.”

you scoot down a bit, revealing the pretty, achy bulge that rests so angrily between his strapping thighs. briefly, his eyes meet yours, the subtle furrow in his brows making your core tighten with need. a slow, teasing finger skims the stubble beneath his waistband. his stomach caves, sinking in his ever growing arousal.

“you know, maybe i should gag you.” you finally reply after some thought. the notion lingers on your conscious as you drop your head, kissing him through his underwear. “you’re insufferable when you’re not in charge.”

toji can’t help the near feral buck of his hips, an ensuing growl dragging from his mouth. he can feel himself losing his fucking mind as you drag a warm palm over his clothed cock. a violent shudder rattles his body, an unintentional gasp pulling his jaw slack.

“baby, it h-hurts… c’mon now, you’re being mean.”

“take your cock out then.” you challenge, backing away slightly to watch as he struggles. “show me you what it is you want.”

scoffing, he rolls his eyes, looking like the grumpiest of bears as he ruts his hips helplessly, desperately attempting to wriggle out of his underwear with his hands tied above his head. you smile, a pretty little giggle leaving your lips. watching toji struggle to find relief makes a warm, electrifying heat pool between your thighs. how the fuck could he ever deny you of this?

“fuuuck! i can’t!” it’s merely a high-pitched whine as he huffs frustrated little breaths through his flaring nostrils. “help me! you tied me t-too tight, i can’t do it.” he’s whimpering now, chest heaving in time with the mindless jerk of his hips. “baby, i need you to take it out for me. p-please okay?”

never. you have never seen him like this and you’re not sure how there was a time that existed before. a raw moan of relief is belting from his lungs when you finally slip a hand down his tightening briefs. your fingers brush over the twitching length of his erection, collecting the syrupy precum that adorns the head of his weeping cock.

with your other hand, you’re tugging his underwear down and his head is deliriously nodding back to rest against his pillow. your fist wraps around the base of his cock, squeeeezing. the messy tip drools, rivulets of pretty, pearlescent arousal drip, drip, dripping down his throbbing shaft.

“god, j-just put it in your mouth. don’t be like that… why are you being liked this, huh?” instinctively he tugs at his bindings, attempting to reach out for you but finds that he can’t.

he is so fucking desperate for it, yet he can hardly stomach the thought that it’s him begging like a slut to feel your tongue on the head of his cock. god and he’s just pitifully unaware of how he’s fully whining—the usual bass of his tone lost in the pathetic quaver of his crackling voice, reaching an octave so high that it shocks even you.

still, you shake your head, a bewitching smile gracing your lips. instead, you’re shifting lower, lolling out your tongue as you peer at him through batting lashes. toji’s breath hitches as you drool down the length of his cock. a longggg string of saliva tethers your bottom lip to his cock head as you start to stroke him from the base.

toji’s mouth gapes, yet nothing of coherence is uttered. he babbles mindlessly, those dark, drunken eyes stupidly following the hand that works at his cock, utterly enthralled by the subtle twist of your wrist as you near the weeping head. he curses to himself, needy hips still attempting to buck underneath your weight.

with your legs on either side of his body, you keep him grounded as you pump up and down his angry shaft. your warm, wet lips are trailing along his tightening abdomen. the poor boy writhes beneath your touch, his body reacting in a way you didn’t know was possible—his spine bows, hips bucking almost carnally as his stomach caves, arousal swirling deeep in his core.

“please.” it’s merely a breath as you nip the soft skin behind the shell his ear, soothingly dragging your tongue along the forming bruise. “will you kiss me at least?”

you peck the corner of his gaped mouth once, pulling away before he can even register your fleeting lips. toji turns his head, chasing your teasing lips and you smile, swiping your thumb over the head of his cock which pulls the filthiest little groan from him.

he pouts, thick brows furrowing slightly. “you’re being mean.”

“oh, you poor babyyy.” his cock jerks against the palm of your hand at your sweet, condescending tone. “maybe i should keep you like this forever, hm? actually think i prefer this.”

