#It's not separate you know it is fluid and dynamic

[wangxianficfinder]

In the mood for...

Jan 1st

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1. New year, new fics ahead, but before that - please rec me ONE fic you read last year ^^

i guess i'll have to change my plan by darjeelinh (E, 42k, WangXian, Modern, Meet-Cute, Falling In Love, Love at First Sight, First Kiss, First Time, Inspired by Before Sunrise (1995) and Before Sunset (2004), soft rom-com vibes, One Night Stands, but not really, Light Angst with a Happy Ending, they both have demi vibes in this fight me about it, Misunderstandings, Separations, Reunions, WangXian canon Elopement™️ shenanigans, now with art)

🔒 A Heart Undying by NonsensicalRambling (M, 114k, WangXian, Undead WWX, Canon-Typical Violence, canon-typical dead things the burial mounds, Fix-It of Sorts, Canon Divergence, Eventual WangXian, No Yīn Tiger Seal, Morally Gray WWX, Animals Eating People, WWX’s questionable choices, Morally conflicted LWJ, Oblivious WWX, WWX Creates a Sect | Yiling Wei, YLLZ WWX, Sect Leader WWX, LWJ & WQ have an Understanding)

Once Patience Bears Fruit by FinallyGotTheInvitation (E, 88k, WIP, WangXian, Immortal LWJ, Immortal LSZ, Mortal WWX, soon to be, Immortal WWX, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Happy Ending, Fluff and Smut, WWX Has a New Golden Core, Oblivious WWX, Protective LWJ, Reincarnation, Sex Magic, Top LWJ/Bottom WWX, novel canon, "Straight" WWX, Age Difference, switching POV, Drunken Kissing, Drunken Flirting, Power Dynamics, Light Bondage) For #1 & 13 It’s a wonderfully done spin on the Immortal LWJ x Modern Reincarnated WWX trope. And not only do we have the whole family bonding in the mountains we also have all of WWX’s past loved ones reincarnated as well this time all of them live and they’re all pretty tight knit, this WWX definitely has the support system #13 was asking for, but while it is an important plot point, it’s not the main point of the fic.

Turn Left by kianspo (M, 204k, WangXian, NieLan, Canon Divergence, Fix-It of Sorts, Friends to Lovers, eventually, references to child sexual abuse, not main characters, Neurodivergent LWJ, Slow Build, Lán Family Feels, specifically, Twin Jades of Lán Feels, lwj-centric, Twin Jades of Lán Dynamics, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Angst with Happy Ending)

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2. Hii I’m not sure if you guys take crossover requests? If not just ignore this! But for ITMF, I’m looking for fics that have WWX as a supreme ghost king (mdzs x tgcf). Thanks!!

Back From The Dead by Suibian_613 (T, 44k, WIP, WangXian, XuanLi, HuaLian, XuanXuan, XinQing, Canon Divergence, Canonical Character Death, Supreme Ghost King WWX, Canon-Typical Violence, JZX lives and so does JYL, HX is stupid and in love, SQX is the Wind Master, Badass WWX, Not so oblivious WWX, XY is a Brat, he doesn’t kill anyone important tho, WWX has a ghost city, Let the Yunmeng Bros be Bros, Suggestive Themes, obsessive XY, gender fluid SQX)

The Red Ribbon by sanmaci (M, 22k, WangXian, HuaLian, Canon Divergence, Ghost City, Immortality, Cultivation Partners, Juniors, XL and HC find a child who happens to be WWX, Canon-Typical Violence, Fluffy wangxian, WWX is a Supreme Ghost King, First Time)

and thus the crow flies by cloudyrobinwrites (jwyoomi) (M, 39k, WangXian, MXY & WWX, HuaLian, WIP, Ghost WWX, WWX is a Calamity, Sentient Burial Mounds, The Burial Mounds Wants More Kids, Canon Divergence, what happens when a ghost king gets thrown into a murder mystery, WWX picked up MXY and decided he'll be his student now, MXY managed to summon a calamity level ghost what a guy, WWX disguises himself as a rogue cultivator, WWX's crows have adopted MXy, WWX and MXY make a very good duo actually, WangXian are going on a roadtrip, WWX learns how to do ghost mitosis, local newborn supreme ghost wranglers HuaLian, LWJ is not saying much but trust hes coping as well as he can w all these curveballsm hes just happy that WWX is back)

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3. do you guys know any post-(novel)canon fics that focus on the juniors' relationship with wwx?

bespoke by cafecliche (G, 3k, WangXian, Post-Canon, Fluff, LSZ is a very good boy, which is specifically a tag for the fic but also just true in general)

See Me, Feel Me (Listening to You) by Ghost_Honey (T, 29k, WangXian, POV WWX, WWX Needs a Hug, WWX’s Abyssmal Self-Esteem, Emotional Healing, Angst, The Juniors love their Senior Wei, Curses, WWX is an Unreliable Narrator, JC & WWX Reconciliation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Platonic Cuddling)

Trust by FlyingMachine1 (G, 8k, WWX & Junior Ensemble, WangXian, Junior Quartet Dynamics, Junior Ensemble Shenanigans, BAMF WWX, Humor, junior quartet is the wwx fan club)

The following also feature the relationship between Wei Ying & the Juniors but involve time travel

❤️ Tragedy is Not the End by Hobbsy3 (T, 358k, wangxian, Time Travel, Torture, Hurt/Comfort, Golden Core Reveal, Canon Divergence from Qiongqi Pass, Angst with a Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Yunmeng sibling bonding, good dad wwx, good dad lwj, JZX Lives, JYL Lives, Junior Quartet Dynamics)

And They Lived Happily Ever After… by Morgana_avalon (G, 51k, WangXian, Zhuiling, Time Travel Fix-It, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Canon Universe, Canon Related, set before the ambush happens at Qiongqi Path, Canon Divergence, Bunnies, Good brother JC, Good JZX, CQL Verse)

🔒 Forget Myself in Memories by geethr75 (T, 10k, JC & WWX, JC & JL, JL & LJY & LSZ & OYZZ, WangXian, LXC & NMJ, JYL/JZX, Junior Quartet Dynamics, Time Travel Fix-It, Juniors travel to the past, Post-Canon, Canon Divergence, double trouble, Past WWX meets future WWX in MXY's body, Past JC meets future JC, Sect Leader JL, Sect Leader OYZZ, Sect Heir LJY, Fluff and Angst, Mostly Fluff, Happy Ending, JGY dies as Meng Yao, SS and JZn diesn JGS dies, WQ and WN lives, JYL and JZX Lives, no golden core transfer, No golden core melting, The Juniors save the day, WWX saves the day too, Alternate Timelines)

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4. itmf fics where someone kills jgs (and that's a focal point of the fic). thanks! 💙

He Had It Coming by The_Hourglass_Muse (M, 2k, JZX & JGY, JGY & XY, Have to hide a body, Minor Character Death, JGS is dead, Dark Comedy, Revenge, Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Warning: XY, Body Horror, Corpse Desecration, Villainous Friends)

Blood is compulsory by april_rainer (tom_bedlam) (T, 3k, LXC & JGY, Major Character Death, JGS is the major character death, no other main characters are harmed, although a lot of background people die, JGY & LXC both have various levels of feelings about killing lots of people, TW:Suicidal Thoughts, (minor but there))

🔒 Ripples in a Pond by Spiraling (Stormwind13) (T, 5k, MS & JGY, MS & Madam Jin, Non-Linear Narrative, Slice of Life, Canon Divergence, Dead JGS)

Cover-Up by nirejseki (Not Rated, 1k, JYL/JZX, Murder, But Justified, JGS dies, does it count as a major character death if no one is upset about it?)

🔒 murder is easy, especially if you're murdering an asshole by ravenditefairylights (Not Rated, 5k, JC & WWX & JYL, Canon Divergence, No Sunshot Campaign, Murder, Violence, Blood, Sibling Bonding, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Protective Siblings, Derogatory Language, really just jgs being himself)

🔒 The Straightest Path by meyari (T, 30k, WangXian, NieLan, MingLi, ChengSang, war and death, Grief/Mourning, Politics, plotting for neuroatypicals, Autistic LWJ, WWX Has ADHD, Non-Canon Relationship, No Yīn Iron, Sect Leader LWJ) it's not the focus of The Straightest Path but the story goes into details of JGS' death in chapters 9 & 10.

Wandering Eyes (That Nie Mingjue will gouge out if he notices, Father, STOP) by AstaraelWeeps (M, 12k, NHS & JGY, NHS & NMJ, 3Zun, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Murder, JGY has no idea, JGY POV, NHS is a scheming schemer who schemes, and we love him for it, Fix-It)

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5. Helloo, good day to all of you mods!

For the next "In The Mood For", can I trouble you with Uncle WWX.

Like WWX raising Jin Ling instead of Jiang Cheng.

Thankss @lil-dusty-rose

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6. I'm in the mood for- A Chengqing arranged marriage AU with a happy ending? Also, no archive warnings or explicit sex, please? Thanks! @greyjedijaneite

❤️ And Time Is But a Paper Moon by sami (M, 138k, WangXian, XiChengQing, Time Travel, Fix-It, Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Healing, Mental Health Issues, PTSD, Hurt/Comfort, Depression, BAMF WWX, BAMF JC, BAMF LWJ, BAMF JYL, Getting Together, And Time is But a Paper Moon [PODFIC] by sami, Winterstar1412, [Podfic] Cold read of And Time Is But A Paper Moon by kisahawklin, multiple translations available) sort of fits this prompt? It ends up being an asexual relationship between Wen Qing/Jiang Cheng/Lan Xichen, and it is not the focus of the fic. I don't know if the ChengQing relationship counts as "arranged" since they both agree to it ahead of time, but it certainly is initially just got political reasons. They do very much end up with a happily ever after together and with LXC though!

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7. Helloo!! For the next ITMF, im looking for a fic which has a little slowburn and pining (wangxian ofc) and lots of jelly lz!! It would be great if there was some sexual tension too 🤭 BUT PLS NO BOTTOM LZ . The universe doesnt matter it can be modern au or post canon anything is alright. As always thank u in advance!! @for13years-i-play-inquiry-foryou

Wrong Turn, Right Place by diamondbruise (E, 71k, WangXian, Time Travel, kind of, it’s more reality travel but there’s modern wwx and cultivator lwj, Mutual Pining, Angst with a Happy Ending, Jealousy, Idiots in Love, Slow Burn, Misunderstandings, Cultural Differences)

a light hidden and singing by occultings (microcomets) (E, 48k, wangxian, arranged marriage, pining, getting together, slow burn, misunderstandings, miscommunication, blood & injury, happy ending, smut)

Odd Geometry by maziodyne (M, 116k, WangXian, JC/NHS, JYL/JZX, JYL/WQ, WIP, WWX does not grow up in Lotus Pier, WWX Isn't Adopted by the Jiangs, Elemental Magic, Healer WWX, Sunshot Campaign, Post-Sunshot Campaign, Slow Burn, letter writing romance, flirting at inopportune times, Crows, Familiars, Homoeroticism, epic divorce incoming, triple agent WQ, lockpicking, communication (but does it change anything?))

🔒 The Promises We Make by Mayarenerose (G, 34k, WangXIan, LSZ & LWJ, LXC & LWJ, WN & LWJ, JC & LWJ, Happy Ending, Slow Burn, Fluff, Angst, Everybody Lives, Canon Divergence, Gratuitous Bed Sharing, LWJ: moves into the Burial Mounds, WWX ??? wtf??? are you??? doing??, Rabbits)

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8. any recs for get lost cave scene lwj pov and/or 33 lashes + what happened after he found out about wwx’s death

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9. Hi! For the next ITMF do you have any recs with intense yearning. Specifically where LWJ does the yearning. Longer fics would be great! Thanks!!!

💖 A Crying Shame by thunderwear (G, 16k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Fix-It, A-yuan to the rescue, Getting Together, Mutual Pining, Sharing a Bed, Domestic Fluff, Love Confessions, First Kiss, LWJ joins WWX at burial mounds, LWJ is soft pass it on, literally all fluff, Marriage Proposal, Oblivious WWX)

It's Only Time by etymologyplayground (T, 8k, WangXian, LXC & LWJ, Epistolary, Post-Canon, Canon Compliant, It's About The Yearning, Getting Together, Love Confessions, Cuddling & Snuggling, Humor)

Inquiry by incendir (G, 10k, WangXian, LSZ & LWJ)

🔒 so take my hand (take my whole life too) by cicer (E, 92k, WangXian, Modern AU, Accidental Baby Acquisition, oh my god they were roommates, Idiots in Love, Mutual Pining, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, this fic is not about trauma, it’s about the yearning, slowburn)

爱不释手; never let me go by yiqie (E, 68k, WangXian, Case Fic, Blood and Injury, Demons, Body Horror, [Podfic] 爱不释手; never let me go by argentumlupine)

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10. Hello!

Could you please for itmf:

Modern aus where both wwx and lwj are older than ~35

Mlm

Thank you!

🔒 thirty seven by everbrighter (M, 49k, WangXian, background mention of LWJ dating other people, Modern with Magic, Resurrection, Mutual Pining, Domestic Fluff, Getting Together, Fatherhood, Slice of Life, Recreational Drinking, Implied Sexual Content, they have a son, implied basketball content, Sharing a Bed)

🔒 hue. by Sanguis (M, 2k, WangXian, Modern AU, Established Relationship, Marriage Proposal, Marriage, Domestic)

🔒 light. by Sanguis (E, 8k, WangXian, Married Couple, Married Sex, Old Married Couple, Love Hotels, Anal Sex, Cock Warming, Blow Jobs, Anal Fingering, Modern AU, Married Characters, Adopted Children, implied racism, Island life)

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11. Okay I just finished reading Prenups and Pelicans byElpie (Horribibble)

And I want more of this is if there any other fic

That is kind of similar to this and has the reactions of all the guests because I want to read the reactions of the Jin and madam yu @constancebloodstone

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12. Do we have any " the help" fusion of wangxian where wwx is miss Celia and anyone else is minnie Jackson? Or something similar to it? Uk where the dynamics btwn wangxian is like the dynamics miss Celia amd her husband have? @jaywuji

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13. hi this is ITMF! im thinking a fic very much so wwx centric. preferably in that he has a strong support system and people who obviously care abt him. hurt/comfort or angst welcome. if there's a focus on wwx being attractive, in looks or in personality that's cool too! tysm for all the hard work and happy new year :)

In Exchange by FlautistsandPeonies (M, 8k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Implied WangXian Ending, The Power of Yiling Laozu Sexy, WWX Canon Memory Loss, WWX gets his original body back, Crack Treated Seriously, not for jc fans, Attractive WWX, WangXian Get a Happy Ending)

the stone-filled sea by yukla (T, 9k, LSZ & WWX, LSZ & LWJ, WangXian, Post-Canon, senior wei defense squad, a study of the way prejudice and injustice and anger trickle down from generation to generation, [Podfic] the stone-filled sea by yukla by Beria1021, the stone-filled sea [Podfic] by BrickGrass)

🔒 Bright Voice Roughly Rendered Softly Silent by Preludian_Staves (T, 26k, WangXian, Canon-Typical Violence, Canon Divergence, No Golden Core Transfer, Muteness, Hurt/Comfort, Getting Together, Not JC Friendly, Confessions, Angst, Choking, Red String of Fate, Appearances by Paperman!WWX, Inventor WWX, Good Uncle LQR, WWX goes to Cloud Recesses, Feelings Realization, Caretaking, Supportive Lan Family, Genius WWX, Angst with a Happy Ending, WangXian Get a Happy Ending, Protective LWJ, Protective Lan Family, Character Death (not wwx or lwj))

Meet you at a different place by tawaen (M, 57k, WQ & WN, WN & MXY & WQ, WQ & WWX & WN, Eventual WangXian, Ghost General WN, Ghost WQ, Canon Divergence, WQ comes back to haunt the cultivation world, Bad idea to kill the one person who didn’t kill anyone, Cultivation World Critical, Not JC Friendly, Wen Remnants Deserve Better, Sīsī Deserves Better, MXY Deserves Better, POV WQ)

🔒 between the shadow and the soul by Reverie (cl410) (M, 22k, WangXian, JYL/WQ, JC/NHS, Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Family, Dark WWX, Feral WWX, Memory Loss, Magic, Magical Realism, Protective LWJ, Protective JC, Protective JYL, Grief, BAMF WWX, POV Alternating)

Once Patience Bears Fruit by FinallyGotTheInvitation (E, 88k, WIP, WangXian, Immortal LWJ, Immortal LSZ, Mortal WWX, soon to be, Immortal WWX, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Happy Ending, Fluff and Smut, WWX Has a New Golden Core, Oblivious WWX, Protective LWJ, Reincarnation, Sex Magic, Top LWJ/Bottom WWX, novel canon, "Straight" WWX, Age Difference, switching POV, Drunken Kissing, Drunken Flirting, Power Dynamics, Light Bondage) (link in #1) For #1 & 13 It’s a wonderfully done spin on the Immortal LWJ x Modern Reincarnated WWX trope. And not only do we have the whole family bonding in the mountains we also have all of WWX’s past loved ones reincarnated as well this time all of them live and they’re all pretty tight knit, this WWX definitely has the support system #13 was asking for, but while it is an important plot point, it’s not the main point of the fic.

The most dangerous thing is to love by KatAnni (E, 113k, WangXian, Golden Core Reveal, Fix-It, Everybody Lives, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Canon Divergence, Hurt!WWX, Found Family, Implied/Referenced Torture, POV Multiple, Implied/Referenced Cannibalism, Panic Attacks, PTSD, Golden Core Transfer, Golden Core Transfer Fix-it, Medical Procedures, Fainting, Major Character Injury, Blood and Injury, WWX Has a New Golden Core, Asexual JC, homophobia doesn’t exist here, Marriage Proposal, Marriage, Wedding Night, Whump) This fic is in the Sunshot campaign era, and as such WWX is obviously *going through it*, and he tried to do it with just as much secrecy as cannon. Too bad for him the author had something to say about that and he got found out basically instantly, which causes his support network to start actually supporting him… but the angry grape is still there so it’s done with a lot of caring anger.

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14. Fics about Yiling Wei Sect!! Butttt!! It was already established long ago and wwx was not the one to establish it.

🔒💙 Song Unwritten by Kytrin, ShotsOfSunshine (E, 94k, WangXian, Temporary Character Death, Angst with a Happy Ending, WangXian Get a Happy Ending, Fix-It of Sorts, Alternate Universe, cql meets mdzs, Transmigration, Parallel Universes, YLLZ WWX, Yílíng Wèi Sect, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, References to Depression)

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15. Hello Happy new year Everyone I am currently in the mood for some Switch/Versatile SangYao fics. @thatperson0-0

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16. For the next ITMF, does anyone know of any fics where someone tries to assassinate WWX before he defects from the Jiang clan? (Either during the sunshot campaign or shortly after) thank you in advance ✨️

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17. hi! any fics were lan zhan's rich and pays for anything wei ying needs, buys him lots of stuff, and just spends a lot of money on him? could be a sugar daddy au or just a relationship with this dynamic @ashxi-wx

The Misunderstanding by kisahawklin (T, 9k, WangXian, Modern AU, Misunderstandings, POV Outsider)

For Safekeeping Purposes by ChilianXianzi (M, 2k, WangXian, Modern AU, Gangsters, Crime Boss LWJ, Sugar Daddy LWJ, WWX Has Self-Esteem Issues, Domestic fluff but everyone’s in a crime syndicate, Found Family, Age Difference, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Canon-typical Abusive Jiangs)

🧡 All Old Things are New Again by The Feels Whale (miscellea) (M, 51k, WangXian, Reincarnation, Modern AU, canon still happened, extreme post canon, Sugar Daddy, Kink Negotiation, gentle dom!LWJ, canonical levels of consent play, Modern Cultivators, cultivators can recognize important people from previous lives, vaguely, this started out as a cute sugar fantasy and got just incredibly horny very fast, blame LWJ)

🔒 Snow by kuro (M, 38k, WangXian, Modern, Snow, Sick Character, Caretaking, Fluff, Sugar Daddy, only they're like… bad at it, Angst, Rabbits, Food, Sexy Times, occasionally)

golden when the day met the night by glitteringmoonlight (Not Rated, 95k, WangXian, Slow-ish burn, Sugar Daddy LWJ, Light Angst, Fluff, Developing Relationship, WWX gets all the appreciation he deserves, even if he's a bit confused about it at first, warprize au with a twist, in that everyone thinks WWX is a warprize, but LWJ has only platonic and honourable intentions, at first 😏, Eventual Smut, WIP)

my rivers tilt towards you by perfectlyrose (T, 26k, WangXian, Canon, Canon Divergence, Slow Burn, Mutual Pining, Fairy Tale Elements, dragonji, mentions of, Madam Yu's A+ Parenting, First Meetings, Romance, Strangers to Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort)

A Sure Thing by vesna (mrsronweasley) (E, 95k, WangXian, Modern, Sugar Daddy, Sex Work, Light Dom/sub, Aftercare, Semi-Public Sex, Exhibitionism, Bondage, use of sex toys, boundary setting, Relationship Negotiation, many baths, Barebacking)

how to be a heartbreaker by sweetlolixo (E, 105k, WangXian, Modern AU, Sugar Daddy LWJ, Sugar Baby WWX, Dark WWX, Dark LWJ, Pining LWJ, Possessive LWJ, Crossdressing WWX, Seductress WWX, Eventual Happy Ending, Dirty Talking LWJ, They Do Fall In Love and there’s Fluff, Dark!Wangxian, Power Couple, Off the Charts Sexual Tension, Size Kink, Daddy Kink, degradation kink)

Treat you right by airinshaw (E, 20k, WangXian, Modern AU, Sex Work, Anal Sex, Getting Together, Pining while fucking, Consensual Non-Consent, Light Dom/sub, Sexual role play)

last shred of truth in the lost myth of true love by lazulink (E, 34k, WangXian, Modern with Magic, WWX is an escort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Mutual Pining, Denial of Feelings, very amateur sugar daddy LWJ, Sex WorkWWX & WQ Friendship, NHS & WWX Friendship, Rimming, Anal Fingering, Blow Jobs, Dirty Talk, Tender Sex, Anal Sex, Brick Shithouse LWJ, Gender Non-Conforming WWX)

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If you didn’t get an answer to your ask here, don’t forget to make use of @mdzs-kinkmeme and MDZS KINK MEME on Dreamwidth. Authors actually do use them for ideas. You may get what you order!***Your prompt doesn’t have to be kink! Fluff, crack, whatever - it’s all good!***

[veephoenix]

zutto — chapter twenty | wc: 5.2k | series masterpost | prev. chapter

Chapter summary: Noah and Lia try new things in the bedroom to help ease Lia's overthinking.

Reading time: 20mins aprox.

Tags and trigger warnings: anxiety, insecurities, overthinking, slight mention of Lia's traumas and past, sexual content including getting a safe word, dirty talk (Noah's such a tease in this one), mentions of Lia's virginity, "good girl", bondage, blindfolding, dom/sub dynamics (implied switching), lots of kisses and soft touches, fingering, oral sex (Lia receiving), p in v (unprotected), recurrent mentions of fluids, Noah being super caring, lots of communication and consent. Let me know if I missed sth.

General trigger warnings: this work addresses and depicts issues related to addiction, abuse, & violence, contains explicit sexual content, and explores themes of childhood trauma. Reader discretion is advised. +18

It was the third time Noah had seen Lia pacing the entirety of her apartment since he’d made his afternoon coffee thirty minutes earlier. He watched her, his left eyebrow slightly raised. He was standing behind the counter that separated the kitchen from the living room. He’d been checking what was in the fridge, thinking about what they could cook for dinner, until Lia’s pacing pulled his attention. 

He could feel the energy radiating from her, and it wasn’t good.

“Want to go out for a walk?”

She stopped abruptly in the doorway between the living room and the hallway that led to her room and the studio, turning her head toward him. She had her phone clutched in her hand. 

“What?”

“You’ve been pacing the apartment for the last thirty minutes, doing nothing but locking and unlocking your phone every ten seconds. I can feel your anxiety from a mile away.”

“They said they would call this morning,” she replied, her voice tinged with worry. It reminded Noah of the same voice and tone she would use as a kid, whenever she would fret over the flowers in the garden wilting. “To confirm if they want to exhibit my work in the gallery. It’s already past 4pm.”

She’d spent the entire week going from gallery to gallery, showing her artwork to strangers and asking if they’d consider giving it a chance, or at least letting her rent the space for a few weeks, maybe a month. Every gallery was booked until next year. Only one had shown some interest, saying they’d get back to her by Friday morning. They mentioned a small room they had reserved for independent artists. It would be available for booking in two months. But her art had to go through a review and had to be approved by a board. 

That was the call she was waiting for. 

Ever since she and Noah had talked about the idea of exhibiting her work, she’d thought the hardest part would be making the decision of sharing something more personal and intimate than the illustrations she did for Bad Omens to the public. Now she was realizing that the hardest part might be simply getting noticed and being valued. 

“Maybe they just got caught up with something and are late on schedule,” Noah said, finishing the last sip of his coffee and setting the mug down, pushing it to let it slide away on the counter. “You know how these things go.”

