#and i like pointing this out because (A) i want my writing partners to be aware of this but also (B) for suuuure this can be

[carn4g3]

Creepypasta Relationship HCs (2)

Characters - BEN Drowned, Tim Wright (Masky), Brian Thomas (Hoodie), Kagekao

Summary - A few more glimpses into how these creeps are as partners (w/ 50% more possessiveness !)

TWs - Descriptions of yandere behavior, cheating, stalking, possessiveness/jealousy and overall unhealthy relationships, mentions of kidnapping and violence, & very brief mentions of sex and smoking

Word Count - 3.5k (~700 to 900 each)

A/N: Thank you for all the love on the first part <33 I know a few people requested these characters alongside some other new ones in the time it took me to write this. Just know that I'll have ones for any additional characters out sometime soon if you happened to leave a request along those lines :)

Part 1

BEN Drowned

Before I get to anything else, BEN is perpetually in his early 20s in my characterization of him.

He arguably has the most contact with people outside of Slender's influence simply by being an ipad kid. Because of that, he's most likely to form a relationship with someone if they are from the normal world. BEN doesn't necessary hate his colleagues or Slender, but they're all just so fucked up. Someone with even half the emotional baggage of a killer would be much better.

Now, it's pretty obvious that BEN isn't exactly the most palatable to the average human being. He has a million alternate accounts, all of which assume false identities, but he does have a select few that are more personal. On those accounts, he spends his time in various forums or chats where he can discuss his favorite games and other media. You two would probably connect on one of those shared interests, maybe even several, and he would be hooked from there.

BEN isn't the most patient person, but it would take more than a few months of talking before he truly built a connection with you. He'd prefer you reciprocate his feelings after that point, but it wouldn't deter him if you didn't. He's self aware enough to know that he needs to give you time to adjust to the fact that he's not the human man you thought you were talking to and that he crawled out of your very own computer screen. Though, back to his impatience, it's probably not nearly enough time.

The topic of monogamy with BEN would be a variable subject. He's well aware of the litany of ways partners define themselves given the somewhat questionable time he spends online. Ideally, BEN would see himself as unconstrained by a relationship, and, therefore, you should have an open end as well. Though, the less mature part of him sees you as something of a prize that should be reserved for him alone, and that's the side that takes over.

BEN wouldn't allow you to have romantic or sexual relationships with anyone other than himself. Meanwhile, the unspoken rule is that he could... if he wanted to. Does that mean he actually has other partners? No, not at all. It was a miracle you wanted to enter a relationship with him willingly, if you even did. There's no way in hell he's going to replicate that easily.

Despite all of that, he's not very outwardly possessive. He carries himself with a certain arrogance, it shouldn't be a shock that extends to his relationships. If you seem close to someone else, he still thinks you'll choose him in the end. At the same time, he's your most avid stalker. There are cameras damn near everywhere nowadays, and he doesn't even need to break a sweat to access their footage. In the situation that you're cooperative enough that he doesn't need to force you into his living space, he watches where you go. Even if you can't leave his side, he still tracks you one way or another. Nothing happens between you and another person that doesn't go unseen by him, and, if someone is too close, he'll pay them a "friendly" visit.

He shows affection the best through quality time and gift giving. Admittedly, his definition of quality time is almost exclusively reserved for playing games or showing you something on his plethora of devices. On occasion, he can suck it up and do something that you like: going outside is in his skillset... albeit reluctantly. As for gift giving, BEN is surprisingly good at getting things you like even though it seems like he's never listening. You might want to avoid asking how he got the money for such things, though. He won't give you a straight answer anyway.

Physical affection with BEN would be a bit strange. He's not entirely an apparition, but his form isn't totally corporeal either. Objects he's holding can phase through his grip at times without warning, though it's not quite to the point where he can pass through walls. When he lingers close enough to you, it feels almost like there's a faint, electrical buzzing on your skin. He can still touch you despite that, though your hair may start standing after a while. It's only when he lingers near you for too long that there's an issue. The static electricity building between you becomes pretty potent, resulting in an actual electric shock once he does make contact. BEN can be a little sadistic, but he's not particularly interested in hurting you. So, he tends to avoid touching you much or, if he does, it'll be pretty quick.

While BEN has a bit of a reason for falling short on physical affection, he has no good excuse for his lackluster words of affection. He thrives in making lewd comments on your body and that's it. The only way to get him to say he loves you is by saying it yourself. Even then, his response is pretty lacking, but it's not out of a genuine dislike for you. The way his ears turn a light pink, burning most red at their pointy ends, indicates he's at least a little fond of you.

Masky

Quick note because I can see this becoming confusing, I tend to refer to Slender as the Operator when writing for Marble Hornets characters because I think that's what they would call him. It's still the same old Slendy tho :)

Being in this fandom for so long, I can see the development of my frontal lobe in the form of my hcs of this man.

Tim is well into his 40s. He thinks a dating life is far beyond him, and, even if it weren't, he hardly knows what it's like to be a "normal" person anymore after 20 years as a proxy. While I say all that, if he were to find love, it would likely not be among the Operator's ranks. Tim despises the creature and everything it stands for, but he knows he's not strong enough to evade it. He finds respite in the areas outside of its power and is mostly likely to let go of his inhibitions for someone in that mental space.

He is not 100% ready to embrace a relationship, romantic or otherwise. The Operator isn't clueless to Tim's resent; it's why newer proxies like Kate and Toby are much more infatuated with the creature. To keep the less conditioned ones around, it has to extend its control a bit more uniquely. Tim knows that you're at risk of the Operator doing something to you, and he can't handle that. Because of that, his presence in your life isn't consistent. He's trying to prove to himself that he doesn't need you and, to the Operator, that you don't get in the way of his work. Though, Tim has never been the most strong willed. He comes crawling back to you every time.

While most of the others are willing to kidnap the person of their affections, I don't think Tim would quite get to that point. He prefers that you have your own separate life away from him. It makes him feel like you two are a normal couple, but he's certainly not a saint. Mentally stable people do not become proxies of the Operator, so Tim is riddled with some less than ideal possessive and controlling tendencies. He wants you to be dedicated to him and only him. Any other romantic or sexual relationships are completely out of the question for you, in his mind.

Does he quite monitor if you keep up your end of the bargain on that? No. When he disappears for months at a time, he does anything he can to erase you from his mind. Gaining an almost iron will, he won't even stalk you until he gets especially desperate, and that's usually the point when he shows up again.

When he is around, though, he expresses issues with your other relationships quite readily: platonic or even familial. Tim is very deeply insecure in himself. Who wouldn't be after finding out their existence alone has led to the deaths of many? He's buried all of that so deep at this point that even he hardly knows it though, so he calls himself a "traditional" man instead. He prefers your deepest affections to be saved for him, is that so wrong?

Even though his lifestyle is far from anything traditional, he sees himself as the provider. Regardless of your gender, you're the caretaker or the homebody. Like I said earlier, he's fine with you having a separate life-- it's the modern age after all, the least of his worries should be whether or not you work. But, he expects you to see him as a dominant figure that should be listened to, and he will follow through on that.

Anger management? Who the hell is that? Tim's job grates on him, physically and mentally. That's part of the reason he smokes a pack a day, and why he's with you as well. He tends to be at his most vulnerable and volatile when he turns to you, and those emotions are usually hardly a result of your actions. When Tim is angry, though, any little thing can set him off and make that anger entirely your fault. He'll tend to distance himself before things get physical, but verbal arguments are far from uncommon. One of these arguments is usually what prompts him to disappear back to the depths of the woods. But, if he's feeling a little less sorry for himself, he'll come back to you and give a begrudging apology. He does truly feel bad when he snaps at you and wishes it wouldn't happen. At the same time, he has a completely self-pitying and helpless approach to fixing that issue.

Surprisingly, he's big on physical affection. If he's with you, you're likely a little secret of his, so he can only get his time in after completing his daily tasks. He's tired as hell by that point, so he'll just sprawl out wherever you are. In bed? He's right behind you. Watching a movie? Your couch is comfy enough to sleep on. You're busy doing things? He can fall asleep standing if need be. He prefers if you go about initiating certain things like hugs and cuddles, but he can handle initiating a kiss or more.

When it comes to words of affection, on the other hand, just be happy with the few affectionate gestures you can get. It takes a war in his brain to so much as utter the words "sorry," you'd be shit out of luck to hear "I love you" or anything deeper than that. If he's feeling especially sappy, he might leave you a handwritten note. His handwriting is absolutely atrocious, worse than a doctor's script, and takes some analysis to decipher. Once you get it, that will be the closest glimpse at Tim's true feelings towards you.

Hoodie

I would like to think Brian is similarly still in touch with parts of his humanity as Tim is. But, that would be wishful thinking, wouldn't it?

Brian is a stalker first and a lover second. While normal people might unwind by watching TV or even reading a book, Brian takes similar joy in simply watching you from a far. He would find people outside of the Operator's control most interesting to watch, but it wouldn't matter at the end of the day. If you capture his interests, he'll watch-- maybe even take videos.

I imagine his main tasks under the Operator involve intel collection. He's highly skilled in slinking around in the shadows and not being caught, unless of course he wants to instill some unease in the mind of his victim. As a result, it's very unlikely you would notice him lurking. He's not there to unsettle you necessarily, but he might if he finds himself feeling a certain way. You're his most convenient entertainment at the end of the day, so it's not really in his desire to encourage you to get others involved or even move somewhere less convenient.

If you do happen to notice his presence, he's almost a little impressed at your perceptiveness. Not to mention, it makes the second phase of his plan a little easier. Brian may be content to watch endlessly, but he doesn't stop himself from exploring his curiosity to be included in your life. For him, he feels like he's known you forever. For you, he's crafted your interactions across the span of several weeks or even months to get you interested. With the added weight of a secret stalker on your psyche, it only draws you closer to his "welcoming" arms.

Brian isn't quite to the point where he sees himself as a sole provider. Once again, it's more interesting for him if you have at least a few interests beyond him. Like a beach episode in an anime, Brian sees your endeavors outside of your home as a welcomed (but temporary) change in setting. Not nearly enough people acknowledge that the Marble Hornets guys are from Alabama, in my opinion. It's not exactly the most progressive state, and Brian likely holds some toxic masculine values. He thinks of himself as a sort of "man of the house." You should listen to him, and he expects you to dedicate a lot of time to your relationship. In his mind, he dedicates a lot of time to you, even if most of that dedication is unknown to you.

Before he even went forward with inserting himself into your narrative, he was already interfering with the others in your life. He tries to act all stoic, but he is still very possessive at the end of the day. I've explained that some of the other characters find their possessiveness and jealousy rooted in their insecurities. Brian is certainly not immune to those feelings, but I think his issues stem from what I can best describe as an objectification of others. He views you almost like a hobby, something that he puts his free time into. He feels an almost bitter jealousy when others try to catch your attention with less than half of the pristine planning and attention to detail he executed. Just as he can stalk you, he can stalk others. He will make his watchful presence much more malicious and well known to the people he wants out of your life.

His go to forms of affection are acts of service and quality time. Ignoring that he sees stalking you as a form of quality time, he likes taking you on dates. His appearance isn't something too noteworthy to most people, so he can easily ditch the mask (if you even know he has one) and hit the town. He's a big fan of dinner and a movie or a little nature hike if you're interested in more outdoorsy activities like him. If you're more into stay-home dates, he'll happily watch a movie from the comfort of your couch and help you cook a dinner for two.

As for acts of service, he takes pride in the fact that he's a bit of a handyman. It's not like you can exactly get the usual help when you live secretly in the woods as a proxy of an immortal eldritch being. If you so much as breathe a word of issue about something in your home, he's on it. Carrying something heavy? He'll get it for you. It doesn't matter if you can do it yourself, he's going to do it now. Weaponized incompetence fears him. Asking Brian to do a task for you almost always ensures it will get done within the day.

He doesn't honestly care too much for physical affection. As I've already established, he's happy to do damn near anything you ask of him. If you want attention that way, simply ask. In general, he asks for very little in return. Although, when he does get around to asking for more, there's no guarantee he won't push your boundaries a little uncomfortably.

On the topic of communication, he's not very talkative and prefers to listen to you instead. Words of affection are few and far between, but he does have some quirks. It won't take an army for him to tell you he loves you, and he has a sleeve full of endearing nicknames to call you ("love" is his favorite).

Kagekao

Where do I even start with Kage.

He doesn't have any specific preference if you're a worker of Slender just like him or not. If asked why he does anything for the creature, he'll say it's simply because it's the "best" arrangement in this modern age. On the surface, that's a pretty reasonable explanation given that demons aren't exactly common or readily accepted members of society. However, the real reason is that Slender gets what it wants and is a hell lot more powerful than Kage. The demon begrudgingly does what he has to and tries to spend the rest of his time getting the fun he would prefer.

While some of the others might begin their interests by watching from afar, Kage pops into your life right off the bat. He finds entertainment in watching, but it's so much more interesting to have those interactions up close. Especially if you're not as familiar with inhuman entities, Kage takes pleasure in eliciting those responses of perplexion from you.

Living in a world largely populated by what he perceives as "weak humans," he's gained quite the ego. If you're not a demonic entity, he most certainly considers himself superior to you in all ways. Even if you are a demonic entity, he has a very specific criteria for what he considers to be a "real" demon and would still likely see himself as better. On the other hand, his underestimation of you tends to lead to interesting reactions in the case that you can pack a bit of a punch against the demon. (*cough* he's into it *cough*)

Like Tim, a relationship with Kagekao wouldn't ever really get a chance to be defined because he likes to bounce in and out of your life on a dime. Although, he certainly doesn't feel any guilt or even apprehension to pursue his interests in you. He recognizes you could get targeted by some less favorable attention (Slender being the worst), but he's interested in seeing how you'd react.

He is absolutely with other people in addition to you. I can't imagine he has many relationships that are too far past friends with benefits (everyone wants to fuck a demon, this app proves it), but I wouldn't put it past him. For that reason, he tends to turn a blind eye to your escapades. That being said, if your relationship with him borders on something more romantic, he expects you to have no other romantic partners.

Because he's not too consistently involved in your life, Kage isn't the most possessive on the list. On occasion, he'll express his opinions on the other people you spend your time with, but they're usually empty threats. If they really upset him, he'll eliminate them from your life. Does that mean death? Or simply scaring them off? You don't really want to know.

Like many of these guys, Kage isn't big on clear demonstrations of love like physical affection or words. His best show of affection is gift giving. He's not quite a kleptomaniac, but he does have what can only be described as a dragon's hoard of shiny trinkets. If asked, he won't say any of them are particularly special. Though, he does have a lengthy story for how he acquired each one, and he won't just readily give them out... except for you. Especially if he has matching sets of something, he'll tend to gift you one of the halves. You might not necessarily want or even like all the trinkets Kage gifts you, but you'll have to keep and display them. If not, Kage will do a bit of redecorating for you

Gotta let the brain worms speak on this one, he likes to offer you help, but he is not actually helpful. Kage thinks he can do practically anything. He's a demon in a human's world, after all. But can he actually follow through? No. Not at all. He gives up on tasks pretty easily when they stop being interesting. Even in the case that he goes through with completing the whole thing, you might have preferred to just do it yourself.

Don't get me wrong, his affections aren't all bad. He tends to think he's too good for physical affection, but he can be surprisingly sweet and comforting. Additionally, while he won't say it out loud, you might find that one of his gifts has an oddly romantic inscription etched on it. Trust, Kage makes up for his shortcomings.

[jessconsumesmedia]

Ghosts 4x10 The Not-So-Silent Partner

I thought that I might put together a well-organized piece of writing for this episode, but who knows how that is actually going to work out. I LOVED this episode and I have so many thoughts (many of which I am thinking about giving their own posts) So buckle in and enjoy my wild ranting about fictional characters.

Freaky Spoilers below the belt (they are so not i promise i just think im funny)

Overall thoughts: This episode was Really strong. I loved both of the main plots as well as the little background moments. The stories this season are building up gorgeously and I can't wait to get more payoffs as the season progresses. Pretty much as always I am just going to break up A and B stories and then add any other random bit at the end! (buckle up or leave this is going to be a long ride)

Issac - The not-so-silent partner

I love Issac and his bitchy little attitude; it brings us back to the fact that almost always his bitchyness* is just who he is. He is at heart a bitchy man who is realllllly trying (at least for him he is really trying) but he is also a deeply scorned man. By love, by society, by Hamilton, and even by his friends. The restaurant is his way of being seen, it is his way of being something in an afterlife where he feels like nothing sometimes. He of course is not going about it the right way but this guy has spent his entire life and afterlife being one upped often by people who don't even care about his existence. His hand in the restaurant is important to him. That being said I believe it was a really good decision to have him give up his partner position. He not only realized that he has stakes with his friends but it also is baseline Jay's restaurant.

Jay deserves to have the creative decisions plus he deserves a billion pats on the back for dealing with their eight idiot children/every other ghost on the property at some point. At the beginning of this episode I figured there might be a lead up to Mark finding out about the ghosts but I was surprised with the way they yes/anded their way out of that situation. But I realized it doesn't make a ton of sense for a network tv show to somewhat reveal two big bits (and subsequently lose a layer of jokes even if there are new joke possibilities) Mark finding out that the ghosts exist and Sam can see them takes away the Mark thinks Sam is a weirdo vibe and that is objectively a very silly dynamic. Also **Sam is a weirdo but mostly because of her small/odd family dynamic and also a little bit because of the ghosts. Poor Mark, bro is so gullible.

**"I think we sometimes forget that Samantha once hit her head really hard." definitely not the reason she is desperate for family but it is a good excuse actually for a lot of the situations she finds herself in. But also I wonder if she does have lasting effects, like I would assume considering she was literally dead for three minutes.

*"Issac complain about monarchy, must be day ending in y" oh Thor you are a comedic genius and you are very correct.

Hopefully I got everything I wanted to put in that lol.

IRISH HETTY

Holy shit. I knew, of course I knew. But having confirmation of something that hits you straight in the face is just really nice. This reveal is perfection. Poor Hetty believing whole heartedly that she is somehow British royalty and then she gets hit with one of the things she hates most in life. Love it. This managed to coincide with my English literature class going over a bit of Irish history so I was having a grand time sticking the two together into one big nerd pb&j. Plus I know generally that I have a good chunk of Irish somewhere in my history lol.

The actual implications of Hetty knowing she is Irish now are insane. Much like her encounter with the washing machine, dalliances with Trevor, and brief run ins with feminism, her finding out about her Irish ancestry is just another wall she is breaking. Almost like a another layer that is keeping her from "the real world." She is so stuck in her very stuffy uptight ways but these giant -for her- moments keep happening. They keep adding cracks and craters to the layers of her being. Much like Issac they don't change her fundamental elements so she is still the sam character/person but she has that growth we long to see. Mostly I love to see her views get challenged and she has to deal with the aftermath of those challenges.

Thor's part in all of this is also really interesting. We know he knows things about probably all of the ghosts but he has managed to keep these secrets for an incredibly long time. Thor is just a big guy who loves and cares about his friends. There is also another layer of Hetty being one of, if not, the only ghost who Grew up at Woodstone. The ghosts before her had an attachment to her because they were there for her whole depressing backstory TM. They know what all she went through (some stuff they probably have never said) But Thor specifically fell into some sort of protective figure for her (even if she didn't consider him as that protector for a long time after her death) Whether Sass and Issac just chose not too be as involved or even if they were Thor was there and chose to be there. He knew being Irish would be a huge crack in her worldview so he kept it to himself all to protect her. And let me tell you that made me cry. The Thor and Hetty relationship is one of my favorites not only because of the comedic aspects but also just the sheer care he has for her. She can't do much besides accept her friend and even affirm that friendship. (HETTY LOVE GORDON) Like guys she doesn't even say his pelts are gross and nasty it is such a huge moment for the both of them. They have to feel real life feelings which is a problem for them both, and as they tap into those feeling they are able to settle each other.

Trevor's part in this is smaller but it is still Very much there. He is quick to affirm that he loves St. Patrick's day. Quick to let her believe that her ***"Flaming red hair and alabaster skin" aren't particularly Irish traits. He stays by her side nearly all episode. Yet he was delighted to find out that she was in fact Irish, but he didn't make fun of her? Their whole relationship is based off of their conflict wouldn't he as the little shit that he is want to crowd her with snide witticisms? No he wouldn't. Their relationship genuinely makes me feel insane sometimes because we are clearly moving towards some sort of impasse. Whether its that we find out they have been getting closer but are just friends still or if they have been secretly hooking up off camera or any number of possibilities. There are choices being made that bring them together. Trevor likes Hetty's qualities simply put and Hetty apparently Loves Colin Ferrell who in many ways favors the pantless crusader. (He also uses that tone of voice that it seems like he literally saves for Hetty) I just cant wait to see more of their "complicated and diabolical" relationship.

***Now Trevor explain why you said that with a sarcastic air but at the same time plausible enough that Hetty would probably take it at face value. Plus why was he so poetic in his descriptions???

I believe that I have written what I can about Hetty but also I probably could think of other things lol.

Miscellaneous

Pete is such a good teacher. I love that he shows Hetty a bunch of Irish things.

"This man has plans for someone and I for one respect it" How even would he execute that plan lol?

If they wanted to take Issacs money I really think all they'd have to do is ask Trevor. He wants to be Mom and Dad's favorite.

Doctor Hoo

"No, baby, that was the scam."

Kelsey is so real for the gift card and seven dollars lol. (She is hilarious and a really good person to bring back)

Gaslight that poor man

Also Hetty looking too Trevor to calm her fears like she could have asked anyone in that room and she chose him.

Rebecca Wisocky the woman that you are. The line read on that bit about Whiskey is Hilarious.

I love Pete and his love of the craft. The improv your way out really worked I am curious if it could come up again somehow with Mahesh and Mark.

I love Jay that is the tweet hit send

"Except for Danes who brains are rumored to be mostly cabbage" He just can't get past his own prejudices.

That is the end of my very long rant sesh! Thanks for sticking around

He is down bad

I just like how for most of the scene she can’t look him in the eyes :((((

-Jess🫡

[ghouljams]

how do you rp with real people

literally the exact same way you would role play with a bot if that's what your starting point is.

But if you've never rp-ed in your life I'll break it down into the fundamentals for you under the cut.