“mmh—why? you like torturin’ me?”

you nod, bringing a hand up to his pretty, contorting face. he can hardly help the subconscious part of his mouth as you tap your fingers against his bottom lip. like an obedient boy, he’s swallowing around the digits with a satisfactory gurgle of unwitting pleasure. curiously, your fingers creep farther down his throat, the tips brushing the very back of his wet tongue.

saliva drips from the corners of his mouth and he gags once, his sable, lust-ridden eyes welling with thick tears. the smile that mars your face is sick, but it’s pulling a loud moan from the depths of his chest. another helpless sound leaves him when your hand tightens around his weeping cock.

“god, i’m so close.” toji gasps around the digits in his mouth, peering down at his furious cock and your jerking hand. his jaw is falling slack, head dizzily slumping to one side. “f… fuck, it feels so good—your hand feels s’gooood. g-gonna cum, can’t h-help myself. you are just sooo pretty like this, baby.”

“yeah? you gonna cum for me already?” the coy tilt of your head makes his stomach sink. a victorious smile cracks along your face. “hardly touched you.”

toji nods dumbly, breath hitching. his hips stutter pathetically, rocking against the agonizing jerk of your fist. the most beautiful sound leaves him, something like a whimpering gasp, his heaving breaths shuddered and choked. it’s loud and shameless and like nothing you’ve ever heard. several, long ropes of pearly white cum follows, coating the expanse of his chest and abdomen like it was meant to.

it’s perfect. everything about this image is perfect. toji looks so pretty drenched and heaving in his own arousal. you watch as his warm, sticky seed trickles down his perspiring skin. you almost can’t help the curious fingers that are dragging along his pectorals, collecting the mess.

“don’t.” is all he mutters as you creep the cum-soaked digits toward his lips.

you smile sweetly. “open.”

and with a dramatic roll of his eyes, he does. he takes your fingers into his warm mouth with a deep, guttural groan, sucking on them until nothing remains. a triumphant smile graces your lips as you push them further, forcing a proper gag from the depths of his throat.

“okay! okay, you’re doing too much, doll… untie me now.” he grouses, drool pooling against his tongue.

you hum in contemplation, tracing mindless shapes against his skin. “and if i don’t?”

“if you don’t and i get out on my own,” he pauses, lifting his head slightly to take in this beautiful sketch of you before smiling something sinister. “you’re gonna fucking regret it.”

it’s a threat and you know it is, so why does it make your core tighten with a need you’ve never known? why does it make your mind race at the possibility of punishment? discipline? it’s merely a warning, yet your cunt aches at the thought of him escaping, it makes your body burn with a fire the begs to be doused and it’s toji who must do it, so you challenge him.

“then why don’t you get out and make me regret it.”

669 notes · View notes

ohbueckers · 2 days ago

Text

MAKE HER TAPOUT. paige bueckers

description. your competitiveness with paige runs deeper than basketball, and tonight, it’s about who gives in first—or if either of you will at all.

includes. SMUT, 18+. a lot of everything, dude.. i got carried away. just read and find out.

a/n. dedicated to everybody that asked for it! lena’s anon, @kmoneymartini request and all of the comments on that post! saw an edit that had successfully inspired one of my freaky delusions again. also combined that fic i was talking about a few days ago into this, so it’s long but worth it, trust. will probably thoroughly proof read in the morning :)

It wasn’t the first time you’d found yourself like this—pressed up against the cushions of your couch, Paige’s hands roaming like she was trying to memorize every inch of you. Her lips grazed along your neck, her breath hot against your skin, and all you could think about was how you’d barely managed to get the door shut before she’d pinned you there.

Gampel Pavilion had ran a great deal tonight. UConn showed up big time—packed to capacity, ranked matchup, the whole ordeal—and Paige had been absolutely ridiculous. Twenty-five points, nine assists, boards in clutch… She was everywhere. It shouldn’t have been your problem how good she looked doing it, either… yet somehow, it always was.

But tonight, you’d edged her out. You showed up and showed out by one point. And one assist. A fact she hadn’t let go of since the final buzzer.

“Mm.. Paige,” you tried.