“I have a feeling they didn’t like them.” Her paintings. Her artwork. Her style. 

“That’s just your head talking.”

“Sometimes my head is right.”

And sometimes you are impossibly stubborn, Noah wanted to say.

He let out a breath and fixed his eyes on her, shoulders sinking, knowing she wouldn’t let it go. He reached for one of the tricks he knew would help to shut off her mind and silence the voices, if only for a little while. 

“Wanna have sex?”

Lia blinked, frowning. Her hand still gripped her phone tightly. She began to raise her arms and open her mouth, but Noah beat her to it. 

“To take the edge off,” he clarified. “No ulterior motives. I’m thinking about you, and I figure that might work better than going for a walk.”

“What if they call while we’re in the middle of it?”

Noah stood silently for a moment, eyebrows raised as he studied his girl. Then burst out laughing.  

Shaking his head, he rounded the bar island and took her hand, tugging her toward the hallway. 

“I’m serious, Noah,” she exclaimed, struggling to keep up with his long strides. 

“I’ll stop touching you and you can answer the call, if you’re that worried,” he replied casually.

Lia was stunned by his response and by how nonchalant he was being. And yet, as always, he got to her. Got under her skin. Made her smile despite herself. 

“Okay.”

“Good,” he concluded as they entered the bedroom. He released her hand, taking her iPhone from the other to leave it on the nightstand and motioning for her to sit on the bed. When she did, he stood before her, tall and steady. His hands cradled her cheeks and he tucked some hair behind her ears. “Breathe with me.”

She did. She matched her breath to his, pushing aside the thoughts doing her more harm than good. He closed his eyes and she followed, focusing on the rhythm of his breathing and the warmth of his hands against her skin. 

Minutes passed, and by simply being with him like that, with all his attention on her, she started to feel the tension easing. She acknowledged her worries, where they came from. The anxiety that always painted a failing future… 

When she felt herself slipping again, she reached up and wrapped her fingers around Noah’s wrist. 

“Sex, please,” she murmured, eyes still closed. 

Noah let go of her face and stepped back. When their eyes met, his gaze was flicking between lust, concern, and something more. Insecurity?

“I was thinking if you’d be up to me tying you up while we do it. And blindfolding you. That way, your senses—your brain—,” he tapped his left temple, “would only focus on my touch and voice. Nothing else.”

A sharp inhale from her. After a moment, she exhaled, her shoulders falling. It took her a few seconds to answer. 

“Okay…”

But Noah wasn’t convinced. 

“You’re not sure,” he said softly, answering for her. 

“I am,” she replied quickly, her hands pressing into the mattress. She was only wearing cotton shorts and an oversized cozy sweater. “It’s just…”

“If you’re not ready, you can just say no. You know that.”

He would keep reminding her of that every single time, and she felt guilty that he had to. She wondered if Noah’s patience with her had a limit. She didn’t want to know.

“I’m ready,” she resolved, chin up.

But still, he wasn’t convinced by her tone. His thoughts were also piecing themselves together, and he tried to read her as he often did. Maybe now, he thought, she wasn’t worried about the gallery exhibit anymore.

“I’m not going to hurt you, Lia,” he stated, starting to shake his head. “Ever.”

“I know that,” it was her turn to reassure him. “And that’s not what I’m thinking.” Just like he could sometimes read her mind, she could sense what was going on in his. “It’s about… I need to know what’s going to happen.”

Oh. Noah frowned for a second, then understood what she meant, why she needed—or thought she needed—that control. But his plans for this moment were precisely to show her she didn’t need it. 

“No,” he said, “you don’t. Not with me.” 

He moved closer to her again and crouched down, taking her hands in his. His thumbs stroked the backs of them, slow. She was wearing the ring he’d taken from her vanity a few days ago when he went to Tiffany’s with Jolly. She hadn’t even noticed it was missing for hours. 

“Listen,” he began, hoping he could make her understand. “I know you need to have control over everything around you. I know why. And I’d never take that right away from you.”

As a child, she’d lived at the mercy of a woman who didn’t care about her. She’d been forced to stay on alert, to survive. That need for control—to be prepared for anything—had grown with her, sometimes weighing her down and making it hard to step beyond her comfort zone. Then Mitch had come and proven to her that she needed that control, that she needed to stay alert at all times because anything—anyone could hurt her.

“But when we’re in the bedroom,” Noah continued, “it’s just you and me, Lia. You trust me, right?”

Her nod was immediate. “More than anyone.”

A smile tugged at the corner of his lips.

“That’s what this is about,” he went on. “I want you to let go of that control for a little while. I want you to relax and allow yourself to feel whatever I give you. You know it’s only going to be pleasure. I swear.” 

It wasn’t difficult to believe his words. There wasn’t a single part of her that doubted him. Still, she bit her lip, watching the way his tattooed thumb moved across the delicate skin of her hand.

“What if…” she raised her free hand to gesture at her head. “Something snaps?”

“Then we’ll stop. We’ll talk. I’ll comfort you.” His answer was quick. “It might take time for you to get used to all the new things we’re trying. And that’s okay. I’m learning too, baby. I just… I need to share this part of me with you. This dominant side. It’s part of who I am. And I hope you can accept it—I need you to.” He paused, took a breath. “That doesn’t mean I’ve got it all figured it out. I’m not saying I’ll lose control—never. That’s not what I mean.” The way he was shaking his head and the way his eyes worked to carry the weight of his words, was more than enough to make her understand. Lia was slowly starting to smile as he tried to explain himself. He was cute, even when talking about dominance. “I’m just making it clear that we’ve got time. All the time in the world. I’ll wait as long as you need. But I need to give you this part of me, and I need you to give me that part of yourself, too. You can’t keep controlling everything, Lia. And I’m only asking you to let go when you’re with me, here, where it’s safe.”

It made sense. Deep down, Lia knew he was right. She didn’t need any more reminders that nothing bad would happen to her with Noah by her side. They’d already come so far. 

She nodded, letting her free hand drift up to run her fingers through his hair.  

“Maybe we can just start with the blindfold,” he offered, relishing in the feel of her fingers scratching his scalp lovingly. “Leave the ropes for another time. Whenever you don’t feel comfortable, you can just take it off. What do you say?” 

Lia puffed out a breath, glancing around as if weighing invisible scales.  

“We can try both,” she said, surprising him. “I’m ready.”

“Yeah? You’re not saying that because you feel pressured by what I just said?”

“I’d tell you if I was. I know how to get my way around you if I need to, no matter how bossy you are.” 

Noah’s eyebrows shot up at her sudden boldness. 

“Okay then,” Noah stood up quickly. Lia’s hand slipped from his hair. “I’m getting the ropes, absolutely,” he added, mock-stern, as though ready to punish her for calling him bossy. 

His reaction made her laugh. 

He didn’t leave right away. Instead, he stood in front of her with his hands on his hips, then, because he couldn’t help it, he smoothed her hair with both palms before leaning down to kiss the crown of her head. 

“I want to please you,” she whispered. 

Noah stilled.

“I know If I focus on that,” Lia continued, “it’ll help me too.”

She got it. That it wasn’t just about bodies. It was about their trust, their wellbeing, their care for each other that would benefit both of them. 

“I promise you’re not going to regret this,” he moved toward the last drawer in the dressed by the window. He opened it and pulled out the blindfold and the ropes. “Would it help,” he asked, glancing back at her, “if we had a safe word?”

“Sure.”

“Think of anything.”

“Hmm…”

Lia sat in thoughtful silence for a moment, lips pursed. Her eyes drifted to the window, where the last streaks of afternoon light stretched across the floor, through the grey, thin curtains. She thought of anything that made her feel grounded, things that comforted her. Something that meant strength, not weakness. Reassuring. Something beautiful, something that didn’t mean ‘I can’t do this’, but ‘I just need to take a breath’.

“Ume.”

Noah looked over his shoulder. “Ume? Is that English?”

Lia snorted. “It means plum blossom in Japanese.”

“Oh, here comes my flower specialist,” he teased, walking back to her. He laid the silk blindfold and the ropes on the mattress next to her. “What’s up with plum blossoms?”

“They bloom in late winter, when it’s still cold and snowy, that’s why they are a symbol of quiet strength. They also mean grace and hope.” 

Noah’s smile softened as he understood why she chose that word—because in case she needed to use it, it wouldn’t mean failure, or that she was hurt, or a coward. It would mean that she was still being strong while acknowledging that she needed a stop, a break. 

“You’re adorable, you know that?” 

“It doesn’t hurt to be a little adorable before you get me naked and start whispering nasty things in my ear.”

Noah bit his lower lip, momentarily at a loss for what to do with this wonderful girl. 

He cupped her chin and brushed his mouth against hers. 

“I love you in a way that’s insane, Lia Parker.”

“Show me,” she replied, cheeky and sure. She pulled off her sweater. No bra underneath. 

Noah’s tongue flicked out against his lower lip as he caught sight of her breasts—that glint of metal in her nipple. She’d changed the piercing recently, wearing one with a blue flower on each end, each cradling a tiny diamond that caught the light every once in a while. He tried to keep his composure, but blood was already rushing downward. 

“Where do you want to do it?”

“One the bed,” Lia answered, sliding back to stretch herself out. She supported her weight on her forearms, her body relaxed but her eyes sharp. “I’ll feel more comfortable lying down.”

 “Good call. Any preference for how you want to be tied up?”

They’d had a few evenings experimenting with Shibari, both in the bedroom and in the studio floor, going over knots and studying patterns, tying and untying, sometimes in full focus mode, others laughing at how complicated and messy it could get as they sipped on coffee or tea.

She tried to recall the names of some of the designs but she couldn’t remember most of them. 

“I don’t know. I thought that would be up to you if you’re the one in control.”

“Not necessarily,” Noah explained. “Definitely not today. It’s your first time—and mine—, and you need to ease into it.”

“Okay,” Lia murmured, letting her back and head fall onto the pillows. She became more aware of her body, her skin tingling as she looked up toward the bed frame, the cold making the nipples hard, her own hair tickling her shoulders. “What about my hands tied to the headboard?”

“We can do that. It’s not much different from when I fuck you and hold them above your head.”

He was so unapologetic that she felt both stunned and wet. 

“And we can tie your ankles to the bedpost,” he added, too casually. 

Lia held his gaze, then looked away for a second. 

“I’ll be… very exposed,” she admitted, the image of herself naked and spread out flashing through her mind. 

“That’s the point. What worries you?” He asked, stretching the ropes and warming them up in his hands. 

“You will see me and…” she winced, “I might not look pretty opened up like that.”

Noah exaggerated his frown, offended on her behalf. 

“Did you just say you might not look pretty? Tied up? Opened up for me?

“I have insecurities, Noah.”

“So do I. I’m fucking Slenderman,” he said, looping the rope now between his fingers, “and yet, for some reason, you find me attractive.”

“Because you are. You’re hot. Like, really hot.” 

“And so are you. Even more when you’re naked. And tied up. And opened up only for me to see.” He got one knee on the bed, and then the other, positioning himself over her, caging her lower body beneath his. He moved until he was hovering on all fours over hers. “I can see it already… You have no idea how sexy you’re going to look.”

Lia didn’t respond, her mouth gone dry. The way he was looking at her would be enough to disarm anyone. She rubbed her thighs together, her hands gripping the sheets. 

“Give them to me,” he instructed when he noticed the goosebumps on her skin. 

She was good at obeying him. 

“Are you cold?” He asked.

“No.”

“Okay.”

He tied her wrists with a smooth, practiced motion, forming soft cuffs before securing them to one of the headboard bars. He tied them low enough that her arms could rest on the pillow, but tight enough that she couldn’t move much. 

“Not too tight?”

“It’s perfect.”

“That one’s easy,” Noah replied. 

He got off the bed and took his t-shirt off, revealing his lean tattooed frame, and picked up the silky red band. Lia’s eyes followed his moves, knowing she would lose her sense of sight in a matter of seconds. 

“Lift your head.”

She did, and he slid the blindfold into place, knotting it gently at the back of her head. Darkness enveloped her, making her more aware of the sounds around her, the softness of the sheets, the warmth emanating from Noah’s body, his cologne, the way her own breath was quickening. 

Noah stood still for a while, just watching her. The way her nipples tightened. The way her feet flexed, toes brushing at the sheets. 

“Noah?”

“I’m here,” he answered, voice low. “Just watching you.” 

The pink in Lia’s cheeks spread down to her neck and chest. 

“Can you talk to me through it?” 

“Of course.” His voice turned gentler. He shifted closer and laid his palm flat on her stomach. “I’m going to take the rest of your clothes off now. Then I’ll tie each ankle to the posts, okay?”

Lia nodded.

“Use your words, Lia.” 

It was a command, she could tell by the tone he’d used, the severity of it. 

“Yes, that’s okay.”

“Good girl.”

The praise sent a shiver through her.

The way he removed her shorts and thong from her body made her skin erupt in goosebumps. He was slow, torturously so—each inch of fabric dragged down unhurriedly, making her hyper-aware of his fingertips brushing her thighs. As the clothes reached her knees, he leaned in and pressed a kiss to her inner thigh, and she could swear he blew softly toward the bare skin between her legs. She wished she could see him, because she was sure he had a smirk plastered on his handsome face. 

A moment later, with all her clothes off, he tickled the base of her right foot. Lia wriggled on the bed and told him to stop. Both their laughs filled the room. 

With Lia naked now, Noah wrapped his fingers around her left ankle and lifted it off the bed. He slipped the rope around it. A minute later, it was secured to the bed post. Another minute after, and the other followed. And just like that, Lia was restrained, tied up to the bed, naked, blindfolded, and at his mercy. 

God, she was beautiful.

She was stunning like this. Vulnerable, yes, but also powerful. She had no idea. 

Noah exhaled, then removed his sweatpants, leaving only his boxers. 

“I’m going to start touching you now,” he indicated. “Focus on that. Just my touch.”

“Alright.”

He began with her hair, brushing strands away from her shoulders with soft fingers, careful not to make contact with anything more. Then his lips met the graceful curve of her shoulder, where he peppered kisses right to left and back until he moved to the hollow of her collarbone. Then he kissed her face—cheeks, nose, forehead, lips. She felt him smiling against her mouth and of course, she smiled back. 

It felt so nice. 

Lia wasn’t sure if she’d said the words aloud or only thought them, but Noah seemed to catch them either way. 

When the contact stopped for a moment, her body ached in the absence. 

And then, wet heat. His tongue on her pierced nipple, flicking and swirling. Her breath hitched, back arching off the bed, but she was caught, restrained. He switched to the other breast, then back again, his tongue playful and reverent all at once. 

His fingers slid down, tracing the edge of her hip, then lower, brushing the sensitive skin of her inner thigh. She instinctively tried to angle herself closer to him, to guide him where she wanted him, but the ropes reminded her she wasn’t in charge. 

“You know…” Noah began, using his tongue every two words as he moved up to lap or trace a lazy circle around her nipples, “I could spend the entire evening doing this. Touching you. Playing with you. Edging you. I would touch myself while I touch you, and I would come at the sound of you begging me to let you come.” 

“That’s not fair.”

“What’s not fair is having to deal with other responsibilities when all I want is to stay here all day with you, making music out of the sounds you make when I touch you.”

Lia was burning. But the smile on her face spread wider than the heat consuming her. Noah saw it, felt it, and prided himself in the fact that his plan was working. 

The mattress dipped as he shifted to get on top of her, keeping his knees at each side of her, then bending down to worship her stomach with his mouth while his hands—his thumbs, brushed her face, her cheeks. His lips mapped the inked patterns on her skin, trailed lower to her navel, then toward the dark, soft curls between her legs. 

“Bet teenage-you never thought we would be doing this, that I’d be going down on you while I had you tied up.”

Lia’s response was a moan. 

“I thought about taking your virginity a few times,” he admitted, licking at the flowers on her thigh, “but I pushed those thoughts aside because you were my best friend, I was supposed to take care of you, and you were still underage. But I should have done it. I should have waited and then do it, take you, make you mine from the very beginning.”

She wanted to tell him that she’d been his from the beginning. Sex had nothing to do with it. She’d belonged to him the moment he offered to let her ride his bicycle, showing her a kind of selfless love and care that she��d never been given before. 

But she was unable to form words at that moment.

“Hmm…” he nibbled at her hipbones making her squirm and moan his name. “Yes, baby? What do you want?” He was teasing her and she knew it.  His voice—the tone he was using, was dangerous and addictive.

“You,” she breathed. 

“Me? Which part of me?” The question reached her as his fingers sketched slow, maddening shapes along her inner thigh, so, so close to her center.  

“My mouth, my fingers, or my cock?” 

As if to emphasize his question, Noah licked her from hipbone to breast at the same time that his thumb brushed over her clit and his cock grinded against her thigh. 

A whimper was her response. Noah had to contain a devilish growl. 

“I fucking love the sounds you make when I touch you.” 

“Fingers,” she said, her chest rising and falling fast, “then mouth, on my clit.” 

Noah raised his eyebrows even though she couldn’t see. He felt amused and turned on.

“A bit demanding, don’t you think?”

She ignored him.

“And when you’re done making me come… your cock.”

He let out a low, appreciative laugh.

“Such a greedy girl,” his fingers dragged up the inside of her thigh, “wanting me to make her come not once, but twice.”

But even then, he wanted nothing more than to please her. Give her everything. And he also had to admit he liked it when she was demanding, like the time she’d been riding him and, when he’d tried to sit up, she’d pushed him down and told him not to move. She’d ridden him so sensually, with such a tilt and wriggle of her hips, her teeth scraping her lower lip and her eyes on him, with that soft hair cascading around her, that even though he’d propped a pillow behind his head to get comfortable and enjoy the show, he came a couple of minutes later.

He pushed two fingers inside of her, stretching her so deliciously. As he started to pump them in and out, curving them just right, and her mouth fell open in a silent moan, he latched his lips around her nipple, and flicked at it with his tongue for a while, working her up cruelly slow, making her arch, gasp and moan while the ropes held her still and every sensation was made sharper and more overwhelming, until he couldn’t hold his own need to taste her anymore and he slid of the bed, getting on his knees and using fingers and mouth on her pussy, eyeing her every chance he got to devour the sight of her bound and trembling. 

His fingers stayed inside her, slow and steady, as his tongue found her clit. The first touch made her hips jerk, a soft cry escaping her lips. He flicked, then flattened his tongue, then circled it around her, learning her all over again. He read every twitch, every sound, and worked to build her toward the edge.

The taste of her, the sound of her falling apart under his mouth…

But it was more than the physicality of it all. It always was more. 

Having her like that, knowing she wanted to be—helpless and surrendered, trusting him entirely—thrilled him. The way she moaned his name, breathless and desperate, asking for more more more; the way her hips arched off the bed and into his face, writhing, almost trying to ride his mouth… It was filthy. 

God, it was perfect. 

His lips and chin were slick with her. Her taste mixed with his saliva as it ran down his jaw and wet her thighs. 

Jesus, he was going to come. 

And then, out of nowhere, he pictured Lia, wide-eyed and teary, looking down at the diamond ring he was offering in his hand, saying yes. 

A wave of pleasure surged through him, too fast to stop. Even though he clenched his jaw and tried to hold back, he felt some of his release, dampening the front of his boxers. 

Fuck. What am I? A teenager?

He pulled away, his breath uneven, slipping his fingers from inside her. Lia’s thighs were trembling. 

He’d been two seconds away from asking her if she would marry him, not as in proposing, but a straight-forward question uttered with his head between his legs because he now realized he wanted her as his wife desperately. And more than that, he wanted to be her husband.  

But that wasn’t the time. He’d brought her to bed to quiet the storm in her head, not restart it with something else; not to send her spiraling back to the anxiety she’d been wrapped in only half an hour ago. 

So, instead, he rose to his feet, ran both hands through his hair to shove it out of his face, and wiped his mouth with the back of one wrist, catching the glimmer of her wetness still on his skin. 

“Why did you stop? I was so close.”

“Give me a sec. Fucking hell. I nearly came in my boxers.”

Lia would’ve laughed hadn’t she been so desperate for an orgasm. She still couldn’t grasp her head around the fact that she did this to Noah, that she turned him into such a mess. 

He stripped his boxers off, finally baring himself. Then crawled back onto the bed, covering her body with his.

“I’m going to fuck you now, baby” he said against her lips, kissing her after, slow and deep and pressing his tongue against hers. 

Lia chased his mouth when he pulled back, desperate for more, more of the taste of herself on his tongue, more of him, of anything she could hold onto. 

“Though I don’t know how long I’ll last,” he confessed, breath catching as his hips pressed closer. “You make me feel like a goddamn fifteen-year-old every time.” 

“I don’t care,” she said, voice sweet despite her need, her hips lifting to meet his. “You always fuck me so good.”

That tone, those words… She was exactly where he wanted her: in that soft, needy, mindless headspace. He grinned, despite the ache pulsing through his cock, the head already rubbing against the inside of her thigh. 

“Is that right?”, he drawled, teasing himself along her slick folds. “I always fuck you good?”

“So good,” she gasped, pulling at the ropes keeping her wrists tied at the headboard. Her hips kept lifting for more friction, trying to pull him in. His chest pressed against her breasts, and he felt the cool kiss of her piercing like a flick of ice.

“Maybe it’s cause you’re such a good girl,” he said, voice a gravelly hum, “and good girls,” he took hold of his cock and got it in position, pushing only one inch in, “deserve to be fucked so, so good.”

As another inch found her, he stilled and lifted one hand to cradle her cheek. His thumb brushed her lips, then slid between them until her teeth caught it gently, the way he liked. 

And then he was fully inside her, his moan of pleasure filling the room. There was a shared breath of bliss. Lia’s hips ached at the stretch of Noah’s body getting comfortable on top of her, and so did her insides. She bit down harder on his thumb as her body shifted under the weight of his. The feel of his full body was nearly as delicious as the feel of his hard cock inside of her. The sensation of being filled and pinned and possessed unrivalled.

He felt so good; so hot, so thick, pulsing deep inside her. She felt claimed in the best possible way. 

Noah missed her touch. Even though he had her underneath—wrapped around him—and she was at his mercy, he had to admit he missed the feel of her arms around him, or the way she would wrap her legs around his waist and dig her heels into his butt whenever they were in missionary position. 

But most of all, he missed looking into her big, beautiful eyes when he was buried inside her.

He pulled out and pushed back in slowly, watching the way a small breath escaped her lips. He slid his thumb from between her teeth and moved his hand upward, pushing the blindfold back onto her forehead. Lia blinked against the light, her eyes finding his a second later.  

“Hi,” he whispered. 

“Hi,” she smiled. 

“I was missing those eyes,” he told her, his movements very, very slow. Barely there. One hand on her hip, the other brushing her cheekbone with his knuckles. “Look at me while I fuck you, yeah?” 

She nodded, and as soon as she did, she corrected herself, whispering a sweet “yes, Noah”. She didn’t want to look anywhere else, because nowhere else—no one else—would ever make her feel so adored and so loved, just by the way they looked at her.

When a minute passed and he was still just looking into the ocean of her eyes barely moving, only pulsing inside of her, Lia was about to start pleading for him to move, to rub her clit, to thrust, to do something—anything. 

A sound shattered the moment. Her phone started ringing and vibrating loudly on the nightstand, pulling both their attention toward it.

— previous chapter | chapter twenty one 🌶️

Taglist:

@somebodyels3 | @respectfulrebel | @thecoyotescry | @bluestdai | @lacy1986

@sweetwombatpizza | @missduffsblog | @shilohrosechicken | @jilliemiw86 | @alwaysfightforwhoyouare

@chey-h | @ferduttini | @dominuslunae | @todressabladeupinred | @tf-is-aesthetic | @pastelsswirlvangogh

[tinycozycomfort]

trust fall

pairing: jackson era!joel miller x f!reader

day two of @pascalisbaby and i's joeltober: fluid exchange -> read her day two here

summary: This, that was a shy thing at first, set into motion by some passing remark you’d made all those months ago—that he would do anything for you if you just asked nice enough.

warnings/tags: pwp!, fluid exchange (come eating/spitting), oral sex (f receiving), anal play, dirty talk, mention of unprotected piv, dom/sub dynamics, pet names (honey, sweetheart, etc), praise kink, edging

word count: 1.6k

rating: explicit! 18+ only, mdni

a/n: arguably the filthiest thing i've ever written (nervous) but wow was it great practice. thank you for reading!

main masterlist

“What a mess. Who’s gonna clean all this up, sweetheart?” 

He’s thumbing at the crease of your thigh where it folds into your core, pulling against the bend so that your seam widens. You can feel him looking, each cool swing of his breath fanning over the heat at your center. The slow trickle of where he leaks out of you makes your skin tighten, shrinking uncomfortably over muscle in little welts. 

Joel doesn’t take well to your lack of focus, choosing to demand your attention instead; the press of his thumb turns harder, meeting the end of his pointer to pinch. The pain is instant, but the delay from your haze makes you skip a yelp all together, straight to words like he wants.

“I’ll clean myself.” 

He hums, releasing your flesh, petting the wound where it thrums, “Now how can you reach all the way down here?”