Stage 1: Advertising

You have to start somewhere. Usually that's going to be finding a partner. This is going to read a little bit like a job posting but that's also sort of what it is. Here's an example, your ad should, vaguely, look like this:

Wanted: RP Partner I play: John "Soap" Mactavish You play: Simon "Ghost" Riley tags: apocalypse au, "came back wrong" Soap, gore, smut, angst What I'm looking for: responses once a week with a minimum of two paragraphs. Must be 18+. Potential kinks: stalking, objectphilia, blood, knifeplay, gunplay, whatever Starter: words words words

Give it a few tags and let people know you're open to discuss then you just gotta wait for someone to respond. This is an example of a character rp, VERY DIFFERENT from an OC rp. People will expect you to know the character well and be able to stay in character, that means there's a higher risk of people leaving the rp if they think you're not faithfully representing the character. I have left character rps because I thought my partner was butchering the character.

OC role playing is much more forgiving, but it's also unpredictable. You won't have any idea how your partner's character will respond to your actions, so this is where stage 2 comes in!

Stage 2: Getting to know you.

The first part of any good rp is going to be getting to know your rp partner. bare bones this means: getting a kink list with hard limits and "maybe" kinks(if it's an nsfw rp), getting character information, discussing schedules(when do you have time to rp), and what you want out of the rp(plot, au, reply length, activity, smut/fluff/angst/whump).

Kinks don't have to include every kink in the world, just the ones you know you're interested in and the ones you know you're not. This stage of the game is all about discussion. Sometimes you(or your partner) will be replying to a prompt and sometiems you'll be responding an open call for partners, either way you'll be talking about what sort of story you're looking for and workshopping the plot together.

I suggest making some sort of easy to supply bio of your character, plus any images you might have of them. And keep your kinks list somewhere that you can easily find it if prompted. You don't want to scramble trying to find kinks you think will fit an rp, just supply the list you have and discuss from there. Role playing requires a lot of vulnerability so be prepared for that.

Also important to discuss is what pov you're writing in, most rp will be either in third(most common) or first person. So get used to writing "name did this." This makes it easy to remember who is talking as you're building the story with your partner.

Stage 3: the plot, and the starter

Plotting an rp should be loose and fun. It can be as simple as "I want my character to accidentally curse yours and then they have to work together to break the curse" or as complex as a full book outline. I would try to avoid a full outline, because you'll have trouble sticking to it and you'll be too worried about satisfying specific beats.

let's say you've got your story vaguely plotted and your partner asks if you would write the starter. The starter is just the first response that prompts the rest of the rp. Your starter should include, roughly, these things at the length that you and your partner have agreed upon for replies:

A brief introduction to the world, this is a chance to flex your descriptive muscles and have fun:

The charred remains of a city smolder in the distance as the sun sets over a man-made desert. The sand is red beneath the man's worn boots. It's been a little over six months since the plague swept over the continent, turning friends and strangers into monsters. Three months since those monsters rotted to the point their muscles couldn't propel them forwards anymore. Three weeks since they sprouted and started releasing spores. The man adjusts his gas mask as he walks, hitching his pack higher on his shoulder.

A brief introduction to your character, if they're a known character in an au you should focus on how the world has changed them(within reason), if they're your oc give a brief description of notable physical features and a short background:

Known character:

The man can't even call this a desertion. Sgt. John "Soap" Mactavish, former SAS operator, left the service as quickly as it abandoned him. Too many people in too close an area, once the fevers started it swept through the barracks like wildfire. The higher ups left their dogs to die, and the smart ones ran. Soap wishes he could say he was one of the smart ones, but he was just lucky. Out on leave when the shooting started, his priority had been to his mother in Scotland, not to king and country. He felt like a coward leaving his brothers in arms, but what else could he do once lockdown went into effect?

OC:

The man can't even call this a desertion, more like a mercy killing. "Hush" had survived the fever, survived the horrific drug trials that had been pushed on the military first, and survived the open grave they'd shoved him in when he was deemed too far gone to save. But in the military too far gone only meant one thing: no longer following orders. When the virus had chewed up his brain he'd lost everything, except what his brothers in arms had called him: Hush. It's enough to keep the man moving forwards. He needs a shave, and a haircut. Six months have grown his hair shaggy, and his new diet has taken the softness from his cheeks. It's easier hunting when he doesn't have to cook his food.

And finally what the hook that starts your rp is. With an OC you can use this as another way to introduce character traits or another physical trait, with a known character this should be how they fit into the world. For this we're going to say that you and your partner want to do a "trying to get home" plot, and your character is going to meet their character by finding them passed out in the desert:

Known Character:

As Soap crests the next dune he stops to survey his surroundings. The desert is rough, and it'll only get worse at night. He squints at the blobby shadow that fades like a mirage in and out of his vision. He sucks in a breath. A shadow without an object to cast it can only mean one thing, it's not a shadow. He slides down the dune and races towards the blog, stopping short as it comes into focus. The huge body of a man left for dead out on the dunes. He picks up his pace and drops to his knees to grip the man's shoulder and shake. "You alive?" He asks, almost giddy at the thought of another human out here.

OC:

As Hush crests the next dune he stops and surveys his surroundings. 100 yards from him he spots a dark blob, a shadow that's been cast with no discernable source. He blinks and rubs at his eyes, since the fever they aren't as sharp as they used to be. A shadow without an object to cast it can only mean one thing, it's not a shadow. He slides down the dune and races towards the blog, stopping short as it comes into focus. The huge body of a man left for dead out on the dunes. He picks up his pace and drops to his knees to grip the man's shoulder and shake. "Hey," He moves his hand to check the man's throat for a pulse, "you alive?"

believe it or not that is actually shorter than my usual starters/replies lol, but that's the basics of a starter.

Stage 4: keeping up the rp!

No comes the fun part. Your partner will respond to your starter(hopefully) and then you'll be able to get going. But how do you respond? They just sent you this great response and you're not sure where to go from here, well there are two parts to a good response.

responding to their character's actions or words.

prompting them to respond.

This is why I like a 2 paragraph minimum for rps. You should always respond to their character, but you also need to give them something to respond to. Say their character is alive but they need water or food or medical care. Your character should:

respond to that need. "Thank god you're alive, hold on."

give them something to respond to as well. "Here, do you think you can hold a canteen? or- no let me hold it."

By giving your partner something to respond to you don't run into bumps of "what are you hoping for in my response." It's a lot like dating when you're starting out, you want to ask questions and prompt them to keep the conversation going so that you can both participate.

Dos and Don'ts

Do: write your partner's character doing something they did in a previous response

Don't: tell your partner what their character is doing.

This happens a lot if you're writing sex scenes between two characters. You can say "my character is fucking your character" but don't talk about how much their character is loving it and pushing back on your character if your partner didn't mention that in their response. This is a personal pet peeve of mine, but I've dropped rps because my partner was saying "oh yeah your character loves that" and I went "don't tell me what they like."

Do: describe how your character sees your partner's

Don't: include details that are not in the character's description.

You can talk about how your character likes their character's eye color or hair or skin, but make sure you're getting their character descriptions correct. "my character thinks your character's eyes are like swimming pools, sparkling in the sun, it's going to make blue their favorite color" <- fine. "your character's (unmentioned in the description) tits are so big" <- not fine.

Do: respond in a timely manner, and apologize if you're going to take some time off from the rp

Don't: disappear for 9 months and then send 15k words without an apology or explanation only to disappear again right after, and only communicate with me through tiktoks.

.... self explanatory

Basically be respectful of your partner's character and give them the space to say "actually can we go a different direction with the story. It's their rp too and you want the both of you to have fun!

Happy rp-ing!

[shannonsketches]

He said "Fuck this shit, I'm out" I'm crying. Toriyama's Vegeta was so top shelf 🤌

(From Neko Majin Z Chapter 5!)

[suniside-crossing]

.

[lupismaris]

..

[soap-is-an-artist]

Hooray... it's 7 in the morning and I stayed up all night listening to the imperium... I feel so happy and satisfied with my life choices...

I am feeling very much not cowabunga, dude

[SEVERE rambling in tags]

[archerstreet]

so tired of being a shitty bandaid for my parents' loneliness. like have u ever considered you passed your curse to me and some days i feel so lonely it's like i can't breathe around the emptiness in my chest????

[sifutoph]

need us to stop being a silly little guy for one second and acknowledge that t0ph is rude and it isn't some funny trait. it's a flaw. its a reaction, sure, because her whole life she'd needed to play the part of being the obedient little girl and her rudeness is a result of wanting to affirm her independence and probs as a legitimate way to exercise her confidence and/or to go about her establishing boundaries or things she didn't like, but it's still a huge flaw.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

forget why i was even thinking of it the whole other day but going "what were like Interpersonal Interactions i had over the years that were like meaningful / significant but in a good way" & there's answers & the main genre is like the surprise of just being treated kindly with No Conditions, wasn't ever moved by e.g. approval for doing what you're supposed to wherever, meanwhile didn't even have to be singled out over whatever, which if anything would kind of imply [B/c Of Conditions Met]. but then i was like why limit "experiences of significance over the years of In A Good Way" to "ways i was having some direct 'enough' interpersonal interaction" when that means overlooking / deprioritizing a ton of more readily obvious good shit that was really just about me "on my own" whether there happened to be other ppl in the vicinity (probably) or not

but also obviously Other People are relevant in every moment & part of everyone's lives but like so far beyond "what social interactions are you having w/people in the vicinity" which itself is also so far beyond which interactions get to be supposedly Real & Valuable / Worthwhile, which tends to be those of Family & Friendship & Romantic Partnership & then maybe if we're going wild a vague invocation of "community" beyond this....unsurprisingly a big Reader for those many years & like books exist b/c people make them & b/c there's all the people involved in how then any individual person might access any of those books, & then interact with what's in them. same with yknow everything else made & distributed & accessed, but certainly in particular Media as this site of especially indirect Communication from [who makes what's within its frame] & who takes that in, & you don't really talk back any more directly, unless you do lol, but nobody said communication is only two-way

also that, say, i like to draw, & In Person how to / feedback was always about Realism in drawing/painting from Life / Photos, how to info about the cartoonish expressive antics which you might note is all i care to do coming from Not in person, but certainly from people, books, online, just taking a lot of style inspiration from newspaper comics, nonzero other comics, some illustration, other ppl's linearty stylized work....also thinking about how the like Big Really Great Time Actually revelations of yore included stuff like wow i love being backstage. wow i love being backstage. wow being onstage is alright & i prefer even like more solo than ensemble things even though if only family was completely uninvolved among some other things & wow being onstage is a lot of fun when i get to do villain guy parts & lively side characters & stuff thrown together just to have fun with. wow being in rehearsal yay. being in the auditorium theater or dance studio or greenroom changing room. choir loft, sure. the theater b/c i'm in the audience yayy. didn't have anything to do with other people insofar as None Of That was great times & important memories b/c of the Interactions or Friendships or what have you lol. if anything it ties in with what interactions Were standout, like oh when some adult gave me this Treat just b/c everyone in my grade was getting it just b/c it was just about the last day of school. oh when the bus driver let me get my lunch b/c i only remembered it when the bus pulled up & they seemed completely fine about it. when i get to be treated No Worse than anyone else around, either spontaneously & it surprises me or that when doing a performance you're supposed to be there b/c you have this role & everyone else is there as your collaborator in some form or fashion. but i also liked the performing too, in the relatively limited capacity i ever did it but it was also certainly nonzero & a relatively regular going on

but back to the like yeah it was an interaction when, say, someone made a book with stuff in it & i read it & interpreted it. occuring to me like hmm that might go right along with Imagery i always find resonant where the pov might have nobody around directly observable but there's light in the distance that indicates a presence, & further, perhaps there's the understanding the light is put there deliberately as some signal for whomsoever might be out there to see it. & other things where there are implicit presence / figures who are distant & not connected to you Personally but indirectly / from afar are putting out these [interactions] to help you. like well you don't say

[savi0rr]

Darling Wife .ᐟ

Viktor x Fem! Reader

In which, Viktor has a sweet wife that, weirdly enough, no one really knew about.

a/n: hi divas! Erm this is my first time writing for Viktor so I'm sorry if he sounds out of character.

━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━

━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━

"Viktor? What is that on your finger?" Jayce inquired, suddenly appearing behind Viktor and peering curiously over his shoulder. Viktor felt a knot form in his stomach as he glanced down at his hand, where a gleaming wedding band rested snugly on his finger. He cursed under his breath, realizing he had meant to remove it but had completely forgotten in the whirlwind of his work.

"Just a ring," Viktor replied evasively, casting a quick look back at Jayce while clicking his tongue in annoyance. Jayce, however, was undeterred. He raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms over his chest, a teasing smirk forming on his lips. "Isn’t that the same finger where wedding rings typically go?" he challenged, his eyes narrowing with curiosity. "Don’t tell me you actually have a wife?"

Viktor maintained his silence, his heart racing in response to Jayce’s playful interrogation. "Even if I did, I wouldn't share that information with you," he said tersely, redirecting his attention back to the Hextech gemstone in front of him, his mind racing as he tried to refocus on his work.

Jayce, still leaning casually against the desk, raised his eyebrow further, the smirk on his face beginning to fade away. He studied Viktor’s expression closely, a frown of confusion.

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“Viktor has a wife? That’s just absurd,” Mel declared, waving her hand dismissively as if to brush away the very notion. 

“No, I swear! He’s actually wearing a wedding ring. When I asked him about it, he responded with, ‘Even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you,’” Jayce insisted, leaning closer to Mel's desk, his hands planted firmly on the surface.

Mel rolled her eyes in disbelief, leaning back in her chair and letting her hands fall into her lap. “Who on Earth would marry Viktor?” she whispered, her curiosity piqued as she leaned forward slightly, her expression a mix of intrigue and skepticism. “No offense, but…” she trailed off, momentarily glancing away, her thoughts clearly racing.

Jayce sighed, exasperated. “I mean, it’s not the best image, is it?” he muttered, shrugging as he contemplated the idea. His mind seemed to wander as he contemplated the strange pairing. “Plus, why do you even care?” Mel asked, raising an eyebrow at him, a hint of playful challenge in her voice. “Because I want to know what she looks like!” he responded with a hint of frustration, glancing off to the side, and groaning.

Mel pondered for a moment, her brow furrowing. “Even if he did have a wife, wouldn’t she be here at the Academia with him?” she pointed out, her curiosity beginning to overshadow her previous skepticism. “That’s exactly what I’m saying!” Jayce exclaimed, running his fingers through his hair in agitation. “It doesn’t add up!”

With a sigh, Mel straightened up, her expression turning serious. “Look, I have much bigger problems to deal with than figuring out who Viktor is married to,” she stated firmly.

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"When do you think he sees his wife?" Mel asked, her voice barely above a whisper as she peeked around the corner of the dimly lit hallway. The soft glow of fluorescent lights flickered overhead, casting shadows on the walls of the Academia. Jayce followed her gaze, cautiously poking his head out to get a better look.

"Hmm... maybe when he isn’t buried under a mountain of work," Jayce mused, tilting his head and furrowing his brow in thought. His dark hair fell slightly over his forehead, and he swept it back with a casual motion. Mel, with an exasperated huff, rolled her eyes dramatically. 

"You should know this! You’re his partner, for crying out loud," she murmured, her tone tinged with disbelief as she crossed her arms. Jayce's expression shifted to one of sheepishness, his cheeks flushing slightly as he glanced away, avoiding her accusatory gaze.

"But I leave before him. I'm already gone by the time he usually starts his day. And when I come back to the lab, it’s always just him—working away, lost in his experiments," Jayce replied, his shoulders lifting in a shrug that conveyed both confusion and resignation. He could sense Mel's frustration, but the truth was, Viktor’s work schedule was a puzzle he had yet to solve.

Mel sighed heavily, her brow knitting together in thought. "How do you not know… never mind," she grumbled, her voice trailing off as she turned her attention back to Viktor, who was at that moment preparing to leave. 

"Shhh!" Jayce hissed urgently, his eyes widening as he quickly placed a hand over Mel's mouth, the sound echoing loudly in the stillness. They both watched in silence as Viktor slowly began to rise, gripping his crutch tightly under his arm while gathering his belongings with meticulous care. He seemed unaware of the two pairs of eyes on him, lost in his own world.

Viktor gripped his documents as he walked down the hallway, his eyes narrowed. He made his way down to the back of the Academia, opening a door. Jayce and Mel looking out the window from the other story. "The hell is he doing?" Jayce muttered under his breath. "Look," Mel said, spotting you not too far in the distance. "Is that his wife?" Jayce whispered.

"Viktor." You spoke up, smiling when you saw him. You stood up from the bench you were sitting at. Viktor eagerly wobbled over to you. "I've been waiting." You teased lightly, taking the documents from his hand and placing them down on the bench. Viktor could only stare at you. He hadn't seen you in a while. But he'd never say that he missed you. "How are you doing?" You asked gently, guiding him to sit down, placing his crutch aside. "I've been...well," Viktor said plainly. "I could be better." He muttered, glancing off to the side. You nodded, sitting beside him. You glanced down at his hand, raising an eyebrow. "You wore your wedding ring?" You asked, a small smile forming on your face. Viktor's cheeks warmed a bit, sighing. "I meant to take it off." He grumbled as his fingers ran over the wedding band. "I'm glad you wore it. It suits you." You giggled lightly, placing your hand over his.

Meanwhile, with Jayce and Mel, they could only stare in shock. "Of course, he has a pretty wife too!" Jayce groaned as he shook his head. "Of course," Mel muttered as she sweat drops. "Who knew she was so darling?"

━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━

[yanderestarangel]

⊹₊⟡⋆ 𝓯𝓾𝓬𝓴𝓮𝓭 𝓽𝓸 𝓪 𝓶𝓸𝓷𝓼𝓽𝓮𝓻... 𝓯𝓾𝓬𝓴𝓮𝓭 𝓫𝔂 𝓪 𝓶𝓸𝓷𝓼𝓽𝓮𝓻

♡⁠┊TW — dp, anal sex, vaginal sex, unprotected sex, monster fuck, praise, breeedkink, afab reader, dark smut, dead dove, Ghost has two dicks here (because I chose to write it like that)

"Don't look anywhere else, look at me... I'm still your husband." The words were followed by the wet sound of the two cocks of your now radioactively-rayed husband, who looked like a monstrous anomaly — with two extra heads, two extra arms, and... two extra cocks.

You hadn't expected that in thousands of years, but when Simon came out the door completely safe and sound, looking like that was shocking and at least scary to your eyes.

Even so, you were on your hands and knees, feeling one of his cocks enter your ass while the other filled your wet pussy, making you whimper loudly as you felt his very hot and heavy balls hit your clit with the slow thrusts that the military man was giving you.

You could feel every pulsing vein of his shafts in your wet holes, the slickness between your thighs and his groin increasing. His now gray eyes were locked completely on your figure, two of his four arms gripping your waist while the other two held your wrists behind your back, ready to dominate and maneuver you as he pleased.

Hearing your moans of acceptance, his two cocks throbbed like never before, impaling you to the point where you even forgot that your partner was now a shadow of what he once was.

All that mattered in that moment was that you could take every inch of what he was giving you, as if your life depended on it—as if every fluid that came out of his cocks was a poison that made you crave more and more of him.

The slow, flesh-to-flesh pounding that had once been tender was now replaced by Simon's almost animalistic movements above you. A little drool dripped from your mouth as you could only wriggle your toes every time one of his cocks reached the tip of your womb while the other kissed limits you didn’t even know existed.

Grunts escaped his lips, muffled by the mask that was now completely part of his skin, fused to his flesh like a second garment. His fingers dug into your flesh hard enough to leave marks as a hoarse growl came from his throat, echoing like a triad through his three heads.

"Come on, sweetheart... I know you want to cum, don't deny it... cum for me." His words were tinged with the same honey that once soothed your soul. It was still him, even with that new body—and you felt yourself becoming addicted to it, like a drug, leaving you with pleasure so intense it made your system shut down.

You felt him give one final thrust, and at the same time, your pussy was filled with the warm, viscous liquid of his semen. Your other hole was filled as well, causing tears to spill from your eyes as you whimpered from how full you were. But your partner didn’t stop—Simon continued with small thrusts until he felt your inner walls drain him. One of his many hands moved to your pussy lips, slowly opening them to expose your tight slit as it swallowed his cock.

"I won’t let you leave here until I see you beautiful, full, and carrying my children in your belly... Do you understand, my angel?" His words left no room for argument, and no matter how tired you were, saying "no" wasn't an option. After all, you wanted him too, regardless of his appearance. He was still yours.

[hyprfixate]

for the taking :: [B.C] x [H.J] x [K.S] x reader

read on AO3

summary: of your three boyfriends, you like to push chan's buttons the most so that he'll really get things going. you sadly underestimate how wild things can get when you rile him up.

pairing: kim seungmin x bang chan x han jisung x reader

tropes: poly!skz mmmf foursome, porn without plot

smut warnings: mentioned free use dynamics, dacryphilia, dom/sub dynamics, brat play, overstimulation x100000, pussy eating, implied mxm dynamics, dom jisung, soft dom/sadist seungmin, hard dom/brat tamer chan, mentions of safewords (it's not used), unprotected sex but it's a long established relationship, reader initiated slight cnc, dirty talk, reader is called a slut as a degradation thing. it's really just pure filthy, not a plot point in sight.

author's note: i didn't plan to write this at all. idk where it came from. enjoy anyway!!

word count: 8.7k

You're laying on your stomach in your bedroom. The lights are dim, music is thrumming from your speaker, and there's a candle on your wax warmer.  It's a quiet, soft night, the kind that you don't see many of. There's always something going on in the duplex you share with your partners. It can be tiring, but in the quiet, you realize you sort of miss it. You fiddle with the green beaded bracelet on your wrist as you scroll aimlessly through your phone.

Then, the door across the hall slams.

Only you and Chan are home tonight, Seungmin and Jisung off God-knows-where for whatever reason. Chan was supposed to go out with them, but he had a project to finish for his job, the same project that had him losing sleep for the last few weeks. You may never understand what exactly goes into producing music, but from the way he stayed hunched over his computer 24/7, you knew it was complicated.

You're not at all surprised when you hear your door creak open slowly. You turn over, eyes catching Chan's as he stands in your doorway with his arms folded across his chest. He's wearing a haberdash of house clothes, including a baseball cap, but you can still see the dark tint on his eyes.