And now it was time to show up in a different way—one that didn’t require a ball in your hands.

“Had to one up me tonight, didn’t you?” Paige murmured, lost in the messiness of your lips as she rambled about how sexy it was. You smiled despite yourself, trying to keep up. “Paige,” you tried again.

“Hmm?” she finally responded, her tone as innocent as a baby. She laid you on your back, moving your panties to the side, letting the wetness between your folds instantly coat the pads of her middle and index finger as she circled at your clit. It was always fast, quick-paced. The way you both liked it.

You rubbed your feet together in attempt to ground yourself. “Mmph, you bailed on the team. I.. bailed on the team. Do you know how suspicious that looks?” you mumbled against her lips, though your voice was breathless, caught between tantalizing and surrender. Your post game plans were clear—head to Ted’s with the team despite that gruesome early practice the next morning everyone would be dreading with a hangover, ride out the the high of the win, yadda, yadda, yadda… and pretend you weren’t constantly aware of the girl now pressed against you. It was easy to fake indifference in a room full of people.

That was until you realized you weren’t feeling completely up for it tonight. The booze, loud music, sticky floors of the bar. Paige was in tow, of course, taking it as an opportunity. Alone time was hard enough to get as it is, and the two of you were getting increasingly bad at keeping this quiet. You were close to shooing her off, but she did indeed deserve something after that performance. So did you.

You almost thought she’d stop, but you’d be a fool. “Eh..” Paige murmured, her hand gripping your hip tighter as she pressed you deeper into the cushions, teasing your entrance with her other, like she was trying to erase the words from your memory. It was kind of working. Her lips brushed against yours as she added, “Suspicious of what? That I’d rather be here fucking you to celebrate our win?”

Your hands shot up instinctively, shoving at her shoulders.

“Br—wha.. Ow!” Paige exclaimed, holding herself up over you, a dramatic pout pulling at her lips. She looked downright fine, chain dangling in your face, arm flexing dangerously close to it too. “Relax. Nobody’s checkin’ for us like that,” she reminds.

“Sure, and the sky is yellow.” You squinted, not bothering to go into detail about how far from the truth she was. Instead, you changed the subject, partly because you couldn’t stand the way her chain kept brushing against your neck, and partly because her presence was messing with your ability to think straight. “Figured you’d be out cold by now. You’re usually asleep within an hour after games,” you huffed.

Paige tilted her head at you, her pout morphing into a grin. “Me? That’s disrespectful.” She faked her hurt, and you rolled your eyes.

“It’s not disrespectful, it’s true.”

“Don’t even play with me like that,” she challenged. “You know I don’t quit easy.”

It was your turn to grin. Uncontrollably, really. “Oh? You wanna test that theory?”

Paige was seemingly amused, running her tongue over the swell of her bottom lip. Your eyes darted there against your will, and she noticed. She always noticed. “You’re the one always tappin’ out on me.”

Your mouth fell open in disbelief. “Excuse me!?”

Her laugh was low, her breath fanning across your face. “You heard me,” she teased, her hand sliding a little lower on your hip, her grip tightening. “Last week, remember? Couldn’t handle it.”

Wow. Wooow.

Your eyes narrowed, your mind flashing back to last week—a quickie that happened to turn into multiple rounds. Jana and Allie’s grocery store trip had taken longer than the two of you inclined, and Paige used every minute. Fucked you right into oblivion, skills that had you begging for a break that she hadn’t been willing to give right away. You hated that she was right.

Paige smirked, and you wanted to drag it off of her face. “Just sayin’… if anybody’s tappin’ out, it ain’t me.”

Instead of scolding her some more, maybe even punishing her by not letting her have it tonight just to prove a point, you pulled her back in, hand gripping the side of her face that quickly begun tonguing you down, eyebrows furrowed in the midst of trying to keep up with you.

She adjusted her body lower, leaned into it some more. She thought you were done with the bickering.

“We’ll take turns.”

Paige blinked, clearly not following, breathing an airy, “Huh?” into your mouth.