You know this game well—where he means to reduce you to less than incapable, framing it like you’ve lost your way after what he’s just done to you. He wants to act like he can help you, when in reality it’s done to service himself, only further fueling his need to be in control—a role that toes the line between offender and caretaker. He aches to relinquish you of every responsibility, even that of thought.

Joel swipes at the come that refuses to let up where it’s dripping out, making a slow show—one that only he can see and only you can feel—of gathering and pooling and reinserting it, just to watch it slip out again. 

“I-I don’t know. But I need to get clean.” 

He’s smiling something horrible, eyes shining when you gaze down to plead your case for assistance. 

“Oh, poor thing, I know. It’s not your fault,” he dips his thumb into you before trailing up just under the bead of skin above your opening, “There’s just so much. But you’re right, we can’t have you ruining the sheets.” Joel bares his teeth again when you hiss, narrowly missing your clit when you try to maneuver your way into his hand.

You pant, barely able to piece together your cue, “How?” 

“Hard to think after the way I fucked you, hm?” He brushes his free hand across the hill of your cheek, pitiful, as he shakes his head in mock disbelief, “I guess I could help you, sweetheart. Do you want that?” 

“Yes.”

“Yes?”

“Yes, please.” 

“There she goes. My polite girl. Same one who begged for all this mess in the first place—isn’t that right?” 

You can’t bear to try and find the words, just letting your head loll to the side so you can nod without the pain of keeping your neck straight. He’s unraveling your grip thread by thread so you can become the soft, helpless thing he needs you to be. 

He shoves himself down, ducks his head to be level with your cunt, the hot vent of air around his face bleeding onto you. He’s worked up—you know it from the delicate shudder in his hands, the uneven half-steps in his breathing—and while he swears he can’t, you wish he’d fuck you again. You wriggle, back flat to the bed and knees spreading instinctively. 

Joel starts at the slip of skin separating your cunt from what sits beneath it, careful to catch what he couldn’t collect on the last sweep. His mouth is warm and his tongue gentle, but the breath it punches out of you is hard—furious.

You’re humming high in your throat, past the point of well-mannered, and he’s delighted, slipping the muscle between his lips inside of you, tilting his head just enough so that his nose can’t touch where you’re throbbing for him most. 

You beg, “Joel. Joel, please,” rolling the knobs of your spine forcefully enough to sting, trying uselessly to make contact. He huffs, forearm mashing haphazardly against the curve of your hip, flustered.

“You don’t need it, honey. Now keep still.” 

You’re full-on whining now, little pieces of sound, reedy and loud and not enough to make him feel bad, apparently. 

He nestles himself back in, the wide flat of his tongue pressing hard enough to breach your hole, spooning out everything you saved for him inside you and you start to seethe, a thin film of sweat breaking out across your chest—boiling. 

The hand you haven’t felt in a while returns to a different place, the tips of his pointer and middle brushing under where he’s eating you, the hole there wet with whatever continues to evade his mouth. 

He circles it and you fidget, begging him for anything more, the slow working of his jaw not enough to bring you to the edge. 

There’s the other half of the game—if you can’t come before he’s deemed you clean, you don’t get to at all. 

A sticky curl of love swells in your belly at how familiar you are now with this routine, how far he’s come—peeling away enough of his distance to show his face, to bring you to this. This, that was a shy thing at first, set into motion by some passing remark you’d made all those months ago—that he would do anything for you if you just asked nicely enough. 

Joel’s uncovered desire to see you need him, beg for him, just to make him relent in your favor, was intoxicating. In turn, he continues to make it harder every time for you both, upping the stakes after you barely manage to satisfy his last demand; narrow wins that remind you of just how much power he holds. Always sweet and comforting and protecting, even if from the severity of himself. 

Your stomach clenches, trying frantically to pace your breaths, to focus on the feeling of every too-long pass that has him nudging the underside of your clit, the way his fingers tease against your asshole. He hums in warning, almost done, and you knock a fist against the bed in frustration. 

He pulls away suddenly and your shoulders cave, upset by his unwarned finish, and you’re ready to apologize within an inch of your life when he pipes up. 

“Am I not enough for you, honey? You liked my cock, plenty. Why can’t you do it for my mouth, too?”

“Joel. Joel, you are—you’re enough. I just– right now I need more.” 

“No, you don’t. And I’m not going to tell you again. Now—” he uses the hand not already playing with you to dig into the meat of your thigh, nails drawn, maybe a little upset by how many words you’ve managed despite his ministrations, “Make me happy.” 

He sways low again, the return of his mouth against-underneath-inside of you making your hands curl, a warm buzz floating up through your legs and forearms to meet together in the middle. He’s fervent, determined to prove you wrong now that you’ve challenged his ability and you’re squealing, so light-headed from the effort to breathe that you’re close to stopping all together. 

Joel feeds his lip between his teeth against you reflexively, like he’s trying to hold himself back for a moment, and the idea that he’s gearing up for a long night makes you heave. 

He tries to hide his tell, taking the quickest pause to spit onto his fingers, prodding at your asshole to divert your attention, hardly sliding in as to not give you more than you’ve earned, “Don’t get ahead of yourself, now. Haven’t worked for much of anything yet.”

“But–”

“Show me you can be good, first. Shouldn’t be so hard for you, honey, c’mon.” He inches closer once more, breathing out against you, alternating between little puffs of cold exhales and firm pants of hot air.

You writhe, so pent up you feel restricted by your own body, like climbing out from a pool fully-clothed—heavy and sopping and always tipping back with resistance. Your face is on fire, fingers twisting to try and take the brunt of your need to move. 

Joel is ecstatic—you can hear the wet slide of his grin—and you’re right at the cusp of giving in when he breaks the gap, hot mouth latching onto your clit and you’re gone. You can feel it spread the length of your core first, filling out quickly to everywhere else and you jolt, legs snapping together fast enough that your knees knock above his head. 

He repositions his hands, squeezing between them to pry you open. You wedge a wrist behind you, trying to lift yourself in an effort to stop him but when you peer down, the look on his face is serene, pleading. An exercise in trust maybe—that he’s acquainted enough with your body to know your limit. 

You let yourself rest again and inhale deep, letting him work you down to a stop, the feeling of overstimulation falling into a wash of fuzzy static . Only after you unfold does Joel remove himself, pressing light kisses to the peak of your hip bone on his way up—proud. 

He leans over your torso, his chest parallel, the damp rub of your skin setting your heart off as you breathe in tandem. Selfishly, you scrabble a bit, wanting desperately to have more claim on his body. 

“Hey, hey. Shh. No need to do all that. I’m right here for you.” Joel gathers up your palm between his fingers, sliding your limp knuckles over his cheeks, the little curve of his lip. A moment passes and you reclaim ownership of it, caressing the underside of his jaw faintly. 

“Was I good?” you whisper.

“So good. See, I knew you could do it.” 

He nudges at the band of rib under your breast, “Maybe even a little too good—looking very empty now, sweetheart. What do you think we oughta do about that?”

[ladyhoneydarlinglove]

one piece fic | zosan | pride kisses 2025 challenge

{NOT QUITE A KISS}

Unlike their descent down to Fish-man Island from the Sabaody Archipelago, the ascent up from the sea depths is (relatively) uneventful. There isn’t much for Zoro to do besides lift weights, fish for sea beasts, and nap, which is what he’s doing when Sanji finds him under the mikan trees and jolts him awake with a kick to the ribs.

“The hell was that for, asshole?” Zoro gripes as he sits up and glares furiously at the cook, even though the kick didn’t actually hurt. He assumes from the plate of onigiri Sanji’s holding that he’s here to deliver a snack and simply decided to wake Zoro up in the most dickish way possible, which is confirmed when Sanji smirks crookedly around a lit cigarette held in one corner of his mouth and says—

“Just wanted to make sure you hadn’t turned into a moss-covered rock, shitty swordsman.” He eyes Zoro’s robes with a pointedly arched eyebrow and adds, “You’re certainly dressed for the part.”

Zoro scowls at him. “Fuck off,” he snaps, unsheathering Kitetsu just a few inches in challenge, and then fully when Sanji strikes his foot against the ground and lights up his diable jambe in response. From there, it’s easy to fall back into their old, familiar dynamic, exchanging blows and hurling insults as they battle across the deck.

It feels good. It feels right. This is where Zoro belongs, at sea on the Sunny with his crew, wrestling with Luffy and showing off for Chopper and fighting with Sanji. He’s missed it so much these past two years—their constant back and forth, the bickering and the arguing and the unflinching trust. No one has ever matched Zoro the way that Sanji does, being so at odds with each other while also entirely in sync, a perfect push and pull that Zoro knows instinctively he will never find anywhere else.

Which is both wonderful because he has it, and terrible because now Zoro knows that he wants even more; something he had successfully not been thinking about since the reunion on Sabaody until he mistimes a strike, allowing Sanji to get in a solid blow, and suddenly finds himself on his back with Sanji’s knee against his sternum. The cook leans down low, flushed with victory and grinning broadly as he declares—

“Looks like I win this one, marimo.”

His crooked smile is so close that if Zoro lifted his head just a little, he could close the gap between them. And he very nearly does, coming near enough that he can feel the warm puff of Sanji’s breath against his lips before reality comes crashing back in, and Zoro realizes—

I can’t.

Not like this. Not anymore.

His head drops back to the deck with a hard thunk. Sanji blinks, brow furrowing in confusion; Zoro’s not sure if it’s better or worse that he was clearly expecting Zoro to try and kiss him. 

“Look, twirly,” he says, speaking slowly around the sudden lump in his throat. “About the, um. Crewmates-with-benefits thing we had going on before we got separated.”

Sanji’s face turns bright, tomato red.

“Oh,” he says, gaze slipping to the side as he lifts his knee from Zoro’s chest and comes to standing. Zoro follows, brushing himself off and resheathing his swords as Sanji continues, “We’re, uh. We’re actually gonna talk about that?”

Zoro turns away so that Sanji doesn’t see his wince. “Just for a sec,” he says, glad that his voice manages to come out steady and determined. “Because I… I think we should call it quits. Permanently, I mean.”

There’s a solid five second pause before Sanji finally says, “Oh.”

Zoro hopes—prays, even—that that will be the end of it, but when he dares to look at Sanji, he finds the cook’s face twisted into a completely inscrutable expression. He pulls out a cigarette and lights it in one smooth, fluid motion before asking, “Any particular reason why?”

Because I’m in love with you, but you don’t love me back. And being with you when I know that would be sentencing myself to death by a thousand cuts, Zoro doesn’t say.

Instead he offers up, “It’s nothing personal, it’s just… Y’know. It’s been two years. Things change. I’ve changed. You’ve obviously changed too. And I just… Don’t feel like I need the outlet anymore.”

It’s the biggest lie Zoro’s ever told, and he feels vaguely sick saying it out loud. But it seems to work; Sanji eyes him curiously for another moment as he takes a long, thoughtful drag before blowing the smoke out in one short, sharp exhale.

“Alright,” he says, tapping the ash off the end of his cigarette. “If that’s what you want.”

What Zoro wants is to grab Sanji by his stupid lapels and kiss him senseless like they used to, back when Zoro was still dumb enough to believe the weird fluttering in his heart and stomach that happened every time he was around the cook was irritation and not the slow descent into a love that Zoro will never be rid of. But he’s not stupid; even if he was willing to fool around, at the end of the day Sanji has always wanted to be with a woman. His behavior around the mermaids is proof enough of that. Zoro might be a fun distraction, but he’ll never be able to give Sanji what he wants.

And that’s… Not fine. Not really, anyway. But it’s also not Sanji’s problem; it’s Zoro’s, for being stupid enough to fall in love with someone he never truly had a chance with. And it’s going to stay his problem, and his alone. Zoro might be a dick, but he’s not a complete asshole; he’s not going to burden Sanji with something that he can’t fix.

So Zoro swallows painfully around the shards of his broken heart and says, “Yeah. It is.”

[4mrplumi]

UGH I LOVE UR PENI!READER and all ur work in general but I was also slightly excited to see a lil more about ur noir!reader idea

THANK YOU!! your words mean a lot to me :)))

personally, i dropped the idea because the concept worked better as a crossover fic rather than a x reader fic, but it's cool with me if anyone takes this up themselves!!

i'd actually made a few notes on the spidernoir fic since he's probably one of my fave spideys, and they were supposed to be uploaded in a joint drabble fic the peni idea:

spidernoir!reader and sp//dr come to investigate an anomaly in the dc universe (this same anomaly will be involved in the peni!reader fic) and get stuck in the DC universe, thus becoming anomalies themselves. both more modeled after their comic versions (peni in edge of the spiderverse #5) , rather than the itsv movie ones.

overarching plot is that they have to find out what's wrong in this universe, find a way to leave, and survive all the things gotham has to throw at them. also maybe it's written from peni's pov, like those detective books where the "sidekick" (peni is not a sidekick) describes the story.

i'd have liked to discuss and incorporate character themes a lot more too, since spidernoir's mentality is different from the general spidermans' "with great power comes great responsibility", and his drive for revenge and justice is pretty similar to storylines we see in batman.

SPOILER WARNING for anyone who hasn't read/doesn't know about spidernoir's story:

i'd like to also maybe write about conflict between the two since spidernoir has killed people before, and was reprimanded by aunt may. he was ashamed, but justified his actions.

batman's strict no-kill rule is very obvious to readers, and separately, my understanding of spidernoir is that he avoids killing, but is willing to make exceptions. if this idea stuck to the original spidernoir!reader x batman/bruce fic, it'd be neat for any personal conflict between them.

again, if we're sticking to the og spidernoir's lore for this fic, then other dynamics, like that with catwoman would also be interesting. non romantically, it'd be cool to try and develop how they'd react to someone with a theme so similar to spidernoir's felicia hardy.

additional bits would have maybe more light hearted things. a subplot i wanted to put in was peni getting into gotham academy to make web fluid in the lab and keep a steady civilian identity lifestyle, and spidernoir!reader playing as a guardian for her. damian who's been suspicious of the new kid (maybe cus she mutters under her breath to the psychlink spider) bristling when she shows up with spidernoir!reader for idk a parent teacher conference?

there's something i'd have checked out in this fic and probably will in the other too, is the similarities between peni and spidernoir!reader and cassandra and batman.

in the og drabble, i'd also said "noir dads with angsty kids" because bruce and spidernoir!reader being questioned but also liked by damian and peni would've been a nice development too.

overall i feel because of all the parallels and character settings i'd have found it a little difficult to make a proper planned fic, since 1. i'm not very good at putting myself in the shoes of moody non-dependents and 2. i'd have gone too much into mindsets than any real story.

[argisthebulwark]

Promised to Forget You

summary: It took time for your life to stabilize, to find your new rhythm without him. Separating two lives that had once been twisted together was messy but somehow, you managed. You've thrown yourself into your work and forgotten all about him - until one fateful evening. You treat yourself to a night out at the local tavern, only to run into the last person you want to see - your ex husband. gn reader, no pronouns or y/n used. feat: Brynjolf, Vilkas, Miraak warnings: they're long lol. alcohol, perhaps some unhealthy relationship dynamics, sexually suggestive but not explicit. swearing masterlist

Choking on your drink, you splutter behind your napkin when Brynjolf walks in the door. His hair's shorter than you remember but that's the same smirk you'd once so foolishly fallen for. Sneaking another glance at him you're grateful for the cloister of bodies shuffling through the room, keeping you from his direct line of sight.

Against your better judgment, you have to admit that he looks good. The black shirt and loose jacket are unfamiliar but look nice against his skin tone. It's difficult to ignore him - you find your ears straining for the slightest hint of his lilted voice over the music and chatter. Your food grows quite cold but your drink is long finished, leaving you a little light headed.

Perhaps it's best to head home. You'd intended to stay out a bit longer and enjoy your first night free of duties but the sight of him leaning too close to some girl makes you feel ill. That's the smile you'd fallen for, the conspiratorial whisper he'd once used to form filthy little fantasies in your mind, her fingers curling on his thigh. It's hard to correct yourself - you're divorced, he's free to do as he wishes. You leave a handful of septims on the table and turn toward the exit, shouldering past a group of bards in your bid for a quick escape.

"Runnin' off already?"

His voice stops you dead in your tracks. The rest of the tavern grows too loud when you feel his fingers hook through the loop of your pants, tugging just enough to bring you closer. Your heart rails against your ribs when Brynjolf's chest brushes your back.

"Bryn, we shouldn't." Your voice wavers, face heating at the response you're having to him. Rationally, you should scold him and walk off - but he feels so good. You've missed his smooth voice and the familiar way he touches you, heart uselessly clamoring for more.

"And here I was hopin' to ask for a dance." You can hear the smug grin in his voice and know you're absolutely fucked. There's no room for rational thought when his lips brush against your shoulder. "You got time?"

No. You should tell him no. You fight against the urge to sink into his touch when he kisses your throat. This was the hardest part of separating - working in proximity of each other while unlearning the casual intimacy. You'd worked so hard to forget about his touch but it was all undone with that one kiss.

"'Course." You sound strangled but he sweeps you into his arms without warning. Brynjolf's body moves with yours as the music picks up, large hands holding your body against his and it's all so easy. Your arms still fit so perfectly around his neck, each movement as fluid and familiar as the last time you'd danced together.

"Thought you were here with someone else?" You manage to ask, earning yourself a grin - of course he can detect whatever jealousy is coiled up in the pit of your gut. It's wrong to feel but you can't seem to stamp it out; the picture of his lips grazing her ear, her hand resting so comfortably on his thigh.

"The gal from before?" Emerald eyes glittered in the low firelight when he leaned closer, the hand at your waist tugging you closer. You're hardly dancing anymore - intensity builds to new heights when his forehead presses to yours. "Don't know her. Just saw you lookin' and wanted to see how you'd react."

"And?" You can't keep your pulse from quickening at the implication. It's all so wrong but when your hand slides down to his chest you feel it there, that damned ring you'd placed on his finger all those years ago. It's hidden under his shirt but you'd know it anywhere.

"D'you still want me?" Brynjolf breathes, flooding your brain with every possible answer; no, you shouldn't want him. You've already had him and left him. You've put yourself through hell trying to move on from him but you can't say it. Your fucking heart won't let you say no.

"Bryn," you mumble, praying that he'll laugh it off. Despite your instincts you let one of his hands rest against your face and draw your mouth closer to his, quivering under his hold.

"'Cause I want you. Think I'll always want you." His words shatter your entire world. Your resolve breaks and you forget about all the distance, the weeks spent apart and uncertainty. You forget the fights and losing yourselves in the Guild, the loneliness and emptiness. All you can see is the man you've loved gazing down at you asking for another chance.

"We were a wreck at the end, Bryn." You gulp, flailing for the right answer. It's foolish to keep thumbing the wedding ring he's apparently worn around his neck but you can't help it. The knowledge is thrilling - he'd never gotten rid of his, either.

"That's why we gotta try again, love." Brynjolf begins to sway with the music once more and it's intoxicating to be held by him. "We try again and again 'til we get it right. What d'you say?"

You could refuse him. You know he'd accept it - he would let you leave the tavern and pretend nothing happened at the next Guild meeting. But with the familiar beat of his heart under your palm every cell in your body screams for more.

"Alright." You struggle to sound firm but it breaks at that goofy smile on his face. "We can start slow."

His kiss is brief but sets your body aflame. It's something you'd lost so many years ago but it burns through all your reasons to refuse him. Your body remembers his too well, eager for more even when he pulls away. It may be a mistake to fall for him once more, but you take solace in the fact that it will certainly be fun.

Exhausted but resolved on enjoying yourself, you drag yourself to the bar of the Bannered Mare. An unfamiliar bard plucks away a nice tune from the corner as you're handed a drink, not bothering with food. Being the Harbinger is an exceptional title but gods, it's sucked the life out of you. Working with Vilkas grows easier with time but the toll the divorce had taken on you both is glaringly obvious.

The drinks go down easy and for the moment, the weight from your shoulders lifts. As evening melts into late night other musicians join in and local couples twirl happily around the tavern's main hall. Maids bearing trays of ale and wine tiptoe carefully between their bodies and you find yourself looking quite pathetic; empty bottles piling up at your side as you gaze out across the sea of bodies.

The man who asks you dance is kind. His hands are respectful when you whirl around the tavern, a laugh bubbling out of you for the first time in ages. It is simple and easy, free from the pressure of responsibility that crushes you more and more with each day.

"I don't recognize you, are you an adventurer?" You ask as if you've emerged from Jorrvaskr recently.

"I am." He answers dreamily, a kind smile on his face. "I've been venturing across Skyrim's wilds since I was young, though I must admit that Whiterun appears to be quite the gem." His sneaky smile implies that your presence may have something to do with that comment, though he freezes before you can conjure a suitable reply.

"Mind if I cut in?"

You trip over your partner's feet, scrambling for something to say when his smile dips into a grimace. You know exactly who looms over your shoulder - he's probably glaring in that intimidating way only he can, the one that sends fear into the souls of any sane man.

Vilkas chuckles when the man stumbles over his apologies and hurries away. You turn on him, lips a bit loosened by the alcohol and stab a finger into his chest. The hand raised in greeting proudly displays that damned ring you gave him so many years ago, firmly in place on his ring finger.

"I told you to knock that off." You grumble, irritated by how unreasonably attractive he looks. Vilkas smirks down at you, easily hooking a finger into the chain around your throat to reveal your own ring. You gulp down whatever threat you had for him next, unable to counter the knowing look in those brown eyes.

"We should talk." He breezes past you, allowing the ring to thump against your chest. You take a moment to stare after him, brain struggling to catch up with the past few moments. Vilkas disappears through the tavern's back exit and like a fool, you follow.

Chilly air stings your skin after the pleasant heat of a roaring fire. Gathering your arms to your chest you approach the shadow of a man leaning against the stone wall, feeling his eyes follow every move you make.

"Alright. Talk." You instruct, trying to sound intimidating. It's a bit undercut by your teeth chattering - damned autumn chill. There's a slight rustle before his jacket is thrown around your shoulders, still deliciously warm from his body.

"I will always be your husband." His whisper is almost entirely stolen away by the wind. The tenderness in his voice wrecks you - you want to comfort him but hold back, watching his jaw grind as he glares out across the plains. "I don't care about what the census thinks or how we pay the fucking tax - I will never stop being yours. I've tried, trust me - I cannot stop seeing myself as your fucking husband."

He gulps, knuckles white against the stone and tears threaten your eyes. Your voice is too tight to speak and you venture one step closer, intoxicated by the smell of his cologne. One shaky hand reaches out and for the first time in ages, you feel him.

Vilkas shatters at your touch. His hands are in your hair, your body pressed between the chilly wall and the delicious warmth of him. Each breath comes out as a ragged breath and your heart nearly skips out of your chest at the intensity in his gaze, something you haven't seen in years.

"Tell me to stop." He pleads and for a second you consider it - you could brush it all off as a drunken mistake and return to Jorrvaskr. The ring weighs too heavily around your neck when you stare up at this man you'd vowed to love forever, the one you'd thought had grown too far away from you to get back.

"Tell me to stop and I will." He growls, eyes fluttering closed when you grab at the sides of his shirt. You still aren't sure whether you intend on shoving him back or dragging him closer, too flustered by the closeness you'd craved for years.

"Don't stop." Those silly words barely leave your lips before he's kissing you. It's all teeth and tongue, awakening a desperate hunger that's laid dormant within you for ages - hunger for him. Leading the Companions had wrecked your relationship but he;s here now, and he finally wants you just as badly as you'd once wanted him.

"I'm so sorry." He mumbles against your skin, clumsy fingers unclasping the chain at your throat. "I'm sorry it got all fucked up, I know we got too busy but I should've -" his strangled voice cuts off when he slides the ring from your chain. You both stare down at it, the flickering firelight reflecting in its scratched metal surface where it sits squarely in his palm.

He doesn't need to speak - you know exactly what he's offering. Vilkas' hungry eyes watch every little move you make and you suck in a deep breath. Years ago, you'd dreamt of a moment like this - apologies and tears and reconciliation. As the distance between you had grown you'd cut off those silly little hopes in favor of stability within the Companions.

"Please let me be your husband." Vilkas gulps, shredding through those years of doubt. With shaky fingers you pluck that ring from his hand, admiring it for a moment before placing back where it belongs.

As the Last Dragonborn, there is no end to requests for your time. Dragons to be slain and battles to win, armies to lead and disputes to settle. Citizens and royalty alike demand each second of your attention but tonight is yours. You'd left specific instructions with your steward to not be disturbed unless the world is quite literally ending and you intend on enjoying these few hours uninterrupted.

The wine goes down easily and you find yourself chatting with a few local patrons. They are either too kind to bring your title up or are blissfully unaware of who you are - it doesn't matter, you are merely glad to enjoy small talk without anyone ordering you to solve their multitude of problems.

"Darling." A voice you'd forgotten ages ago shatters your peace. Delicate fingers caress your shoulder, sweeping aside any hair in his way to your skin. "A word?"

The eyes of your new friends widen as they stare over your shoulder. You haven't seen Miraak in ages but you can still remember how he'd looked when you'd last parted - beautiful and devastatingly intimidating. You mumble some excuse to your fellow patrons and shove out of your seat, hurrying after the dramatic flow of his robes.