You feign innocence.

“Hey you,” you smile at him. “Taking a break?”

“Something like that. What're you doing?”

You shift your phone to the hand with your bracelet, holding it up and giving it a little shake. His gaze hardens even more. “Just on Instagram.”

His eyes are trained on your wrist, just like you wanted. He recognizes the bracelet. Of course he does– he and the boys bought it for you after one of your many, many conversations. You give a little smile. "It's cute, right? The green matches my t-shirt," you say sweetly. 

It does, but that's not the only reason you're wearing it.

You're wearing it because they know that green means go. Or yes. 

Or take.

"Did you need something, Chan?"

He doesn't respond, choosing instead to push up off of the doorframe and make his way over to you. You decide to roll onto your back to see him better, and by the time you're situated, he's standing over you, arms still crossed.

You gulp.

"Um, hi," you breathe out. Nervousness was not part of the plan. "I– Did you... need something?"

He drops one of his hands and grips your ankle, and where the skin connects you feel like you've been electrocuted. Your body comes alive immediately. You can only watch as he barely strains a single muscle as he pulls you down to the edge of the bed.

"Put your phone down," he instructs. He reaches the soft part of your thigh and pinches, lips curling into a smirk when you yelp.

"Channie, I—"

"I said," he repeats, a little harsher this time, "put your phone down."

You do as you're told, dropping it on the floor next to his feet. He keeps pulling until your entire lower half is hanging off the bed. With your legs spread like they are, you're certain he can feel the pulsing coming from between your legs.

He hums.

"You know why I'm here," he says lowly. It's not a question.

Despite the speed of your heart, you blink up at him dumbly, fighting against the wave of arousal that licks down your spine when he raises an eyebrow.

"I don't know what you're talking about," you manage.

Both of his eyebrows are up now, his expression seemingly surprised for a second before it fades. He nods lightly, almost as though contemplating what you've said, and then he releases you and takes a step back.

Your heart drops for a second. You think you've messed up somehow, or maybe your tone didn't come out right. You're about to backtrack, but then he's back, hooking his fingers into either side of your waistband, and with one simple tug he has your pajama pants completely off. 

If Chan is surprised that you're not wearing any underwear, he doesn't show it.

You gasp when the cool air hits your lower body, and you watch as he smirks. He returns his vice like grip on your ankle when you start to squirm under his gaze. 

"I see you still like to pretend that you have some ounce of control in this relationship," he deadpans. He tugs you back down the bed when you try to wiggle away. You're embarrassed that his strength doesn't seem to be affected by his sleep deprivation. "Come on, baby. You know better than that."

You fight back the giddy smile that threatens to take over your face at his voice. "I don't know what you're talking about," you lie. "Why're you bothering me? Don't you have work to do?"

"I can't focus," he says smoothly. "I couldn't stop thinking about you while I was working. About how much easier work might be if I could fuck you to clear my head."

"That's too bad," you shrug, hoping he can't see how you're clenching around nothing. "I was busy."

He hums absentmindedly, letting the hand on your ankle travel higher. He runs his fingers up your calf, then your knee, until finally he hooks the inside of his wrist behind it, forcing your legs to part. You gasp and try to snap them closed, but he only has to shift a bit so that his other hand is on your opposite leg, holding you open for him.

"Why do you always act like you're not dying for me to touch you, hm?" he asks, but it's rhetorical.  He knows you don't have an answer. You never do. Even so, when you stay quiet, he huffs out a humorless laugh.

"Okay. I'm going to give you two options, because I'm feeling generous." He holds up one finger. "Option one, you admit you're just being a brat, I'll fuck it out of you, and then we can both go back to what we were doing. Or–"

You whine as he abruptly leans down with your legs still in his hands, effectively folding you in half. "Or, option two, you keep it up, and I can tell the boys to come home. Then we'll make this a lot longer than it needs to be."

Chan is dangerously close to your face now. The brim of his hat is touching your forehead. You're almost sure he can feel your heartbeat through the fabric of both of your shirts.

"So what do you want, princess?" he asks, voice dripping with honey. 

You shiver. His gaze is so intense you forget how to breathe. At your silence, he yanks you further into him, pressing himself right up against your uncovered cunt. Even through his basketball shorts you feel the unmistakable heat of his erection.

"I said, what do you want?"

Fuck.

You can't take it anymore. You feel like you're burning with need. "I'm sorry, Channie," you whine out. You can see the fire in his eyes, the way he's so worked up already, and it makes you weak. "I'll be good."

He gives you a sweet smile, leaning forward to press a kiss against your mouth. You sigh into it, letting your body go lax so he can take control. 

Despite your attempts, brattiness never lasts long with Chan. With Seungmin and Jisung, you love the challenge, love making them crack and beg a little, but Chan is entirely unrelenting. You know better than to get him too riled up, especially if you actually want anything to happen.

The kiss is a stark contrast to what you know is to come, and you know that it's on purpose. He always likes to give you the chance to back out, a way to change your mind. Bracelet or no bracelet, your comfort is still always his first priority. It's what makes you comfortable enough to tease him.

But when he pulls away from the kiss and you chase after his mouth, he only smiles.

"There's my good girl," he says. He releases your knees and presses a kiss against your cheek, and then the tip of your nose.

"Chan," you whine. Your body feels cold where his hands just were.

He only tilts his head when he looks at you. "Hm?" Then his gaze turns sinister. "Did you... need something, princess?"

Oh. 

Shit.

"Wait,” You're scrambling up from your position. “Wait, please, Chan, don't–"

He hums. "You were so mean to me," he says, trailing a single finger down your cheek. "I don't think you deserve anything from me."

You attempt to sit up, eyes widening, but he's keeping you pinned down on your bed. "But I said I'm sorry," you whine. "Channie, please, I'll be good--"

He tilts his head again, pretending to think, letting his hand fall down your face to hold your chin between his thumb and forefinger.

"No," he decides, and he straightens up, taking a step back. "I think I'm gonna go back to work."

Before you can grab him, he's slipped away, nearly halfway to your door. "Sorry, babygirl. Maybe next time, yeah?"

The smirk on his face is proof he's anything but sorry. He gives you a fake little pout before winking and stepping out of your room, clicking the door closed behind him.

You're sat up on the bed, staring at the door with your jaw slacked. This is a new level of evil, you think. You hear his bedroom door open and shut, then the muffled sound of the track he's working on vibrates the walls.

It takes longer than you'd like for your wits to come back to you, but when they do, you're both utterly gobsmacked and thoroughly impressed.

He's teasing you.

There's a part of you that's tempted to just give in, to make your way across the hall and apologize. Chan is stubborn, but not unreachable. You know if you march into his room, you could get on your knees and make him relent in seconds.

But fine. He wants to play dirty?

You can play dirty, too.

-

It's less than an hour later when you hear the front door open and shut, the sound of Jisung and Seungmin's voices carrying up the stairs. You hear takeout bags and the jingling of their keys, and then–

“We're home!”

You make no effort to move, waiting to see if Chan will leave his room first. Besides, you're still working through some of the details of your plan.

If you stay in your room, Seungmin would come upstairs to check on you first. You know he'll fuck you good, but it takes time to warm him up. By the time you start getting anywhere, Jisung will get to Chan, who might do something stupid like tell him that you were being a brat, and then he'll come in and ruin the whole thing.

No, you need eager. You need impulsive.

You need Jisung.

You pad to the bedroom door, opening it and sticking your head out. Chan's door is still closed, the track he's working on still pumping through the speakers, so you take the opportunity to get the ball rolling.

You make your way down the hall and to the top of the stairs, where you can see Jisung standing in the entryway of the kitchen. The two have already shed their jackets and shoes, and Seungmin is now busy unloading the food they brought back into the fridge. His back is turned to you.

Bingo.

"Hey," you say softly. Jisung's head whips up, eyes brightening as he spots you. He says something you can't hear to Seungmin before he's jogging up the stairs towards you. He scoops you into a squeezing hug.

"Hi my baby," he says happily, pressing a kiss against your forehead. "How was your day?"

You giggle in the hug. "It was alright. Kind of boring. How was yours?"

"We had fun," he says. He sets you down and leans against the wall next to you, reaching and catching your hand in his. You deliberately give him the hand with the bracelet, but he doesn't see it. "I missed you though."

"I missed you, too."

Jisung grins. He opens his mouth to speak again, but then he furrows his eyebrows when he looks at you, like he's just noticing something.

"Is that my shirt?"

“Is it?” You look down, feigning surprise. "Oh, yeah I guess it is."

He hums, tilting his head. His eyes trail to your hand, and he finally seems to notice the bracelet on your wrist. "That's weird. I could've sworn I saw it in my drawer this morning."

You shrug. "Maybe you're just losing your mind."

He grins, bringing your hand up to his mouth and pressing a kiss against your open palm. "Yeah, maybe. Or are you trying to tell me something?"

You bat your eyelashes up at him. "Am I?"

His smile turns sly. "You are, aren't you?"

Jisung doesn't wait for a response, clasping his hand around yours and pulling you down the hallway back into your room. He kicks the door shut behind him and spins to face you, a wicked grin on his face.

You squeal when he picks you up, wrapping your legs around his waist and laughing against his mouth. His kisses are hot and eager– there's no break for breath as he moves across the room with you. You don't even pause when he lays you down on your bed, hand sliding “his” t-shirt up your body.

You shiver when he brushes against your thigh. His hands are cold from outside, and the contrast against your warm skin feels like electricity. He smiles in the kiss and squeezes the skin tight.

Your own hands find their way around his neck, pulling him even closer into you. Through the thin fabric of the shirt you're wearing, you can feel the hardness of his body all pressed against yours. He shifts against you and the friction makes your nipples harden right under him.

His hands leave your thighs. They wind their way up your torso, feeling you up all along the way until he finds the stiff peaks that called his attention. He runs his thumbs over them, drinking up every sound you make. One of your hands cards into his hair and you tug.

He groans at that, finally pulling away from the kiss with a grunt and instead trailing his kisses down the column of your throat. His teeth graze your pulse point and you buck up into him in surprise.

You feel him laugh against you.

"You're so cute," he says into your neck. He mouths over the skin before biting down, hot wet tongue immediately after. A bruise, then.

"Sungie," you gasp out. Your back arches off the mattress as his hands wander all over you. You've always loved how naturally his mouth works its way around your body– he knows just where to kiss, what spots to brush his nose over. Like he's learned the entire road map to your pleasure.

Maybe he has.

He mouths down your body, pausing and sucking on your breasts before leaving wet, soft kisses down the expanse of your tummy. When he gets to your core, he shifts his kiss-trail over to your inner thigh.

"Do you know how hot you are?" He murmurs. "Like all the time. Holy fuck. This is my shirt, princess. My shirt. Don't you know that drives me crazy?"

You do. It's precisely why you grabbed it.

His tongue meets your skin in an agonizing, slow stripe along your inner thigh. The higher he gets, the more your legs tremble around him, until finally his lips close around your clit.

The feeling is overwhelming. Your head lolls back against the bed and you let out a breathy moan. He hums against you, fingers digging into the skin of your thighs as he holds your legs up. Your hands are shaking, but one winds its way back into his soft hair, and you tug.

He moans at that, a sound that sends vibration up through your whole core. He takes a hand away and brings it down, letting his thumb just press lightly against your entrance. Even in the slightest sense of pressure, you arch further into him, wanting more, more, more.

He sucks on your clit even harder, his tongue joining, and when you look down and see his blissed out expression between your legs, you think your heart might jump right out of your chest.

In all the times the boys have taken you apart, they've never made you come this quickly. You're not sure if it's because of the moment with Chan earlier, or because you've been thinking about having one of them fuck you all day. All it takes is two large fingers, pushing and stretching inside of you while his mouth moves so perfectly around your throbbing clit for you to snap. You come with a sob, your thighs pressing against his head.

If there's one thing Jisung certainly loves, though, it's eating you out. He could spend hours between your legs, kissing and sucking and licking until you're boneless and spent. So there is no sign of slowing in his rhythm, even when you wriggle from overstimulation.

"Sung," you moan. He responds by pinching your thigh, sucking hard on your clit so your yelp turns into a moan.

Distantly, you register the sound of footsteps that pause right outside of your door. You hear knocking, but not on your door, and you realize Seungmin has finally come upstairs, likely to grab everybody for some quality time after a day apart.

You almost laugh at how well this is working out for you.

Jisung slides his fingers back into you, and your attention is split between straining to hear what's going on in the hallway and the blinding pleasure you're feeling. He curls his fingers up and you find yourself gushing on his hand, your own fingers tangled in his hair so tight he can barely move.

"God, you're so fucking wet," he murmurs against you. He almost sounds giddy. "Did you miss me, baby?"

You can't even form a response, only able to whine as he fucks into you with his fingers, tongue flicking over your clit just fast enough to make you tremble. Your orgasm is coming on strong, and you feel like you're floating above your body, every touch electric, every movement monumental.

And then–

"Ah, so that's where they are."

Your eyes snap to your now-open door. Your other two boyfriends are there, and you make direct eye contact with Chan just as your second orgasm reaches its peak. You arch up off the bed, gasping into the air as your body trembles, and Jisung keeps his mouth on you, sucking hard and making your vision go white.

After a minute, he finally slows his pace, pulling away and finger-fucking you slowly and deep. He would never stop completely, especially not now that everyone's in the same room. His voyeurism is likely cranked up to 10, and you know he'll be pouty and whiney for the rest of the week unless he gets to watch one of the other boys split you open on their cock.

From the way he's looking at you, you feel like it'll be Chan doing the splitting.

Seungmin, ever the sane one, pretends to roll his eyes. "So this is why neither of you were answering my texts about movie night? This couldn't wait?"

"Well, she was wearing my shirt and nothing under it," Jisung says, grinning up at him. He gives your clit one last suck before kissing it and propping himself up, fingers still buried to the hilt inside of you. Your brain feels foggy as you stare at the three of them. You can still feel yourself gushing on his fingers.

Seungmin notices, eyes glued to your cunt as he walks over. You see his faux annoyance dissolving. "Fuck, she's really wet, isn't she."

Jisung grins. He presses a kiss against your inner thigh. "Yeah, I think she missed us."

Chan scoffs. He finally makes his way into the room fully, and you can see where his cock is straining against the fabric of his shorts. "No. She missed getting fucked." 

He stands at the end of the bed, eyes fixed on Jisung's hand as he continues to move inside of you. "Did you tell Jisung what happened earlier, baby?"

Jisung huffs out a little laugh, half lidded eyes going back to your face. "Hmm. No. She didn't."

A chill runs down the length of your spine. Fuck. It sounds like Chan got to them first.

"Chan said you were being a real big brat earlier," Seungmin hums. He pulls his eyes away from your center and finally looks at you. "Is that true, angel? Were you being bad for Chan?"

You shake your head, eyes going doe-ish as he gets closer to you. You realize you need to change your plan and do it quickly. It takes less than half a second for a new idea to come: Seungmin is the softest of the three of them, at least in sexual situations. If you can get him on your side you might have a chance.

That thought flies out of the window when his hand makes its way around your throat, squeezing with just the right amount of pressure. 

"Don't lie to me, sweetheart." His voice is deceptively soft. "Don't you think Chan already spoke to us?"

You fight back a gasp at the sheer betrayal, but decide to double down anyway. "Wasn't being bad," you manage. You stick out your bottom lip in a pout. "I didn't do anything!"

Seungmin squeezes again, harder, and you really do gasp this time. "Then why did we both get a text from Chan earlier saying you were being mean to him? Hmm?"

"He said he came to blow off some steam and someone," Jisung presses his fingers directly against that squishy part inside of you, "Was being all bratty. Telling him to leave her alone."

It's at this moment that you realize all your planning was futile. You've fallen right into their trap.

You try the Seungmin strategy again, panting as you look up at him. "Minnie, please," you whine. You can't think with Jisung hitting your spot like that. "I wasn't– I–"

He tilts his head. "Oh come on baby. I think you're just lying to us now."

Your chest heaves. Jisung has chosen now to dive back into your cunt, tongue swiping up your slit and circling around your clit. Your brain is too scrambled to think of any other ways out of this situation, so you resort to what you always do: 

Pleading.

"'m sorry, Minnie," you rasp. "Didn't mean to– Didn't mean to be bratty."

Seungmin softens only slightly. "Are you sure?"

"Yes!" You're gasping around your words. "I promise. I just wanted to make him mad, wasn't trying to be mean."

In all of your begging and the relentless fervor of Jisung's tongue, you barely notice Chan making his way to the other side of your bed. Seungmin's grip loosens around your throat, his fingers tracing the outline of your jaw as he takes in your words.

"Hm. What do you think, Chan?"

You turn to look at him. He's shed his shirt somewhere along the way, and the hard musculature of his stomach is glistening with sweat. He climbs onto the bed and situates himself so that he's behind you with your head in his lap. You're expecting his hand to replace Seungmin's around your throat, but instead he reaches over you, gripping the hem of your shirt and sliding it up over your chest until your breasts are on full display. Seungmin immediately sinks down to his knees and takes your nipple into his mouth.

You're a gasping, whining mess, eyes rolling back until all you can see is white. You feel Jisung sling his arm around you to keep your body still.

Above you, Chan lets the shirt go and switches his focus to your hands, pulling them up and holding your wrists together in one hand to keep them above your head.

"I think," he murmurs, using his free hand to caress your face, "That if she wants to cum so bad, we should let her."

Your heart drops. To the untrained ear, it sounds like you've won, but you know better. You know Chan, and you know he has something up his sleeve. But when you look up at him, he's looking down at you with a sickly sweet smile.

"If she's sorry," he continues, "She'll behave. Right, babygirl?"

You can't speak. The dual sensations are sending you to the moon. The hand caressing your face grips your jaw tight, keeping your gaze locked on him.

"I asked you a question, princess."

As soon as you open your mouth to answer, your orgasm crashes into you without warning. It's the third one in a row, and you feel much like a washcloth that's been wrung out. Your movements are jerky, uncoordinated, and even as you continue trying to respond to Chan, your voice is not coming out.

"Jisung." He says simply.

The boy in question pulls away from your cunt with a satisfying pop. He's absolutely pussy drunk, eyes half lidded and tongue rolling over his lips to savor the flavor of you. If it were just the two of you, he'd keep going, but amongst the hierarchy of dominance, Chan has been, and will always be, at the top.

"I think she's ready now, yeah?" Chan rubs his thumb against your skin. "Fuck her good for me."

When orchestrating your own plan, you looked at Jisung’s eagerness as something to work in your favor. You hoped he would get you riled up enough for you to scream his name a couple times and really make Chan mad. But now, as he shimmies out of his sweats and boxers, taking his thick length in his hand, you feel nervousness tickle your gut.

Seungmin has pulled away from your nipple, reaching down to hold one of your thighs up. He's murmuring sweet nothings to you as he holds you open for Jisung. The latter is poised at your entrance, stroking himself and watching you with hungry eyes. 

You tip your head back to look at Chan again, and he only smiles down at you.

"Channie," you whimper out. You can barely speak, you're so overwhelmed. "Please–"

"Shh," he coos. "I know, baby. But this is what you wanted, yeah?" His hand moves from your jaw to your mouth, pressing a finger against your lips. You suck it in without thought, letting your tongue swirl around him with your cheeks hollowed out like you would on his cock. "I just want to see you take Sungie's dick. Be good, baby."

You almost choke when Jisung thrusts into you. You're already so wet and so sensitive, and his cock is stretching you so wide, pushing deep inside until you're sure you can feel him in your stomach. He gives you no time to adjust, that eagerness coming full force as he fucks right into you.

"God, she's still so tight," he breathes. One hand finds purchase in the dip of your waist, the other moves to the thigh not being held by Seungmin, folding you up and spreading you open to give him more leverage as he fucks into you hard.

Seungmin hums, trailing kisses along your leg and the side of your neck. "Feel good, angel? You like having Jisung's cock inside you?"

You can't even respond, mind blank as Jisung plows you deep. Your back is arched off of Chan's lap, head pushed back as his finger keeps your mouth propped open. You're a dumb, drooling mess around him, and despite the soft smile on his lips, you know it's wrecking him. 

To prove your point, he digs his nails in one of your palms, a stark contrast to the way Seungmin's hand is gently rubbing up and down your body, playing with your nipples and caressing your sides and stomach.

It's all too much, the sensations are overwhelming, and you're so wound up from earlier that you already feel the orgasm building. You mewl pathetically, eyes watering as you look around for someone to have pity on you.

It's Chan who catches your pleading gaze, but he only raises an eyebrow.

"You're gonna cum again? Already?" he says. It's not condescending or snarky, rather genuine disbelief and curiosity. His finger leaves your mouth and you let out a dry sob as trails of spit drip down your chin.

Jisung doesn't hear this– or can't, rather. He's fucking into you like he'll die if he stops, breathy moans leaving his mouth as he does. He's babbling nonsense, things like how tight you are and how well you take him in. You know he's close too, because his hips have gone erratic in their rhythm. Yet somehow, he gets faster.

The knot in your stomach feels heavy as lead. This orgasm might genuinely take you out. 

"Please," you rasp. "Please, please, I can't–"

Chan shakes his head, smiling. "Oh, but baby, I thought you wanted to cum?" 

"I do," you whine. "Want to so bad but 's too much. Too much, Channie, please–"

"No. Shut up and cum, princess," the grit in his voice is back. "Cum on Jisung's cock. Be good for us."

That's all it takes for you to snap. You let out a broken cry as another orgasm rocks through your body. It's even more intense than the others, pulling all of your muscles taut so you sit up before slumping back into Chan's arms. You barely register the way your hands flex uselessly above your head, writhing in Chan's grip. You can only vaguely feel Seungmin kissing your cheek, whispering little encouragements in your ear, telling you how good you are and how pretty you look when you cum.

And then Jisung is grunting, snapping his hips against yours one last time before spilling into you. Your walls spasm around him as he cums, milking him dry and causing you both to whine into the air.

In typical Jisung fashion, he's still rutting up into you after you're both well past overstimulation. The pressure in your cunt throbs throughout your body, tears springing into your eyes. You're very close to abandoning the little bit of pride you have and begging him to stop.

It turns out you don't need to, because as if on cue, Jisung finally pulls out and Seungmin lets go of your legs, standing up. You nearly sob at the loss of his gentle contact, so you don't even notice he's taking off his clothes until he's standing where Jisung was, hands gripping the soft skin of your thighs to hold you open. 