Without slowing your pace, you grabbed her wrist and guided her hand back between your legs, her fingers grazing over your wetness for the second time. “Take turns,” you repeated. Paige pulled back a couple inches, tugging a swollen lip between her teeth as her eyes scanned your face, taking in the slight flush of your cheeks, and of course, your implication. The wheels turned, and her face softened. “Ah,” she muttered.

“You first,” you dared. And with that, you forced one of her fingers into you, scooting up on the couch. Paige froze for a split second, her lips parting as if she wasn’t sure she’d heard you right. Felt you right. Then her expression shifted, and her lips found yours again like a missing puzzle piece, dragging down your chin and over your jaw.

It would be a long night—truly.

“What you want?” she asked you. “Two. Up.”

The blonde immediately obliged, prying your leg open wider to fall against the back of the couch as she eased another finger in, twisting them over before pumping in and out a few times. “Yes—fuck, yes.” Your eyes flutter shut, head falling back against the arm rest in pure bliss. You rut your hips up, the same motion as her curling digits.

You should’ve known better than to challenge Paige to anything, but your own pride couldn’t fucking help it. Her competitive streak ran deeper than basketball, woven into every fiber of her being. It was one of the many things you had in common. Paige loved to push your limits, to tease you until you couldn’t take it, only to yank you back and dare you to do the same to her. It wasn’t just about pleasure—it was about control, about who could outlast the other, who could take more, give more, until out came a winner.

It’s also what made the sex so good.

You dissolve completely into the feeling, Paige’s long, slender fingers fitting as perfect as always. Her head is still dipped, kisses going around your neck, sloppy and full of her love for you, trying for light nips around your skin. A hand of yours falls to her shoulder, gripping at the muscle as your mouth plummets open wider, nearly like a yawn.

You can feel her smirk against your neck, the way her teeth catch on the sensitive spot below your ear. “God,” you manage to whisper, barely audible over the sound of your ragged breathing, words tumbling out in an incoherent mess, close enough to the one you make on the cushions. She was the only one that could get you absolutely soaked.

“I know, baby. Feels real good, don’t it?” Paige pushes a third finger into you easily, making you moan out from the stretch. She picks up on how your walls clench around her, gushes of your arousal coating her fingers, forming a white ring around the base.

You nod frantically, words stuck in your throat.

Paige quirks her head to the side. “That’s all I get? A nod?” she mocks, something she’s gotten increasingly good at since fucking you. “C’mon, use that pretty mouth. Tell me how good I’m making you feel.”

Your mind begins to leave you piece by piece, your determination to stay balanced pulling you back in every time. Your grinding motions become harder against her hand, moans becoming deeper by the minute, more pleasure-filled. Your stomach begun to tighten, almost like a hand slowly balling into a fist with a need to just combust and release.

“Paige,” you choke out, voice trembling. “It’s—it’s so good. You’re so—fuck.” You can’t finish the sentence, your nails digging into her shoulder.

She yanks you down, your body sinking further into her, your back forming into more of an arch. Shes giving it her all, and you’re starting to regret letting her go first. “What? Say it,” Paige coaxes as her fingers curl just right. “Tell me how good I am, baby.”

“You’re so good,” you shake your head as Paige slaps the pad of her hand against your clit, the sound entirely too pornographic for your ears. If anything, it spurred Paige on. “You know you are.”

You chew down on your bottom lip, trying your best not to scream at how good the feeling is. “Sound s’sweet praisin’ me like that. Y’gonna come all down my fingers, baby?” She moves them faster, the squelching enough to erase any no’s from your vocabulary. Her hand moves in a back and forward motion, and the more you think about it, the more the desperate need to let go becomes more evident.

“Yes,” you respond in a rush, followed by a few more of the approving word. “Right there, P,” you breathe, arm hooking around her neck to pull her closer, painted nails dragging against her cheek. You’re about to have what you think might be the best release of your life until it’s completely stripped away from you.

Shit, shit, shit.

“No.. no, no, no,” you whine, an antonym of your previous pleads as you dart your eyes open. Paige releases you from her grip, swinging a leg off the couch. You search for any hint of remorse in those eyes that’ve seemed to darken since you last looked, but there isn’t one. Bitch. She stares down at you with a bit of a mocking expression. “Please—“ you start.