Anxiety sends chills toward your extremities but you bolster yourself for whatever he could want - he's left you alone for lifetimes, never sticking his nose into your life until the dragon trouble began. It had been far too many years since you'd limped away from that ancient temple, ragged and bleeding from the fight that had ended your long marriage.

When you round the corner, whatever speech you've been practicing is banished. Deep green eyes eat up every little move you make, arms folded across his broad chest. His dark hair is now streaked with grey and stubble lines the familiar angle of his jaw. His nose still bears a crooked bridge from that last fight you'd entered at his side - your healing magick hadn't been enough to straighten it.

All those memories and dozens more come rushing back when Miraak glowers at you. Stolen kisses and shared passion, whispered promises and that rushed ceremony binding your life to his. You recall every moment and are stunned, terrified to realize that you are no longer angry with him.

"Why are you here?" You finally ask, brows tightening. "Why now?"

"You dare to ask me this?" Miraak rises from where he'd been seated, though the intimidating tone of voice no longer scares you. Puzzling through your recent life, you cannot find any reason for him to reappear so suddenly - you are overwhelmed but no more than before, carving out a slice of peace by purchasing a home far from any major cities a few months prior.

"Unless you are offering aid with the endless list of royal requests, I cannot fathom why you've chosen to approach me now."

"Insolent." Miraak mutters, stalking closer to you. You reach for the blade at his side but he's too quick, standing inches away while your fingers barely brush the dagger. Rage has twisted his features but you can see the slight changes in him; scars in previously unblemished skin and wrinkles around the corners of his eyes.

"I like the grey." You tease, a thrill running up your spine when his hand smacks the wall near your shoulder. "Looks quite dapper on you."

"I have given you the space you so delicately requested." He seethes, clearly remembering the parting threat you'd left with him. "I have not bothered you once over the years -"

"How kind of you, dear."

"Until you chose to share an abode with another man." Miraak finishes, malice dripping from every word. You struggle to catch up - there's been a couple flings over the years but never have you found another love, romance has eluded your life since that fateful falling out with him.

"What -"

"I saw you." His arms cage you against the wall, body pressed dangerously close. You can't count the years that have passed since you've felt this fluttering deep in your stomach but he's glaring down at you, clearly expecting an answer. "I watched that mortal move his belongings into your home."

Oh. Gods, he's so wrong but it is far funnier than the truth - that you'd hired a steward to care for your home when it became overwhelming. Miraak had seen your friend and employee move into the spare bedroom and gods bless him, he thought that you'd finally remarried.

"Are you jealous?" You taunt, deeply enjoying the deep flush in his cheeks. You'll tell him the truth after having a bit of fun. After all the trouble he's caused you, it's only fair.

"No." He lies, a muscle in his jaw twitching. He smacks at the hand you rest on his chest, fingers closing around your wrist. Arousal replaces those butterflies when he pins your arm to the wall, the cold metal of his ring biting into your skin.

"You seem jealous, Miraak." You gulp down the urge to kiss him. Even if he looks dangerously handsome hovering so close and simmering with poorly contained rage, you should not kiss him.

"I think it's only fair for this mortal man to know that you have a husband." He snarls, hips pressing yours into the wall. You aren't sure if he wants to fuck you or kill you - the perfect balance you've missed all these years.

"A husband?" You laugh, trying to avoid holding eye contact for too long. He's always had a way of seeing right through you - and you don't want to give up this game too early. It's proving to be quite a fun time teasing him. "I haven't had a husband since -"

"We are bound."

"We have not spoken in ages." You counter, eyes fluttering a bit when his hips angle into yours. Miraak's grip on your hand is just firm enough to excite you.

"That does not break our vows." His lips trail over your jaw, tantalizingly close to your own. "I know you have never taken another lover so seriously - what makes this mortal so special? Can he do the things I've done for you? Does he -"

"He's a steward." You're gasping before you know better, too overwhelmed by the lovely sensations of his skin on yours. Even after all these years your body yearns for his touch - memories you shove away until those rare moments late at night suddenly blasting to the forefront of your mind. "He's my employee."

Miraak's grin is positively wolfish when you glare back at him. Each breath you take is tinged with his scent, skin tingling from his touch and for one moment your restraint slips. You kiss this man you've cursed since the day you left him, devouring him while familiar fingers twist into the nape of your hair.

"Truly?" He whispers, suddenly vulnerable when he speaks against your lips. "There is no other?"

You know the question is loaded but you are nodding, willing to throw away all those years of hate for a few more moments in his arms. Miraak's thumb traces down your throat when you kiss him again, far more tender than before.

"There is no other."

[z3nwr1t3sf1cs]

𝐍𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐱 𝐖𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐤 𝐱 𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐠

⋆˚࿔ Sooo I’m using an AU where LinLing ends up working as Nice’s backup manager, or even an intern for Ms. J, if you will.

⋆˚࿔ Throuple hc sheet below the cut~

^My headcanons :3

• ═ ━⊹ ⊱ ☆ ⊰ ⊹━ ═ •

⋆˚࿔ No idea what to call their throuple name. I was thinking Wriceling? It sounds so silly to say though.

• ═ ━⊹ ⊱ ☆ ⊰ ⊹━ ═ •

𝐡𝐜𝐬

⋆˚࿔ Headcanons are placed in the timeline like: Starting, Established, and then I will be sticking to the canon that Nice commits suicide, and there might be a part two or drabble about Wreck and LL after that.

Gen

- Wreck and Nice were initially in a relationship, with LinLing coming later

- I would imagine they’re not completely educated, or even aware of throuple or polyam dynamics, they’re kinda just like “Boyfriends? Okay.”

- They’re all over-thinkers.. mostly LinLing. But it’s internal.

- I could see Wreck having a bit of hidden jealously in the beginning, especially when he didn’t know LL as well

- They are all extremely good at filling the parts of their relationship, and by that I mean when Wreck is at like 20% Nice and LL will be there to fill those spaces.

- I would assume Moon has little to no care about their relationship altogether, wouldn’t go out of her way to complain nor speak about it. She has no feelings for Nice. She’s aware he won’t have feelings for her. Moon just wants out lol.

- LL and Wreck are okay with Nice and Moon’s fake public relationship, though Wreck is slightly more bitter about it.

- Wreck more especially is always trying to get Nice to loosen up and enjoy himself a bit. He eventually will, but often times he’s glued to work and stressing like a lot a lot

- Their dynamic is very fluid. It’s hard to think about this in the canon, honestly. Due to the fact Wreck and Nice are enemies, and LL is almost practically a nobody.

- Honestly I’ve been ignoring how they would hide their relationship. I feel think overall they wouldn’t have such a hard time doing so. Wreck and Nice can just turn it into a fight if they’re ever caught, and LL will just be a bystander. In the privacy of the tower, I think as long as it’s not affecting work too much, Ms. J would eventually give up.

- ^In the beginning Ms. J was very adamant on separating them.

𝐚𝐛𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦 (𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐝𝐮𝐚𝐥)

- Cooking skills?

Nice: Yeah! Pretty good! Probably makes dinner occasionally, and he’s not very fond of fast food regularly.

LinLing: Probably not. He thinks he can though- so try to hype him up!!

Wreck: Most likely can’t and knows it. He’ll be fine eating anything though.

- One time, LL cooked dinner for them. It turned out horrible but both Wreck and Nice were too scared to say so. Because he would be pretty sad. So both of them were just like: 😃👍

- Both LinLing and Wreck might get annoyed every once in a while about Nice’s diet. Which I think would be extremely balanced with nutrition, protein, veggies, all that stuff. This guy will not go out to eat XFC with them.

- Hobbies?

Nice: He won’t do anything that isn’t directly beneficial to his career or public reputation very often. Like little to nothing. He trains, practices ballet, and I definitely see him studying something like business or analyzing statistics. That’s his fun.

LinLing: I can think he’s being a fan of video games! RPG and FPS games, he loves to customize his character. (often doing so to make it stray quite far away from his actual looks, but will still refer to it as him— “but cooler!!”) As well as video editing and stuff he’d do for work. Also hc that he’d be the person in the gc to make stupid memes with graphic templates.

Wreck: I could also see Wreck being a big fan of video games, but more nostalgic ones and less pewpew.. He would probably try to get all three of them to compete in Mario Kart or Street Fighter.

- ^Nice secretly also enjoys video games, and also secretly gets slightly competitive. But he quickly catches himself if he’s having too much fun. bro ;-;

• ═ ━⊹ ⊱ ☆ ⊰ ⊹━ ═ •

Ty oomf for encouraging be to write this 🙏 (@skylessstatic)

I feel like I was like winging half of these. It’s an interesting dynamic to write about honestly— I’ve never written for rarepairs

^I don’t say repair because this is an uncommon ship, I just mean Wreck, Nice, and LL have never actually interacted so it makes me think lmao

I was thinking about writing a little sheet about how I write each of the TBHX characters. Like grasping their personalities and all that. So— a headcanon sheet with more in depth information.

Zen off~ 🦋🤍

[meatball-headache]

Some mysterious benefactor gave me an invite key to the Soulframe closed beta—or whatever they're technically calling it—and I've played for a couple hours. Spoilers below the readmore. (Mainly I'm talking about technical performance and gameplay/combat/menus, and not much on content or story.)

In short: I like it!

But I was going to, anyway. I love Warframe, I love Souls games (in theory...) so Soulframe was going to be a sure winner. I was already mesmerized by the trailers, and the devs have done a good job with Warframe so I have confidence they can repeat the trick.

The graphics aren't done. God, I hope the graphics aren't done. High makes my laptop fans go nuts, and the overworld tends to have some frame drops. I assume I can find some happy medium, nothing can be done about that but get a new computer, which isn't happening. There's also some weird ghosting and tearing and blurring and whatnot? There's a dynamic resolution feature and god it brings back memories of Dragons Dogma II: Pixel Edition. So tired of games that need more and more, though. At least it doesn't require DX12 like some games that aren't worth it—I know at least one computer that can't install DX12 so any game that needs it is just hard locked. (Which brings me back to Dark Souls 2... when I was playing it I thought, this looks fine! These graphics are plenty! Granted, this is the Scholar of the First Sin version... the original looked. Um. Bad.)

I like how it controls. Now, it's no secret that this is just a combination of Dark Souls and Warframe, the title is a dead giveaway and the devs even admitted: yeah, there's nothing to hide, we knew what we were making. And yet, it doesn't feel quite like either. It's fluid like the latter Fromsoft games, but it's slow like the earlier ones. It doesn't feel stiff, just... weighty? I mean, it could be because I picked the heavy weapon, but still. But your character feels like they have weight and momentum when you start and stop or turn. It's not like Grand Theft Auto, which is like moving a mattress standing on end, but it's not zippy like Warframe where you just parkour everywhere. I like where it's at, though. It feels just my speed.

A few things I like straightaway: there's no separate parry button. A parry is just a well-timed block... or attack? Yeah, I've had parries/deflections/blocks/probably some specific game element happen when I was attacking, and the enemy was attacking, and my weapon hit theirs and we both bounced off each other! I like that because I hate parrying in Dark Souls, and I hate that Dark Souls basically demands that you parry. So it's like Lies of P, which I adore. Another awesome thing that no one cares but me: your dodge isn't a roll, it's just... a dodge. Dodge rolling is stupid. If you're in a swordfight with someone, you're not going to fling yourself to the ground to do anything other than get stabbed in the back. Don't even bother with the gif of the cosplayers rolling on the ground—John Darksouls completely leaps off the ground for one, and for two: he has I-FRAMES. So, I really dig that. And, you have a jump button, none of this Dark Souls running-leap crap. And, just for good measure, you have a kick! To knock away shields, I guess? You can do that in Dark Souls, of course, if you time a forward-R1 press correctly, but here it's just a button.

So, moving and combat feel pretty good. Slower than a straight sword in Dark Souls III, certainly a lot slower than Warframe, but not stiff and awkward. You're not animation-locked strongly; often I canceled an attack and switched to a block just in time. More often I switched late, but, what can ya do. And yeah, R1 light attack, R2 heavy attack, hold R2 charge attack, L1 block, the usual.

Oh! Before I forget: it doesn't have lock-on like Soulsbornioh of P has, but it does lock on automatically. There's no marker, but your character will face their attacks and blocks toward and enemy if you're in combat. They won't face the camera, though, you have to do it manually. It's... a little weird. I feel like the people who complained about the lock-on system in DS2 when fighting crowds will go berserk over this. I don't mind it, it just takes some getting used to. I keep trying to press R3, which is crouch now.

Other than that, you also have some powers that you get from your Legion Arm I don't know what it's called in this game, but you have a magic arm. This gives you some Warframe-like powers where you hold L2 and press triangle, circle, square for different abilities. I'm not good at them, and they don't follow the auto-lockon, they shoot where your camera is pointing, so it's a little bit awkward. There's also some other abilities you can get by upgrading your arm with something a little like the Focus system in Warframe, but... I don't know how to use them. It sounds like I got some kind of Puppet-String-like ability, which would rule absolute ass, but I don't know which mysterious button combination to press for it. You can also—I know, I bounce around, you're used to it—throw your weapon with block+heavy attack... that might have something to do with the Puppet String? But I only got it to go once on accident.

Okay, let's rewind. I'm guessing the opening isn't finished. You get the scenes we've seen in the trailers—creating your character mother, the moose dragging your naked ass out of the water... well, you're wearing a loincloth now, sadly. T for Teen, I guess. And then you're just playing! If this is it, okay, it's a little abrupt. I mean, Lies of P gave you about two lines of dialogue before you were playing, but the scene set it up well so it was pretty good, and I'm not playing a Soulslike because I need a long-winded introduction to set up the world and explain my goals to me, no, the game looks interesting so I'm going to go explore it, I'm already motivated, so reward my thirst for adventure god damn you. ...anyway, you start playing. Right away you can go to the... Nightfold? I think it was called? It's your Hunter's Dream/Roundtable Hold/Hotel Krat place, right now it's just one tent with nothing but a table where you can look at your weapons, armor, magic arm, weapon skills, and stats. There's only three stats, because all games boil down to strength, dex, or magic, I guess, and I think you can just increase and decrease your stats on the fly. You rank up your weapons like Warframe, and you also level up your skill with different types of weapons, and you spend those levels on passive buffs and such. Same with the magic arm, you level up your Fae Pact and put those points into a skill tree that seems to have passive buffs and perhaps active abilities that I can't figure out how to use. I know from the trailers that you can recruit NPCs to the Nightfold in various ways, so you can get your Andre, your Patches, all them things at some point.

I'm picking up a lot of items—very Warframe-like. I've got lots of stuff that must be crafting items, scrap iron, scrap steel, tufts of fabric and the like. There's also a few more rare items that are for "joining," and it says if used on a broken weapon, it increases the stats in a certain way? Don't know how that will turn out, but there's some kind of grind to building weapons, it seems. Also, I've picked up "xxx Fragment 1/4" several times; so, I guess when you have a blacksmith, you can make weapons and armor if you pick up enough fragments for them. They seem to be semi-generic loot, lying around in chests and stuff.

So, the graphics don't explode my graphics card, I know how to press my attack buttons, and I know how to go home to level up. I didn't say, but you probably saw from trailers: your Nightfold, you can access instantly with the press of a button. (That button doesn't work because I'm using a PS4 controller on wifi on PC through DS4 and... it's messy.) So you're just in a field and you think, "Oh, I want to see if I can level up my sword skill," so you just press Tab and your guy falls through the ground and you're there! You can do that right away. In fact, as soon as you gain control, you have a tutorial on top of your screen telling you to do that. (There's a compass at the bottom—one more stylish and less obtrusive than Elden Ring's, I might add.) Naturally, I ignored that... but only briefly, because I did want to go to the Nighthold. I was a little miffed that the game was trying to hold my hand, but it didn't last long. The entire tutorial was: press Tab to go to the Nighthold, walk over there and press the button to interact with the level-up station, press Tab to leave the Nighthold, Now Go Find Your Own Adventure, Brave Envoy! Awright.

So, if you've seen those weird holy knights from the trailers, that's all I fought so far. They all yell at you and their voices echo in their helmets and I can't understand a word they're saying. I like fighting them. The pacing feels good, the hits feel crunchy, it's pretty nice. I've died a few times, and—because this is based on Warframe's engine, all the enemies have their level above their heads. (I doubt that's the actual reason, it's just how they design games, I guess.) I can see how a hardcore elite Elden Souls speedrunner would scoff at this, but it didn't bother me much. Since all the enemies look alike, it's a nice way to say "Hey dumbfuck, you've been playing for six minutes and these guys are level 20. Guess what's gonna happen?"

...so, when you die, you become a bird on a gravestone, and you can either respawn there, or fly back to your corpse. I don't know why you'd want to do one or the other? I don't know if you lose souls like in Dark Souls or if you can only revive a certain number of times or anything? It seems to put you at the nearest gravestone, even if you haven't unlocked it, so to speak—I'm not even sure if you light bonfires like in Souls, if there's a system like that at all. Since you can go to the Nightfold at any time, and there isn't fast travel, there doesn't need to be a DS1/DS2-style bonfire system, so, I don't know how it works. But, flying back to your body as the bird is a pain in the ass, because the bird flies forward no matter what. So if you're in a cave, the bird just keeps ramming into walls and bouncing off, and you can't slow down enough to look around and figure out where you're going. You're also flying back from a gravestone you haven't been to... I think... these mazes are real mazes sometimes. So I just respawn there and deal with it, usually.

But, yeah, you're in an open world map, it seems fairly small—it's a beta, a demo, I don't expect we have access to the whole thing. Also highly likely that you have to do something to progress, anyway. So I ran around a little bit, fought a few guys, and pretty quickly found one of these:

These round hobbit-hole doors mean you're entering a randomly-generated dungeon. Now I'm excited. Randomized, repeatable content? Oh baby, I'm there! It's like chalice dungeons, only apparently integrated into the game, you can just stumble upon them and go inside. The airlock and the loading hiccups are exactly like entering the Eidolon Plains from Cetus, how it grinds and the framerate drops when you get in, then it pops and you're back to 60 and the lighting and music and stuff shift.

Now, the insides, randomized, like I said. I know this because one of the Live Letters devstreams explained this, but I also know this because I went into one once, died, went back, and immediately could tell it was different. Totally different room right away. It's like missions in Warframe, where it's these set-pieces stitched together, with all these possible doorways that are just sealed up in this particular instance. As near as I can tell, you get a hobbit door between each set-piece room, or at least, these doors are sprinkled through the dungeon. And there's guys inside you can fight, loot you can pick up, chests you can take, and also some puzzles... not to give too much away, but there's a little bit of light button-pressing and trap-springing involved. There's also a strange whispering in the halls...

...but the one thing I can't find in these places is a goal. They're really big mazes, or maybe small mazes, but you move much more slowly than in Warframe through a place almost as big and tangled. Or, if Warframe is made up of lots of tangle rooms, Soulframe is made up of larger, more layered rooms, with a lot of verticality, bridges criss-crossing a large open space on multiple floors, passages disappearing and connecting I forget where... But you don't have bullet jumps, you don't have wall latch, you're just a folk with a cool hat and a clanky arm going around, so you gotta hike up the hard way. I found my way out of one of these places, but there wasn't a boss, and I didn't seem to get any grand prize. I just found a hobbit door and this one happened to lead outside! The next one, I got lost wandering for a while, so I just gave up and went out the way I came in. Perhaps it's not even implemented yet, I don't know.

It has the exact same chat menu and options screen as Warframe, and when you go to the menu it has your user name in the corner with the same + box to invite players to your group. It's possible this is just a placeholder from Warframe's engine, but it's a lot to leave lying around this late in development, so it does seem like they're using a similar multiplayer system to Warframe's. You have a friend list and can just click your friend to play together, rather than the absolute buffoonery that FromSoft is doing. Yes, yes, there's interesting lore reasons for their gimmick... in Demon's Souls, anyway. Now it's just a nuisance. Let us just play together like normal! ...well, it looks like Soulframe is doing that. No other difficulty options, though, the game is just what it is. If anyone's having trouble, I'll help and/or slow you down! But also, it seems you only have one character per account, and I don't see a way to start over, so that's like Warframe, too. It's... whatever. So I can't do like I do in Bloodborne, park a character at level 20 with a +8 Boom Hammer to help nuke the Cleric Beast in two shots. I'll have to use my level 120 character with a +10 Boom Hammer to nuke the Cleric Beast in one shot :D

The only thing resembling story that I did, you can see in the screenshot above, which we also saw in the trailers, so this is early content. I haven't gone out of my way to do quests and plot, so I don't know how much story is implemented yet. If the trailers—and The New War—are anything to go by, though, it should be very cinematic and very mysterious. Just enough to show you something's there, not so much to just spoonfeed you, and not so much to just drag it out and make you wonder if this is even going anywhere. (These examples are, in case you wondered: Bloodborne, Final Fantasy [any], and Elden Ring.)

When I logged in, it said this is "Preludes 8", so I guess the beta period has been going on for some time. They said they keep adding things, so Please Look Forward To It, and tell them what we liked and what we don't like. I want to play some more because it's fun and new, but I don't want to play too much because it's not finished and... slightly pointless to play it too much now? I'd have to start over later, things might get changed, maybe I learn too much lore and it loses the appeal when I get the real thing, who knows.

All right, my cat has been looking at me very pathetically for a long time, so I have to go give her second dinner.

[essenyare]

Sell Morgane

THE THOUSAND-YARD STARE 【 Resident Evil 4 Remake 】 Leon S. Kennedy x Jack Krauser 🐍🦋

⚠️WARNING: Resident Evil 4 Remake (2023), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Slow Burn, Hurt/Comfort, Hurt No Comfort, Rape/Non-con Elements, Power Dynamics, Power Imbalance, Gore, Angst, PTSD, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Top Jack Krauser, Bottom Leon S. Kennedy

Chapter 02. Sell Morgane ↩︎ previous chapter

In ages past, upon a vast and boundless sea, there lived a fisherman named Elian who sailed alone in his small boat. His hands, calloused from years of labor, were weary, yet he cast his nets hoping for the day’s catch. As he struggled to pull in his nets, he discovered not ordinary fish, but a miraculous creature gleaming with an emerald light. Its scales sparkled like precious gems, its form as fluid as moonlight upon water. And in a moment of wonder, the fish began to speak. “Harken me, fisherman,” its voice rang clear as silver bells, echoing between the waves. “I am Morgan, guardian of the depths, weaver of destinies. If you return me to the sea, I shall bestow upon you endless fortune. But should you choose to take my life, calamity will descend, and your boat shall sink into oblivion.” Though hunger rumbled in Elian’s stomach, he gazed upon this sacred being, unable to raise a hand against it. Drawing a deep breath, he spoke solemnly: “Noble spirit of the waters, your beauty and sanctity must not be desecrated. Return to your ocean—I choose to trust in your grace.” With that, he gently returned Morgan to the sea. The fish flickered between the waves and vanished, leaving behind only a distant whisper: “Follow the tide, and you shall reach the place destiny has marked.” Elian drifted with the currents, and soon the dawn revealed a strange and beautiful shore. The beach was white as moonlight, the forests lush as fairyland, birdsong sweet as benediction. When he cast his nets, fish rushed toward him in schools, each cast bringing abundant harvest. Grateful, Elian built a stone altar by the sea, burning incense in thanksgiving, attributing the miracle to Morgan. As years passed, travelers discovered this paradise and lingered. Gradually, a prosperous village emerged. Generations told of Morgan, revering her as a bestower of blessings. Each summer solstice, they would light incense, waiting for her return. And in return she did. When the tide receded, villagers would find an ancient stone grotto covered in moss, and Morgan would appear—no longer a fish, but a woman of transcendent beauty. Her hair spun gold, her eyes as deep as the starry sky. She would walk among the village, touching the sick, blessing harvests, comforting those in sorrow. They named her the “Holy Spirit of Healing,” and each year she came with the tide, never failing her promise. Years later, a travel-worn golden-haired knight arrived, carrying a lover near death. Blaisin—called The Wolf Who Howls at the Noonday Flame in his homeland—appeared haggard, his voice trembling: “Great Morgan, I beg you to save her. I offer my entire life in exchange for her survival.” Morgan gazed at him, a fleeting sorrow in her eyes, yet she agreed: “I shall do what I can, but know this—she must drink my sacred medicine, and for twelve nights, you must not touch her body. Otherwise, her soul will be forever separated from yours.” The knight swore solemnly. Morgan herself gathered seaweed and moonlight, blending them with sacred prayers to create her healing elixir. The entire village joined in preparation—men gathering beeswax, the elderly and children collecting bay leaves, grinding and shaping while candles burned along the shore. The dying maiden drank and relaxed, sliding into a profound, healing sleep. The knight kept vigil, silently awaiting the miracle. —This passage is an expansion upon the Breton folk ballad, 'The Gaze of Morgan' (Sell Morgane). The original verses are drawn from from ‘Anthology of Breton Lais: Myths and Legends of the Tides’ Complied by Oxford University and University of Rennes Published by Oxford University Press (OUP)  First Edition 1839, Revised English Translation 1977, 2004 ISBN 1-59420-058-0

∞

“Hunnigan, I need your help.” “I need immediate extraction for Jack Krauser. I’ll explain later, but this can’t go public.”