"Aw, baby," he says softly. He runs a hand up your leg. "You did so well."

You pout, a sob bubbling in your throat when you realize their plan now. They're gonna drag as many orgasms out of you as they can, overstimulation be damned. The thought makes your clit throb, and that alone makes you whine. It's all too much.

Despite knowing you're already so wet and lax and malleable, Seungmin reaches down to rub at your clit in an attempt to open you up. 

"Min," you cry, squirming at his touch. Your cunt feels tender, and even though the first set of tears are long dried up on your cheeks, fresh ones start to come. "Minnie–"

"Shhh. It's okay, angel."

His words are gentle and reassuring, but when his eyes catch yours, all you see is darkness.

Seungmin's gentle dominance has a limit. He doesn't get all stern and mean like Chan, or desperate like Jisung, but there's only so long he can last before that other, darker part of him surfaces, the one that gets off on hurting you, on seeing you in pain and feeling good from it. You can tell by the look in his eyes that this is the part of him you'll be dealing with.

When he finally sinks his cock inside you, it's slow, and the moan that he lets out vibrates through his length and right into you. Your neck seems to give up, dropping you right back down in Chan's lap less than gracefully. It gives him better access to you, and he leans immediately to attach his mouth to yours. He alternates between soft kisses and hard bites that will surely bruise in the morning.

Seungmin is only a bit longer than Jisung, but he's so damn girthy. Every tiny thrust he rocks into you sends shivers down your spine. Your skin feels like it's on fire and you're not even kissing Chan back, basically panting into his open mouth.

"Prop her up, Chan," Seungmin grits out. "Wanna watch her while she cries."

He gives you one final peck, and then the hand that's still holding your wrists lets go. It takes a second, then both hands are under you, lifting you up off the mattress until you're sat up on his lap with his chest against your back. He crosses your wrists against your chest and holds them in one hand, and then the other snakes up and finds your throat. His hand is way bigger than Seungmin's, and he's not as gentle when he squeezes and forces you to look back at him.

He doesn't look mad, or even turned on. He's smiling at you, like you're a particularly good puppy. "Good girl. Gonna give us a big one, yeah?”

You barely have a moment to understand what he's implying before you feel a hand on your clit. Both of Seungmin's hands are occupied, so you're not sure why it surprises you to see that it's Jisung's deft fingers on you. He's standing behind Seungmin, one hand on him and the other on you.

It feels like your eyes are bulging out of your head. The touch is gentle, but it still feels like you're being hit with lightning bolts. You're too spent to even buck up at the contact.

"Oh my God," you choke. "Oh, oh, I–"

“That's it,” Chan purrs when you cum again. He kisses whatever skin is closest to his mouth, his fingers gripping your jaw. Your head feels light, the only thing keeping you grounded to the bed are their hands on you. You feel like you're going to faint, and Seungmin's eyes are only egging you on.

Your body trembles so violently, Seungmin is forced to pause in his motions to hold your knees and keep your legs from buckling in. Your vision is blurry, but you can see Jisung has a steady grip on Seungmin's hair, effectively holding him in place.

"Good girl," he breathes, those big brown eyes trained on your face. "You take him so well."

His words send shivers down your spine. Jisung is always more coherent and in control after an orgasm. You know if Seungmin was today's focus, Jisung would likely be spitting all kinds of nasty, filthy words in his ear, but his gaze is fixed on you. All it takes to get you going is a good stare.

He taps at your clit with his free hand. You jump, moaning loudly at the contact, your back arching off Chan's chest and into Seungmin's body.

"She's good. Keep going," Jisung murmurs, pulling his eyes away from yours to look at Seungmin. He pulls a little at the hair on the nape of his neck, causing Seungmin's cock to jump inside you.

They work in tandem. Jisung's hand keeps circling your clit in the same soft rhythm, and you're not sure how but it's making you even wetter and more loose. You're a mess of moans, not knowing whose name to scream when they all have their hands on you. It's dizzying in the best way. 

Seungmin has started rolling his hips into you with more vigor, the soft sound of skin slapping skin filling the room. The dark shroud over his eyes is back as he stares down at you. "Feels good doesn't it," he grunts. "Look at your little cunt fluttering open for me like a good slut."

You feel another sob bubble out of you, this one accompanied by tears, but it dies in your throat when Chan's grip on you gets even tighter. All you can do is pout and whine.

"Aw, look at the little crybaby." Seungmin starts to fuck into you in earnest, his own moans getting higher in pitch. You can tell by the way Jisung's grip in his hair tightens that he's close. "C'mon angel. You're being so good, you can take it."

"Minnie," you rasp, barely able to speak. "Please–"

"I said take it." He’s looking down, watching where your cunt is sucking him in with each thrust. He thrusts into you particularly hard, and your entire body lurches forward, causing you to gasp. "And if you can't, you know what to say. You know your word."

You do. Somehow, under all the begging and pleading, you're actually insanely giddy with want. It's all part of the little game you play, so you just pout pathetically at Seungmin as his hips snap harder into yours.

"She's not gonna say it," Chan sing-songs. He uses the hand on your throat to tilt your head to the side, giving him perfect access to more of you. He nips at your skin. "She likes being treated like this. Like a little toy."

It's all too much. Every inch of you is on fire, the room feels like it's a thousand degrees. Chan's mouth on your neck, Seungmin's cock deep in your cunt, and Jisung's fingers–

It's like something snaps.

A knot you didn't even realize was in your stomach explodes and your vision goes white. It's an orgasm unlike anything you've experienced before. Your brain completely melts, your hearing dulls, and you can feel the drool running down your chin. You feel like you're floating and drowning all at the same time. 

"Oh shit," you hear Seungmin groan. Your cunt is spasming around him. His thrusts become harder, sloppy. "God, fuck–"

He cums hard inside of you, hips jerking as he chases the aftershocks. You've gone completely limp, barely able to move at all as Chan continues to bite at your neck.

The hand on Seungmin's shoulder drops. "That's so hot," Jisung mutters, almost to himself. He's lost some of his in-control voice. "Wow, baby, you should be bratty more often.”

If you could see straight, you'd probably laugh at that.

Seungmin pulls out slowly, and when the head of his cock leaves you, you let out a tiny mewl. You're overstimulated to the point that you're numb. Seungmin smiles softly as he rubs the inside of your thigh.

"Oh, sweetheart, I know. It's a lot. But you're being so good for us.  I think it's Chan's turn though, hm? Wanna make him feel good?"

"Give her a minute," Jisung chides. You hear a sharp intake of breath and you know he's likely yanked on Seungmin's hair again. "She's about to pass out."

You can feel your limbs slowly returning to you, the fog clearing in your head. When Chan moves the hand from your throat, you breathe deeply, taking in gulps of air as moves his hand down to rub against your tummy. Jisung and Seungmin are bickering somewhere around you, and you let yourself relax in Chan's hold.

"Do you want to finish now, princess?" His lips are warm against your ear. "We can be done. You don't have to take me.”

It's a very tempting offer, especially with the way you can hardly remember what day it is. You could easily take it and call this all done. The four of you have almost certainly been at this for more than an hour now, and they've wrung six orgasms out of you. They're sweet enough to offer to call it a night.

But then you think about Chan, and how, despite being the reason this all started, he's barely done anything. Hasn't tasted you, hasn't shoved his cock down your throat– He's usually not one for letting go until you've milked him dry at least twice, and you can't stand the idea of him having that buzz under his skin all night. 

So you shake your head.

"No?" Chan laughs, almost like he's surprised. "Really? You still want to finish with me? Are you sure, princess?”

He's giving you the same offer he gave you earlier. An out. Making your comfort the first priority. The thought alone is what gives you the strength to nod against him.

"'m sure, Channie."

"Oh, fuck, okay." His grip around you goes a little slack as he moves, pulling you away from his lap and  laying you back into your bed. He leans over you and presses a gentle kiss against your mouth. It feels like he's thanking you, almost.

When he pulls away, his eyes are sparkling. You want to look into them for hours.

He barks something at Jisung and Seungmin, and the bickering stops immediately. You hear shuffling around you before Seungmin takes Chan's empty space and Jisung appears at your side. They're pressing soft kisses to your face and praising you as Chan works his shorts and boxers down. When his cock springs free, he lets out a hiss of relief.

The sight of him alone makes anxiety rear its ugly head. You start to wonder if maybe you should've taken the opportunity to tap out, or if maybe you should use your safeword, but then Jisung is grabbing your hand and pressing kisses against it, squeezing you and keeping you tethered to the present.

"You can do it, pretty girl," he murmurs in your ear, breath fanning over your cheek. "You did so good for us, just a little longer."

Chan catches your eyes, and he smiles again, reassuring. His hand runs down your body and grabs one of your legs, lifting it and hooking your calf over his shoulder. "Gonna go easy, baby. I know it's a lot."

Your stomach is filled with butterflies, and your hands are shaking a little bit when he ruts himself up against you. You're so open from the others that when his head catches on your entrance, it nearly slips inside.  

Your back arches as you moan, and then his cock brushes against your entrance with purpose and it feels like you're going to split right open. He rocks into you again, pushing in the barest inch and pulling right back out. You whine and shift your hips in an attempt to escape.

"Come on, be a good girl now, princess." His voice has gotten lower, lust taking over. "Relax.”

His eyes flit up from where you're connected to look at you, and in one move he pushes right inside of you.

It doesn't hurt– you're way too wet and open for that. It does feel like your stomach is being forced open, however. Like his cock is pressing against all of your internal organs. You arch up off of Seungmin's lap and he pulls you back to him quickly.

Chan groans, bottoming out inside you. His eyes are closed as he lets himself bask in the sensation, hips rocking shallowly. You're thankful that he doesn't move immediately, but even the barest amount of movement feels like too much, like you'll come apart at any second.

You barely feel it when Jisung slips your hand into his. It takes you a minute to realize it's because your brain has been reduced to nothing. Your body has melted into the bed, your muscles are lax, and there's an emptiness in your brain filled with nothing but static and Chan's name. You don't think about anything at all, can't form a single coherent thought. You don't feel the kisses on your throat or the way Seungmin's hands have taken residence on your stomach. The only thing you feel is the overwhelming pressure in your cunt as Chan slowly pulls out, leaving just the tip, before pushing all the way back in.

He builds a rhythm quickly. Seungmin is holding you tight to his body, as though he's scared you might float away, and you appreciate it because it gives you another sensation to focus on. Your head is lolled against his shoulder, eyes rolled back into your head so far all you see is white.

The sound of Chan fucking into you is absolutely obscene, a mixture of your juices and the remnants of the cum still leaking from your hole. He fucks you slow, but hard, snapping his hips into yours so hard it almost feels like you might get a bruise on your thigh.

Jisung is watching with hungry eyes from your side. He's not touching you at all anymore, too engrossed in the scene unfolding to do much else other than stare with his jaw slacked. Seungmin takes over for him.

"That's it," he breathes. "That's it angel, look at you." He moves the hand on your stomach and lets his thumb rub circles on your clit. You feel like you're going to pass out. You don't get time to beg him to stop before you feel that same hand move to your mouth, and two fingers push past your lips.

"Here, sweetheart," he breathes, eyes fixed on your lips as you suck his fingers. "That's you on my fingers, baby. Isn't it good?"

You moan around his hand, head spinning both at the taste of yourself and the intrusion of Seungmin's fingers in your mouth. He's not fucking them into you with any kind of rhythm, just shoving them in there until you're dribbling around his hand. He hums happily when he pushes in more and makes you gag, kissing away the tears the spill over.

Chan grunts, head falling back. "Min, again, please, she just– fuck, she–"

Seungmin doesn't need to be told twice. He repeats the motion again, making sure his fingers go far enough so you're choking around him. This time, when you splutter and gag, you can feel it when you clench down on Chan and his cock pulses in response.

"Oh my God," he moans, thrusting into you again. "Oh my god, baby, you're so good. You're doing so fucking good–"

Between the movement of his hips and the feeling of Seungmin's fingers down your throat, you're not quite sure you're still on this plane of existence. Everything is spinning around you, your cunt is throbbing, you can hear Jisung moaning somewhere, but you don't know from what.

You can feel Seungmin's lips pressed against your forehead as his fingers fuck your mouth, your eyes rolling back into your head again. You're so lightheaded, so far gone, you can barely remember your name. 

It's when Chan starts to thrust faster that you come back to your body with a jolt, mind filling with white hot heat. The pleasure has long since lost it's edge, and you're a moaning, writhing, teary mess again. The coil in your stomach starts to build for the seventh time, and you're pretty sure your brain has gone empty. The only thing you're able to focus on is Chan. Chan, Chan, Chan.

"Almost done, angel." You register a kiss pressed to the corner of your mouth, and then another on your forehead. You think the voice belongs to Seungmin. Maybe, if the way he eases his hand out of your mouth is any indication.

Nothing is making sense anymore. It all feels like you're having an out-of-body experience.

Chan's hips falter, and his hand slides up to your throat again, but he doesn't squeeze. Just rests it there as his orgasm approaches, hips snapping against you at an erratic rhythm.

"Sweetheart." His eyes flutter open with strained effort, but they remain locked on yours. "Can you give us one more, princess? Hm? Can I get you to cum on me too, please?"

There's a desperation in his voice that makes your body feel hot. You want to tell him yes, that you're close, so so close, but all that comes out is a weak noise that you're not even certain you made. 

Seungmin seems to get it though, because he slips his fingers down between your legs, finding your clit again. He rolls it between his fingers with one hand while his other reaches up and settles on your jaw. You feel Jisung's tongue flick over your nipple and your world draws to a pinpoint.

Chan curses above you, fucking into you at an almost punishing pace. "Yes, baby, let go for us. That's it. We got you."

It feels like someone's stuck a vacuum in your brain with the incoherent way you're thinking. The sound of his voice saying your name in that desperate tone is all it takes, and suddenly you're floating out of your body, ears ringing as the pressure inside you bursts. Your eyes roll back and the clinging remnants of an orgasm wash through your body. It feels more like an aftershock. You're only vaguely aware of the way Chan moans, loud and throaty, when he finally spills into you.

It takes a couple minutes before the two of you come back down to earth. You can't move, and even though you know Seungmin is holding you tight, it feels like you might drift right off the mattress and float up into the clouds.

Chan pulls out slowly, and you shudder when you feel a trickle of his cum leaking from your hole. It's not long before your eyes droop shut from pure exhaustion. You think you might pass out right on the spot.

The room gets kicked into gear pretty quickly after that. From what you can tell in the hazy state you're in, someone grabs a wet cloth to wipe you down with while someone else finds you a new t-shirt (and panties this time). They dress you like you're a doll, maneuvering your limbs and telling you you're good, you're so good, they love you so much.

Then you're scooped up into a pair of arms while the distant sounds of sheets being pulled off the bed floats up to you. They take you out of the room.

"You did so good for us, baby." The owner of the arms whispers against your ear. From the cadence in their tone you're pretty sure it's Jisung. "You were such a good girl for us, sweetheart. We're so proud of you."

You think you nod against him, but you can't be sure. You hear him kick a door open, and then he sets you down on a bed and you register Seungmin and Chan coming in.

"Okay," Jisung murmurs, going through his aftercare list out loud. "Fresh bed, fresh clothes, we got her some water."

You feel the bed dip behind you. "We got it, but she's gotta drink it, though," Chan chimes. There's fondness in his voice as he scoots closer to you. "Come here, baby."

You let yourself go limp, and a content smile plasters on your face as your boys fuss over you and make sure you're comfortable. They're so gentle, despite what just transpired, and they all take turns pressing kisses against your head, your cheeks, your nose.

When you've all settled into the bed, you feel three pairs of arms around you, holding you close, and you feel insanely lucky for all of it. You snuggle deeper into someone's chest, humming absentmindedly in that dreamy, fucked-out headspace.

"Thank you," you mumble, pressing a kiss to whoever you're snuggled against. You think it's Jisung from the way they nuzzle into your cheek.

"Of course, princess," Chan replies, his voice vibrating against your back. You feel his lips press against your temple, and you smile again. "You're our good girl, even when you're a brat. We'll always take care of you.”

You don't bother replying, simply allowing yourself to sink back into that fuzzy state. You're about to slip out of consciousness when you feel Jisung's nose against your cheek.

"You really do need to be bratty more often, though."

You hear a dull thump as Seungmin smacks the back of his head, and you let their hushed bickering be the lullaby you need to lull you into sleep.

[atlabeth]

unadulterated loathing (pt 1)

pt 2

pairing: fiyero tigelaar x fem reader

summary: you are forced to partner up with fiyero on a history project. things don’t go as you imagine.

a/n: wicked was really good, i love jonathan bailey, and we're coming up on finals season which means im writing about how stressed i am. also halfway through this i realized reader is lowkey paris geller coded lmao. this got away from me so im splitting it into 2 parts, i had a lot of fun writing it so enjoy! also im high posting this so if there's any editing issues im sorry lol!!

wc: 5.5k

warning(s): reader is stressed to the max constantly. she is kinda mean to fiyero but he's into it so it's okay. mostly fluff

Your fingers were beginning to cramp. 

You should have been used to this by now with Doctor Dillamond. You’d been in his class for a few months now, and you graded essays for him often. He often had a propensity for verbosity, but this lecture had been an especially hefty one in preparation for your midterm projects.

He would be announcing partners before the end of class—much to your dismay, for you worked far better on your own than with others holding you down—and you figured you would want to have as much of a head start as possible. 

Great Oz, how you hoped you would be paired with one of your friends. Coralie and Ezura were your only contenders for top of the class—Elphaba had potential as well, not because of the magic she couldn’t control but because of the brain she very well could—and anyone else would frankly slow you down. Doing a large research paper with someone who didn’t care as much as you did would be a drag you didn’t care to go through. 

Midterms were only the most important thing, for they set the track towards finals and affirmed your skill with your assignments, and your first midterm was potentially the most important thing for, when completed successfully, set you on the correct track altogether. 

You tried not to think about it too much (though you failed almost immediately), for you were sure Doctor Dillamond would honor all the work you’d done for him by putting you with a suitable partner. 

“I see some of you are getting restless, so I will cut class short today.” Your eyes snapped up from your paper to see the professor smiling, and you could hear sighs of relief around the room. “I’m sure you’re all eager to know your partners for the midterm paper.” 

The sighs of relief turned to groans, and you had to agree. Assigned partners should have been considered archaic at this point in time. 

Doctor Dillamond trotted back to the projector and, with a bit of difficulty, replaced the image with a piece of paper. Everybody in the class was paired off in groups of two—you immediately started searching for your name, squinting slightly to see despite your spot in the front, and the furrow between your brows deepened when you realized you couldn’t find it. 

You searched instead for your hopeful options. Coralie was with Mayara, Ezura was with Nicholas, Elphaba was with Galinda—of course. You let out a slight huff of annoyance, not just at your disappointment but at the continued lack of your name. 

Perhaps he’d merely forgotten. You didn’t know how Dillamond could have forgotten you, seeing as you were only his best student and literal TA, but things happened. Your anxieties only grew as you heard the beginnings of whispers throughout the room as your classmates saw their pairings, either excited or dismal. 

“Class is dismissed,” Doctor Dillamond said. The room began bustling as students gathered their things, already talking with their friends or searching out their project partner—you heard Galinda squeal and saw her grab Elphaba’s hands out of your peripherals. You could only worry your lip between your teeth as you swept everything in your bag, hardly waiting a second before rushing up to Dillamond’s desk. 

“You didn’t call my name, professor,” you said, managing a smile as you tried to act like it wasn’t killing you. How could he have not called your name? Was there something wrong? Great Oz— had you been somehow moved out of the class? Was your work not exemplary enough? Your assistance not assisting enough? “I don’t have a partner.” 

His mouth opened, but you only found yourself continuing, the words practically tumbling out of you.  

“Of course, if you intended for me to be on my own then I am perfectly alright with that!” Your smile widened as your fingertips dangled over his desk. “I— I prefer it, in fact, so if that is it then there is really no issue at all—”

“Mr. Tigelaar!” he interrupted, and your head turned on instinct to see the eponymous boy arm in arm with Galinda (who was arm in arm with Elphaba) just in front of the door. “I hope you are not about to leave.”

Fiyero flashed a look at his companions before offering one of those easy smiles he seemed to always have up his sleeve. “You dismissed the class. I believe I am part of your class, am I not?”

“You are,” he said, “but you were not assigned a partner. Surely you wouldn’t be trying to get out of the project.”

Your free hand clenched as the threads started to connect. Doctor Dillamond wouldn’t do this to you. Would he?

That easy smile remained on his lips as he turned to Galinda and whispered something in her ear. She giggled and pecked him on the cheek before she walked out, pulling Elphaba behind her, and Fiyero sauntered over. 

“Of course I’m not trying to get out of it,” he said. “Whyever would you think so?”

“Your attempt at a quick exit before you could be assigned a partner,” the professor said. “But it is no matter, for your partner is right here.”

You blinked. He would do this to you.

Why would he do this to you?

“Well, pleasure to meet you.” He held out his hand. “Fiyero Tigelaar.”

You ignored him, for you couldn’t look away from Doctor Dillamond. Would it be mad for you to strangle a Goat?

“Professor,” you said, trying to keep your voice steady, “why?”

“Mr. Tigelaar’s grades in my class have not been satisfactory, as I’m sure he is aware.” Dillamond moved away from his desk, prodding the chalkboard with his head to move it out of the way. “I care about all my students, even if they seem not to care for my course. I believe a partnership for the two of you would be beneficial.”

Your jaw clenched. “So you’re forcing me to tutor him because he hasn’t got a brain.”

Fiyero chuckled. “Ouch.”

“Not tutoring, just working on your midterm together,” he said. “And if you end up teaching him a few things along the way, then we would all be better off, wouldn’t we?” 

“Professor, with all due respect, this is ridiculous!” you exclaimed. “Why should I have to risk my grade, my midterm, my standing altogether at Shiz just to help him?” 

“Should you perform the way that is typical of you, there should be no issues.” Doctor Dillamond gave you that professorly look and your teeth grinded against each other. How dare he try to take the moral high ground. “Now, the two of you better hurry off. You haven’t got forever to work on this project.” 

“Professor,” you whispered, determined to not let up, “why are you punishing me like this?”