You’re interrupted with the shoving of Paige’s fingers down your throat. Your eyelashes flutter back against your skin, lips wrapped tightly around the digits as you inadvertently lick your arousal clean off. With that, she pulls them back with a soft pop, admiring the glisten with a cockiness that has you weak.

“Start wit’ that.”

“Oh, my God…” Paige trailed off, whispering more to herself as she crooks her head to look down at you. New location: your bedroom. New motivation: the look on Paige’s face when she left you without an orgasm. You could play dirty, too.

You meet eyes as Paige pulls your hair away from your face, your hands resting on her thighs. Her basketball shorts were pooled at her legs underneath her boxers, and somewhere along the hurried way down the hall, she’d pulled her shirt off, the tension in her toned stomach revealed under the dim light of your table lamp.

Your tongue slowly moves between her lips, licking and lapping up her wetness just to hum at the taste. Paige is losing it—fingers threading through your hair, the pads of her fingertips pressing deeper into your scalp at every stroke. She swears the sight of your head between her thighs is enough to bring her to release.

“Fuuuuck. Keep it like that,” she orders. You comply—let her think she’s got it under control—and she does. For a moment. Her grip tightens, guiding your head against her own clit to let you know just how she wants it. “Like this?” you tease, creating a suction. You bat your eyelashes, doe eyes catching her blue hues before they’re thrown up toward the ceiling.

“Gonna—shit.. yeah, yes. Keep goin’… don’t stop, baby.” You flatten out your tongue when she begins to move your head up and down, gruff, pleasured noises leaving her mouth in curses. She spreads her legs open even further, and the more she praises you, the deeper she pushes, the faster you move.

You’re very aware of how sensitive Paige gets after an orgasm. the number of times she’s begged you to slow down, to let her breathe for just a second, only for her to claw at you moments later, dragging you back like she can’t stand the idea of stopping. It’s a delicious contradiction, one you’ve learned to take full advantage of. It’s intoxicating, too… knowing you’re the only one who can reduce her to nothing more than trembling limbs.

“So close,” Paige mutters, her voice breaking into a groan. Her control slips with every passing second, though you aren’t sure how much of it she had in the first place. “Juuuuuust like that. Eatin’ me out so good. Always do.” She lets go with a continuous nod of her head, physically biting back a series of moans that would be too loud for the walls. You continue your onslaught, licking up what you can before pulling back. Her hips lift slightly off the bed, chasing the pressure, her legs tightening around you for a moment before falling slack again.

Right now, she’s no different—still trembling, chest heaving, the faintest sheen of sweat glistening on her skin as she tries to recover. Her hand is pressed to her forehead, covering her eyes like she’s embarrassed to let you see just how undone she is—her chest rising and falling rapidly, lips parted all pink and plump.

There’s a slight tremor in her breath when you shift closer. You trail your hand down her side slowly, eyes flickering up in search for any reaction. When you fingertips brush over her cunt—too lightly, really—Paige groans, her head lolling to the side as her fingers immediately go to grip weakly at your wrist. “Chill…” she trails off.

“Chill?” you repeat, raising an eyebrow as you press a soft kiss to her thigh. “I thought you didn’t quit easy? You bailing already?”

She lets out a breathless laugh, prepping for a quick comeback that turns into a shaky moan when your lips move lower, attaching to her clit. Lower and lower… plunging straight into her pussy. Paige jerks, her body arching involuntarily as a sharp gasp tears from her lips. “Shit—wait—” she stammers. “You gotta let me… Let me breathe, ma—“

“Mhm-mm,” you deny, pushing her hand away and dipping your own to replace your mouth. You drill into her all slow, curling just the tips of your fingers in the same way you know drives her insane.

Her head falls back against the pillow, exposing the elegant line of her throat as she swallows. “God, you’re such a… fuckin’ problem,” she breathes, her voice breaking halfway through as you glance up at her. You love it when she goes all dumb on you. “Don’t play fair,” you think you heard.