“What—so he’s still alive? The intel I have says he went missing two years ago. Leon, are you absolutely—”

“He’s alive. ” “But he’s in bad shape… I—I don’t know how much longer he can hold on.”

“…Understood. Send me your coordinates.” “I’ll arrange something as soon as I can, but it’ll take a bit of time. The safest house I’ve got is on the northwest coast of France. Do you need anything else?”

I need him to stay alive.

“Leon?”

”…Nothing. Just make it quick. Thanks.”

Silence pressed in like a stifling tropical low, heavy and unmoving, filling the cramped medical room. His lungs expanded, contracted. Oxygen in, carbon dioxide out. The sound of his own breathing, sharp and shallow, rasped in the space between his ribs, and Leon fought to keep it quiet, steady—like somehow if he got too careless, the signs of his own life would drown out the faint, fragile rise and fall of the body lying in front of him.

The emergency generator barely powered half the lights, casting a cold, sterile glow that only made Krauser’s pallor look more sun-bleached and wasted. The door lock had been busted beyond repair, hanging useless in place—a clear invitation for anyone outside looking to finish the job. Leon gritted his teeth and shoved a couple of old filing cabinets against it for good measure, stirring up a lazy drift of dust that hung in the stale air before settling again. If those cult bastards were set on getting through, this was as good a place as any for his last stand.

Only this wasn’t some noble Thermopylae, and he sure as hell wasn’t Leonidas. There was no glory in dying here. No grand cause, no future worth bleeding for. Nobody was going to turn this night into legend, no one was gonna look back and write songs about it.

Maybe that was for the best. Better to be forgotten. Jack Krauser, war hero, thrown away like a broken pawn in South America. And Leon Scott Kennedy? What the hell was he worth? Pawns don’t get stories. Just a new face, same game. Someone dies on some nameless battlefield, and people say that’s the lucky way out. It’s the ones left breathing who carry on like walking wills, dragging the weight of the dead wherever they go. And the farther they make it, the more they understand the truth: there are no heroes on the board—just the next piece you shove forward.

Krauser hadn’t moved an inch. Still out cold on the floor. Leon hauled him up, struggling to get him onto the examination table, his own busted ankle screaming every step of the way. He adjusted the bed’s incline, fingers hovering over the controls before finally settling on a setting that propped Krauser up just enough. Maybe it’d ease some of the pressure on his chest.

Leon licked at his cracked lips, his eyes burning from exhaustion pushed well past its limit. Forcing himself to lock back into focus, he noticed the blood seeping through the edges of the bandages on Krauser’s chest again—dark red blooming across the filthy white fabric. His heart skipped a beat, fingers trembling before he could stop them.

“Shit,” he muttered under his breath. The small room threw the word back at him, low and sharp against the walls, and the growing anxiety inside him soaked it up like a sponge.

His shaking fingers fumbled for the scissors on the table, the metal flashing cold under the weak light. Leon took a slow, deep breath, steadying himself before carefully starting to cut through the bandages. Every scrape of the blades against the fabric rasped in his ears, sending a chill skimming down his spine. His hands felt stiff and clumsy, knuckles pale from the strain, palms damp with sweat so slick the scissors nearly slipped from his grip. Layer by layer, the dread thickened, as if he were unwrapping some cruel joke of a gift—and he already knew exactly what waited inside the box.

When he peeled back the final layer, Leon held his breath without meaning to.

Under the harsh light, the gauze beneath was soaked through and knotted into a sticky mass, the edges blackened like rotting leaves. Pus oozed from the deeper tissue, catching the glow in sick shades of yellow and green. Shredded flesh and fragments of chitin tangled together, looking like the discarded remains of some half-eaten prey left to spoil for days. The black blood leaking out of him had thickened to the weight and sheen of motor oil, slow and endless, as if the body had forgotten how to clot. And the Plaga… the Plaga had decided to abandon its failing host. It wasn’t even trying to heal him anymore. Hell, it might’ve been speeding up the rot.

The black blood kept flowing, and with no way to gauge how much Krauser had already lost, Leon could only run through the same useless motions of stopping it all over again.

He had no choice but to dig out the gauze that had fused to the chitin and raw flesh. It didn’t come loose the way he’d hoped. His fingertips sank into a mess of warmth and wetness, pressing into the half-solid sludge of pus and torn muscle, feeling the tight pull of fibers snagging the weave of the gauze. He tugged, but something deeper inside fought back. It felt like new tissue had grown around it, stitching the foreign object right into the wound’s architecture.

Leon exhaled, shoved his fingers in deeper, until his knuckles slid into the damp cavity. He found the edge of the gauze tangled with chitin and flesh, pinched it between numb fingers, and pulled.

Hard.

The tearing sound was louder than he’d expected—less a clean rip and more the wet grind of tissue being stirred, stretched, and peeled back layer by reluctant layer. Krauser’s body jolted, muscles twitching on instinct, clenching tight around the decayed ruin of the wound as if trying to hold itself together, as if fighting against the violence of the removal.

Leon kept pulling.

At last, the wound gave up its prize. Blood-soaked scraps of gauze, bloated and slick as gutted fish entrails, dropped onto the metal tray beside the bed with a wet slap. It felt like the earth itself resenting anyone digging too deep for what was buried. Like Krauser’s body wasn’t just rejecting the treatment—it was warning him. Time was slipping away. And with every passing second, so was whatever hope they had left.

He flipped open the PDA. The last coordinates he’d transmitted during his previous call with Hunnigan were still displayed on the screen, and there were no new unread messages.

04:39 AM

Moving Krauser from the ruins to this makeshift infirmary had eaten up at least an hour, not counting the time he’d wasted doubling back to Krauser’s campsite for the map and rappelling down. He couldn’t even remember when Krauser had finally passed out. For all Leon knew, hours would have slipped through his fingers like water. He wasn’t exactly ignorant when it came to field medicine, but... three, four hours? With injuries like these? He wasn’t sure if that was considered a window of survival or just an extension of suffering. At this point, he was half-tempted to start praying that Plaga would take control of Krauser’s body again, if only to keep him breathing.

Leon’s stomach lurched hard. He swallowed down the urge to gag.

Krauser. Once so strong. His instructor. That man who stood like a steel pillar, who moved like the wind across open ground, the soldier who never lost his composure no matter how brutal the battlefield... and now here he was, sprawled out in front of Leon like a fish dumped on dry land, barely clinging to life.

Krauser could be the indomitable force on the front lines. He could be the mercenary turned monster, fused with a parasite, wielding inhuman strength. But he was never supposed to end up like this.

Leon’s hand hovered in the air for just a second, eyes unfocused.

...READ MORE ON AO3

[jooniperbonsai]

Thanks For the Sub (ksj) | Chapter Two

Pairing: Camboy!Seokjin x Gamer!Reader (afab)

Rating: 18+

Word Count: 13.7k

Release date: Mon. February 5, 2024

Genre: Smut, fluff, angst, camboy au, gamer au, comedy, crack, slow burn (?), coworkers/boss/friends to lovers, an exploration of adults in their late 20s/early 30s

Summary: Now aware of Seokjin's secret, you try to take some of his...techniques into your next stream. But how well will they pay off?

Chapter Warnings: anxiety, discussion of boundaries and triggers, Seokjin explains what bdsm is supposed to mean to us watching at home, internet/cyberbullying dynamics, boss/employee power struggles, discussions of consent, peer pressure, mention of threesome, implied chubby/fat reader (it's vague enough to not adopt a specific size), mention of sex toys, swearing, sexual fantasies, m masturbation, damn Seokjin has a boner so many times in this sorry, size kink, y/n assumes Seokjin's sexuality, porn simulation games, 1 (one) reference to Vine (RIP), Dom Seokjin, kink negotiation, mention of choking and improper bdsm practices, mention of urethral sounding (but not actually happening)

a/n: Ahh hello! First of all, thank you to everyone who has read TFTS so far! It really warms my heart knowing how well received it's been, and your comments and messaged have meant so much. I really wanted to emphasize discussions of consent and boundaries in this chapter. I was struggling to write for a little bit, and then suddenly I saw this one gif of Jin on my feed and my brain jimmy neutron brain blasted my way to a 13k length chapter. Hopefully I've proofread well enough, but if you spot some serious errors please let me know. -h

On Saturday afternoon, Seokjin woke up for the first time in what felt like forever feeling rested. After checking the weather app on his phone constantly throughout the night, he received the alert that heavy snowfall was causing delays in plowing and public transit. He messaged the opening crew, encouraging them to also enjoy the lie-in and prepare for a delayed open. Instead of falling into the semi-sickening lovefest of couples peeling each other’s perilla leaves or trying to feed each other lunch, he could be spared until the evening. 

Which was good, because Seokjin was exhausted. His live last night was not planned, but after closing and apologizing to you about his gross mismanagement of power, he needed to get out the pent-up frustration that crumbled the bones in his body from pressure. 

Sure, it was the right thing to do to apologize, even though he knew he would never be able to look at that prep counter, your wide, glassy eyes, and swollen lips the same way again. But it was important to him. He could never become the kind of man he watched his boss be to him or his wife, forcing his way past someone’s boundaries to get what they wanted. 

Even years later, Seokjin was convinced that had he not shared information about Soon Yi that intrigued his boss, if he’d maybe kept his personal and professional lives separate, things maybe would have been different. And now that he was in the position of power where he was someone else’s boss, wasn’t it his duty to make sure that didn’t happen to you too?

Seokjin almost lost all his control with you yesterday. From the moment you came in with a tired, croaky voice that greeted him “hi” before the sun had even come up, he knew he would be struggling for the rest of the day. 

During multiple points of your training, he had the urge to touch you, which was nearly impossible not to do, since so much of the guidance you needed came from hand-over-hand instruction as he showed you the fluid motions of safe chopping. When his large hands covered yours, Seokjin became aware of how tiny you were to him. Maybe not in all the places, but your height, your smaller hands, they showed him how easily and perfectly you slotted into his body, like a puzzle piece he didn’t know he could ever feel matched to. 

Maybe Seokjin executed this desire to touch you a little too dramatically. When he saw your misplaced cutting knife, he let that excuse lead him head-first into white hot desire, scolding you, watching you squirm a little as you felt embarrassed for losing focus. And that seemed to unlock some feral need in him, to get you to squirm a little more, to touch you and feel the velveteen softness of your forearms as he pinned you against the prep table. 

The little gasp you’d let out sent the blood straight to his cock, and to avoid you seeing how easy and embarrassingly you could undo him–how quickly one singular sound from you would make Seokjin rock hard and panting and under your complete power–he reacted, clasped your wrists, used some set of excuses to get closer, let his arm skim across your cheek to grab a packet of whatever the hell was above you. And the way you didn’t resist, didn’t pull away from his grasp showed him how good you could be, how obedient you were as you turned around when told. 

He should’ve stopped there, but you were standing in front of him, smelling a little bit like coffee and a fruity shampoo you used, your bodies only mere inches from full on contact. And Seokjin wanted more of a reason to hold onto you, to see what ways he could rile you up, whether you were cognizant or not of how, well, submissive you were to him. 

Most of his income from streams came from scenarios where Seokjin played into a softer role, which translated into the role of a submissive pretty boy, and usually a bottom. But for the first time in years, a rich, satisfying wave of dominance rolled back into his body and he welcomed it.

Seokjin knew better, but he couldn’t help himself. The one bit of control he maintained was in his refusal to let go of your hands, even after you had mastered the motions of your knife, possibly even better than Seokjin himself could chop. Because if Seokjin declawed himself from you, his hands would absolutely wander. Up the sleeve of your exposed forearms and down the swell of your breasts and full hips. 

His cock ached thinking about how plush and soft your body would be under his hands, how he wouldn’t have to worry about breaking you. He could safely grope your sides and not feel like he would pinch your bones together, and that was important, because Seokjin liked to be rough.

When that carrot fell, you couldn’t shake Seokjin’s desperate hands off yours and you carried him with you as you curved your body toward the floor to pick up your mess. Seokjin was blessed and cursed with the brief moment he got to touch more of you than he ever had as your ass rocked back and ground gently into him. 

He’d moaned, though he tried to disguise it as a grunt or scoff, but the way your delicious ass attracted him right in between the line of your cheeks practically begged him to rut against you. 

Your reaction of shock, though, halted him as he remembered you two were in the kitchen of his family’s restaurant. He scrambled to cover his dick before it became even more obvious and humiliating. 

And then you fell, because Seokjin was an idiot and forgot he had been holding onto you. 

The sound of your head crashing into the metal ricocheted through his ears, and your pained moan sent him spiraling in panic. He didn’t think. Seokjin wasn’t the best at remaining calm during potential medical emergencies, instead of electing to assess your wellbeing and check-in with you, he just reacted, plucking you off the floor and onto the counter.

You can’t manage a restaurant without carrying heavy sacks of rice or flour, cartons of vegetables or gallons of oils and liquids into the space. That, plus the fact that Seokjin did go to the gym to keep his figure, ensured that when he had to pull you up from the floor, he could do so with ease. Which thanks to his awful, overly enthusiastic libido, was really locking in some potential size kink. If Seokjin could hoist you onto the cold prep counter without breaking a sweat, it meant he could also hoist you onto other things, like his cock. Could bounce you up and down and see how those delicious, large tits would follow his pace.

Fuck. 

This was when Seokjin realized even though he was deeply, deeply interested in these fantasies, his reality was different. Because too easily he had dipped into some innate submissive part of you and decided to play with it and tease you for it. Too easily, he has erased any boundary between professional and personal, and now you are walking around with a giant bruise on your forehead. He used his power to manipulate you, didn’t he? While the tiniest part of him argued back, suggesting it was purely mutual attraction and biology, that he shouldn’t apologize because he swore he saw something in your eyes that almost guaranteed you wanted him too, this is why Seokjin had to apologize. The “almost” of it all. He wasn’t sure, which meant the uncertainty was a risk and just because he wanted something to be true didn’t mean it was. 

By the end of the day, the intense proximity to you and the memory of your lips parting to suck his tongue into your mouth had become too much. Seokjin turned on an impromptu stream to wallow in his self pity and direct that dominant energy into something that was far less harmful and at least lucrative. 

Now, as the winter’s dull afternoon light glowed through the city, Seokjin checked his phone, seeing that the evening crew leader had arrived and informed him that everything was covered and they wouldn’t need the extra help. 

With that update, Seokjin’s entire evening just became available, which was a rare thing for him since he moved up in his job role. But because of this, he was unsure what to do to pass the time. He cooked himself dinner, cleaned, and organized the jars in his refrigerator, needing to keep his hands busy to distract himself from thinking about you. 

His apartment looking immaculate and there no longer being anything else to clean, he finally fired up his computer to play games. Maybe this would serve as a proper distraction. His new PC was set to come early next week after being delayed by the snow. Despite Seokjin’s financial success since his start as a streamer, money to him was still something he wasn’t sure what to do with. 

After Worldwide Handsome took their cut from last night’s fifteen grand in earnings, he would be walking away with about ten thousand dollars. He would, albeit quietly, pour around seven thousand of those dollars into the restaurant, where the mom-and-pop feel of the small shop was starting to show its age.

Last week, he’d called a repairman to give him a quote about fixing a broken coil on one of the griddles. After a quick inspection, he was informed most of the unit was corroding, and it was time to seriously consider a replacement. Between that, the new register he ordered, and the walk-in freezer that was coughing its last breath, probably as we speak, Seokjin spent nearly forty grand in the last month with repairs and replacements to keep the shop running another day. 

His parents had insisted they’d pay for the expenses, but after the first few discoveries he’d made of the DIY wiring his father had tried in earnest to configure, Seokjin stopped alerting them to the updates he was making, hoping that distance, age, and some fairly similar looking appliances would allow for these changes to go undetected when they returned. He had seen what this place made. He’d seen his paycheck. There was no way in hell his father could afford an $18 to 25,000 walk-in freezer on their operating budget. 

Overall, Seokjin made plenty of money with streaming, but beyond some investments and his nice apartment, as well as a savings account to ensure he wasn’t completely destitute, he lived much below his means. When he hit goals during his streaming, it did really feel like he was winning big. To buy himself a new PC was something he knew he worked for.  

Just as he was browsing the new skins in the game store, he heard the familiar chime and his heartrate picked up. 

You were live. 

He hesitated. “No,” he said out loud to himself, his voice croaking after hours of not speaking. “Don’t even think about it.” 

He knew if he looked at you right now, all the distractions, the cleaning, the dedication to keeping himself busy, would be for nothing. It would be painful to look at you–probably all cozy with your hair pulled messily away from your face, your glasses hanging off your nose instead of your usual contacts–and not think about how merely hours ago he had your heat rubbed up against him. 

If he really wanted to torture himself, he would also think about how the casual, disheveled look you sported could have been something he woke up to this morning if he’d tried a little harder, the loose t-shirt you probably wore rising up while you slept next to him, exposing the soft tummy he knew hid under it. Maybe even one of your nipples would slip out, hard from the chill of the cold winter air bleeding into his apartment. 

But Seokjin wouldn’t torture himself. He knew better. When he exited his game, he definitely didn’t launch his web browser and go to your channel that was on his Favorites tab. And he definitely didn’t cup himself through his sweats as he watched you appear before him. 

If the idea of you in casual wear could make him this hard, the view of you now, as you sat on stream with a tight, low-cut top that showed the curve of your breasts and their delicious, lickable valley between them, could easily turn every part of him into stone. You did your makeup today. Let your hair delicately frame your face. You looked like you were logging on to lure your viewers to come to you like a siren. Seokjin wanted you to devour him. 

His cock twitched and he groaned. He was such a pervert. But whoever this Y/N was, she looked like she was ready to play some games, and not the kind that Seokjin was used to seeing on stream. 

“Well, hello,” you purred. Was this really happening? Who the fuck had possessed the wide-eyed, awkward gamer he was used to watching?

“I thought, given that it’s so close to Valentine's Day, and because I missed the stream last night, I would make it up to you.” 

Seokjin froze. How had he not known you were supposed to stream yesterday? He would’ve never let you stay so late. He shot you an apologetic text,and when he looked up from his phone, he saw some of the comments flooding into your feed:

Mingisaysrelax: Um…am I on the right website? 😏💦

MountainSan88:😳 

PizzaBoy97: You look really pretty 😍

MizzVyne: Is this allowed? IS THIS ALLOWED?

Seokjin watched as your chat exploded in response to your new look, clips being taken by the hundreds when you leaned down to adjust your seat and the tops of your breasts jiggled. Your mods seemed to be on top of things though, because as soon as he saw raunchy or hateful comments, they were swiftly being taken down. 

“I’m not going to read my comment section right now, but I assume you’re all a little shocked by my appearance. I don’t know, I was feeling a bit inspired by another streamer I watched last night when I got home from work. He had some really good ideas on um…stuff, and no I’m not going to share who he is because some of you will absolutely cyber bully him for being associated with me and he deserves better than that.” 

He. A pang of bitterness surged through Seokjin. It was laughable, really, how he was jealous because you were watching other male streamers when you got home from work, completely oblivious to how on another site he was jerking his aching cock to his viewers thanks to how worked up you made him. 

“But yeah, I’m going to switch up the stream in the second half, if you want to stick around and see.”

This really piqued his interest, pressing his palm down onto his erection to try and relieve some of the pressure. 

You frowned at your screen as you launched your game, some first person shooter that would hold your attention so you wouldn’t have to talk.

You opened your mouth to add something, but you were immediately dropped into your game, setting your jaw as you focused on the controls in front of you, occasionally panicking, key smashing so loud that it drowned out your squeals when you were knocked over and over again and needed a revive. 

Seokjin assumed whatever teammate who kept reviving you must’ve been a subscriber who was stream sniping…or reverse stream sniping? Stream assisting and reviving as you struggled your way through the game. 

Something really stuck with him as you played. Whoever this “mentor” was must have been well versed in the knowledge that on any streaming platform, sex sells, especially for women. Your new look was drawing in quite the crowd. He wasn’t sure he’d seen you have this many subs, points, or viewers while streaming before. It was like a switch flipped. 

He felt a tiny flutter of something like pride swell into his chest. You were becoming more confident every day he knew you, from your knife skills to school teaching to now streaming. 

“Oh shittttttt,” you groaned into your mic, ripping Seokjin away from his soft reverie and back into full on, desperate wanting. Maybe you were toeing the community guidelines with this stream, but that groan sounded almost pornographic coming out of your mouth, and any chance Seokjin had at trying to be respectful was long gone. 

He cocked an eyebrow. “Oh you’re being a bad girl tonight I see,” he chuckled to himself.

Almost as if you heard him, you giggled back, biting your lip playfully. Fuck, what were you doing to him? Your chat seemed to be in a similar standing. 

As a result, One of the mods pinned an announcement to the top:

W0nW00: To maintain community guidelines and compliance, we are labeling this channel as 18+. We ask that you be respectful to Y/N and her moderators as we continue with this stream. If your account is set to under 18, you will be redirected in 2 minutes. 

Shit, all for a simple moan? 

You paused the game. “I’m going to go for a bio break. Be right back.” You set your break screen, and instead of the usual, cutesy graphic of a cherry blossom tree blowing in the wind that said “Spring Day Streams”, it was now a neon, vaporwave cityscape and said “Join Us For Spring Night Streams, An After Dark Experience”. 

Seokjin’s eyes wide, he finally released his cock from his sweats, and took himself in his hand. Oh, this was going to be good. 

Seokjin is a camboy.

That’s the only thought splitting through the headache you’ve had all morning. Is there such a thing as an orgasm hangover? Because if so, you’ve got one. If not, maybe you were concussed in the kitchen yesterday.

You’ve spent most of the day trying to clean up the mess of your apartment and frankly, your mental state. Seokjin spends his Friday nights Daddy domming his humble pool of viewers and making thousands of dollars doing so. To even think that sentence feels insane. 

And humiliating. Because attached to that sentence is the realization that Seokjin’s major success as a gay camboy means that he is absolutely not thinking about you the way you are of him, and the kiss you imposed on him at work was definitely not consensual after all, which when you think about it, is obvious based on how frantically he apologized and assigned himself at fault for what happened. He was trying in the most polite way to reject you. 

You’re an idiot. And despite all of it, the shame of your action isn’t what’s delivering the heavy punch; it’s the fact that your crush didn’t die the second you found out last night. If anything, you’ve been silently wallowing in your sadness since you woke up, your stupid heart not processing that there’s one significant reason for why you can’t have him. 

You try to trudge through the fog of it all, placing your newly cleaned toys back into their proper dust cases and compartments before returning them to the drawer next to your side table. You switch loads of laundry and drop the warm pile on your bed, grimacing at the idea of having to fold it all. 

You shouldn’t be disappointed. This is a stupid crush that was never meant to go this far. Not to this place where you aren’t just humiliated, but the loneliness that you often avoid feeling has been spilling through the cracks of your life all day. 

The laundry is the only thing that occupies one side of your bed. Never another body, his warmth, his weight existing as another living thing keeping your living thing company as you fold laundry or wash dishes. 

No, you shouldn’t have projected this crush or obsession or whatever you want to call it onto Seokjin, but in these months of conversation and blooming friendship, you’ve found your mind beginning to wander into the fantasy of not just sex, but safety and connection. He’s a man who has always treated you with the utmost respect, even now in how he has maintained a boundary that gently rejects you, even if it’s confusing. 

Before his promotion at the restaurant, there was collaboration that fostered your trust in him; your bodies started working around each other like dancers, fusing your movements with a natural flow. You’d seen some of that pop up throughout the day yesterday, which you couldn’t help but feel like delivered a bit of hope in your stomach. 

You know it’s useless to continue hoping that something will change. Maybe he’s bi, you’ve thought a few times since you went to bed. He did call everyone a good girl. But, don’t some guys call each other girls as some kind of kink? But even hoping for that still feels wrong in your gut. Instead of wishing he just so happens to like pussy, you should be redirecting yourself from the fact that it doesn’t even matter. He said so himself, he’s your boss. 

“Ugh,” you groan into your unfolded laundry. Why can’t anything ever be easy? 

You shove the clothing pile to one side of your bed as you lie down, staring up at the ceiling, your eyes following the soft pattern of cracks that have begun to appear through the paint. You already know that going back to work on Monday will be awful, not just because this crush won’t crush itself, but because you clearly now know more about Seokjin than he perhaps ever wanted you to know. Won’t it be awkward trying to talk to him? And if he asks why you’re being so weird, what will you even say?

Sorry Seokjin, I’m not sure how to talk to you anymore because I spent Friday cumming while watching you on your gay cam show as you stroked your huge dick and admittedly once I saw your face connected to your dick I had the best orgasm of my life that rendered me useless the next day.

Perfect. This won’t be absolute hell at all. 

Your stream alarm rings on your phone. You sigh. That’s right. You promised a makeup stream to your followers. 