“I’m not punishing you, my dear.”

“Fiyero couldn’t care less about any of this,” you insisted. “I’m going to fail my midterm and it will be all his fault!”

“If you believe he can make you fail, then you haven’t got as much faith in yourself as I believed.” Doctor Dillamond looked at you. “Trust me—and yourself—that this will all work out.”

You stared back—it was rather difficult to have a staring contest with a Goat. “I don’t suppose I can change your mind on this?”

“You’d be correct.”

You huffed and glanced away. “Fine. But expect those test scores to take an extra day.”

He let out a bleaty sort of laugh while you walked away. You considered it a credit to yourself that you held back the childish tantrum you wanted to throw as you moved back over to your desk to gather the rest of your things. You shoved your books into your bag with a bit more anger than necessary, and you heard footsteps behind you. You glanced over to see Fiyero sidled up beside you, leaning against the desk next to yours. 

“Surely you won’t be this irritated at me the entirety of our project.” He still had that unbothered smile on his lips, and it made you want to hit him. “It might make this a much more miserable partnership.”

You let out a mirthless laugh as you shouldered your bag. “Don’t act like this pains you. You’re just going to ride my coattails the entire time.” 

“You know, I hadn’t even thought of that,” Fiyero mused. “But now that you bring it up, I just may have to.” 

“For the love of Oz,” you muttered to yourself before mustering the strength to look up at him. “I have a myriad of things I need to do today. Why don’t you go bother your girlfriend for the rest of the day, and then you can meet me at the library first thing tomorrow morning so we can discuss all of this.” 

He shrugged. “Sounds alright to me.” 

“Good,” you said. “Because I meant every word I said back there. I will not have you ruining all my progress thus far because of your absolute refusal to think.” 

“It looks as if you could take a page out of my book,” Fiyero said. “You seem awfully stressed.” 

Your lips tightened into a mirthless smile. “I’m stressed because of you, Fiyero, and we have hardly even interacted. I dread to think of my mental state after a week of working together. Now, good day. I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

You swept past him and walked out of Doctor Dillamond’s classroom. You felt his eyes on you until you turned the corner, and you had to resist the urge to look back. 

Oh, how you loathed group projects. 

-

The rest of your day was far more demanderating than it should have been, and you blamed Fiyero for it. You swore the clock went by half as quick and your lectures twice as long—it didn’t help that you were so distracted in chemistry that you nearly burned your eyebrows off from a potion gone wrong. 

You’d practically thrown yourself onto your bed when you got back to your dorm, and you didn’t get up until your roommate got back and demanded to know what had gotten into you. She didn’t exactly give you the response you wanted. 

“The prince is your partner?” Coralie sighed dreamily. “Oh, you are so lucky.” 

“Lucky is not the way I’d put it,” you mumbled, words muffled by the sheets. You finally tore yourself up off your bed and picked your nightgown up from atop your dresser. You went behind your folding sheet and began to change. “And I didn’t know you had eyes for Fiyero.” 

“I hardly have eyes for him,” she said wryly. “I just have eyes—anyone can see that he’s attractive.” 

“It doesn’t matter how attractive he is if he makes me fail this midterm,” you said. You straightened your nightgown then folded your school uniform while you walked back into the open, passing a glance at your roommate as you placed it on your desk. You then settled on your bed with a huff. “I just don’t understand why Doctor Dillamond is punishing me like this. It makes me reconsider all those late nights spent grading papers for him.” 

Coralie shrugged. “You’re one of his best students, Fiyero is probably one of his worst. I bet Doctor Dillamond figured you would be happy to take him on, what with how happily you take on everything else he throws at you.” 

You grumbled as you laid back against your pillows. “I just don’t know if I can take him on. Fiyero seems to care more about flirting with every student at this school than any actual material.” 

She gave you a mischievous smile. “Maybe he’ll turn the full force of his affections on you in return for your studiousness. Oh, how that would be a sight to see.” 

“Don’t even put that idea into the air, Cora,” you scoffed. “Besides, he’s clearly involved with Galinda. Even if I was interested, which I’m not—” you emphasized with a pointed look at her— “that isn’t something I want to touch.” 

“Well, you can’t deny that he’s dreamy,” she said. “He just showed up at Shiz and people started falling left and right. It’s more impressive that you haven’t.” 

“Because I’m here for one reason,” you said. “His whole… thing doesn’t fit into any of it.” 

“I know,” Coralie mused as she fell back onto her pillows. “You’ve told me your whole plan ten times over. I just think you should also try to enjoy your life instead of bulldozing your way through it.” 

You rolled your eyes with a smile. “I’m enjoying my life just fine, thank you.” 

Interestingly enough, Fiyero was going through something similar a myriad of rooms away. 

He laid on Galinda’s bed, his head in her lap as she trailed her fingers through his hair. She’d been going on about something for the last couple of minutes, but he hadn’t really been able to focus on any of it. 

“Dearest, did you not hear what I said?” 

Fiyero blinked at the sound of Galinda’s voice. He hadn’t indeed. 

“I’m sorry, beloved.” He absentmindedly reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze once he found it. “I was thinking.” 

Elphaba laughed from across the room. She sat on her bed with a book in her lap. “That’s a first for you.” 

“It is,” Galinda said, though with much more concern laced in her voice. Her hand moved from his hair to his forehead. “Are you feeling alright?”

“Just fine,” he assured. “What was it you were saying?” 

“Just lamenting on how awful it is that we’ve been separated for this project,” she sighed. “I’m sure I could persuade Doctor Dillamond to put us in a group of three.”

“You can’t even get him to pronounce your name correctly,” Elphaba said wryly. “How could you get him to do this?” 

“Well,” Galinda huffed, “maybe you could do it. He appears to like you more than me.” 

“I’m sure that really hurts,” she said. 

Galinda placed her hand on her chest. “It does!” 

“It’s fine,” Fiyero interrupted. “I’m alright with my partner. She’s nice.” 

“Nice?” Elphaba scoffed. “I heard her lecturing you the whole time we were out in the hallway.” 

“She’s passionate,” he decided. “Besides, I don’t really care. I haven’t thought about it since she left.” 

That was a complete lie. In truth, Fiyero hadn’t been able to stop thinking about you since you left. Very strange for someone who preferred to go through life with less thinking and more doing. 

He honestly didn’t know why his mind was so occupied with you. 

He’d always been aware of you, obviously—all your professors adored you, your name was always brought up when talking about top of the class, and he was sure you held the record for most time spent in the library at once—but he didn’t know anything about you other than your academic record. And for someone with such strong opinions, especially about him, Fiyero found himself with the strange need to know more. 

He would be at the library tomorrow. Maybe not on time, but certainly there. 

Fiyero would make this the beginning of a beautiful partnership, one way or another.

-

True to your word, you were in the library bright and early after a quick stop at the dining hall. You went through the effort of gathering everything you thought you would need—a myriad of textbooks and encyclopedias, your well-weathered notebook and another one for Fiyero because you doubted he had one, and enough writing material for the two of you.

You sighed. You had to do so much just to even the ground between your groups and the others. Coralie was always so prepared whenever you worked together. 

Fiyero, to your surprise, was only ten minutes late. You already had your head buried in a book when he said your name and scared you witless. 

Your eyes widened as they darted up to look at him, and he chuckled. 

“Sorry. You were in the zone.”

“I just wasn’t expecting you,” you said. “You’re late.”

“Hardly.” Fiyero took the seat across from you, his eyes sweeping over everything you had on the table. “You’ve got quite a collection.”

“I doubt you know your way around the library,” you said. 

“I know my way around a lot of things.” 

You leveled your gaze at him. Leave it to Fiyero to make everything an innuendo. “And is a library one of them?”

“I’m sure I could make it one.”

“If you bothered to think at all.”

“Darling, you know I’d never,” he said with a smile. “Now, what are we doing here?”

“Do you really not know what our midterm is?” you marveled. 

“I have more important things to worry about,” he said. 

You scoffed and shook your head. Ridiculous— it was ridiculous that you had to put up with this. Maybe Doctor Dillamond really did hate you.

“Our assignment is an extensively researched ten page paper on any great Ozian,” you said. “Anyone who has contributed to our society in a relevant way and made our lives better for it.”

“A ten page paper?” Fiyero frowned. “That seems a bit much.”

“Between the two of us, it’s just five pages each, and we’ve got two weeks to get it done,” you said. “I’ve written five pages in a few hours of inspiration.”

“Your life truly sounds thrilling,” Fiyero said. “We could do the Wizard.”

“Half the class is going to do the wizard,” you scoffed. 

“Because he’s a great man,” he said. “There’s no shame in it.”

“There is absolutely shame in copying half the class,” you said as you pushed over a sheet of paper to him. “Now, I’ve already got a list going. Look it over; see if there’s anyone you like or anyone worthwhile you want to add.”

You looked back down at your encyclopedia, opened to your personal favorite choice, and continued scribbling down basic notes. You glanced up a few moments later to see Fiyero’s gaze hadn’t wavered from you. 

You frowned. “Is there a problem?”

“You’re awfully prepared,” he said instead. 

“I figured you wouldn’t be,” you responded.

Fiyero’s lips quirked in a smile. “Then I believe that means you deserve to choose our subject.”

Your frown deepened. “Really?”

“Are you always this suspicious of everyone?”

“Just you.”

“Then consider this an olive branch,” he said. He slid the paper back over. “Who’s your top choice?”

“…Ilara Mayfair,” you finally said as you pointed at her on the top of your list. “She was a historical linguist, responsible for half of what we know about Ozian languages and how they connect and differ. She’s…” you cleared your throat and shrugged, trying to make it sound like it wasn’t a big deal, “she’s kind of my hero.”

“Your hero?” Fiyero’s eyebrows rose. “Is that what you want to do?” 

“…It’s always been my dream,” you admitted. “I grew up helping around my parents’ bookstore and her mark was on nearly everything. I really admire it. I want to make that sort of difference in the world.”

“How noble,” he remarked. What surprised you was how genuine he sounded. “It’s impressive how much of your life you have planned out already. All Galinda knows is that she’s majoring in sorcery—she hasn’t really got anything else worked out.”

“What are you majoring in?” you asked.

“Undecided,” Fiyero said. “I was kicked out of my last school before I could declare, so I figure there’s not really a point in doing it here.”

“Not really a surprise,” you said. 

“Really?”

“On your first day, you snuck off campus with half of Shiz to go dance at Ozdust,” you said. “That’s not exactly a good first impression.” 

“I’d argue the opposite,” he said. Fiyero tilted his head, his eyes narrowing as he focused on you for a moment. His gaze made you uncomfortably aware of yourself. “I don’t recall seeing you there.” 

“That’s because I wasn’t there.” You looked back down at your encyclopedia to avoid his eyes. “I had more important things to do.” 

He frowned. “Do you ever take a day off?” 

“Of course,” you said. “There isn’t any class on the weekends.” 

“I mean with this,” he said, gesturing at all the books around you. “It doesn’t seem like you allow yourself a single moment of respite. When you’re not in class, you’re studying. When you’re not studying, you’re doing work. When you’re not doing any of it, you’re probably dreaming of your future assignments.” 

You felt your skin heat. Surely you weren’t that transparent. 

“...I don’t dream of them,” you defended. “Not— not always.” 

He laughed and shook his head. “You’re ridiculous. Do you know that?” 

You frowned. “How am I ridiculous? You’re incapable of taking a single thing seriously.” 

“And you’re incapable of not taking everything seriously,” Fiyero said. “It can’t be good for your health.” 

“I plan to get out of here a year early,” you said, looking back at your books. “I can’t slack off like you do if I want that plan to come to fruition.” 

“Oh, I’ve gotten out of every school I’ve been in a year early,” Fiyero said. “Sometimes two or three— Oz, sometimes I don’t even make it through the first semester.” 

Your eyes snapped back up to him, widened in instinctual panic. “What?” 

He burst out laughing, and it grinded every one of your gears. “Oh, I wish you could see the look on your face! It’s priceless— truly priceless!” 

“You’ve been kicked out of every school you’ve been to and you think it’s a joke?” 

Still laughing, he shrugged. “It is. Nothing bad has happened, and I’m still having the time of my life wherever I go.” 

You just shook your head as you stared at him, eyes still wide. “Are you always like this?”

“Utterly charming?” 

“Entirely insufferable.”

You didn’t understand how he laughed. Everything rolled right off him, like oil off a duck’s back, no matter how many times you insulted him. 

“You know, there are other things to life than your studies,” he said.

“Not while I’m here, there isn’t,” you said. “It’s the whole point of university.” 

“The point of university is to have fun,” he said. “You’ve seen how this place has perked up since I’ve gotten here, haven’t you?” 

“Not really, no,” you said. “I’ve been more focused on other things.” 

“Like?” 

“Like my studies.” 

“It’s like I’m talking to a broken record,” he marveled. “Have you ever had fun in your life?” His eyes widened comically. “Do you even know what the concept of fun is?” 

“Ha ha,” you said dryly. 

He tilted his head. “Do you?” 

You frowned. “Of course I do.” 

“Okay, then.” Fiyero leaned back in his chair. “Tell me about yourself.”

Your frown deepened. “We aren’t doing a research paper on me.”

“We’re working together on this,” he said. “Is it a crime to want to know my partner?”

A muscle worked in your jaw as you stared at him. He stared back, entirely unaffected. 

“If I humor you, will you actually work with me through this?”

Fiyero held up his hand. “Prince’s honor.”

Finally, you broke. You folded your arms with a short sigh then glanced away. “Fine. I’m from a tiny village in Gillikin that you’ve probably never heard of. I’m here on scholarship with the plan to graduate, become a historian, and make a name for myself.” You looked back at him. “Is that good enough for you?”

“It’s excellent,” Fiyero said with a smile. “Dare I say I’ve learned more about you in one short day than I have in the entirety of my time at Shiz?”

You gave him a fake smile as you tapped your book. “Open your textbook. We have a lot to catch up on.”

He raised his eyebrows. “You’re not going to ask about me?”

“I mean this with all due respect—what could there possibly be to know about you?” You raised an eyebrow as you counted off on your fingers. “You’re from the Vinkus, you’re a prince, and you’ve never read a book a day in your life.” 

“Oh, that’s not true,” he chastised. “I’ve read at least one—I just choose not to.” 

“Well, how about we make that two?” You reached across the table and opened his book for him. “Unless that prince’s honor isn’t worth a thing.” 

“Oh, it’s worth everything,” Fiyero said. 

You raised your eyebrows expectantly. “Then prove it.” 

“Very well,” he nodded. “I believe I can be serious for the next… fifteen minutes.” 

“You won’t even get through a chapter,” you said. “Thirty.” 

Fiyero frowned. “You set awfully high expectations.” 

“Why do you think Doctor Dillamond forced me to help you?” you asked. 

“Because you’re oh so nice and charitable?”

That got a genuine laugh out of you. If you’d been looking closer, you would have seen Fiyero’s smile grow, his eyes soften. 

“Of course. Now, go to the glossary, find Ilara, and start writing. I know practically everything about her already, so you need to catch up.”

“I don’t have—”

You held out your extra notebook and fountain pen and cocked your head. “Don’t have what?”

Fiyero chuckled as he took them from you. “You’re prepared for everything, aren’t you?”

“Always,” you said with a satisfied smile. “Now get reading, my prince.”

He pressed his hand to his chest and bowed his head. “At once, my lady.”

-

You looked at the clock on the wall. Fiyero should have been here by now. 

Granted, he was ten minutes late to your first meeting, but that was before he’d changed your expectations ever so slightly. Almost an hour had passed, and there was still no sign. 

Of course, it wasn’t as if it hindered your progress. You kind of always expected him to fall short—if he showed at all, that was a credit to him—so you already had half the outline done. But a small part of you that you’d never admit to might have actually been looking forward to his presence. 

You enjoyed the bout of verbal sparring he engaged you in. A lot of your classmates thought you were mean, and it never bothered you. Like you told Fiyero, you were here for one reason and one only, and the amount of people that liked you at university didn’t influence that at all. Your professors liked you and your grades were perfect—that was all. 

But you couldn’t lie and say it wasn’t… nice. For Fiyero to take everything you said in stride, with a smile and a retort of equal measure.

It was nice. But that was all. 

You were jarred out of your thoughts by someone calling your name. You looked up to see Fiyero sauntering over, bearing his usual smile and not much else.

“This is a library,” you said once he got closer. “You aren’t supposed to shout.”

He took the seat across from you. “I’d hardly call that shouting.”

“You aren’t meant to be loud,” you decided. “Why are you so late?”

Fiyero shrugged. “I lost track of time?”

“You know, we are partners,” you emphasized your last word, “so it would be helpful if you could try to put in the same amount of effort as me.”

“That seems impossible.” He gestured at your notebook with his head, your current page already nearly full. “You’ve got me beat on nearly everything.”

“It’s not that difficult,” you intoned. “I mean, just do some research outside of class.”

He stared at you expectantly, and you rolled your eyes. “I don’t know what I expect with you, honestly.”

“Exactly what you see, darling. Now,” Fiyero's gaze drifted over to the window, then looked back at you as he stood up, “what do you say we put a hold on things and enjoy this beautiful day?” 

Your brows furrowed. “What, you mean do our research outside?” 

“Is your work truly all you think about?” he asked in exasperation. “I mean leave the books and your notes and your stress here, and take a stroll around campus.” 

“I’ve had my entire life planned out since I was ten years old,” you said. “Of course it is. I am not going to have some— some—”

“Some what?” Fiyero interrupted. He still looked remarkably unaffected by your outburst, that sideways smile of his infuriatingly charming. 

“Some ridiculous, pompous, self-absorbed, lazy Winkie prince ruin it!” you exclaimed. 

“Lazy,” he mused. “That’s a new one.” 

“Of course you’re lazy! Why would we take a break when we have a project to do?” 

Fiyero looked at you like you were crazy— no, like he was worried about you. He shook his head. “You really do have a one track mind.” 

“When we’re in midterm season, yes, I d— what are you doing?”

Fiyero had started stacking all of the books you had on the table away from you, then he grabbed your notebook and your pen out of your hand.

“You need a break,” he said. 

“I don’t need a break, and give that back—”

You reached for your materials but only just grazed his hand before he pulled them back and set them on top of the pile. “When was the last time you saw the sun?” 

You scoffed. “I see the sun all the time.” 

“Not from a window in the library or your dorm.” 

You bit your tongue. Fiyero smiled and held out his hand. 

“You need a break.” 

You stared at his hand. He gave you a cloying look. 

“It’s not a good sign that you’re this against self-care,” he said wryly. 

You sighed and reluctantly placed your hand in his. “Fine.”

Fiyero grinned and he pulled you close. You yelped at the unexpected speed and you tumbled into his chest. Fiyero’s hand dropped to your waist, and for a moment all you could do was stare at him, wide eyed. 

“Shall we?” he murmured. 

You jolted away from him once you came back into yourself, your skin burning where he’d touched you. 

“We shall,” you said, a bit too forcefully as you started walking a bit too fast. 

Fiyero chuckled. He matched your pace easily, soon coming up beside you. “You’re already that excited?”

“Oh, shut up,” you bit out. “You’ve already gotten what you want. No need for more.”

He feigned naivety. “What would I possibly be doing?”

You shook your head with a huff. “I’m not entertaining that with a response.”

Fiyero simply hummed. You glanced over at him, still staying even with you, and then you let out another huff as you stopped. He didn’t miss a beat, pausing at the same time as you, then met your flustered expression with a smile. 

“Yes?”

“You’re the one that wanted to do this,” you said, gesturing in front of you with a hand. “So lead the way.”

“Gladly,” he said. “I’m very good at taking the lead.”

Fiyero started walking and, though you had half a mind to take the opportunity and dart back to the library, you found yourself following him. 

Cora’s words spun around your head as you and Fiyero walked together, about him turning the full force of his flirting on you in return for you being such a stickler for your midterm. 

That was the embarrassing thing; you didn’t even think this was half of it, and he already had you blushing—and for what? It was as if you’d never even talked to a boy before. 

You’d had plenty of experience back home. Village boys coming into your parents’ store to flirt at you, leaving notes in your desk in class, offering to walk you home at night—plenty of experience. 

It didn’t matter that you denied them all and never went anywhere because you had a one track mind even then, and that Fiyero had done what no one else had and gotten you take a break simply because he asked nicely—

You sucked in a sharp breath as Fiyero’s arm suddenly pressed against your chest, stopping you in place. Your head snapped up to look at him, mouth already open with questions loaded, but he gestured with his head before you could ask any of them. 

You’d nearly barreled right down the stairs from being lost in your head, without care nor consideration for actually taking the steps. 

“Mind the gap, darling,” he said. “Wouldn’t want you damaging that brain of yours.”

“…Thank you,” you said once you’d regained the ability to speak words again. “One of us ought to have one.”

Fiyero laughed as he took his arm away. “Certainly.” He used it to gesture down the stairs. “Ladies first—unless you’re unsure of your ability to conquer them.”

“I’ll be just fine, Fiyero.” You started the descent, Fiyero right behind you, and you let out another short sigh. 

There had to be something wrong with you. That was the only explanation for why you were acting this way.

Maybe you really did need to start getting more sleep. 

[eff4freddie]

Sittin'

Joel Miller x F!Babysitter Reader No outbreak Joel Miller AU - Words: 10k

Rating: Explicit, Minors DNI

You're working your way through medical school, supporting yourself by taking the occasional babysitting gig. One local single Dad needs someone to look after his 10 year old daughter Sarah on nights when he's late back from the jobsite. And it's all fine and good until your neglectful boyfriend decides to crash the party. Warnings: small age gap (Joel is 32, reader is in medical school), reader is babysitting Sarah as a side hustle to support her studies, Sarah is cute, reader has a shit boyfriend, Joel is trying really hard to resist, exhibitionism, thigh-riding, praise, dirty talk, thigh-humping, oral (f receiving), fingering, general defiling of a perfectly good granite countertop, Joel has opinions about how a woman should be treated as is not afraid to demonstrate them.

A/N: My attempts at writing PWP almost always end up like 10k lol. Whatever, I like a good slow burn. If you enjoy, comments and reblogs are always appreciated. Thank you - Freddie x

It was a hot night, the latest in a long line. You knew you were lucky getting to spend some of your evenings over at the Millers, simply because it meant you got to sit under Mr Miller’s air conditioner, the box wedged firm into the window in the living room, little droplets of water condensing and running down the pane of glass underneath it. You’d put a dishtowel down to protect the carpet.