Her legs are shaking in an attempt to take what you give her, hands searching for something to grip in a last-ditch effort to ground herself. Your thumb brushes against her clit every so often, making her squirm even further away from you. “One more for me, PB,” you coo.

“Can’t—can’t…” She drips onto the bed more and more with every pump. You’re practically milking her out, splitting her open, and just like that, her release is coming quicker this time.

“You can’t what?” you egg on, hoping this’ll do it for her. You wonder how long you’ll drag your bragging out this time.

The lewd sounds of her arousal hit your ears, and you sigh in content, Paige’s body and mind becoming total mush under your service. There’s no fight left in her—the entirety of her being is begging without saying it. You know she hates that she can’t keep it together—hates that you’re in control—but it’s the thrill of it, the way her walls clench like a plead, that makes it all worth it.

Her breath hitches, and for a moment, you almost think she’s going to hold out. But then, as if that last shred of pride snaps, she does what you knew she would. Paige comes, her cunt pulsating against your fingers as she yelps, twitching every few seconds. You continue to talk her through it, working her over until her voice is as hoarse as a sore throat, raspy and wrecked.

Afterward, you move up slowly, pressing gentle, teasing kisses all over her face as your hand rests comfortably on the warmth of her stomach. “Tapping out already?” you whisper playfully, brushing a finger down the curve of her neck. “It’s okay. I get it.”

Her eyes flicker open, half-lidded and heavy. But just as quickly, the storm in her eyes shifts. Before you can get another word in, Paige’s hand moves up to stroke your cheek gently, almost…lovingly? It’s enough to throw you off, make you forget about those bragging rights. She holds your face for a moment, eyes flushed with intent. Then, without warning, she pushes you back, her brows furrowing in concentration as she pushes herself up, trodding toward your closet. With what strength?

“Strip.”

And that was exactly how you ended up here. Cowgirl, legs straddled on each side of Paige as she watched you fuck yourself on her, mumbling out a million and one different terms of endearment to kept you going. There was a receiving end, one she hadn’t thought about let alone touched, and you wondered how long she’d let you go before getting herself off too.

Second round, so close to coming, and you didn’t plan on giving Paige the satisfaction of knowing you couldn’t take it anymore.

She hadn’t took her eyes off you since you started. You avoided her gaze, hands gripping her ankles as you put on her favorite show. “Look at this pussy, baby. Fuckin’ perfect, you know that?” she praised, wetting her thumb before pressing it to your clit, hard enough to make you squirm. Your hips drove against her harder, causing them to collide in a sticky smack, the tip of her strap bullying the deepest part of you.

“So tight—shit.” Naturally, Paige’s other hand found your breasts, kneading the left before rubbing the nipple between her fingers. You winced, throwing your head back as your chest pushed further out. “Just squeezin’ around that shit,” she emphasized, voice so low it almost went unheard. She tilted her head to the side, hands roaming around to the small of your waist as your rhythmic movements escalated into frenzied bouncing, the length molding perfectly to your slick walls, stretching you to the limit.

She’d went quiet for a moment, a safe space for your moans and whimpers, pondering. “Get up,” she’d decided.

You paused, mouth agape as your chest rose and fell in gasps. “Paige—“ you tried, having had enough of this little not letting you come thing. Still, she’d tightened her hands around your hips just to throw you off her, and you quickly realized what she wanted. She didn’t have to say it. Bend over.

You perch your ass in the air as Paige settles behind you knees pressed on either side. You look just over your shoulder as she rubs the tip of her strap between your folds, head down and focused. You attempt to buck your hips back, desperately waiting to be filled up.

Paige’s eyes shoot up, and you pout playfully. “Please?”

She began to gently slide the tip into your leaking hole all at once, bottoming out. “Greedy,” she mutters, pushing down against your upper back to get you to arch more. Deep, deep, and deeper. She doesn’t start slow, rocking her hips toward your ass relentlessly, almost without any contrition.

Your hands gripped the bed frame, knuckles white, trying to ground yourself, but the tight pull in your core, the way she stretched you—nothing could keep you steady. Every thrust felt like a reminder, and as much as you wanted to give up, your ego was too damn big. This was all your idea, after all.