How did Seokjin stream so confidently? Last night, the way he just exuded dominance and control, how he managed to get so much money from sitting there and making his chat do the work? It’s not only impressive but also inspiring. If you were able to have that distance from your chat, maybe things would be a bit easier, and the questions that were so personal and directed would fade into the background while ones of adoration and impersonal fantasies could take their place. 

And the money, god. If you had money like that, you wouldn’t have a stack of financial aid forms sitting on your dresser right now waiting for you to basically jump through hoops to ask nicely for a loan. 

The way he was able to be so different and make money off of it? That feels promising to you too. Because whoever Daddy Dom Seokjin is, he isn’t just walking around in the world being “on” all the time. You know him as someone whose ears flush with embarrassment the second one of the delivery guys tells him he made an error with the order and tries to diffuse the tension with some free snacks; who often hums game scores and whose laugh sounds like a squeaky windshield wiper swiping across dried glass. 

What if you could be more like that? 

Not Daddy Dom or Mommy Y/N, but more casual and detached? You could stop reading your chat and answering questions. Or if you did want to play into some of Seokjin’s sex appeal, you could dress slightly more suggestively or do your hair and makeup to exploit the male gaze’s money a bit, just like how Seokjin did. 

In this world of streaming, where everything feels like fractured versions of reality, parts of you being split among the pixels and delivered and digested into someone else’s home for their entertainment and pleasure, it’s hard for you to ever feel like you can have some close community with your followers. Not like Wonwoo does with his. Because of your start and how people perceive you now, there just doesn’t seem to be a way for you to have intimacy. Even if you tried, your chat flies by so quickly now that unless it’s a notification from a mod, any usernames and personal anecdotes are lost before you can even know who’s who. 

You think about it for a bit. It can’t hurt to try, right? It’s not like you being a little less reserved would automatically launch you into a career in porn. And if it will help bring a little more income in, lessen the blow a tiny bit, you can’t really see why it would make sense to keep doing things this way when you are this miserable by the idea of it. 

Spring Day Streams holds a standard image that is pink and soft, and you know some people love watching you because you’re hitting some fantasy they have. The woman who looks like an angel but swears like a sailor and as stereotypes often assume, fucks like a demon. 

What could “fuck like a demon” look like on an often all ages game streaming platform, though? Well, not all ages. Some streams are only accessible to registered users over the age of 18. Usually the age filter is there because the game is super graphic, or the streamer is a sex educator or swears so much the algorithm has started penalizing them. A few times though, you’ve seen some streamers playing games that are so raunchy they’re basically porn. And porn versions of those games exist, but to keep some of them streamer-friendly, they also sell versions that don’t have uncensored anime girls receiving creampies. That would definitely maintain the brand without going too far, right? 

You open your phone, typing in some of the titles of games, mostly dating simulators you’ve seen other streamers play before, and then you stumble across one called MiCamStudio, a puzzle game with the plot where you’re the manager of a camgirl enterprise and your goal is to become the most successful, richest entrepreneur while keeping your girls happy. 

You laugh. It feels a bit on the nose, but a fun way to shake things up in an after-dark concept. And it’s not too expensive, which means if this entire plan bombs, you won’t have invested much into it. Fine, you’ll do it. 

Wonwoo responds right away after you shoot a quick message with your idea to your mods on discord to help them prepare. 

On it. 

With a deep breath, you start to get ready. 

As you brace yourself to come back from your short bio break and announcement, your heart is hammering in your ears. What if everyone left? What if things get weird or gross or you think you’re being kind of sexy and cute but are really just being an idiot? 

Suddenly, this entire idea seems so stupid. What if your mom decides this is finally the time she wants to watch you stream? She hasn’t ever had the interest to, but what if she finally thinks to herself on a random Saturday night in February, “Wow, I sure do crave watching some video game streams! Say, I know my daughter Y/N streams. I should check it out!” or worse, what if someone she knows sends one of the clips or a screenshot of you with your tits practically out? 

Your anxiety is starting to win in this battle, and as you pace back and forth in front of your computer, shaking your clammy hands and trying to remember how to breathe, you see the number of viewers has dropped since the stream moved from all ages to 18+. Which means that you can now read your chat again. 

The comments are actually really supportive. Among them are some of your mods cheering you on, but one username anchors you back into your chair as you watch the notification dance across the screen. 

JokeJinSeokjin has subscribed for 3x months!

Seokjin. Seokjin is live and watching you. Which you expect to be the thing that will throw you over the edge. Seokjin, your boss. Your kind of friend. Your crush. The man who you are trying to emulate in this attempt to be sexy and earn more money and confidence. 

Surprisingly, a warm glow of comfort settles in you stomach instead. Because while maybe in all of this mess there’s plenty to be anxious about, you feel a part of you that’s determined to make him proud, to show him in this rejection what he’s missing out on. You take a deep breath to steady yourself as you hit the button to come back. 

“Ah, hello! I mean-um, hello,” you catch the nervousness pouring out of your shaky voice and clear your throat, trying to sound more composed. 

“I wanted to try something new today. Well, tonight. Welcome to Spring Night Streams, where I’ll be playing some not safe for work in more of a raunchy way type of games. Because as we know if there’s blood and guts and horror, it’s all ages! But boobs, those are a no no!”

You shakily laugh and suck your lip into your teeth. The taste of your lipstick laths over your tongue and you try not to think about how messy you just made it look. Or how you might now have lipstick on your teeth to really add an effect of clownery to your poor jokes. 

“I’m going to play this game? It came out a few years ago, but it’s a puzzle game called MiCamStudio. Maybe some of you have played it. But uh, yeah if you don’t like things like that I can always um…well I’ll just try it and see…” you trail off and nervously fidget with your controls as you open the game. 

Whatever you were expecting out of a dating simulator type game where you were in charge of cam girls, it wasn’t this. When you open the menu to start a new game, the animation that loads after you click “Start Streaming” is dozens of bra-clad boobs bouncing across the screen as it transitions you to the story line menu. 

Jesus Christ. Heat floods your cheeks. This somehow feels worse than the time your earbuds died and you didn’t notice that the audiobook of a very spicy holiday romance you were listening to wasn’t coming through them, but your phone. On the bus. And to make matters worse, you were at a part where the narrator was very generously providing sound effects and moans for the main character as she participated in an orgy with triple penetration. Yikes. 

You begin the walk-through of the storyline, greeted by Candy, a pink haired, busty camgirl who is looking to expand her horizons in the business. As you tap through the prompts, Candy starts to become less dressed, abandoning her already tiny skirt and crop top combo for a barely-there set of lingerie that covers just her nipples and vagina. 

“I need your help!” Candy pouts, her eyes shimmering with tears. “I need 400 new fans for my business or else I’ll be out of work! Quick, use this magic wand as you solve puzzles to help me get closer to my goal!” 

The wand is, of course, a vibrator. When you play through the first level tutorial and are prompted to use the wand, it vibrates the blocks, shifting them into new positions on the screen to match colors together. If you get enough combos, she has a giant orgasm, which increases her fans so you can pass to the next level. 

As you work through some of the first few levels, you notice that your view count has recovered somewhat from earlier, though the comments are kind of off-putting. Not because people are being sexually inappropriate, but because they’re mad you’re not interacting with them. 

NGL I thought this was going to be more fun and naughty. 

Yeah now she’s not even talking to us at all. 

I miss when she was bad at games and it was at least interesting. 

Someone come get me if she starts moaning again like she did earlier. 

Fuck. You are fucking this up. And your viewers are right, you haven’t been talking to them. Or really doing anything but playing the game and trying not to wince from embarrassment every time Candy moans as you make her a star. 

There’s got to be something you can do. You think about Seokjin again, who you’re not sure is still watching, but you hope some of that confident edge he had last night starts to come over you, too. What was it that he did to keep everyone engaged? 

He gave them incentive. A goal. He didn’t have to say much to them but tell them what to do and they happily did it. And that also took the pressure off of him to keep talking. 

With a deep breath, you test the waters. “Oh, you wanted more fun and naughty? Well, you didn’t really work for it did you?” 

You hate the words as they come from your mouth, but they have an immediate result. 

Loyal2You tipped 1600 points. What do you need us to do to earn it?

Your face burns hot, and you sip some water to try and cool yourself, playing it off as nonchalance rather than anxiety. You feel your stomach threatening to lurch into your throat as you force out the next sentence.  

“Mmm, I don’t know. Maybe you need to show me what I need,” you smirk. You really don’t know. Money? Subs? People not questioning you? This to be over?

LongJohn69 gifted 10 subs. Maybe this will help? 😉

“Well, it’s a start. Thanks for the sub,” you giggle, forcing yourself to relax into your chair. 

“Hmm, what can I give you all as a reward? I feel like I could really use some cute new clothes that I can wear for you next stream if you help me?” 

Your voice is softened and the pitch is a bit higher. Maybe Candy’s baby voice is having an impact on you from the game, because your normal, even paced tone is taking a turn. Is this the persona you’ve been trying to find? 

But you need this money. School, your future. You can’t just keep living the way you have been. 

7DaysAWeek tipped 10,000 points. Please, say “thank you 7 days” in that adorable whiny voice, baby. I’ll double tip if you do.

You freeze. 20,000 points is $200. All for you to say something so simple and stupid? 

God, but it doesn’t feel right to do it. You could ignore it, you think. And walk away with $100 before your commission rate is taken out. Which will end up being nothing, you realize.

“Oh, hmm.” You pause and then just do it. “Okay. Thank you 7 Days for the points. I really appreciate it.” You drum up the dramatics, eliciting some horrible, embarrassing baby voice that makes your vowels stringy and weak. 

Yuck. More requests pour in, people eager to get you to recite some innocent seeming phrases that you know are fodder for their spank bank. 

You see a tiny notification flash in the bottom right corner: a private message from Wonwoo. 

Y/N, you could get into deep shit if you aren’t careful. This could potentially violate your terms of service. 

You frown at the message but nod to let him know you read it. 

“Okay, well, I think it’s time we get back to the game!” You awkwardly divert your attention back to the screen, letting Candy’s moans fill the silence as you ignore the new requests and subs for the rest of your stream, too humiliated to think about what they could be saying.

After you end your stream, you feel the damn of tears that was welling your eyes for the last half hour spill. 

What a fucking disaster. What started as a hopeful night turned out to be one of your most streamed yet somehow also least successful broadcasts. The rush of viewers at the start provided you with a great boost, but after you didn’t engage again with the requests, your views, subs, and points plummeted, leaving you with a very slim payout for the day. This wouldn’t be much of anything for your bills once commission is taken. 

You don’t know how people do this. You feel like absolutely dog shit, and you even wrapped early, pretending that you were sick. But maybe you also aren’t really pretending, your stomach feels knotted and sour. 

Something about that felt wrong, but you don’t really understand why. It’s not like you’re prudish or fear sex. On any given day those kinds of requests stack up by the hundreds. But maybe it’s because tonight you finally peeled back the dismissive layer and let them in that has you feeling vulnerable and honestly, a little dirty. 

You wipe some stray tears from your eyes, stretching across the desk to grab your phone and pull it off of do not disturb mode. You see a few texts from Seokjin that he sent while you were streaming. 

Seokjin (8:17PM): Hey! I didn’t know you were supposed to stream yesterday. I would have let you leave early if I’d known.😞

Seokjin (9:15PM): Hey, are you okay? You look really uncomfortable. I know you’re playing and won’t see this until after you’re done but I wanted to check. 

Seokjin (9:47PM): Y/N, please don’t feed into these requests if it’s not what you want. 

Seokjin (10:02PM): Call me. The second you get this. Urgent.

You read the last text, which was sent twenty minutes ago. Shit, did something happen to the restaurant? 

“Y/N,” Seokjin says after one ring, his voice strained. 

“Um, hi Seokjin. I’m just calling you back because you said it’s urgent! Is everything okay with the restaurant? Did the snow knock power out or something? If you need me to come in tomorrow too I can help with stuff.”

“What?” Seokjin pauses for a second, his exasperation now turned to confusion. “No, Y/N. Everything with the restaurant is fine.”

“Oh. Then why did you call?” you ask. 

“Well, if you saw all my texts then you know I was watching your stream. And I just wanted to check and make sure you’re okay after that? Near the end you looked pretty upset.”

The warmth in your stomach you felt when you first heard his voice is gone, replaced by a sharp, gritty unease.

“Oh. Um, yeah I’m…fine,” but the tightness in your throat betrays you and a tiny sob escapes as the tears begin falling again. 

Seokjin doesn’t say anything as you sniffle into your phone, scrubbing the dribble away from your nose and cheeks with your sleeve. 

“Hey,” he says as your cries become softer. “Do you want to get out of the house for a bit?”

“It’s kind of late, isn’t it,” you say weakly. 

“That’s not what I asked. Do you want to get out of the house for a bit?” He repeats. 

Do you? Part of you is exhausted, tempted to just go right to bed. But you know if you lie down right now in the rest of that unfolded pile of laundry you might never emerge. 

“Ok,” you whisper into the receiver. 

“I’ll come get you,” Seokjin says. “Dress warm. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

When you were little, your parents took you on a road trip to get away from the city. You sat in the backseat, kicking your father’s chair grumpily on the first day, tired from waking up early and having to be stuffed into the car with the mountain of snacks, toys, clothes, and camping gear you had shoved in beside you. Your father was patient for the first hour of your kicks, but before long the steady thump thump thump on his lower back was becoming a strong annoyance as he navigated further away from home. 

“Y/N,” your father had sharply warned once he’d had enough. “Keep it up, and I’ll take your feet off and put them into my pockets.” 

While in retrospect the threat is silly and impossible, at the time, your five-year-old self was struck with horror as you imagined him sawing your feet off like the patients who were out in the snow for too long in that medical TV show you saw at your grandparents’ house once.

You’d tucked your feet underneath you until you were at a rest stop, where picnic tables and a small garden scape awaited you, filled with native wildflowers and lazy, fat bees that hovered from flower to flower. 

Your mother smoothed your hair with her hand, guiding you through the garden as your father bought your lunches from inside the building. 

“He didn’t mean it,” she’d said softly, feathering the tips of your hair across your cheek. Goosebumps prickled along your arms and you shivered, even though the sun was heavy and hot on top of you that day. “No one will take your feet from you.” 

You’d hugged her tightly then, still unsure as to why someone would try to take your feet from you. Your tapping in the car was mostly to keep you from feeling like you were going to be sick, but back then you didn’t really have the words to express yourself. 

When your father returned, he wordlessly placed your meal in front of you, including a large, fudgy cookie for dessert. Your father had always been proud, and even then when he didn’t apologize to you and promise he wouldn’t saw off your feet, being given a dessert was as good as any apology. 

He smiled when you licked the smudged chocolate off your fingers, eventually tutting impatiently so your mother would take you to the bathroom to wash up. Afterwards, you found him looking at a map on the building’s outside wall, with a bright cherry red You Are Here sticker signifying where in this confusing picture you were supposed to be. 

“There’s an observation point a few stops away from here. It’s supposed to be a really nice view over a valley. Y/N, do you want to be our navigator for those and help me decide when we should stop to look?” 

Laced in there was his apology. An opportunity at redemption, connection. You’d nodded instantly and scrambled back into the car, no longer upset about having to share your space in the backseat with all the cargo, ready to take on your role as your father’s co-pilot. 

You visited every observation point along that freeway that trip, all the way from the rest stop to the campground in some rural village. Some of the spots were lackluster, now overgrown and showing a view of a wall of trees and bushes and not some regal cavern or farmland below. But there were also the ones that, had you never insisted on visiting, you would have never seen half as much of the flora and fauna you’d expected to see on your camping trip. And it was the one major trip your family had ever had that made you all feel like a collective unit, ready to fight against the forces of grumpiness or foot-sawers together.

From that point on, whenever you saw the sign marker, you couldn’t help but feel a smile bloom on your face, which is why at this moment you are sitting next to Seokjin in his car, bundled up and stupidly beaming at him as he mirrors a happy but confused smirk back at you.

When he’d picked you up, Seokjin didn’t say much, just started driving north, through your neighborhood and into the rolling hills outside of the city. While this morning’s snow still clings to the trees and rooftops of some hillside buildings, surprisingly, the plows have done a good job of ensuring the road is safe and salted. You can feel the tense knots in your shoulders starting to lessen a little just from the feeling of being somewhere else for a while.

As you weave up the mountain side, toward the observation point, you gasp. 

“What?” he asks. “What’s wrong?’ His eyes bulge from his head. 

“It’s just that, I love observation points,” you say sheepishly, not sure if you should divulge your entire story. 

Seokjin nods, thoughtful. “I like to come up here sometimes when I’ve had a really bad day. Just need to clear my head. Seemed like you needed to do that too.” The car curves along the bend, some of the wind fluttering clods of snow from the trees and onto the road. 

“Yeah, I do…” You trail off, letting him take you higher into the mountain before pulling into the observation point. This one has some small cafés and despite the late hour and snowfall, there are still quite a few cars parked in the lot, some sets of families and couples strolling around with warm drinks and peering out onto the twinkling, snow-covered city below. 

“How’s your head,” he asks gently, and it takes you a minute to remember what he’s referring to. You touch the make-up covered bruise and shrug.

 “Eh, it’s not so bad.” Truly, as the day wears on, you are feeling a bit tender, but the swelling has gone down, and your worry has gone with it. 

Seokjin opens your door for you, ever the gentleman, and you try to fight off the harsh tug in your chest that likens this behavior to a date. 

The two of you head over toward one of the lookout points, leaning against the rail posts. You take in the rolling hills below, how soft and plush the city looks now, almost like it could never be a place where you feel sadness or loneliness. You sigh. 

“You don’t have to talk about it,” Seokjin begins gently, “but I was wondering what happened during your stream tonight.”

“No, no, it’s okay,” you assure him. 

Maybe this conversation would feel more uncomfortable if you didn’t already feel so awful. You are just trying to feel a little bit better about this whole ordeal. Trying to find in you some nugget of comfort to ensure a more stable future. And hell, Seokjin had made it seem so easy. But now, you are humiliated. You aren’t sure how you are going to go live again and go back to how things were before when the internet is probably making a giant laughing stock of you, or fetishizing you. You’re not sure which one is worse. 

“So, I know when we used to be, um, friends, I had mentioned to you that streaming is something I fell into. And as you also know from working with me, I don’t have the best social skills. Or I can, maybe, I don’t know. Anyway, I haven’t been liking it that much, really. Mostly because people in the chat always ask really personal questions about me and it feels weird. Like they’re real people but they can’t be real, to me. Does that make sense?”

He nods once, urging you to continue. 

“Right, so, in all of this, I’ve been trying to think of ways to make it more fun for me. And last night I saw you-YouTuber. I saw this YouTube streamer and on his stream he just seemed so cool, and smart. And he was able to both stay engaged without telling everyone everything and had distance. But he also was kind of domin-strong, he was just really good at telling people to meet goals and incentives. And it worked, they did it. I thought, maybe this could help me be better at this so I don’t hate it so much. I could make some persona, do something different that helps me better enjoy it or make more money. I don’t know. It seems stupid now when I think about it.”

“It’s not stupid, Y/N,” Seokjin says, turning to you. Your eyes flit to his face. His nose is pinkish from the cold, and his broad shoulders are tightly bound up to his ears to avoid the chill from spreading. 

“Of course you should like streaming, but if you don’t, if this isn’t the formula that works for you, then maybe you should try something different to help you.”

“How do you do it?” you ask, realizing too late what you are saying. 

Seokjin freezes. “Do what?”

“Um, how do you maintain confidence all the time? Like at work and stuff.”

Seokjin scoffs. “I don’t. You know that. Weren’t you just with me last week when I was bowing and spluttering like an idiot to Mrs. Yoon because that one repair man backed his car over her potted azalea? I was anything but confident then.” 

You fight a soft smile. Seokjin had been trying to scoop the twiggy, out of season bush into a bucket to salvage it before offering to replace it. Mrs. Yoon however, was having none of it, chirping on about how that plant had been germinated from her ancestors’ hillside home generations ago, and despite her choosing to carelessly plop it into a busy alleyway, she was sure there was no replacement that could soothe her aching heart. Seokjin handed her a wad of cash, and a gift certificate to the restaurant in an act of good faith. That seemed to shut her up. 

“You know what I mean,” you nudge. “You have an ability to talk to people though. Even Mrs. Yoon can’t say no to your mother’s bossam recipe when you charm her like that.” 

“First of all, no one can say no to my mother’s bossam recipe, regardless if I’m there to grovel or not. Secondly, you’re charming too, Y/N.”

You chortle at this. You? Charming? “Ha, I wish. But really, Seokjin. Half of that stream was an awkward setup and I thought I was going to puke. And not because of how I was dressed or anything like that. It’s so weird. I don’t really care about if people make comments like that about me because they’re impersonal. But knowing that I am sitting there, and everyone has some expectation of how I’m going to perform for them, it makes me feel awful.” 

“Tell me about it,” you hear him mutter, but he then recovers. “It sounds like that crossed one of your boundaries, then. Just because some explicit stuff doesn’t bother you, doesn’t mean that nothing ever will. And it doesn’t have to make sense. You can not care if strangers are talking about you sexually but care if you’re engaging with them and using sexual innuendos to do so.” 

Part of you is tempted to engage with the comment, to press him to explain and pretend that you have no idea what he’s speaking in regard to. But what good would that do here? Please Seokjin, can you share with me how being a gay sex cammer, which I absolutely already know about after watching you and masturbating to you, has impacted your life? 

God, how mortifying it would be for you. 

Instead, you let the comment go, cutting him enough slack so he can assume you didn’t hear him. 

“You know, you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” Seokjin adds. You shoot him a look. 

“I don’t really have much of a choice at this point! No offense, but it’s not like I’m making bank at the restaurant, and I already have chosen to withdraw from this term because of billing issues and–” 

“You’re withdrawing from school? Y/N!” He yells,  and you feel a heat of shame flood your cheeks as you see some scattered people shift their attention toward you. 

Now you were both embarrassed and pissed. How dare he scold you?

“Not from school, just the term!” you yell back. You’d made the choice in your spiral this evening, in between bio breaks. It was haunting you as you stared back at the packet of financial aid papers and billings notices. Streaming, you’ve now seen, is such a hit or miss game. And you truly can’t maintain the expenses that can cut into your work hours. Especially if you need to get a different job that isn’t streaming or working at the restaurant. 

“Is..is that where Spring Night Streams is coming from?” he asks, face flushed with embarrassment at his outburst. Your anger dulls.

“Partially. This felt like some way to sustain myself without it draining me. I thought maybe if I look pretty, people won’t just come and try to either ask me super personal things I don’t want to share, or they’ll just feed into basically the illusion of sex and pay me that way. And I can continue to play games and suck at them or be good at them, but the original reason behind why they came to my stream could be replaced with a different person, someone who isn’t so closely trying to dig into me.

“But, then I fumbled the bag, and you saw it. The viewer count was fluctuating so bad, and the second I interacted with that one comment, suddenly I was toeing the line for TOS and could easily have jeopardized my entire branding and be permanently banned from the website for sexual activity. Tonight was one of the lowest payouts I’ve made since I started. And now I know too, this could all just as easily go away if I’m not being…I don’t know. Compliant.” 

Seokjin makes a dissatisfied grunt, his breath coming out in a white puff. Now past eleven, most of the couples and families have dispersed, and the cute café that had advertised decadent looking hot chocolates is closed. The only thing remaining open is the tiny convenient store. 

You try to suppress a shiver but fail. 

“Come on,” he says, guiding you away from the railing and toward the store. 

Inside, the shopkeeper doesn’t even flinch or look away from his phone, which is streaming some sports match in Spanish. 

Seokjin places his hand on the small of your back as he guides you over to the drinks section, gesturing for you to select something from the warm options. 

“I wouldn’t recommend anything pre-made,” he warns, his voice low. “That stuff has probably been here since this morning.” He helps himself to a tea packet and the hot water dispenser. 

You browse a little and find a packet of hot chocolate. While it may not be the fancy, marshmallow delight pink drink that the café had advertised in their window, this will do just fine. 

By the time you’ve gotten your drink mixed together, Seokjin is waiting for you at the counter, a selection of different snacks piled high and a gentle smile on his face despite how bothered and grumpy the shop worker is toward him, practically smashing the food into a bag and muttering a total. 

You hadn’t given yourself a chance to really look at him before, but as he stands before you, you can finally take in how incredible he looks. While he’s wearing some gray joggers underneath, he’s elected for a long black puffer coat and green knit sweater and somehow looks so put together, so…boyfriend. 

Your heart flutters a bit and you try to tamp it down. This isn’t a date, you remind yourself, Get a hold of yourself Y/N. 

As you head back out into the chilly air, you both settle into a table outside of the convenience store, and Seokjin pulls the snacks out of the bag, all of which are your favorites. 

“You remembered?” you ask, a little stunned that he would commit all your tiny convenience store runs to memory over the months you’ve worked together and would split packets of sweet potato puffs and tiny, sweet cakes. He shrugs. 

“Morale is low. You need the boost. Now pass me some of those chips, I’m starving.” 

Your stomach growls in agreement, and you pop open the bag, nibbling away quietly. 