You knew you were lucky, too, because once Sarah went off to bed you could spread your books over Mr Miller’s kitchen table, listening to the buzzing of the fridge as you tried to memorise the functions of the lobes in the brain. In class, your biomedicine professor had blown up balloons and handed out sharpies, inviting her students to draw the lobes in the right place, and yours had popped when you pressed too hard on the occipital lobe, and your lab partner had laughed and said that it was ironic, but you couldn’t figure it: the motor cortex would have been ironic, this was just startling.

You cracked your neck, rolling your shoulders and looking over to the clock on the wall. Nearly 10:30 PM. Mr Miller would be coming back soon.

Sarah was a good kid, and some nights she stayed up to ‘help’ you study, mostly by pointing to pictures in your textbooks and asking you to explain them to her. She’d hated the full-page coloured illustration of the eye, but had been fascinated by the heart, trailing her finger along the arteries, into the chambers, tracing the pathway in and out again. You’d make a cardiologist of her, yet.

Tonight, she’d only made it to twenty minutes past eight, her eyes growing heavy as she turned the pages of your book. This one didn’t have as many pictures, and you could sense her fatigue in the stuffy air.

‘What kind of doctor do you want to be?’ she’d asked, and you’d pulled your hair up off your neck to try and get some air on your skin. You weren’t sure how to explain it without sounding gruesome, without giving her nightmares. She was only 10.

‘When people have emergencies and they have to go to the hospital right away, they need to see a doctor to patch them back up again…’ you’d said, and she’d stared at you with a tiresome expression on her face.

‘I’m not a baby,’ she said, disapproving. You smiled at her.

‘Trauma surgeon,’ you replied. She nodded her head, deeming your answer satisfactory, and taking herself up the stairs to bed.

She was one of the easiest kids you’d ever babysat for, and over the years you’d racked up quite a roster. You’d started in high school, first saving up enough for the prom dress right in the storefront window, and then later keeping yourself fed during your undergrad. When you’d moved to Austin you’d rented a studio apartment in the back garden of a little old lady, a woman who had revealed herself to be an excellent cook if militant about her hydrangeas. You’d letterboxed the neighbourhood and picked up a few odd jobs but nothing lasting, until the evening you’d got a call from a very frantic Mr Miller, who was so beside himself he only asked how quick you could get there and didn’t even ask about your rates.

It turned out Mr Miller got caught up at the jobsite some nights, staying back later than he expected with his little brother to finish framing, or guttering, or wiring. He was running out of favours with his neighbours, he’d explained, and Sarah was still too little to feed herself. You hadn’t minded, his deep southern drawl doing something to you even over the phone, such that you found yourself cancelling plans just to go and sit on his couch that very evening, textbook over your knees.

Some nights with Sarah tucked up fast asleep you’d stand and stare at the pictures of the two of them, her holding up a soccer trophy nearly twice her size, him standing with his hand in his pocket, his other over the shoulders of a younger man you assumed was Tommy. If you were feeling particularly bold, or were procrastinating especially hard, you’d extend a finger and run them up and down the strings of Joel’s guitar, resting sentinel against the windowsill. You imagined his fingers pushing into the fretboard, the strings indenting the flesh.

It wasn’t even that he was handsome, although he definitely was. He was a young father, doing it almost entirely alone, and on any other man that would have made for grumpy, for overly tired, for entitled. On Mr Miller it made for kindness, for a nurturing type of strength, corded tight under his skin. For a single dad always thinking about his daughter, only ever wanting the best for her. For a man focussed on doing right for his family, small as it was.

You rolled your shoulders, the pre-frontal cortex just about beating you for the night. Just as you were wondering if the Millers kept any ice cream in the freezer, you heard the key in the front door. You listened as Joel followed the same routine, first toeing off his boots, letting out a little grunt as the second one hit the floor. You heard him huff as he stretched his back, rolling his hips in a little circle to try and get some stretch into them, before dropping his keys on the table and padding, surprisingly light on his socked feet, into the kitchen.

‘Hey, Sweetheart,’ he said, his pet name for you emerging on only the second time you’d sat for him and still, even after this many months, causing your stomach to do a little flipper.

‘Evening, Mr Miller,’ you said, and he tutted at you, moving over to the fridge and extracting a beer.

‘Told ya not to call me that,’ he muttered, but you could see the grin behind it. ‘How was my girl tonight?’

‘Perfect, as always,’ you said, smiling at him as he poured you a glass of sweet tea from the jug in the fridge without bothering to ask if you wanted any. You accepted it gratefully, suddenly noticing how dry your throat had become.

‘She’s a good kid,’ he said. He sat down, heavy, in the chair opposite you. The ceiling lamp buzzed above you both, and the light bounced off the fine sheen of sweat accumulating on his arms, on his cheeks. He glowed, even if it was under a layer of exhaustion.

‘You look tired, Mr Miller,’ you said, and he cocked a little grin.

‘You sayin’ I look like shit, Sweetheart?’ he asked.

‘No, never,’ you said, instantly regretting how quickly, how fervently, you had responded. He continued to grin at you, lopsided, the dimple on his right cheek popping out to greet you.

‘What is it tonight?’ he asked, and you held up your book to him. ‘The bio-mech-an-ics-of-thought: phys-ee-ol-o-gee of the brain,’ he intoned, before letting out a low whistle. ‘I don’t know how you do it,’ he said.

‘It’s interesting,’ you defended, unsure why. ‘So long as there are diagrams,’ you added.

‘So that’s where the magic happens?’ he asked, gesturing to the illustrated image of the brain in the centre of the page you had been working from.

‘This is where thought happens,’ you nodded. ‘Kind of like…where decisions are made.’

‘Must be a woman’s brain,’ Joel deadpanned, taking a swig of his beer. ‘Can guarantee men make their decisions someplace else.’

You caught a glimpse of something dark in his eyes as he glanced over you. You blushed, swearing it was just the heat, and furious with yourself. This wasn’t like you; you weren’t some shrinking violet type. You’d had boyfriends, you’d had fun in college. You had no idea what it was about Mr Miller that made you immediately go all giggly, all girly, but whatever it was you wished it would fuck off.

The two of you lapsed into a comfortable silence. You were used to this from him, the way his mind seemed to drift, the way he seemed content enough to let it. Gently, so as not to jolt him out of his thoughts, you closed your book, gathered your pens together. Everything tucked away in your bag you were surprised when you looked up to see he was watching you.

‘Apparently Sarah’s taken an interest in science,’ he said after a moment, his warm eyes watching yours for a second. You felt a tingle of pride in your chest.

‘Oh yeah?’ you asked.

‘Mmhmm, apparently after she pushed Simon Strzelecki off the monkey bars, she offered to patch him up again.’

You grinned before you were able to catch yourself.

‘That’s…very, umm…’ you trailed off and he huffed out a little laugh.

‘It’s very Sarah,’ he agreed.

‘M’sorry, Mr Miller…’ you started, but Joel stood up, waving you off.

‘Don’t be, Strzelecki’s a little shit’f the highest order,’ he said. ‘You gonna let me give ya a lift this time?’ he asked, and this time you shook your head at him.

‘No, I can walk it.’

‘Y’know I don’t like ya walkin’ around out there on yer’own,’ he grumbled, and you felt the insane urge to reach your hand out to rest on his bicep, to ease his evident discomfort.

‘I can handle it,’ you said, instead.

Something stole over his face for a moment, a sharpness in his eyes. For a moment you gazed up at him, the furrow in his brow deepening, the muscles in his jaw twitching as his eyes roamed over your face. Standing this close to him you were reminded how tall, how broad he really was. You dropped your eyes to his arms, crossed over his chest, and imagined him holding you with them, circling them around your back as you leant, safe, into his skin. You blinked yourself back to reality, worried for a second he could read your thoughts.

‘Know you can handle it,’ he said, his voice low, ‘just don’t like it, is all.’

You did this every time, this stand-off. You worried one night you would waver.

‘G’night, Mr Miller,’ you said, over dry lips. He nodded, once, at you, still evidently displeased something dark, something haunted, passing over his features before he brought them back into line.

He stood on the front porch, light still on, until you rounded his driveway and disappeared past the oak tree by the front lawn.

--

Mick was a guy from your Tuesday morning bio class, and you only realised he was your boyfriend when he introduced you to a few of his friends that way. You’d just gone with it, because it had seemed easier, and he was nice if a little full of himself at times. He was the son of the one the big ranching families, had been almost guaranteed a position at whatever college he chose on the day of his birth, hadn’t ever really considered that money was something you saved, something you worked for.

But he would never let you pay for dinner, and often he showed up to class holding a coffee just for you. You’d been on your own for a long time, had been self-sufficient well before you had any business to, and it was kind of nice to let yourself be cared for, if that’s what this was.

On nights when you had to work he would pout and complain, and you told yourself it was because he cared about you, because he wanted you around, even if some part of you knew he just didn’t like to be alone. Every once and while he would ask if he could come with you, ‘feel you up on the couch like it’s eighth grade’, and it made you feel exactly fourteen years old, like this was a summer job you had failed to grow out of. It didn’t help that he more than once referred to your sitting job as ‘cute’. His mother had stayed at home the moment she fell pregnant with Mick’s older brother, and as far as you could tell was yet to leave. You never asked about a future with Mick, terrified of what kind of picture he would paint.

On one such evening, after he’d been particularly insistent that you blow off your job and come and hang out with him and his friends, he’d starting blowing up your phone just as Mr Miller sat down beside you, weary-boned and sleepy-eyed, at his kitchen table.

You ignored the calls, tried to carry on reading even as Mr Miller arched his brow at your insistently vibrating device. You huffed, knowing at some point Mick would get bored.

‘You’re popular tonight?’ Joel prompted after a while, making you lose your place in the paragraph you’d read over at least ten times already.

You huffed out a sigh, reaching out and scrolling through the stream of notifications. He’d started texting, sometimes just sending a single emoji, sometimes entire paragraphs about how badly you were letting him down. You felt an ache bloom behind your right eye socket, and you reached up to your temple to try and massage it away.

‘It’s my boyfriend,’ you told him, and with your eyes still closed you didn’t see him scowl. ‘He wants me to come out to some bar with him and his drunk friends.’

Joel considered this for a long moment. When you opened your eyes they blurred under the sudden light, and you blinked away sleep to see him clearly again.

‘You should be out with your friends, it’s a Friday night…’ he said, almost looking guilty for a moment, and you rushed to reassure him.

‘No, no trust me…this is better. They’re boring when they’re drunk. And also when they’re sober.’

Joel smiled, straining just slightly, at this.

‘He a good man?’ he asked, and you scoffed a little.

‘He’s barely a man at all,’ you said, automatically. Later you’d reflect on this moment, feel it turn you inside out and scold your skin with the heat of your own shame. For now, though, you were too tired, and it was too hot in the kitchen, for you to catch it.

Joel caught it, though. He cleared his throat.

‘We met at college, and he’s…well, he’s kind of set up for life. He doesn’t have to worry about grades, or proving himself. He’s almost guaranteed his residency.’ You were aware you were starting to sound bitter, and maybe you were just a little. Something about Mr Miller, sitting at his kitchen table late in the evening with a beer, muscles wrapped in a plaid, his soft brown eyes watching you carefully, made you think he’d understand.

‘He doesn’t make you feel good enough for him?’ he asked, after a while.

You considered this, eventually shrugging your shoulders. ‘I don’t know if he makes me feel anything,’ you said, truthfully.

Joel leaned forward, elbows on the table, his chin resting in his hand as he watched you, gazed at your face.

‘What do you want him to make you feel?’ he asked.

‘Seen,’ you said, without hesitation.

‘Just seen?’ he asked. His voice was deathly quiet now, almost entirely gravel. His eyes were burning, sharp. You watched as they darkened, stealing your breath out from under you.

‘Desired,’ you almost whispered. He dropped a hand to the table, his fingertips only inches from yours, resting casual on your textbook.

‘What man’s out there runnin’ round this town not desirin’ you?’ he asked, almost as though he couldn’t believe it, and you felt scorching heat on your cheeks, rushing down your sternum, pooling heavy in your core.

You blinked, terrified to move in case you broke whatever spell had befallen him. He turned thoughtful, his eyes dropping to the woodgrain of the table.

‘Y’been working a lot here…can’t imagine hanging out with me and a ten-year-old girl is the same as bein’ out there, living your youth…’

You felt something heavy shift in your belly, something essential curdle and erode.

‘I like it here, Mr Miller,’ you said, all big eyes and almost quivering lower lip. Joel moved away, sitting up straight and peeling the label off his beer.

‘Pretty thing like you, shouldn’t be spendin’ all night waitin’ on us,’ he said, almost to himself. You shook your head again, but he was closing off on you, you could see it in the way his shoulders were folding, the way his mouth was tugging down at the corners.

Without even considering it, operating almost entirely on instinct, you reached your hand out to rest on his bicep. You watched as his eyes drifted close, a long exhale through his nose. He grimaced, almost like you were hurting him, until he lifted his hand and held yours fast to him, wrapping his paw around you.

‘I really love spending time with Sarah,’ you said, just over a whisper, as he stared hard at the table. You could sense he was avoiding your gaze, and you wanted to say something to draw him to you, wanted to give him a little nugget of truth that he could take into himself, hold deep and quiet in his depths. ‘I love spending time with you,’ you said.

He raised his eyes to yours. His hand was so warm over yours, your cheeks so pink in the sleepless heat of the late evening. You saw his eyes fall to your lips and you slipped your hand from under his, reaching up to trace the contours of his jaw with your fingertips.

‘Baby…’ he whispered, ‘I been’ resistin’ you so long, don’t know if I can…’ and you pushed a finger to his lips. You didn’t want him to break whatever spell you were both suddenly under. Didn’t want him to take this from you both, whatever it was turning out to be.

‘Don’t argue,’ you instructed, quietly. With brows saddled, he nodded his head.

And he didn’t argue. Not when you moved your finger from his lips and traced it down over the hollow of his neck, over to his pulse where it thundered under your tough.

Didn’t argue when you leant forward, pressing your nose to his, giving him time to pull away, to move from your lips.

Didn’t argue when you pressed them to his, a little soft and quiet thing, earning you a wanting gasp from him, a prize you would hold in the cavity of your chest so long as your heart stayed beating.

Later, when you had gathered yourselves, when he had gazed at you and you had felt the want in him mixing with the regret, with the necessity of the un-having corrupting the want to take and take and take, you had simply gathered your books, tucking them quiet and neat into the bag at your feet. He didn’t argue with you about driving you home that night, suddenly quiet in a way that set your teeth on edge, and you felt an ache in your belly you couldn’t account for when he closed the door. You waited behind the trunk of the tree at the end of his driveway, counting the minutes he left the light on for you after you’d slipped from view, giving up when you got past 15.

--

You were unsettled. Joel hadn’t called for two weeks, and you were starting to worry that you’d ruined things, your silly little kiss bubbling corrosive at the base of your spine. You couldn’t help going over the whole evening again and again in your head.

You should have told him you preferred spending the nights at his house, that the way it smelt like play-dough and sometimes sawdust, sometimes pine, was so unique to the both of them that you felt your nerves settle the moment you stepped over the threshold. That the house was warm and quiet, that you could spread out your books and something essential to you, that in this space with them you felt more yourself than anywhere else on the planet, even locked away in your little studio apartment, even just you and your reflection in the bathroom mirror.

You wanted to tell him Sarah was funny, and smart, and kind, and being around her made you nostalgic for the childhood you never had but ached for, that you felt all that time with her she was giving you something precious and absent, something simple and something sweet. That there were nights you weren’t sure who was sitting who.

You wanted to tell him you didn’t expect anything from him, that it didn’t matter to you if nothing ever happened, if he regretted letting you kiss him, if it had just been that it was too awkward in the moment to say no. Just that you wanted to keep sitting for him, just that if all you got was a casual conversation at the end of the evening and an argument about driving home that would be enough for you, because it would have to be, and so you could make it so.

You begged off seeing Mick for the second Friday night in a row, wanting to be available in case Joel called. You felt silly but you could use the cash. Your textbooks were $400 a piece, and next semester you were taking three classes. Just feeding yourself was enough to stop your studies in their tracks.

Two things happened in the span of ten minutes. A knock at your door stirred you from your lecture notes, and your phone rang. By the time you had it in your hand you were holding Mick back from your face, your palm to his chest, as you craned your neck away from him to speak.

‘M’sorry, Sweetheart, it’s just…I know, it’s a Friday…’

‘It’s fine, Mr Miller,’ you said, ignoring the way Mick was making smoochy faces over your shoulder. ‘I don’t have any plans.’

When you got off the phone Mick was pouting again, and you sighed.

‘I thought I was your plans?’ he said, and you shrugged at him.

‘It’s good money for easy work, babe,’ you said, the nickname sitting heavy on your tongue.

‘I can give you money,’ he said, pulling you towards him by your belt loops and nipping at your jaw. You cringed away from him.

‘That would make me your whore, right?’ you said, and he grinned at you, wiggling his eyebrows.

‘Never seemed to bother you before…’ he said, and you bristled against him.

‘The fuck does that mean?’

“Oh, fuck me, babe, make me yours…” he imitated, his voice high in a general approximation of yours. You blushed, furiously. ‘You think good girls beg like little whores?’ he asked, and you knew he was kidding around, knew that he wasn’t smart enough to do it without outright insulting you, knew that you’d put up with this shit before so there was no reason why he wouldn’t assume he couldn’t get away with it now. You knew the way he spoke to you was basically your fault, and you couldn’t yell at him now that the precedent had been set. You felt yourself crumple, landing with a thump on the edge of your bed.

‘I’ll tell you what,’ he was saying, grinning at you like he’d won his prize. ‘You put the kid to bed, and I’ll come by and keep you happy ‘til Dad gets home.’

You hated the idea, the thought of Mick in that space you’d almost come to think of sacred making your stomach churn.

‘No,’ you said, and you watched as he arched his eyebrows in surprise. ‘You can’t come in…’

‘Say no more,’ he said, grinning again, and for whatever reason, you didn’t.

--

He arrived, just after 9 PM, already drunk. You winced as he parked his car in the driveway, right in Mr Miller’s spot, worried for a moment he was going to swipe the mailbox when he took the angle too fast. He skidded to a stop mere inches from Mr Miller’s garage door and you exhaled, realising you were bracing for the sound of splintering wood. He ambled over to where you stood on the front porch, tugging at your shirt sleeves in the cool night air.

‘Babe!’ he called, and you shushed him almost instantly. He was carrying a sixpack of beers, three of them already gone. His breath reeked and you wrinkled up your nose when he slung his arm over the back of your neck and pulled you in for a sloppy kiss.

‘This feels like high school,’ he said, and giggled.

‘This is my job, y’know,’ you corrected him, but he wasn’t hearing you, backing you up against the side of the house. You thumped into the brick, wind temporarily knocked from your lungs before he was on you, slipping his entire tongue into your ear in a way that made your skin crawl.

‘Easy…’ you said, and he ignored you, his hand not holding the beers rising up to paw at your breast over your shirt.

‘Mmm…such a tasty little slut,’ he said, and you closed your eyes. ‘Little naughty baby-sitter.’

‘Keep your voice down,’ you stage-whispered, not sure how well your voices wouldn’t carry over the breeze in Mr Miller’s cul-de-sac. He leant down, resting the beers on the front porch so that he could grope you with both hands.

He groaned as he rubbed his cock at your clothed centre. You moved your face to the side, letting your eyes slide closed again.

You tried to think of a romantic movie. Tried to remember some of the fragments of the romance novels your mother had kept stowed under the bed and that you snuck into the den to read to your giggling friends. Tried to imagine a different man, a stranger’s hands on your chest, a stranger’s fingers pinching at your nipples. Tried to imagine what it would feel like if they found the sweet spot, if they sent electric shocks into your belly, into your cunt. You squeezed your eyes shut, trying to push the sound of Mick’s heavy breathing out of your mind, focusing instead on rough and calloused fingers, the scruff of a beard teasing along your skin. Heavy accent and sweet pine, a groaned little ‘Sweetheart…’ as he slipped your shirt up over your shoulders.

‘The fuck’s going on here?’ you heard a gruff voice as your eyes sprang open, pushing Mick from you hard enough that he stumbled, backwards, landing on the grass.

‘Mr Miller!’ you exclaimed, shame burning bright on your cheeks as you righted your clothes. ‘M’so sorry, he just dropped by…’ you started but Joel was striding up his driveway, as you realised with a new flash of guilt he’d had to park on the street.

‘Hey, man…’ Mick was saying, his hands up in front of his face. ‘Just checkin’ in on my girl…’

You cringed, this particular pet name always feeling more like ownership when it came from him.

Joel looked up at you, his brows saddled. ‘You OK, Sweetheart?’ he asked you, and you realised for the first time he wasn’t angry but concerned, his fists balled up like he was ready to spring to your defence.

‘It’s Mick,’ you explained, glancing down at him as he tried to climb to his feet, getting as far as his knees and settling there for a second to plan his next move. ‘He…he wanted to…’

‘Yeah, I saw what he wanted to,’ Joel huffed out, reaching down to pull Mick upright by the back of his shirt. ‘Saw the way you were bracing away from it too,’ he said, looking directly into Mick’s grinning face.

‘What else you see, old man?’ he asked, and Joel dropped him back onto his knees.

‘You got your keys?’ he asked him, and waiting for the younger man to root around in his pockets.

‘Don’t steal my ride,’ he said, handing them over and not noticing when Joel slipped them into his pocket.

‘M’going inside, and I’m gonna call you a taxi, and you’re getting in. She can drive your car back to you tomorrow mornin’…if she doesn’t decide to drive it off a cliff,’ he said, abandoning Mick on the front lawn and coming towards you, grabbing your wrist gentle but firm in his hand and pulling you inside. ‘C’mon, darlin’,’ he said, and you followed, almost entirely on autopilot.

‘I’m so sorry, Mr Miller,’ you started but he waved you away, placing a call for the taxi while keeping you fixed in your spot with his glare. When he was done, he rolled his shoulders, sighing.

‘You sit,’ he said, striding into the kitchen and emerging moments later with two glasses of sweet tea. You realised, as you lifted your hands to take your glass from him, that you were shivering.