How the hell do you always end up here with her?

The thought crossed your mind for only a second, but it was quickly drowned out by the next wave of pleasure that hit, making you whimper. It was impossible to think straight. Her hands on your hips pushing you deeper into the mattress, your body now moving in sync with hers as though it were second nature. She’s addicting in all the right ways.

Paige’s movements stilled for a brief moment, and before you could register what was happening, she pulled you up against her chest, wrapping one hand up under your chin firmly. You locked eyes as her thumb stroked your bottom lip, prying your mouth open. She then prepared just the right amount of saliva in her mouth before spitting precisely into yours. “Mhm.”

Her thumb snuck its way in next, spreading it all over your tongue. Her brows crinkled in attentiveness. “You good?” She was genuinely concerned despite not giving you a chance to respond before she started moving again, slower this time, sensual. The intimacy was driving you fucking crazy, you needed a seatbelt.

You responded with a thorough swallow, sticking your tongue out to show her how good you were. Paige smiled—big and unattainable before pushing you back against the mattress. “Slut,” she degraded, making you giggle.

Another deep push, another moan you couldn’t hide, and you were already on the edge. Shit, not again. The thought tried to make its way through your foggy mind while your body pushing back into hers instinctively, now fully aware of how badly you wanted to come. With every movement, Paige made sure you couldn’t escape, that you wouldn’t want to. She was keeping you close, keeping you tangled in the heat of it all.

This wasn’t about winning or losing anymore. It was about feeling every inch of her, letting her pull you apart until you couldn’t even tell where you ended and she began.

Paige tugged her lip between her teeth, ramming into you like she knew she had a point to prove. “Fucking you so dumb. Makin’ such a mess… You almost there?” You nodded, followed up with a constant of yes’s that made the tight knot in your stomach even worse, even better.

The sounds of her skin slapping against yours and your loud cries of pleasure filled the bedroom. You gripped the bedsheets in preparation, the squelching of Paige driving into your soaked pussy like music. She looked down at where your bodies connected, enjoying the little squeaks you let out every time she bumped against your cervix.

“I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.”

“You can.”

Paige took one hand from one of your thighs, using it to reach down and press her thumb against your clit, rubbing tight circles. Your back arched, a loud cry leaving your lips at the sensitivity that had been built over the course of the night. “Agh—Paige…” Thaaaat’s it, baby. C’mon. Come for me." And that's all it took for your orgasm to rip through you, your body shaking and Paige’s name leaving your lips like a mantra.

She pulled out, all five of her fingers speeding up and continuing their assault just to push you right over. You weren’t sure if she planned on stopping. Your body was squirming in different directions, begging and gasping for a break until your hand flattened against the comforter, tapping repeatedly in a form of complete and utter yield.

And just like that, your game was over.

Paige pried her hands off of you, letting your body collapse forward onto the mattress with no ounce of grace left. Your legs felt like jelly, and your breathing came in quick, shallow bursts as your chest heaved against the sheets. You couldn’t even lift your head to glare at her, too far gone to summon any shred of defiance.

Behind you, Paige shifted, catching her breath, but her voice was annoyingly steady when she spoke, dripping with smugness. “Ha,” she breathed out. “You tapped out. Like, literally.”

Your fingers curled into the sheets as you turned your face to the side, just enough to shoot a half-hearted glare over your shoulder. “Shut it,” you muttered.

But Paige wasn’t done. She scooted closer, her hand trailing lazily up your spine as her lips brushed your shoulder blade, voice teasing. “Nah, that was cute. You were all like, ‘Paige, I can’t…’” She mimicked—all exaggerated and mocking, before breaking into another quiet laugh.

You groaned, burying your face in the mattress, unable to hide the way the corner of your lips twitched upward despite yourself. “You’re so aggy.”

“And you’re lucky I love it when you quit.” Paige leaned down, planting a kiss to your damp skin before pulling back with a smirk you didn’t need to see to know was there. “I’mma let you have it next time, okay?”

…Next time?

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