“You don’t need to people please to be a good streamer,” Seokjin says finally, rinsing his mouth with his tea. You chew your bottom nervously but wait for him to continue. “There’s tons of people on the internet who do streaming for all kinds of uh, stuff. And they make a ton of money without compromising their values to do so. Maybe instead of focusing on what you think people want in a stream, do what you want instead.” 

You sigh. “See, that sounds great and all, but when I tried that today, people got mad and left. Did you see all the donations trying to get me to say things or do stuff after that first one?”

Seokjin rolls his eyes, taking a big bite of a chocolate cake thing and chewing diligently. “Welrr,” he begins, his mouth stuffed full, “I guesh you have to undershtand dat peepo on dee internet will always chewz sex first to get what dey wan.” He swallows. “And if that doesn’t work because someone sets a boundary, fuck them.” He pauses. “Not literally!” A blush creeps up his neck. 

You laugh. “I thought you limited your swearing to mostly angry kitchen interactions,” you say, and sip the watery hot chocolate. You wince. 

“You chose wrong with that hot chocolate. I’ll make it up to you next time.” Next time. Your stomach leaps. 

“But you don’t see it because I’m trying to maintain a professional air most of the time. But I say shit, piss, cock and fuck pretty regularly.” Like when you’re camming, you mentally note. 

“Yeah, so, speaking of that. And boundaries. This isn’t really the most professional boss-employee relationship happening right now.” You gesture around you. You didn’t want to say it, but you know it needs to be addressed. Seokjin and you really need to figure out a new set of rules, especially now you know what he does after dark, and he’s watching your streams, too. 

He pauses and sighs. “Shit, yeah, you’re right. Look Y/N, I do want to talk about that. And we can address it. But before we do, I want to finish talking to you about what happened earlier today. Can we do a brief boss-employee dynamic halt for the rest of the time we’re up here? I want to talk to you as a friend right now, which we once were, even if it was for a short time. Will you let me do that?” 

You look up at him, and he’s gazing back with intensity, and also something that looks almost like desperation. 

“Okay,” you say. “For the rest of the time we’re out of the city. We are just two people. Friends. Not boss. Not an employee. Just us.” 

He smiles at that. “Yeah, just us.” 

Seokjin tried to not kick himself in his own ass for doing what he was doing now. Bringing you up here, to his safe place, was far too intimate of a decision. But when he’d watched the rest of your stream, watched you do stuff that– while he couldn’t be absolutely sure but he could assume– tested your boundaries and comfort, he knew he couldn’t just let you spiral by yourself. 

He’d been there before. During a show earlier in his cam career, Seokjin was once asked to try a more extreme kink on his stream which involved a thin metal rod that he would push into his urethra for pleasure. 

He’d agreed to try it before he’d even looked it up, and even when purchasing the equipment, he’d felt really queasy and knew he would hate it. But he’d promised, which he now understood was a fake law people set for themselves to push them past their limits. On the stream where he tested it out, he started shaking and crying, stopping before he could even open the package with the rods in it and ended his stream early. 

From then on, he had spent more time learning about kinks and BDSM. It was much more psychological and technical than he’d realized, with precise and careful movements, components of care, and more thoughtfulness than he’d ever really learned from porn or the internet. 

While he and Soon Yi had been exploratory in their sex life, it wasn’t like they’d ever done proper research when they were together. Looking at things now, he felt a little sickened knowing she could have gotten seriously hurt the times he choked her, not knowing the right placement of hands or pressure to make sure he didn’t cause permanent damage. 

Seokjin then reassessed his boundaries. He never wanted to position himself on his streams where he would succumb to pressure for money and compromise his own safety or desire. This was supposed to be fun.

The main tenets of BDSM are safe, sane, and consensual, which is hard to define on the internet. When something is leaked or found by the wrong party, it can especially compromise consent. With a permanent imprint of something existing once agreed upon, at any point someone’s right to withdraw consent can be invalidated simply because there’s a paper trail. And if that happened, then safety and sanity were sure to be called into question too.

Which is why Seokjin couldn’t stay silent after he saw you drawing breath after shaky breath after the first exchange with that follower. The instant regret that bloomed on your face as you so easily traded your comfort to make money, he never wanted you to feel that or experience it again. 

Which is why you now sat before him, the residual makeup from your stream still there but smeared, a thin looking peacoat doing a lot of work to protect you from the elements. This is why he said dress warm. Why were you wearing a glorified blazer in this weather?

He knew his time was limited with you, and that yes, he was already compromising this boundary that he’d set. But boundaries could be redrawn, and in this moment, he didn’t want the only thing protecting you right now to be that peacoat. He needed to protect you too. 

Granted, you probably were questioning his qualifications in this, and for a brief moment he considered telling you, but he quickly dismissed the idea when he remembered the video of him cumming and saying your name existed on his page if you’d ever gotten curious. Behind a paywall, sure, but it was there. 

No, for now, it was Seokjin and Y/N, friends. Us, he thought, and his pulse quickened unhelpfully. 

You sat in front of him, sipping at that awful hot chocolate, waiting for him to deliver more of his advice. He hesitated to speak more. Here you were, attention fully focused on him, and the dependence on him to get you home tonight, to move back into a world that wasn’t just you two and your own little universe, and all Seokjin was doing was considering how long he could carry on the pause. 

Maybe he would never speak again, and you would have to stay here forever, on top of the mountain as the snow began to gently fall around you two like you both lived in your own private snow globe. 

Wait, snow? Seokjin blinked, and sure enough the flakes were swirling around you both again, the wind kicking up your hair. You let out a sharp shiver, and that broke the fantasy of staying here. 

He ushered you back to the car, where now the snow was coming down in thick, heavy globs that signified the moisture in the air had increased, which made sense. Back in the city, the forecast had said it was set to rain, but he’d forgotten elevation impacts the weather, and that the change of moisture in the air also could result in ice on the way down. 

As you warmed your hands in front of his heat vents, he tried to think of his next move. It was now after midnight, which meant the road authority was probably not planning on plowing the roads anytime soon, and the accumulation quickly erasing the parking lot around you was a sure sign that it soon would be unsafe to drive. 

If you stay here any longer, you might be stuck together all night, an evil idea glinted through his head, and he felt a pulse of desire run through him as he caught a whiff of your soft, sweet scent. 

It would be kind of hot, the two of you snuggled in the backseat of his SUV, you clinging to him tightly to keep yourself warm through the storm as you used his parka as a blanket, the windows fogging up to give you two privacy as you moved tighter together, panting into each other’s mouths when you rubbed up against him and–

No. He couldn’t do that. He wouldn’t. Urging his steadily inflating erection down, he glanced over to you, noticing you were still shivering. 

He sighed. God, why did he have to get hard right now, in gray sweatpants no less? Nothing screamed “boner alert” more than seeing a dick swelling in light colored sweats. But you were still cold, and he decided he would rather risk you seeing him hard than your teeth chattering or you getting sick. 

Seokjin removed his puffer, handing it to you. “Here, put this on,” he ordered, and you looked at him, a tremor rocking through your body as you tried to eke out a “thank you”.

You began to put the puffer over your peacoat, but Seokjin shook his head. “I think your peacoat is useless right now. Maybe you should take that off and just wear mine. And then, consider getting a new coat,” he teased. 

You hesitated. “Uh,” you said. Seokjin’s eyebrow raised, and he swiftly adjusted himself in his joggers while you looked down at your coat before sighing and unbuttoning it. 

Fuck. You still had on that same top from earlier, and Seokjin could now see that it wasn’t just a sexy, low cut top that showed your heavy and full breasts, but that it also had a large keyhole cutout through the back, which meant you didn’t wear a bra with it. He bit his lip as he took in your hard and prominent nipples. God, no wonder you were cold. You were practically naked. 

His cock twitched, and any attempts he had at concealing his erection were useless. He was now definitely going to be fully hard for the rest of the drive. 

You zipped yourself into Seokjin’s puffer and let out a satisfied sigh as you nuzzled into the warmth. Seokjin took the opportunity to snatch your peacoat from your lap and drape it over himself, praying that would help conceal some of the compass-pointing-north bullshit he was trying to stave off. 

Unfortunately, you snuggled into his coat was just making it worse. 

Clearing his throat, he started the car, and slowly began testing the surface of the parking lot. It was a little slick, but nothing too bad. If you stayed any longer, though, you would definitely be here overnight. 

With a silent, sad nod to the outlook point, Seokjin prepared himself to head back to reality, where your moment of connection would be replaced by workplace congeniality. 

About halfway down the mountain, the snow surely turned to a heavy rain, aggressively battering down on the windshield and making it nearly impossible to find the lines on the road. 

“I’m sorry, I think I should pull over,” he apologized and you agreed easily, your shoulders relaxing a bit as he pulled over to the side of the road. 

“Well, we never really got to finish talking about stuff anyway,” you offered generously. 

Seokjin smirked back. “Yeah, we didn’t. Look, what I wanted to say earlier was that with streaming, you shouldn’t have to compromise on what you want to be successful. If people leave your stream because they can’t hear you baby voice their requests so they can get off, then fuck them. They aren’t the community of people you want to watch your content, anyway. Those are the type of people who are never satisfied, who will just demand more from you. Sooner or later they’ll be less kind and be aggressive and threatening. And you don’t deserve that, Y/N.” 

He sucked in a breath. “You just need a chance to build confidence, that’s all. Assuming you even want to continue doing these streams. I know you said you don’t feel like you have much of a choice, but maybe I could help you out. Uh, I could give you a raise or something so you could quit! And with school, too, I’m sure we could figure out something! Maybe if it’s not too late you could go back and––”

You held up your hands, signaling for Seokjin to stop talking. 

“I’ve made up my mind! And I don’t think giving me a raise or trying to help me with school would be a great way of maintaining that boundary we are supposed to have, remember? Something tells me a boss isn’t supposed to offer his employee an undeserved pay raise for her personal issues.” You huff.

You were right. Seokjin chuckled. “Okay, fair. I’m sorry. I just don’t want you to throw everything away like I did.” 

You whipped your head over to him. “Listen, Seokjin. I appreciate that you care and don’t want things to happen to me. But I’m also not you. And you also didn’t throw everything away but that’s another topic completely, one I thought we discussed yesterday morning. Regardless, I’m getting a lot of mixed messages here and I need you to help me understand what exactly is happening right now. Are you my friend or my boss? Because right now it feels like you’re telling me what to do like you are in charge of me but hiding it behind the guise of friendship and that’s not how this works. So explain. Ideally before you drop me off and we don’t speak again until Monday.” 

Seokjin swallowed hard, an anxiousness beginning to swirl in your stomach. This whole conversation felt like it was going south really quick. He scrambled to steady himself and took a deep breath.

“You’re right,” he said, running a hand through his hair. He hadn’t styled it today, and the black strands were sticking to his forehead from the melted snow. “I’m sorry. You have every right to decide. And you’d said before that this was a temporary pause. And even if it wasn’t, that’s also your choice.”

“Again, yes, you’re right. But I also don’t see why you seem to care so much!” Your volume raised in annoyance and you crossed your arms over your chest in a puff. “You don’t get to decide I’m some soft little flower who can’t advocate for herself! Like yeah, I feel shitty about what I did but I’m just trying to figure out my boundaries, just like you said earlier! So yes, I have the right to decide if I want to go back to school or not! Thanks for pointing that out!”

If he hadn’t been getting chewed out right now by you, Seokjin would’ve thought you were the cutest thing he’d ever seen, your mouth settled into a sharp frown and your eyebrows knit together as you argued with him. 

Instead though, he felt like a jackass. He’d seriously overstepped in his attempts to protect you, and guilt washed through him as he realized he was placing himself into your shoes. Even if your situations were scarily similar, you still had the right to do what you wanted without his interference. Besides, his intention was to provide safety for you, not control. Maybe he’d underestimated you earlier and how you were utilizing your stream. Yes, you were uncomfortable, but it’s not like you were a child who was set to be taken advantage of, or that you’d make the same mistakes he would.  

“I-I care about you, Y/N. We’re friends. I know being your boss changed a lot, and while I sign your paycheck and have to give you orders, it’s not like that change in role made me care less. It’s not that easy.” 

You uncrossed your arms. “But,” you started, your tone softening, “you can’t both tell me what to do as my boss and tell me what to do as a friend. I’m not clocked in, Seokjin. And that’s why this is so fucking hard. Because my boss is the one who took me up a mountain after apologizing to me yesterday for his “gross misuse of power” when I’m the one who kissed you sitting on a fucking prep counter! And yeah, we were friends before you were my boss, and that means I learned to work with you and trust you as my coworker, and we shared interests so you can watch my streams and tell me about MapleStory. We have history and it’s not something we can deny. But you keep acting like I am not in control, like I am not an adult. 

“I would love it if we could stay on this mountain forever,” you added, taking the words Seokjin was thinking earlier and making them real, “because, maybe then we could just stay friends. I miss you as my friend! And I wouldn’t feel so…weird now trying to figure out which guy, Boss Seokjin or Friend Seokjin, is talking to me.” 

Seokjin was unsure what to say, just that he knew he’d fucked up yesterday not just with his behavior in the kitchen, but ultimately how he set boundaries with you. 

“I don’t know what to do about it, Y/N,” he said weakly, honestly. 

“Can I then offer a suggestion?” Your voice sounded frustrated, on the verge of yelling. He nodded. 

“On this mountain, right now. You are my friend. And any other time when we aren’t at work, we are friends. We are not the first two people who started a friendship and had a power dynamic at work. I don’t know what happened in your past that makes this so hard for you, and you don’t need to tell me. But whatever you said yesterday, it wasn’t true. I want you to trust me when I say you didn’t take advantage of me. Was it kind of stupid and inappropriate on both our parts? Sure. But I’m not this weak, breakable thing. You said so yourself with my boundary-setting for my stream that I just need confidence to assert myself and make sure I don’t get taken advantage of. So let me start with you. Help me start with you.” 

You leaned a little closer and Seokjin’s heart beat erratically. “I promise, Kim Seokjin, that whatever happened in the kitchen yesterday was consensual. At least on my end. And that I do hold you in regard as my boss during work hours most of the time. But I can’t fucking stand if you continue to uphold this standard when you talk to me as an authority and then immediately pull a hypocritical move and try to be my friend after. It’ll drive me crazy.”

Your voice was shaky now, like you were holding back tears. Seokjin fought the urge to pull you close to him, but god, how he wanted to. 

“What you do need,” he asked and you sighed. 

“Clear communication. On both sides. No more deciding for me. On anything. If I say no at work, it’s just as valid as saying no in private, even if it’s something you think is what’s best for me. Even if you don’t like it. Because you don’t know what really is or isn’t until I tell you.” He nodded in agreement. 

“I can do that. And I’m sorry again, for how confusing this must’ve been. I acted selfishly when I decided that my position as your boss overruled and negated any of our history. It was never going to be as clean as I wanted it to be,” he apologized. 

You managed a sad smile but nodded, a sign you accepted his apology. 

“Thank you. And also, I do want to continue doing the streams. I didn’t get to say that before. I do want to try after dark stuff. Because it feels like it could be fun, could help me stay involved but less personal if that makes sense. And…” You trailed off, humming to yourself as you tried to find the words for your final thought. 

“I really would like it if I could have your help in this. To help coach me in a way to maintain that boundary. You did have some really great points on execution. And I think maybe your experience in cam-leadership and management could help me both continue doing this but also finding what I want. And I need a friend for that. Not a boss or manager.” 

Seokjin’s eyes widened as he caught the last of what you were saying. 

“Wait,” he said, trying to put the pieces together. Were you asking what he thought you were asking? “So…you want me to help you run an adult-only, after dark gaming stream?” You laughed. 

“I need you to be my confidence coach,” you clarified. “Help me learn how to say no to my fanbase and keep myself calm throughout a stream so I don’t compromise. And like, I don’t know. We can iron out the details, the idea is so fresh to me, but I need you, my caring friend Seokjin, to make sure I don’t break the terms of service again and ban me from streaming.”

He blinked a few times, unsure how you’d arrived at the conclusion that he would be any good at this. 

But Seokjin knew he would be. He did this multiple times a week, and it’s how he knew you were heading toward trouble. What if he could help you learn how to protect yourself? Because you were right, you didn’t need anyone to save you. But you maybe needed someone to show you. And he could be that person. 

“Okay,” he said, “I’ll do it.”

As Seokjin pulls up to your apartment nearly an hour later, you feel a slight sadness that your night is over. On the way home, as the rain steadily poured and the city lights came back into a clear view, you’d felt a tug of worry in your gut that because you were back in the city, your agreement to stay friends wasn’t real, and that any moment Seokjin would be cold and formal, withdrawing his agreement to help you with streaming. 

You’d had the idea in the car in somewhat of an epiphany, sorting through the confusing dynamic you’d been shoved into. It made sense to you, now. Instead of trying to model yourself after the master, why not learn from the man himself? 

Despite your initial anxiety that he would back out, Seokjin if anything is all the more reassuring, gently nudging you with your peacoat in his hands to signal it is time to trade. You nod sleepily, shrugging it off your shoulders and trying to ignore the disappointment you have in no longer being enveloped in his warm scent. 

As you tuck your arms back through your sleeves, Seokjin gets out of his side of the car, the rain still beating harshly, but he appears even more determined to open your door for you, opening an umbrella to keep you and your coat from getting pounded on. 

You try to insist on sharing the umbrella, but Seokjin shakes his head, guiding you forward toward your apartment complex’s front door. 

“Thank you,” you say as you step under the lip of the roof with him, smiling up at Seokjin, who is already soaked. His black hair is piecey and dripping down his face, plastering a few disheveled pieces across his forehead. “God, you really should’ve used the umbrella too! You’re drenched!”

Seokjin laughs a hearty laugh, the squeaky, windshield wiper one that makes your chest burn. “Please, that coat you’re wearing is pathetic. I had said dress for the warmth and you picked one of the worst things you could find. Even a standard issue blazer has more weather resistance than that thing!” 

“Excuse you, but this coat most of the time is fine. And also, I thought you were just saying it as a formality! If I’d known we were heading into a literal mountain I would have changed my clothes!” You bicker back, your laughter filling the space between you two. 

“Yeah, well, now you know for next time,” he says, eyes flickering with something you almost categorize as lust. 

You beam. This time the idea of next time feels possible. If Seokjin and you can work on these weird work boundaries, there might be a hope something comes from this after all. Unless he’s gay, which you still can’t quite figure out, but you try not to think about that as he shakes his head like a big dog. 

“Okay, Sparky,” you joke and glance down at your phone. It’s very late now, and your body is quickly succumbing to the exhaustion of the day. “I’ll see you Monday?”

Seokjin’s shoulders sag, and he sighs, stepping back into the rain. “Yeah, I should probably let you go now. I’ll see you on Monday. And Y/N?”

His lips turn into a smug smirk as the rain soaks through his clothes. “Don’t forget that you promised me a crate of julienned carrots”.

©2024 by jooniperbonsai

[jackwhiteprophetic]

okayokayokay you asked for asks so i'm asking (i'm hoping these aren't things you've already answered, and for like a dissertation back because i love reading all your thoughts)

i think s7 really suffered from inconsistent writing (and a plot that wasn't cohesive at all, esp because it's an ensemble cast) do you think s8 will do better? i'm really hoping it does.

i miss shenanigans. like s7 definitely had some but i think the season was so short and a little all over the place, i feel like we deserve some hijinks (esp because of gerrard being back)

if you had like an ideal disaster arc that led to buddie getting together (i'm thinking shooting 2.0) what would it be?

also i love carlo's song

I LOVE ALL OF THIS AND THANK YOU SO MUCH. Unrelated but I'm currently feeling SO pissed off because I tried to long onto my childhood email account for nostalgia fun and THEY DELETED ALL MY OLD EMAILS.

I love to hear that people like to hear me talk, especially about 9-1-1, so THANK YOU ALSO!!! I really love your questions, and never worry about if I've answered them before because I will always answer again AND I actually have no memory of anything I say ever, so I will probably think it's a new thing every time.

Yesss so I think with S7 the writing was rushed and the filming was rushed due to strikes and stuff, and the new network, like it was all fresh and new and chaotic. They knew the things they had to hit (cruise ship, Madney wedding) and they hit those well. But in between it didn't flow very well, because they shifted things around. I think the issue started with the Bachelor (not party) crossover in 704. They had to swap over different storylines to make room, they ended up deleting an entire scene they had films and that we had stills for (which I think was someone up high somewhere which COULD HAVE BEEN A VERTIGO REFERENCE???). So yeah. Things went downhill a bit because while individual storylines were interesting, people were kept fairly separate and there weren't even really any team scenes where they all discussed things (because they weren't sure which order they'd do, they can't have Buck and Eddie slightly annoyed at each other in the background of a Hen and Chim scene bc they might swap the storylines between episodes the week before the episode airs).

And to make up for the lack of fluidity, they had the medal ceremony. Which just didn't really hit, maybe because we'd seen so many stills that we didn't get scenes of, and because yeah, it wasn't very fluid so bigger scenes felt kind of off? It must be so fucking hard for the actors to be making decisions for scenes when they don't know which order it's going to have been in.

I also think they slowed down after they found out about season 8, and they've already started writing, and I think the fact they have more time to film and more actual episodes will mean it's more fluid.

I do find it so interesting though how the fact that they only had 10 episodes and essentially still tried to fit 18 episodes of plot into that, tied with them knowing there may be new viewers and having to reintroduce characters and dynamics, they reduced relationships right down to what they are prioritising that the viewers see. So we have Bathena and Bobby grappling with his past, so the audience knows Bobby's past, and we have Hen and Chim and how their families are linked and their own family dynamics, we have Maddie's past and the Madney and Henren families, and we have Buck and Eddie, so massively and messily interlinked this season.

We barely saw Buck with Maddie, HIS OWN SISTER, this season, and their only scene just the two of them was not really about Maddie at all, it was about Buck and his life and also his relationship with Eddie. So yeah, they really really focused on highlighting the key dynamics they wanted us to see this season. Which is very interesting. I just wish they had done it more fluidly, but oh well.

I am really hopeful for next season and the writing, and I am also FUCKING STRESSED EVER SINCE TIM MINEAR SAID HE DOESN'T LIKE TO PLAN THINGS... WE CARE ABOUT THESE CHARACTERS A LOT... PLEASE PLAN THINGS!!!!!

But yeah, they never had time for filler episodes this season, the episodes where little happened (one could argue 705, 707, 709ish) weren't really filler episodes, they were more episodes that were having to tie up loose ends from the last and establish the next episode. If that makes sense? I also think they just decided this season that they didn't really have much time for firefighting? Which idk, it's disappointing, but yeah, they actually did not have much time and people remember the personal things more????

ANYWAY I AM SO HOPEFUL FOR NEXT SEASON AND I HOPE THIS MAKES SENSE? but also I really enjoyed writing it anyway!!! FEEL FREE TO SEND ME ASKS ALWAYS!!! THEY BRING ME MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF JOY!!!! And yes Carlos song is fucking incredible I am so excited I am going back to the place I first heard it next week!!!!!

Have a beautiful day if possible, and I love you all and I think you are doing amazing!!!!!! REMEMBER TO EAT AND DRINK AND SLEEP AND SUCH!! and also do something fun, like if you have nice food then just eat it, you don't have to justify it to yourself I'm literally telling you to! Trust your instincts especially if they're positive ones!!!!!!!!!!! I'm just rambling now, my phone is on 5% we shall see how long it lasts!!

[yellowhollyhock]

Where's the Honor in Secrets

One Two Three Four Five Six Seven

part 8

Donnie felt so cozy, in a hammock much too big for him pillowed on all sides with a soft quilt draped across. It had been a while since he'd slept so peacefully. He could have laid there all day.

But he did need to get up and find out where he was, and more importantly, whether anyone else had been transported. Hopefully Raph.

He hopped down, taking in his surroundings. The room was pleasantly messy, lived in. He was separated from other 'rooms' by curtains, clearly homemade. He could hear hushed voices nearby.

He followed them, finding a tall, lanky turtle mutant with a purple mask and a lot of gear, hunched over a desk, dwarfed by his many monitors even as tall as he was. Donnie would recognize his own lab anywhere, even though it actually wasn't his lab at all. A little further back from all the screens, a rat mutant stood with his paws clasped behind his back.

"So if I can find a way to track the purple ooze, it could lead us to Mikey, maybe Raph too. But when I told Leo that..."

"He was not ready to hear."

"He told me I needed to stop messing around with this idea and actually focus on--"

Donnie coughed softly. They both instantly tensed, turning to face him and crouching into ready stances with swift, fluid motions. Clearly, they hadn't been expecting company.

"Whoa," he held his hands out placatingly, "Not here to fight. Your brother Raph is missing, right?"

The much taller version of presumably himself, who definitely appeared to be related to the Raph Donnie had been with, relaxed somewhat, though he still squinted suspiciously.

"Why, have you seen him? I mean, uh--what brother Raph?"

Master Splinter gave him a thwack with his walking stick, making Donnie wince, although it was a gentle one.

"I believe we have much to explain to each other," his voice was course with age, "Very likely not easy to hear. It would not hurt to get comfortable; will you join us for tea?"

Warmth surged through Donnie at the thought, and he tried not to let it show on his face. He bowed respectfully. "Hai, Sensei."