‘I didn’t know he was going to do that,’ you said, and Joel shook his head. You felt the waves of disappointment rolling off him and you worried for a moment you might cry.

‘He always touch ya like that?’ he asked, palming at the back of his neck.

‘Like what?’ you asked, your cheeks burning again.

‘All…clumsy and…disrespectful,’ he said, quiet. He stared at the floor between you while you perched on the edge of the couch.

‘Well…’ you started, but you weren’t sure how you wanted to finish that sentence. Sometimes he doesn’t even bother to touch me at all, you thought.

Joel scoffed, his jaw squeezed tight. ‘Guys like that are all the same, Sweetheart, just…selfish. Even in the bedroom. No lady should be touched like she’s a piece of meat.’

You considered, for one crazy moment, if Joel wasn’t so much disappointed in you as he was in Mick’s prowess. Suddenly you had to stifle a giggle.

‘What’s so funny?’ Joel asked you, surprised.  

‘Just…I mean, they all go to such fancy schools, get all that college for basically free…’ you started, trailing off when you saw him starting to smile. ‘He can’t even boil an egg, and I don’t mean mine,’ you said, and he laughed then, free and loud, and the sound of it made a little fizzle of joy spark up your spine.

This was fun, you realised, shitting on your terrible boyfriend with the most handsome single Dad you’d ever laid your eyes on. This was really, really fun.

‘So, I take it he don’t make you breakfast in the mornin’,’ Joel joked, and you snorted. ‘What you eat for breakfast, anyway?’ he asked, turning to you now, his eyes crinkling at the corners. You swallowed. ‘No, wait,’ he said, ‘let me guess.’ He pretended to look you up and down, his brow arching as he considered. ‘You’re not a waffles kinda girl,’ he said, thoughtfully. You grinned and shook your head. You’d never liked the sponginess. ‘But you’re too fun for plain old oatmeal,’ he said, and you felt a blush crawling across your chest. ‘You’re a pancake princess,’ he decided, finally. ‘Am I right?’

You pretended to consider it for a second before nodding happily at him. ‘Maple syrup and berries,’ you agreed.

‘Maple syrup and berries,’ he said, grinning in his victory. He paused, something passing between you. Suddenly he shifted forward, his knees just barely brushing yours. You found yourself mirroring him, leaning in enough that you had to put your hand out to steady you, landing it on the cushion only inches from his thigh. You could feel his warm breath on your cheek when he whispered in your ear, ‘tart…but a little bit of sweet for m’sweetheart.’

You felt heat scorch its way up your chest, reduced to kindling beside him.

‘Bet he don’t kiss ya like ya should be,’ he said, and you thought for a second of Mick, grinning and drunk out of his mind on the front lawn. You wondered if the taxi had come for him yet, and had absolutely no interest in going out to check on him.

‘Mr Miller…’ you whispered, and he groaned, then, his eyes rolling back in his head.

‘Please, baby, when you call me that…’ he trailed off, eyes blown wide and you felt, then, the thundering in your chest. From this distance you could see his racing pulse in his neck, the same pace as yours.

‘Mr Miller…’ you said, again, staring now at his lips. You wanted to reach out and just take a little nibble.

And he was on you, grasping the back of your head and bringing it down to him, crashing his lips into yours as you gasped, swallowing the echo down into his throat. His tongue, scorching hot, exploring your mouth as he teased it open, the scruff of his beard tickling your cheeks.

‘Thought about you…’ you said, without even thinking, and Joel pulled back a second to appraise you; your swollen lips, your doe-eyes gazing up at him.

‘Say that again,’ he mumbled.

‘When he’d take me, I’d think about you,’ you said, and you watched as his eyes fell shut, taking the moment to glance down at his heaving chest, the aching bulge between his legs. ‘Thought about your hands on me, Mr Miller, about your mouth.’

‘Fuck, Sweetheart…’ he said, almost as if it pained him, before his eyes snapped back open to gaze at you.

‘Kiss me?’ you asked, sweet as you could for him while you tried with both hands to hang on to the moment, to stay here in it with him. You would need to remember this, every corner of the room, every detail. Would spend nights reconstructing his face in your mind, the way he was looking at you now, wanting and red-cheeked, dark eyes and a hot little huff as your words landed their blows on him.

‘Canna touch you, baby?’ he asked, and you were nodding, pulling him towards you as he slid his hands over your waist. Threading your hands through his hair he brought you over him, straddling him on the couch as he stared up at you, brows arching high, as if he couldn’t quite believe it was happening. You smiled at him, feeling like his prize, as you brought your hips down on him and watched his eyes ease shut, heard his breath stutter. He was big, you could feel it even as the seam of his jeans rubbed at your core. You could feel yourself aching for him, hot and pounding where you ground yourself down.

‘Fuck, Mr Miller…’ you gasped as you felt him push his cock up into you, his hands on your hips and pulling you down.

‘So beautiful, baby,’ he whispered, reaching up with one hand to cup your breast, squeezing the nipple between his fingers that, even through your shirt, shot lightning bolts to your cunt. You gasped, a high-pitched little sound you were sure you’d never made before, and he soaked it down into his skin, kept it held tight and precious in the core of him, to keep him warm on cold evenings.

You felt yourself shivering, even as his warm fingertips dropped to lift the hem of your tee and trace their way back up to your tits along the skin. His enormous hands almost completely captured it, and you felt small, then, and shy, but when you looked down into his warm, brown eyes you saw only safety there, only naked desire for your pleasure.

You let your hips roll, that building ache in your core. You’d only ever felt this alone, had never had another person bring it out of you, and you felt the sharp edges of it as you felt a shard of panic slice through your gut. No one had ever done this for you, before. You weren’t sure if your body would allow it, weren’t sure if you could let go enough to fall.

‘Hey…’ Joel said beneath you, his eyes roaming your face. ‘Relax, Sweetheart,’ he whispered, reaching his hand from your hip to your jaw, pulling you down to rest your forehead on his. ‘Just you n’me, baby,’ he whispered as you rocked on top of him. ‘You can take what you need,’ he promised. ‘I got you.’

‘Joel!’ you gasped, the shiver in your body now ratcheting up your spine, your thighs burning as you rolled your hips on his lap, his cock still tucked away in his jeans. ‘I don’t know if I…’

‘Sssh…’ he cooed, raising a thumb to your lips and slipping it between your teeth. You sucked instinctually, swirling your tongue over the tip and letting your eyes drift closed. ‘Just feel it, baby,’ he said, ‘don’t force it. Let it grow.’

Never in your life had you felt like this. You took his thumb between your teeth as you ground, the spark of fear in your belly engulfed by the roar of your desire. You could feel your hips stuttering, could hear yourself starting to pant.

‘Good girl…’ Joel encouraged, slipping his thumb from your mouth now and smearing it across your lips. ‘Right here for ya, baby,’ he said. ‘Wantchya to feel so good.’

You cried out, smacking your hand over your mouth to stifle your cries. He was going to kill you, and you would let him again and again, let him bring you back to life just to kill you this way all over again. You had no idea bodies were made to feel this good.

‘Oh!’ you gasped, all the warning you could muster as he grabbed your hips with both hands, slamming his bulge up into you as he pulled you down, the seam of his jeans rubbing hard into your clit. ‘Yes!’ you whispered, your body shuddering as you felt yourself crest, the pleasure roaring from your cunt to your chest, exploding out of your skin as you rolled, roiled, boiled on top of Mr Miller.

‘Jesus, there she is…’ he whispered, and you opened your eyes to gaze down at him, your breath still coming in gasps as he watched you, awe and desire on his face. ‘There she is,’ he said again, like a prayer, a benediction.

--

You woke slowly, the dappled light streaming in through the oak tree beside Joel’s window. It took you a moment to orient yourself, to remember that you were in his bed because he’d considered it too late for you to take yourself home, even if you had Mick’s car. Because the pleasure he’d wrung out of you on his couch had left you boneless, because the idea of ripping yourself from his smell, from his heat, was unthinkable in that moment.

You stretched, noting that the other side of the bed remained made, that he had spent the night on the couch. You remembered that you had wanted to ask him to stay, that the words had formed on your lips, and that in that moment you saw the regret on his face, the longing to tuck himself in beside you and pull you into his chest, let the weight of the night take him and you with him, but that he wouldn’t allow it, that he was holding back. You weren’t sure why, but you assumed out of decency, out of respect. Out of some vague employee-boss professionalism you would both cling to in an attempt to paper over the grasping maw of desire opening up between you.

You had wanted him, and you had denied him, allowed him to deny you. You rolled to your back in a frustrated huff, surrounded by the scent of him, of his cologne and the scent of his skin imbued in the sheets beneath you.

After a while you heard noises in the kitchen and you left your cocoon, pulling your clothes on and padding down the stairs constructing a cover story for Sarah as to why you were still there. When you rounded the corner, though, you saw only Joel –in a pair of sweatpants and nothing else, standing at the stove.

‘Hey, Sweetheart,’ he said casually, as if you hadn’t come on his lap less than twelve hours before, ‘Sarah’s headed off to soccer practice, so you and me’ll have to take care of all these.’

He gestured over his shoulder to the kitchen table, where a stack of cooling pancakes stood proud. You felt a shiver of shock run though you at the sight of them, turning to Joel with the curl of tears tickling the back of your eyes. ‘No berries, sorry darlin’,’ he said, without looking up. ‘But we got enough syrup to make it up to ya, I hope.’

You weren’t sure anyone had ever done anything like this for you. You wanted to sob, wanted to walk over to the table and pick up the pancakes in your fists and mash them into your skin, wanted to drown them in syrup and eat until your belly distended, wanted to force feed them into Joel. Instead, you stepped forward, your arms opening all of their own accord, wrapping yourself around his back like a Koala. He huffed out a surprised laugh, growing serious when he turned you in his arms to face him, seeing the gathering tears at your waterline.

‘Hey, what’s this?’ he asked, and you grinned, watery, up at him.

‘No-one has ever…’ you started, catching your words before they spilled too much of the truth. Understanding passed over Joel’s face.

‘Oh, my sweet girl…’ he said, and you glowed for a minute, the words reaching down into your chest and igniting something long extinguished.

He leaned down towards you, pressed his nose to yours, his forehead resting gently on yours. You inhaled him, his scent and the sweet smell of the pancakes on the stove, tried to imprint the memory deep in your DNA.

‘What the fuck is this?’ an angry voice sounded from behind you, and you snapped away from Joel, taking several steps back. Mick, still in his same clothes from the night before, stood furious in Joel’s kitchen.

‘The fuck, you let yourself in?’ Joel asked, matching Mick’s anger with his own. ‘This is a private residence, man.’

‘That’s my girlfriend, man,’ Mick spat, his face twisting into an ugly mask you weren’t sure you’d ever noticed on him before. ‘The fuck you doing feeling her up? You stealin’ my car and my girl?’

‘Mick…’ you started but he was ignoring you, advancing on Joel. You stepped towards him, hands up to placate, but Joel was suddenly beside you, tucking you behind him and shielding you with his broad chest.

‘Back up, buddy,’ Joel said, a whispered warning.

‘Me, back up?’ Mick seethed, about to go on before Joel interrupted him.

‘Yeah, you back up. You need to sit your arse down and learn yourself somethin’,’ he said, advancing on Mick so that the younger man took several steps backwards, heading towards the kitchen table. You wondered if anyone had ever actually stood up to him, if usually his wealth was enough to make people cower. He backed into a kitchen chair, slamming down into it with a thud as he stared up at Joel, the older man red faced and pointing a finger at his chest. ‘You think that little display last night was any way to treat a woman?’ he grit out. You watched as Mick shook his head no. ‘You think she enjoyed that, being pawed at in the dark like a fuckin’ street walker?’ he asked.

‘She looked pretty whorish a few seconds ago,’ Mick responded, petulant and stupid. You could see by the way Joel braced his shoulders, his back expanding in resplendent fury, that Mick had made the wrong fucking choice.

‘Ya little shit,’ Joel said, stepping back from Mick and towards you. He held his arm to you, beckoning you into his chest and you went to him, tucking yourself against his side.

‘You have a woman like this, you fuckin’ cherish her,’ Joel muttered, tracing his fingertips along your side and making you shiver. ‘Look at these pretty little tits,’ he said, moving to cup them as you blushed, tucking your face into his neck. You heard Mick’s sharp intake of breath, mirroring your own as Joel rolled your nipples through your shirt. ‘The way you were grabbin’ at ‘em last night, you think that felt good? You make her groan like this?’ he asked, applying just the right amount of pressure on the sensitive nubs, eliciting a moan from you, unbidden.

‘Listen, man, this is…’ Mick started but Joel cut him off with just a look, stern and disapproving, before his face shifted back to adoration when he turned to you.

‘Let’s show him, baby?’ he asked, his brows saddled high. You knew you were safe with him, that at any moment you could call it off, but you wanted this. You wanted Mick to see what Joel could do to you, the sounds you could make. Wanted him to feel small and insignificant in the presence of a real man, of real pleasure. Wanting him to see what money couldn’t buy.

You nodded your head at Joel and watched as the grin bloomed over his face. ‘M’good girl,’ he said, quiet enough that only you could hear it, and you felt the bolt of want shoot down into your core. Your cunt already aching, already dripping for him.

‘Show me where,’ he said, stepping back as you surveyed the space. You nodded towards the kitchen island, the bench just above your hip height. Joel nodded, lifting you up easily to perch on the edge, your body facing Mick as he sat, frozen, at the table in front of you.

‘Slip these off, baby,’ Joel said, tugging at your sweatpants and you lifted your hips as he slipped them, your panties along with them, out from underneath you. The granite countertop cold on the top of your thighs you revelled in the sensation of it, the hard, cold surface so different to Joel’s hot body as he hovered at your side.

‘Show him,’ he said, tapping you on the knee. You spread your legs, hooking one thigh over the edge of the counter and the other widening out to your side, your cunt unfolding before the two men in front of you. You watched as Mick’s face turned pink, sweat appearing on his brow. You turned to look at Joel, the hunger in his eyes as he devoured every inch of your skin. He reached over, running his fingertips over the inside of your thigh, moving closer to you, leaning over your body to whisper into your ear.

‘You’re dripping onto my countertop, baby,’ he said, and you could hear the glee in it, the wanting.

‘For you, Joel,’ you clarified. ‘Not him.’

‘Nah, never for him, I reckon,’ Joel agreed, his fingers slipping further towards your slit. You felt totally exposed and wanton, whorish, as Mick had put it, and your cunt was pulsing, aching from the desire of it. You felt like a priceless piece of art admired in a big city museum, like a stripper opening up her legs for hoards of braying men, like a girlfriend letting her disappointing boyfriend know in no uncertain terms he would no longer neglect her. You felt power coursing through your veins and into your cunt, your slick pooling on the top of your thighs as the most beautiful man you had ever seen stood beside you and teased the pleasure from every nerve.

‘Fuck…’ you whimpered as Joel’s fingers landed light and dexterous on your clit, the little bundle of nerves sending the pleasure roaring through your core and into your chest. You bucked your hips, nearly slipping from the countertop, Joel coming forward again to brace you against his chest.

‘God, look how much she wants it,’ Joel said over your head to Mick. ‘Bet you’ve never made her jump like that.’ You opened your eyes, not even having realised they’d closed, to watch Mick swallow hard and heavy. You beamed back at Joel, letting the pride in his face radiate warmth down upon you.

‘So good f’me, so good t’me,’ he said, spreading your lips apart with his fingers and pushing a fingertip inside. You gasped, shock on your face at the intensity of the need for him burning where he touched.

‘Please…’ you whimpered, just wanting more and just wanting him to never stop, just wanting him to reach inside you, to wring the pleasure out of you, to make you come so hard you forgot your own name.

‘Sshh…’ he cooed to you, ‘your boyfriend needs to concentrate so he can learn.’

You emitted a squeal of frustration, bucking your hips on his hand to try and draw him in, earning you only a chuckle from Joel.

‘Ok baby, m’sorry. Just like teasin’ ya,’ he grinned at you, before sliding two fat, rough fingers hard into your cunt.

For a second you lost touch with reality, your head flying back to the ceiling as sensations strong enough to take your breath roared from your cunt. The stretch was delicious, the heel of Joel’s hand rubbing hard at your clit as his fingers reached deep inside you, opening you up for him, your slick gathering in his palm.

‘Look how wet she gets,’ Joel noted, over his shoulder to Mick. ‘Such a shiny little cunt when she’s drippin’ like this. You ever work her up like this?’

You heard Mick grunt, a pleading note of displeasure, and you sighed as Joel started pumping, stoking the fire in your cunt that threatened to eviscerate you and everyone within the vicinity.

‘Joel!’ you gasped, rolling your hips again, trying to shove him deeper into your greedy little cunt as it grasped at him.  

‘Could lick ‘er up, whatchyu reckon?’ Joel asked, already getting down on his knees as you groaned, certain now he was going to send you into the stratosphere. ‘Can I, baby?’ he asked, and you nodded, frantic, unable to form words.

‘Bet she tastes sweet,’ Joel said to Mick, who was inching closer in his chair, peering over Joel’s shoulder as your cunt swallowed his thick fingers. ‘Like watermelon on a hot summer day. You ever taste her, Mick?’ he asked. You watched as the shame bloomed over Mick’s face. Joel scoffed. ‘Course not, ya fuckin piss weak little prick,’ he spat before turning, diving in to lick a fat stripe at your folds, settling in to lap at your clit as his fingers worked you.

You screamed, sucking in huge lung-fulls of breath just to let them keen out of you, your hips slamming shut on Joel’s head as he sucked at you, every nerve ending screaming now as you felt the blooming heat of release.

‘Oh, he’s gonna make me…’ you said to Mick over Joel’s shoulder, watching you with owlish eyes.

‘Don’t talk to him,’ Joel admonished you, pulling your focus down to him as he perched between your legs, ‘you talk to me,’ he said.

‘Sorry, Mr Miller,’ you said, watching as his eyes rolled shut, a shiver passing over his shoulders.

‘Be the death of me…’ he muttered, returning his attentions to your pulsing cunt. You gripped his hair, rolling your hips on his face and rocking into him, chasing the release now gathering at the base of your spine.

‘Jesus…oh, fuck…’ you cried, trying desperately to warn him, your eyes slamming shut only to open in shock as he found new ways to wring the pleasure from you.

Joel worked you up, his tongue never fatiguing, setting up the perfect rhythm to hold you just on the edge. You could feel your sweat pooling on your skin, the heat in your cunt spreading down your legs, the pull of the knot in your belly.

To your utter dismay Joel stopped, lifting his face to address Mick at his shoulder. ‘You ever make her squirm like this?’ he asked, and you cried for him, then, scrabbling to grip his shoulders, his chin, to push him back to your desperate cunt. He laughed, nipping at your fingertips as they passed by. ‘Look at her graspin’ for me. You seein’ this? This is what real pleasure looks like.’

You cracked open an eye, the room spinning around you as you fought to regain control of your limbs. You saw the look of shame embedded deep into Mick’s face now, the sight of it somehow intensifying your pleasure, the building pressure in your cunt.

‘Fuck me,’ you gasped, turning your attention back to Joel, his eyebrows shooting up. ‘Show him how to fuck,’ you groaned, pushing off the countertop and spinning up onto your toes, laying chest down on the granite now hot to the touch from your writhing body on top of it. You spread your legs a little, knowing that your puffy little cunt lips would be revealed to them both, and you heard them both groan, Joel’s chesty moan full of grit, Mick’s high pitched and brimming with regret.

‘Don’t do this, man…’ he pleaded, and you heard Joel’s little scoff.

‘That’s the thing, buddy, the lady always gets what she wants.’

You felt him come to stand behind you, heard the rustle of his sweats as he pulled his cock over the waistband. It took everything in you not to turn and admire it, knowing in that moment you would have plenty of opportunity.

‘Fuck, she’s got me weepin’,’ Joel said, and you heard the unmistakable sound of skin on skin as he wrapped his hand around himself and tugged. ‘Got me harder than a railroad spike, this little cunt…’ he muttered. You whined, swivelling your hips to try and entice him, begging him to move faster as the walls of your cunt fluttered for him. You heard him sigh, a happy little sound. ‘Ok, baby, I’m here,’ he said, running a hand up your spine to hold you gentle and firm at the back of your neck, the head of his cock nudging at your cunt. ‘Gotta be gentle with my sweet little pussy,’ he said to you, leaning over you to place a chaste kiss in the cup of your shoulder blade.

‘Please, let him see it stretch me,’ you said, and you felt Joel shudder, notching himself at your entrance.

‘Keep talkin’ like that and I’ll chain him up in the basement, make him watch me fuck you every day,’ he muttered, pushing gently at first, the tip enough to make you gasp.

He was big, you realised. All of this time working you up he’d been leading to his moment, preparing to tease you open. ‘Oh, shit…’ you gasped as he pushed.

‘You ok, baby?’ he asked, pausing until you nodded, frantic, hands gripping at the edge of the counter for purchase as you pushed back into him, sliding in a few extra inches, as Joel moaned.

You were dimly aware that Mick was moving, coming to stand in front of you, a look of sorrow and unabashed heat on his face.

‘Please, can I?’ he asked, rubbing himself through his pants and you swatted him away.

‘No, fuck you,’ you said, emboldened by Joel’s desire for you, by his cock currently splitting your folds. ‘You never get this pussy again,’ you hissed at him, and you felt a bloom of pride at the look of hurt crossing his face just as Joel cheered from behind you.

‘That’s my beautiful girl!’ he gasped, bringing a finger to your clit and rubbing tight circles into it, making you gasp as you let your head fall, resting on the countertop. ‘So good f’me.’

The burn in your cunt from the way he stretched you abated, the pleasure Joel was giving you from your clit causing more slick to gather, your cunt grasping him again, your walls fluttering as you felt the ache turn to sweet pleasure, to a blooming rapture.

You lost touch with the ground, Joel’s harsh thrusts pushing you further up the counter, completely at his mercy as your legs hung useless beneath you, hands braced against the granite to give him purchase. In this moment, spread out on his cock, your cunt open and dripping for him, the pleasure ripping the words from your brain, gasps racking your throat, you felt completely under Joel’s spell, his touch, his heat. Mind-numb, thoroughly fucked out, gripped in this moment between the build up and the threshold of release.