The younger version if himself looked pretty baffled by the display, which made Donnie feel all the more introspective. How would he have felt at fifteen, if he'd had a window to the future to observe his dynamic with his father? The ways it had deepened, other ways it had faded?

"Donatello," Master Splinter prompted, "Show our guest to the living room."

The living room was in plain view of the lab, but Donnie waited politely to be led to the couch. He noticed his counterpart was nursing injuries, his side sloppily bandaged, something he'd almost missed with all the gear.

Had Raph had any injuries they hadn't noticed?

He could hear Master Splinter preparing tea as they sat, and nothing else could have made him more anxious. He wasn't supposed to be waited on by his aging sensei. It was difficult to remember this was a younger version of Splinter too. He tried to distract himself by examining his surroundings.

His alternate settled gingerly onto the couch, watching him curiously. Donnie had to fight an amused chuckle; it was so odd to see his own natural curiosity in the innocent eyes of a fifteen-year-old. It was crazy how young he looked.

It brought up a fresh wave of worry about Raph.

"Did you mutate recently?" the young turtle asked, a little embarrassed, like he wasn't sure of the social protocol.

"Oh, no," Donnie tried to put him at ease with a gentle smile, "I've been a mutant most of my life, like you."

Master Splinter set the tea tray down, pouring each of them a cup.

"You have somehow bypassed our security to bring news of one of our own," he observed. "Please, start from the beginning and tell all you know. We will likewise answer your questions afterward."

Donnie blinked heavily. The soft couch that was designed for mutants twice his size and the scent of tea that matched home almost exactly made his mind hazy. Still, he could recognize the way Master Splinter was careful not to reveal anything until after they'd gotten the full story. It made perfect sense they wouldn't trust him, but it still left a dull ache deep in his chest.

"Well, I guess the beginning for us is the empty space within atoms. It's like--it's sort of like a radio, we're tuned into a certain frequency. Theoretically, infinite versions of our family--uh, that is, Master Splinter and four sons--exist on different atomic frequencies. Usually we stay in that frequency, but it seems like something recently has sent a shockwave through the whole system and causes overlap. Your Raph was flung over to my dimension. We've been trying to send him back, but instead it seems like I got caught in the current."

Master Splinter's face was carefully impassive, but Donatello's eyes lit up with excitement. "Of course, that makes sense! You didn't pass through our security systems at all, you underwent a dimensional shift!"

"Exactly," Donnie's voice was warm with approval in spite of the circumstances, "And that's what happened to your brother. I just haven't figured out why yet."

His alternate held up a finger. "I actually might have an answer to that."

His eagerness for information was at war with alarm as his injured host stood up to go get something. "Oh--you don't have to--can I--" he stumbled clumsily over an offer to help. Donatello just absent-mindedly set his tea into Donnie's waiting hands and continued to his lab to fetch whatever was on his mind.

He set the tea carefully down on the table, then took a small sip of his own. He felt out of place, alone with Master Splinter like this. He could feel the old rat's eyes on him, and didn't have the nerve to look up and find out if his gaze were guarded or inviting.

Donatello returned with . "This is everything I could figure out about a device at Hayden Planetarium where we think Shredder's guys broke in. We found traces of neutronium. It's gotta be how Shredder broke out of jail, he hired a scientist who's been working kn teleportation technology. When he was transported, it must have created a disturbance in the space-time continuum, scattering pieces of our dimension outwards into other realities--"

"And then pulling pieces of other dimensions back here as it settled," Donnie finished for him as the pieces clicked into place. "That explains it! If we can get our hands on that teleporter, we might be able to re-engineer it--"

"To locate Raph across dimensions and bring him home! But Master Splinter, that means Mikey might not have taken the ooze at all. He might be--well, he could be anywhere, in any reality."

Donnie's heart stuttered. "Your Mikey is missing too?" He looked around, suddenly feeling frantic. "Where's Leo?"

The moment the question left his lips, a swish of a curtain pulled aside revealed a looming presence. Donnie turned instinctively, gaze fixed involuntarily.

It was Leo. It had to be.

He looked so much like his brothers--and just like them, in spite of towering over Donnie, he looked so young. In spite of the storm in his worried eyes, he carried himself with confidence, just like Donnie's brother used to.

"Nothing from April," he reported, anger masking fear. "I can't believe that with the Shredder escaped from prison we're spending our time and resources tracking them down just because Raph couldn't take one decision being made without consulting him personally."

"Raph didn't leave on purpose," Donatello stated mildly.

"How are you so certain all of a sudden?" Leo shot back, crossing his arms over his chest and taking a step closer. As he did, he spotted Donnie, and his confidence was immediately replaced with bewilderment.

"Who is that?"

"Raph was pulled away to another dimension, it's a side effect of the machine Shredder used to escape."

"Donnie, why is there another mutant in our living room?"

"I believe you will find he is getting to that, my son," Master Splinter said serenely, "If you will stop and listen for an answer after asking a question."

Leo fell silent, but his mistrustful gaze stayed fixed on Donnie--and Donnie couldn't look away from him, either. It was really Leo. So different from his universe, and yet so recognizable by the thoughtful scowl, the haughty angle of his chin. Crossed arms and tensed shoulder muscles contrasting with casually spread legs. Leo was here, Leo was safe. It wouldn't all be down to Donnie.

"He's from the dimension Raph got pulled to," Donatello explained. "When the ripple reversed, it picked up him instead. He's--well, he's me, I assume. Aren't you?"

Somehow, he hadn't been expecting to be addressed. He'd been taking in the moment as if it were a dream. He glanced at Donatello, and tried to speak in affirmation.

"Um, uh."

Donatello tilted his head. "Are you okay?"

He nodded shakily. "I'm--you, yes. Donatello. Is me." They were all frowning at him with varying degrees of concern, and he felt he should explain himself. "Sorry, I just--I haven't seen Leo in a really long time."

His voice caught on the last word, and suddenly he couldn't hold back tears. He pressed his hands against his mouth, trying not to sob.

For all he knew, Leo had disappeared into another dimension months prior. Now Donnie had disappeared too. What would happen to his family?

His three hosts glanced at each other uncertainly. "I've, uh, never seen him before," Leo offered weakly.

"I think he means Leo from his dimension," Donatello replied, watching his counterpart from the corner of his eye. "Was your brother also lost in another dimension?"

"No," Donnie managed to keep his voice steady. "Nothing like that. He just, uh, stopped writing." He had no way of knowing that exactly that or something worse hadn't happened to Leonardo, but he didn't want to scare the kids.

"You must act quickly, my sons," Master Splinter ended the moment, mercifully taking the attention away from Donnie. "The Shredder goes forward with his plans in this world, and your brothers face unknown dangers. You must decide where and when you are all needed most, and act immediately."

"Hayden Planetarium," Donnie addressed Donatello, hoping to ease some of the burden of leadership that Splinter had just implicitly placed on Leo. "Can you get us in?"

[dove-da-birb]

Light in the Dark

Actually building the Jive dynamic.

Content; Tokyo Debunker selfship stuff (Jiro Kirisaki), first-person POV, angst and fluff

Word Count; 1.2K

I’m on the ground.

My ears are ringing, my eyesight blurry. I can feel someone holding onto my arm, but I can’t see or hear them, not truly anyways.

The next thing I know, I’m being picked up by someone. The shock alone of the sensation brought me back down to earth again for a brief moment. Just long enough for my brain to recognize the head of dark hair and tired crimson eyes behind a set of black-framed glasses. And then I was out again.

Coming to, I blink in the harsh clinical lighting, taking in that I was in a hospital bed and a machine was keeping track of my vitals. No one was sitting in the chairs beside my bed. While I wasn’t expecting anyone it didn’t lessen the disappointment or the heavy feeling in my chest.

How could anyone know if they weren’t there? But someone was there, I just can’t remember who.

I was going to do something … but I’m drawing a blank. 

Memory issues were pretty standard for me, but the curse is just magnifying them. The heart monitor spikes a bit and I reign in my thoughts, not wanting someone to have to check on me because of a panicking brain.

The curtain separating my bed from the rest of the room opens, and a face that’s becoming more and more familiar enters my … room, yeah, I guess you can call it a room.

Jiro stands there for a moment, “You’re awake, good.” And he starts checking my vitals.

“How long was I out?” I tap my fingers on my thighs — when did I get changed into a gown? — moreso as to not overly focus on what he was doing.

He switches out the IV. “Five hours and thirty seven minutes.”

I wet my lips, running my tongue over my teeth. “Did … did you change me?” mentally, I’m slapping myself at the question. Would it make this better or worse if he did or didn’t?

This pauses him, and he briefly glances at me. “I did.”

Simple. Straightforward. Blunt. But also it’s comforting. Nothing is being hidden, and if he had anything extra to say, he would.

He looks away, looking through my charts, the only sound in the room coming from the machine, our quiet breathing, and the clock ticking on the wall. I’ve always hated hospitals — hell, I avoided going to the doctor when possible back when my life was normal — but this was … tolerable in a sense.

“What happened?” I break the silence, not liking how I could hear the heart monitor speeding up a bit at my own anxiety. Stop beating so much, you rat!!! “And did you pick me up?”

The faint memory of being held was branded into my mind. Out of all the things it decides to remember, it decides to file being bridal carried into the ‘important’ pile.

“Your blood sugar dropped and you fainted,” Jiro answers, handing me a juice box, “and yes, I carried you.”

I look at the juice box — apple. “Ah.” So eloquent. “Thank you.”

He tilts his chin, even though his facial expressions don’t tell much, I could tell that he wasn’t used to being thanked.

“For carrying me,” I explain, popping the straw into the box. “I’m not exactly ligh-”

“It’s no problem,” he lightly cuts me off before I could finish what I was saying. And by his tone, it really was no problem. “But make sure you’re eating enough and getting enough fluids. Don’t want you fainting on me again.”

I can see the corner of his mouth slightly twitch, a small smile, before it’s gone again. I’m thankful that he didn't point out that my heartrate picked up in speed for a brief moment after he said that. 

So, Jiro has a secret fun side to him. It’s dry and doesn’t differ much but … it fits him.

“How’s the juice?”

I look up, taking in the last bit. “Good,” I mull over a thought before biting the bullet, “but don’t you know that an apple a day keeps the doctor away?”

I’m mentally cringing at my own joke, but I can hear a gentle huff coming from him and from where I’m sitting I can see a pulling at the sides of his mouth. A laugh, a small one, but still a laugh.

“Those don’t contain a full apple,” he merely muses, finishing up his check in. 

Seemingly happy with whatever he found, he moves to grab a flashlight. “Can you tilt your chin up and focus on this light?”

I do as he asks, looking into the flashlight, leaving me blinking the spots away as I try not to focus on his face. He nods, writing down whatever he concluded from that.

“Your vitals look fine. Your blood sugar was low which is the reason why you fainted. Have you been stressed lately?” He glances at me. There’s no malice in it, he’s merely just asking.

If this were anyone else, I would have probably snapped a smart remark or been sassy about it. “A bit more than usual,” I answered instead. Honest but holding back.

“Than usual?”

Fuck. “Just … everything is so new. I’m also dealing with my curse on top of everything,” and have no idea if anything can be done about it. I swallow, thinking. “Just, everything is unknown and changing. So, yeah, more than usual.”

He nods and writes that down. “Well, focus on making sure you’re eating enough. As for the stress… you know yourself best to find something to help ease with that. Burning yourself out won’t help anyone and will only end up hurting yourself more.”

“Is the last bit medical advice?”

This causes Jiro to pause in taking his notes, mulling it over. “A mixture of medical and personal advice, I suppose.”

He unhooks me from the heart monitor, and I’m thankful that it couldn’t snitch me out anymore. “I’ll consider that. Your medical and personal advice … I suppose.”

His lips twitched again before he nodded and started to leave my room, “Make sure you do then.”

I wait a moment before calling out, “Thanks again, Jiro.”

He glances over his shoulder, “Just doing my job.”

And then he’s gone, and I’m yet again alone in this corner of Mortkranken (not the hospital). It doesn’t feel as cold as before though, even though there’s no one waiting in my room — now I’m thankful for it, as I feel like someone else could have picked up on something, but I’m going to ignore that for the time being.

I still don’t want to make this a habit though.

Looking down to my lap, I finish the rest of the juice box, placing the cardboard with a smiling apple in the recycling bin before shrugging on my clothes.

An apple a day may keep the doctor away, but it can’t do anything about my curse and I would find myself back here every week for a check in. 

… I can’t believe that he carried me in here after I fainted though, and the thought alone had my face heating up out of embarrassment and something in my gut feeling fluttery.

......................

Tags; @cheriecafes & @cloudcountry

[teawithmagician]

To Fuck a Monster

They say that a social psychologist should be off the rails enough to investigate weird things*. I’ve always loved it. Because, first of all, I am a social psychologist. And I am keenly interested in exploring weird stuff.

*That’s not what they literally say, of course. The phrasing is more fancy and proper, but the essence remains.

I like to write kinky smut for my fandoms because sex is a way of non-verbal communication. In modern Western culture, shaped by Christianity (and other Abrahamic religions), sex is still frowned upon. The sexual revolution didn’t help much: we require sexual life to be clean and proper and held to a standard*.

*Mind you, I don’t say this to defend pedophilia or rape. I, for one, believe that we stopped publicly dismembering people for no good reason. That would be a decent punishment for these sorts of crimes**. **That was a dark joke, but I'm not against maxx punishments for these.

I mean weird things we dislike as squicks, as opposed to kinks. They hurt no one, they are consensual, they are just… yucky.

Breeding kink, for instance. A character gets off on the thought of being impregnated, maybe without even desiring to actually have babies. This can be interpreted in a Freudian way, as getting, saving, and nurturing a piece of the Other (who’s also your reflection) inside.

Fluid kinks with bodily fluids everywhere, so you’ll think twice before turning the fluorescent lamp on. Again, this can be interpreted as a Freudian thing, a recognition of what comes out of the Other’s body as good, and treating it as such.

Incest, because it’s gross, but also research shows that incest often happens in dysfunctional families so disconnected from the outside world that they feel only able to seek shelter and protection in each other — a dynamic I like to apply to Warhammer, for instance.

Bodily hair, especially on women. Considering how demonized hairy legs or pubic hair are, inserting them into a sexual scene used to cause a lot of scandals in more conservative fandoms (such as CIS countries' multi-fandom)*.

*God knows I love provoking conservatives.

One doesn’t have to be a kink enjoyer to include conventionally "weird" kinks in their works. But one definitely should know where and which kinks to use, because these sorts of non-verbal communications speak volumes about characters and their psychological issues and/or values.

Why? Because it follows the universal cinematic/literature rule, “show, don’t tell.”

Don’t tell how your character grew to become a parent figure for their tribe, so they can’t separate their sexual identity from the enforced “parental” role. Show it.

— All Uruks must breed and multiply, so we are not wiped from the face of the earth. But you—I will take you for myself.

— Isn’t it selfish to want me only for yourself, to enjoy each other every night? — she whispered in his ear, pressing her body against his, feeling the sweet shudder of his response.

— My life belongs to my children. But even I can desire one of my daughters for myself, — he murmured in reply.

սիրտ, Rings of Power fandom

2. Don’t tell how your character grew up in a dysfunctional family with an absent and emotionally distant father who fostered rivalry between siblings, appointed “favourites,” and did his best to disconnect you from anyone outside, so you could only rely on your blood. Show it.

“I'll kill myself if Father insists we separate,” she says with grim desperation. “I can't live like this. And nobody can make me.”

Horus stiffens, his hold on her tightening. Just the thought of her harming herself scares him. He grabs her chin and forces her to look at him, his demeanor almost dark, a hint of anger in his eyes.

“Don't even say that. If our father wants to separate us, I won't allow it. I won't let him. You're mine, and you are not killing yourself, no matter what he says.”

Tragedy, WH40k fandom

3. Don’t tell how your character is striving to hold their lover close, knowing they will inevitably have to separate. Show it.

“I wish I could have a child with you, like an ordinary woman,” she confesses suddenly. “I can't think of any other way to give myself to you completely.”

He is taken by surprise by her words. He takes a moment to answer, his hand caressing her stomach, his head resting against hers. His voice becomes more vulnerable than usual.

“You know it’s the only thing I can’t give you. You were born from the love between higher beings, but we're Primarchs, the Emperor's heirs. We aren’t supposed to reproduce.”

“Malcador can do something about that,” she says in a suddenly harsh tone. “I don’t care what. I want to carry your seed inside me.”

Tragedy, WH40k fandom

Mind you, I use my fics as examples not because I’m that good. No, I just show how I do it so you can do it better.

But again, why? Because writing sexual scenes is hard, and writing believable sexual scenes is even harder.

I remember once I wrote a very generic smut for Dragon Age — it was a Tabris and Loghain pairing, I think? And I got feedback that it wasn’t exactly out of character, it just didn’t feel… right. It didn’t have zest. It was a pretty generic sexual interaction. It would feel the same if I swapped Loghain with Alistair and Tabris with Alistair’s right hand. Boring and by the book.

Again, sex is communication. And just like a character's personality should be palpable in dialogues, it should be palpable in sexual scenes.

Yet, I advise you to take my words not as a direct guide, but rather as a point to think about. I’m barely an example of brilliant writing, just because I get carried away with my social studies often enough, and like to portray relationships as more problematic than they really are. I like to explore yucky things, and even more, to explore reactions to them. But the ideas stand:

Make your characters true to their lore in both Gen and NC-17

Show, don’t tell

[usdemigods]

Your Katsuki is a simp.💖😔 Good, good, and that top energy from Izuku?💋🔥 you're cookinggg!🔥🔥🔥

Hahaha, that aside, I wanted to ask you, which do you think are the parts that you enjoy writing the most? Is Izuku, because you usually use his pov? and which do you think are the parts that you have problems with?

I mean, for me you totally rock!! I love your fic cause It feels sooo cozy but also, kinda of real, sometimes I feel like I'm watching everything happen in front of me. Is so cool.

I wanted also to ask If you have any fic recs that you would like to share? Cause I have one 'the art of falling' by sapphicflower is soo funny and charmkng, and any work from seeress is awesome but she left ao3 since 2022 I think?

Anyway, I hope you are doing great and thank you for sharing your hard work with us! You're awesome 💖

My love for Katsuki knows noooo bounds. It’s interesting bc I started watching/reading MHA agesss ago (must’ve been 2016), and I dipped in and out of it since then. And I’ve always had an Izuku bias, but returning last year and catching up from season 4 onward…. something shifted 🤭 Katsuki is defo my fave character now, oop.

I’d say my fave part is writing Katsuki from Izuku’s POV, for this reason! I plan out Katsuki’s POV fairly heavily, so dipping into his feelings and motivations in my notes/thoughts, but then shifting out of that when writing Izuku’s POV is soooooo so fun 😛 Like…. Knowing what Katsuki’s got going on in his mind, but only writing what Izuku can see and hear through a layer of his own misunderstandings and hang-ups is a great exercise into perspectives.

The problem…. I think it’s having an idea of the wider plot but having to decide how to reveal things. I always psych myself out when it comes to: “Ah, I really wanna execute my plan of what’s really going on but idk how to develop it realistically while also making it feel entertaining to read”. So I end up writing filler scenes to make the plot feel real and fluid but sometimes I think “argh this just doesn’t feel interesting from a reader’s POV asdfghjkl”.

And YESSS thank you for the recs (I’ve been going through a reading slump so this is SO needed). The Art of Falling is one of my faves, the author does such a good job of slowing the burn and making the characters feel realistic but also their own. And Seeress 👀 their story “Let me assist you personally” was my DekuBaku awakening!! But I read it at a time where I felt I was drowning in fics to read so I never looked at their other stuff :( I took a peak now and there’s soooo much good food, I’m gonna be well fed tonight so THANK YOU ☺️

Here are some that have stood out to me:

[Kill God] by Majjale - AU but heroes. Villain Deku and genuinely SOOOO well done. I think this is my fave hero-verse AU. I love when fics are plot heavy but the romance between BKDK is so intertwined that you can’t separate it from from plot. And it has a good take on the top/bottom dynamic discourse. 10/10, but unfinished (don’t let this defer you pls!)

Every Other Freckle by DeerMeadows - CRIMINALLY underrated. When fic authors try to tackle a genre/style is just 🤌🤌🤌. it’s 90s-2000s survival thriller meets supernatural/horror. I highly recommend. It really commits to the genre and has horror themes (so plssss don’t read if any of the tags freak you out!!! >.<)

Chasing the rabbit by Mimiwrites - stands out as one of my fave fluffy (w a side of angst) oneshot !

My fave fantasy au is imperial retrograde by mynameis152. Truly a great slow burn 🤌

An author that doesn’t disappoint is thunderpoint ! I love their writing style so much

I’m aware most of these are fairly popular, and I defo fall into this habit of reading things that I can find easily :( BKDK fic recs can become a bit of an echo chamber so I’m gonna think harder !! And I’ll message you if I think of anymore (I’ve read so many it’s embarrassing 😭 and have lost track of a lot of my faves). And feel free to send me anymore you’ve really liked as well (in dire need of more recs) <3

(AND thank you for your kind words 🫶💋 I hold them dearly)

[yuriskies]

The Fluid Relationship and Its Enemy (Iori Miyazawa)

Long long ago, when the skies were higher and the ocean was deeper, and the publishing companies were still publishers and not content owners, 'relations' began to sprawl between people. 'Lovers', 'unrequited love', 'rivals', 'spouses', 'boss and subordinate', 'senior and junior', 'idol and producer' -- certain "states" that occured between people were codified with specific words.

To answer 'what are their relations?', you can reply, "they're going out" or "they're on bad terms", specifying the "state" at a particular moment. These are 'relations.'

What's important is that it describes that state at a point in time. The reply to "what are their relations?" is a static, fixed answer. In the sense that given an initial state and a set of rules you can derive the next state, you could construct a world model based on something akin to classical mechanics.

However, more and more phenomena began to be discovered that couldn't be described by it. For example, telling a very intimate couple something like "hurry up and get married" is based on a shared tacit understanding that the next step on the road of love from 'dating' is 'marriage'. But while it certainly does confirm to societal templates, it ignores the existence of a vast number of possibilities and unnamed relations occurring outside of them.

There is also, for example, the idea of "just business." Two people act very intimately with each other, but it is actually just a performance to please the audience, and they're not that close in reality. In this situation a relation just for show, one that's not the real deal, would be called "just business." 'Real' and 'business' are thought to be completely separate, and 'on bad terms' and 'intimate' are treated as exclusive. This is the classical mechanics understanding of relations.

In this system, you cannot explain the following states:

On stage they pretended to get on well, but at some point the distinction between stage and reality started to blur.

Behind the scenes they were like a cat and a dog, but even so, they respected each other's skill.

There should have been no strong feelings towards the other party, but it's unpleasant when they're close to someone else.

Despite being polar opposites with the other party, they can't help but think of them even when they're not around, to one's own annoyance.

...Something along these lines.

We need something that can handle not just discrete '0' and '1' states, but various aspects tying people together and their complex changes over time. This would be the notion of "relationship".

As a side note, even within the classical mechanics model of relations there are still some ambiguities. A good example would be 'more than friends, less than lovers.' However, this still places "friends" and "lovers" on the same line and points to a segment on that line. It's not suited for describing anything more complex than that.

Much like how modern physics is built on the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics, a more subtle approach is required to talk about the interactions between the multitude of aspects.

Even given the same initial state, interactions between humans won't necessarily display the same predicted behavior. They won't take the same form, and will keep constantly changing, so much so that a snapshot in time would be meaningless. "Relationship" expresses this kind of dynamic interaction.

So when asked "What are their relations?", a modern otaku will keep their mouth shut.

Because you cannot describe it with a few words. No matter the answer, you will feel like you missed something. Because if it's not based on the process and context of how the relation came to be, you know there will be something you just won't be able to convey.

There are relationships in this world that can only be described as "there is a relationship."

Seeking to gain even a slightly deeper understanding of them, everyone desperately chases after more information. Because, like collecting the pieces of a complex puzzle, they want to increase the accuracy of their own perception. However, by following relationships you will learn the horrifying truth that it leads to a swamp with no bottom.

Human relationships, when viewed from the outside, can only be perceived up to a certain level. Anything that doesn't appear outside can only be known by those in the relationship itself. Above all, it physically cannot be observed.

Yes, they're "unobservable."

This is an important point about modern relationships. No matter how hard you try, you cannot understand others' relationships. No matter how strongly you imagine it, based on the information that's out there, it will be just that: your imagination. And even while you're imagining, the relationship keeps building up out of your sight.

This is, in fact, the same for fictional characters as well as for real ones. Even though something crucial may be happening where an otaku can't see it, they will never know about it. This is the notion of "don't understand a thing.'

When you try to observe a relationship, you will hit this wall no matter how much you increase the resolution. But on the other side of this semi-transparent wall you can see an incredibly bright, bare 'love' shining through.

Relationships are but one of the forms 'love' manifests in the world. Those drawn in by its dazzling light, burning themselves to ashes, are the 'extreme otaku'. How pitiful.

Please be careful all of you.