‘Oh, you’re gonna make me…’ you warned but Joel had you, was there already with you.

‘I know, baby, I know,’ he grunted between thrusts. ‘Can feel it, can feel that sweet little cunt grippin’ me.’

You cried out, nodding your head furiously, entirely at his mercy now. ‘Yes, yes…Joel, it’s gonna…’

‘Let it go, baby,’ he moaned, and you felt none of the panic, none of the terror at your impending release, wrapped up safe in Joel’s body, in his groans of rapture, in the pull of the knot as it threatened to snap entirely.  

‘Watch me make her come,’ he spat out over your head, and you were only dimly aware of what he was saying as your release sped towards you.

You writhed, your breath stolen from you by the roar of the wildfire across your chest. The push of your orgasm slipping you under, crashing your body into the shore, rolling and quaking underneath it as indescribable lust coursed through your veins.

‘Oh, fuck, there she goes,’ Joel spluttered, his hips stuttering as he started to deepen his thrusts. ‘Gonna fill up ya girl,’ he grit out, his final movements sloppy and desperate as he approached the edge.

‘Do it, baby,’ you whimpered beneath him, words finally able to escape the cage of your throat. ‘Need you.’

He did, then, his come exploding into you and washing you clean, cleansing you of Mick, of all your disappointments, of all your fears. You looked back over your shoulder at him as he crested, his eyebrows saddled and his eyes trained on you, a look of reverence and hunger, of sweet shock, as though he couldn’t believe how good it felt either, as if everything for him was also slotting into place, as if he knew in this moment he would never let anyone separate you, would never let anyone take you from his side, that in his moment you were his just as much as he was yours, that this was a forging of something solid and essential, something vital and something precious, something that was just for you.

--

You didn’t remember Mick leaving. Didn’t care to say goodbye.

Joel had peeled you off the counter and carried you upstairs, drawn you a bath and lowered you gently into the water, sat beside you and washed your body as you lulled in and out of a light sleep.

Drying you off he wrapped you up in his clothes, swamping you in cotton and his scent, before promising to make you a fresh batch of pancakes. You hadn’t let him, whimpering when he tried to leave your side, pulling him down beside you on the bed and wrapping his arms around you.

Later you would figure out lunch, and then Sarah, and then the rest of your lives. For now, you had each other, and cool sheets, and the light patter of rain as a welcome cool breeze blew new life over the garden beneath Joel’s window.

[cursedcola]

Prompt: Couples will evidently begin to mimic their better half after some time. What traits do you steal from him, and vice versa? Fandom: Twisted Wonderland Characters: Everyone - because I want to and I’m amidst fleshing out all my Yuu/Character dynamics + designs Format: Headcannons. Masterlist: LinkedUP Parts: Heartslabyul (Here) | Savanaclaw | Octavinelle | Scarabia | Pomefiore | Ignihyde | Diasomnia A/N: Putting all my brain rot from my notes into something cohesive. Contrary to my love for ripping your hearts out, I've come with some fluff this time around. BTW you may or may not already do things mentioned - I write my works with a specific Yuu in mind for each character so this is based on them. Just a reminder.

Habits you steal:

Plan-Books (Inherited) : Riddle habitually carries a planner with all his tasks. A physical one, not an app in his cell phone like most students choose. You find it easier to manage and swap to paper-and-pen alternatives at his recommendation.

Tidiness (Inherited): Riddle is a nit-pickier when it comes to physical presentation. His habits of pressing his uniform, laying his clothes out every night, and dressing conservatively rub off. He has a point - ironed trousers do make a difference. Every morning he will redo your uniform tie. It's never knotted to his 'standard', and is his preferred excuse to greet you before class.

"Now, isn't that better? Surely you are more comfortable in ironed linens than those rags you'd been wearing as pajamas. You seriously found them lying in Ramshackle? Were you not given an allowance to buy basic needs? Ridiculous! The Headmaster's irresponsibility holds no bounds!" <- Utterly appalled that you've been sleeping in century-old robes. He supplies you with seven sets of pajamas, a spare uniform, and an iron + board for Ramshackle. All after reaming the Headmaster for neglect in the last dorm-head meeting - either Crowley coughed up the marks or Riddle will supply from his own bank. Seven have mercy if he chooses to become a lawyer instead of a doctor.

No Heels (Developed): Riddle has a height complex. He won't make a show of it, but you wearing heels does emasculate him. Especially if you're already taller naturally. For his sake, you choose to slay your outfits in flats.

"Are those new loafers? Oh - no, they're lovely. The embroidery is exquisite and I can see why Pomefiore's Housewarden models for their brand. I merely thought you preferred the heeled saddle-shoes we saw during the past weekend trip. I must have been mistaken. Never mind me. You look wonderful."

Playing Brain Teasers (Inherited): Riddle has this thing with memory - you don't know if he's really into preventing old-age Alzheimer's or what. He carries a book of teaser games like Sudoku, etc. for when he has downtime and you eventually get into them too.

"Oh! My Rose, would you care to join me for lunch? Trey's siblings recently mailed in a large collection of cross-words. You'll find they are both educational and entertaining - hm? I do not seem the 'type' for word-games? I assure you, even I can relax on occasion. There is no need to look so surprised." <- Riddle's been making a grand effort to do things he enjoys and become more personable. Trey's siblings did not send the collection. Riddle went into town and picked it out on his own. He also found a book on organizing excursions since he's big on quality time. He is dead-set on not being a neglectful or 'boring' partner.

Swear Jar (Developed): Tired of Riddle collaring Ace for his vulgar tongue, you suggest a Heartslabyul swear jar. When the jar gets filled, the money can be used to fund things like study materials and renovations for the dorm. Riddle liked this idea, but now implements it on anyone who sets foot in the Heartslabyul. Considering you spend most of your time there, you've had to develop a vast vocabulary beyond swearing. Oh - you also unironically use the word 'fiddlesticks' now.

Habits he steals:

Useless Expenses (Inherited): You are an enabler without a doubt. Riddle has always functioned with the bare bones - with function and efficiency being the number one priority. Ever so slowly - you've spoiled him with aesthetically pleasing stationary. At first all the needless purchases felt redundant - why buy the pillowcases with flowers when plain white is cheaper? You can invest in a higher quality this way. Yet you've ruined him with gifts that he had no choice but to use. Now he needs to buy the pens with little hedgehogs on them because studying doesn't feel the same with a plain ballpoint.

Slang Dictionary (Developed): With each passing day, all the students in Heartslabyul get more creative at bending the rules. That includes you. Riddle takes it upon himself to carry a 'little-black-book' full of all the sang words he is unfamiliar with. He does want to be a bit more 'hip' to understand you more, but at the same time he wants to bust any student being a smart-mouth. It's an ongoing battle *sigh*.

"Apologies, could you repeat that term for me? Surely it must be relevant to my lecture if you and Ace are whispering. 'Let him cook'? Do you think we are in a culinary lecture?! Have you not been listening to - ah. So it's in reference to letting me finish before interrupting...One moment. I need to make a note."

Chewing Gum (Developed): This is an ode to psychology. In short, eating is tied to a person's fight-or-flight. Instincts dictate that our bodies need to be in a calm state to eat comfortably. One day when Riddle was at his wits end, you tossed him a pack of sugarless gum and told him to chew. Disregarding Trey's unholy dental screeching, Riddle develops a gum dependence for when he's stressed out. On the bright side, his jaw has never been so sharp.

“Mimicry? You must be mistaken. Even if my influence has affected their person, surely there are only positive developments” == Riddle denies any changes if confronted. In truth, he’s well aware of how much you’ve helped him grow. It’s the opposite accusation that spikes concern. Riddle does not want others thinking you’re a mini-version of him. Rumors are not kind and neither is his current reputation. Making those amends is his burden to bare. He is flattered to see you paying attention to his mannerisms, and secretly proud that your bond is strong enough to affect the psyche.

Habits you steal:

Whistling (Inherited): Trey whistles while working in the kitchen or doing general chores around the dorm. He's not very loud with it, so not may students are bothered. Since you laze about in his shadow the tunes he goes through do become repetitive. Now you do the same when cleaning up Ramshackle. Grim wants to knock you both out because he can't take it anymore.

"Ah -- How'd you know it was me in here? Just because I bake for the un-birthday parties doesn't mean I live in the kitchen, you know. My whistling? Huh. Never thought that would be my calling card but there are worse things, haha"

Head-Scratching (Inherited): Trey's got a habit of scratching the back of his head when he's uncomfortable or nervous. That, or rubbing at the nape of his neck while adverting eye contact. You start doing this too whenever you're being scolded or put in a tough situation.

Dental Hygiene (Inherited): By far the most obvious shared trait. Trey enforces his dental habits onto everyone- you are no exception. You now own four different kinds of floss, two toothbrushes (one being electric), and have a strict hygiene routine. Your pearly whites have never been so clean. Eventually you become somewhat of a secondary enforcer, policing anyone who sleeps over your dorm to take care of themselves before bed. All of Heartslabyul learns that there is no going back when you scold Riddle for not brushing after his teatime tart, and live to tell the tale.

"Hey - uh, weird question? Were you handing out floss to the Spelldrive Team yesterday? Seriously? I though Grim was pulling my leg - oh, no! It's not weird at all! Those guys should have a better routine for all the meat they eat when bulking. I'm just shocked you got through to them." <- Very proud. Mildly cocky. He's been itching to get those negligent jocks to floss after their banquets his entire tenure, but steered away from that conflict like the plague. Thank you for making his dreams come true. Now if you could maybe get them to stop picking their gums with toothpicks?

Habits he steals:

Overbuying Food (Developed): Being a baker's son, Trey's good with finances and money. He's also meticulous with the ingredients he purchases for his bakes. You are not. You go to Sam's shop, buy whatever is on sale, and then bring it back home to improvise. This ends poorly more often than not, and behold! Trey has two Ramshackle sluggers snooping around his kitchen for eats. This is unpredictable and therefore he now never knows what amount to buy. You've ruined him.

Phone Calls (Developed): Texting is easier. Especially since phone calls can be a commitment that Trey dislikes being wrapped up in. Whenever Cater's name pops up as the caller, Trey knows he's getting an ear full. The thing is that you never. answer. your. phone. Either the text gets lumped in with the hundreds of missed messages you have, or Grim stole your cell to play mobile games. So Trey gives up and only ever calls. Either Grim will answer or you'll pick up thinking it's the snooze of your alarm.

"Hello? Prefect, where are you? It's me, Trey. Just calling to see if you're still coming to the Un-Birthday party? Riddle's getting a bit nervous since the schedule's set for the next hour. Grim's already here with Ace and Deuce - uh, want Cater to send a double to pick you up? I have a sinking feeling that you're asleep...Call me? Please?" <- He was correct. You called back not a moment after, half-asleep and hauling ass not to be late.

Speaking in Propositions (Inherited): Trey's normally good at keeping neutrality in a conversation, but getting a clear answer out of Yuu you is like solving a rubix cube. Either it's easy and instant, or a long game. Eventually your habit of indecisiveness rubs off on him and he asks questions more than answers them. Evidently this gets his younger classmen to stop asking for favors unless they really need to.

“Aha - really? I didn’t notice at all. Okay. Okay, I picked up on a few hints. What’s so wrong with them taking after me? It’s cute, right?” == Trey is the observant sort that picks up on his influence quickly. Not just anyone carries floss in their pocket at all times - and the looks from his dorm-mates when you offer some up is enough for the realization to click. Trey’s used to playing the respectable sort, and finds it endearing that you’re taking his good notes to heart. In truth, most of Trey’s mimicry is intentional. He’s a flexible guy who doesn’t mind altering his habits to fit your needs. Easier this way, y’know?

Habits you steal:

Speaking in Acronyms(Inherited): Now this is scary. The first time it happened, you had to take a pause and just re-evaluate your entire life. You don't use them nearly as often as Cater does, but somewhere along the line your brain must have rewired to speak in internet lingo. O-M-G you're TOTALLY twinning with him right now, period :)

Nicknames (Inherited): Again, frightening. You once swore against ever calling him Cay-Cay. It isn't very slay-slay. Yet you can only hear him use nicknames for so long until you're unconsciously calling people by them too. Especially since he's always dishing gossip. It starts in your head, which is fine. It's not like they know. Then you call Lilia 'Lils' and that old fart is just grinning behind his sleeve because ohoho~ young love <3

"Did you just- AHA! OMG DO IT AGAIN?! Wait, gotta get my camera out for this - wha? Oh, that's totes not fair! C'mon. Call me Cay-Cay. Just once! I won't even post it to Magicam, please? Lils won't believe me without proof! Pleasssssseeeee - " <- He actually doesn't want you to call him Cay-Cay all the time. Cater likes you using his given name, since it's more personal. Although the way it obviously slipped out on accident is just too cute to ignore.

Reality TV (Inherited): At first you don't like the gossip. It's cheesy, a bit annoying, and the shaky camera-work for nearly every show is headache inducing. Cater likes his dose of drama in his free-time, and Ramshackle has a tv that no one is using. It starts with him watching while you do other things around the dorm. Yet each time you pass the living area, you take longer to leave. Lingering around like one of the ghosts. Then he pulls you in with snacks and starts giving the low-down of what's going on, pulling out a bottle of tangerine shimmer polish to paint your nails. It's just one episode, watch it for him? Please? Oh no. No. No. Suddenly you're invested in who's the baby-daddy of little Ricky and what Chantel is going to do because her sister just lost the house to foreclosure.

"#KingdomOfDeadbeats - am I right? Ugh. I'm so glad we met if that's the dating scene back home...What?! I know it isn't real! Don't be a dummy, I was just joking! Ah! Stop! Don't hit me!" <- Half-hearted jokes about going on one of those talk-shows one day. You're an alien, after all - imagine the juicy drama and views his account would get from doing an interview? It's all jokes though. Cater likes spilling the tea, but hates being it. Don't ever abandon him and go out for milk though, kay? He doesn't want to pay Grim's child support. Otherwise he might have no choice smh

Habits he steals:

Phone/Web Games (Inherited): Cater's phone is mainly full of social media. He's not too into the gaming scene, it's not his peeps y'know? Alas, you download a few dress-up games and one MMO on his phone. First off - props on getting his phone. That's Cay-Cay's lifeline and not just anyone gets to play with it. Pray tell - what is this Wonderstar Planet (props if you know what is being ref.) and how can he become the most influential digital streamer on it? Congrats. He's addicted.

"Who's this Muscle Red and why's he bombing our raid - AH! He just tea-bagged me! So not cool...Prefect? STOP LAUGHING WE HAVE BETS ON THIS MATCH! There goes my collab opportunity, big fail" <- Muscle Red continues to make an appearance. Eventually he becomes Cater's official rival on stream, and Lils is all to invested in the tea cater drops during club meets. Side note. You're the one who gave 'muscle red' Cater's domain code. The lore thickens.

Internet Caution (Developed): This goes without saying, but Cater's well-known in the Magicam scene. He's very forward and knows his way around using charisma. Since you're not in the scene as much, he becomes more cautious of where and when he does streams. The change is so subtle that only the most observant people will pick up on it - but Cay-Cay doesn't want any creepos popping in if y'know what I'm saying. His sisters were the ones to instigate this change.

“Awe~ SRSLY?! That’s fresh news to my ears but good, right? Ne, are there any clips or pics? I need my evidence, y’see. Especially if my cutie is off taking notes from their one and only. C’mon, spill the tea!” == Cheeky Cater is well aware of what’s happening. He’d humor anyone out for some light teasing - after all, he isn’t by your side at all hours. His walls are probably the second most difficult in all of campus to bypass, so he’s both sweetened and nerved to see you picking up on his mannerisms. That’s proof of a strong attachment, after all.

Habits you steal:

Knuckle Cracking (Inherited): Deuce still does this from his biker days. It could be because joint pain from past fights, or possibly air retention in his knuckles from studying. Regardless, Deuce cracks his knuckles at least once every few hours and you began to mimic him. Some people groan at the popping sounds but it really does feel good to release the tension. Let's just hope neither of you dislocate any fingers on accident.

"Stop that! G-geez, you nearly gave me a heart attack. Thought you broke a finger...your hands are stiff? That just means you're studying a lot! I think...uh, let's break? I think there's some leftovers in the kitchen." <- Deuce 100% gets needing to pop those air bubbles. His hands get stiff from studying all the time, but don't crack them too much or you might dislocate something. Side note - he shows you how to wrap your fingers with a soothing salve. He used to do it after fights, but now it's a great help after class.

Double Notes (Developed): Deuce tries. He really does. Yet the lad just isn't great when it comes to book smarts. Seeing that he is dedicated to turning over a new leaf, you make a habit of copying all your notes. He isn't allowed to share them with Ace or Grim - else all bets are off. Sometimes you leave little 'good job' stickers on the last page for him. Is he a toddler? No. Does he peel the stickers off and save them? Totally. He is a good noodle. Suck it Ace.

Sewing (Developed): He breaks things. Most of the time it's an accident. You've learned to carry a mini-sewing kit for all the rips in Deuce's uniform. Same for mini remedies for stains and other problems. It's not like he's trying to get grass stains all over his under-shirt or to split the seam in his gloves (nearly every week). It just happens, and every time he comes to you with a kicked-puppy look with a promise of it being the last time. It is never the last time.

"Uhm...hun'? It happened again. I'm so sorry for bothering you but Housewarden is going to kill me if he sees the tear in my blazer! Can you fix it?! I can't handle another collar with my exam tomorrow! I need to breathe to focus! - really!? I owe you one! Snacks are on me tonight."

Habits he steals:

Bottomless Stomach (Developed): Have leftovers from dinner? Bring them over. He'll get the tubba-ware back in 1-2 days. Coupon for buy-one-get-one at Sam's? He'll take the extra and polish it off in less than a minute. Deuce becomes a human garbage disposal and is taking the unwanted condiments off your sandwich to eat. Just pick them off and leave 'em on the corner of his lunch plate. Even if he dislikes it, he'll down it so you don't have to.

"Mm. Oh, thanks hun' - its that all you're eatin'? You don't like the steam bun? It is a bit dry, but wasting food is disrespectful to the cooks! I'll finish it for you so have my fruit instead. You still need to eat" <- 10/10 very thoughtful and not picky at all. He is grateful to eat your cooking and will gobble up all leftovers at Ramshackle, but doesn't think twice to sharing meals in the cafeteria. He will notice though if you do not eat enough. Restocks the snack cabinet if he sees it's empty. Is touched if you routinely share things you know he enjoys, like saving half your frittata on purpose.

Early Riser (Inherited): See - even if you hate the mornings, there is no choice at Night Raven College. As Ramshackle Prefect you need to be up to take care of business before class. Deuce becomes your personal alarm clock because he wants some time with you before everyone else joins in. Mind you that he lives with three other dudes who threaten to end him every morning because his alarm wakes them up too. Eventually he can wake up without it, but the time leading is unpleasant.

"W-what? Seriously? I've been trying to be more like them! They're a good person and responsible so I've been trying to follow their example. To think we've been doing the same thing this entire time...." == Why would you ever imitate him? He's been trying his damn best to become an honor student worth respecting, and has a long way to go. To think you're comfortable enough with him to mimic his mannerisms? It's a pipe dream, one he doesn't grasp until it's put right in front of his face. You don't let anyone else pick off your plate other than Grim. The next time his clothes tear, he's already handing off his tie before realizing just what's happening. When you wrap his knuckles after a six-hour lock in at the library? He can't help but feel proud at how neat the bandages are. Suddenly the dark memories of hiding bruised knuckles from his mom are pacified with healing balm. Deuce views this development as a gift, and is grateful. Very, very grateful.

Habits you steal:

‘I owe you’ cards (Inherited): Ace's favorite social invention - the 'solid'. Nothing spells new-low like getting your friends to do stuff in exchange for a favor in the future. Most of the time Ace counts on people forgetting he owes them one, but you're not so gullible. The only difference between you both is that while Ace never fulfills his solid, you have a conscience. Give it a few more years. He'll get ya.

"I know this is the third ticket this week but - Oh! C'mon, cut a guy some slack, would you? I'm sorry for bein' late to our date. Yeah, it was shitty. I'm not trying to fight it, aright? I'm here now so let's have some fun and you can chalk three strikes on my tab. I'll even buy ya some candy - Ah! Okay! Two candies but that's where my charity ends!" <- Evidently, the 'I-owe-you' tabs cancel each other out from how often you both call in favors. It's just an excuse to do acts of service or express apologies without being too mushy. Ace is definitely keeping a track record of them though. Expect an ongoing log that dates back to the week you met, when he showed up homeless, collared, and looking to couch surf.

Profanity (Inherited): Ace swears like a sailor. Maybe not so much in his dorm because *cough* he's being policed. He holds no such reservations when you're both alone at Ramshackle. Unfortunately his potty mouth has a mind of it's own - it taints you, and you are a sham of a prefect. Ace earned a week-long collar for teaching you some Twisted-Wonderland exclusive curses. Riddle is not pleased.

Leaving the Windows Unlocked (Developed): There are only so many times he can sneak in through your window before the adrenaline-induced charm wears off. You have class in the morning, and can't be bothered to deal with him on nights he can't pass out in his dorm. Thank seven you have all of Ramshackle to yourself - because Heartslabyul sounds like a nightmare with the roommate situation. You can't leave the front door open for obvious reasons, but most nights the guest-bedroom window will be left slightly ajar in case he needs a place to crash.

"Pssst! Oi! Prefect! ...ugh, Grim! Wake them up, man! The latch is stuck. Don't go back to bed you furball! HEY! IT'S FREAKIN COLD OUT HERE SO LET ME IN ALREADY" <- Please let him in. If Ace has to spend one more night in that stinky dorm with three dudes, he'll string one of their dirty gym socks over your bed. No mercy.

Sleeping with Earplugs (Developed): Bitch Ace snores.

Habits he steals:

Notes Memo (Developed): Ace is bad with remembering things. Anniversaries? Dates? Allergies? He admits to not putting in a great amount of effort, but you can't say he doesn't try at all. He has a notes block on his phone dedicated to things like your go-to takeout orders and preferences. He even has a few alarms set days before any important events because even if you say no-gifts or plans...yeah, he's not that stupid.

Excessive Yawning (Inherited): You're always tired - it wasn't Ace's problem before but now he does feel a bit guilty. Dragging you into his messes felt different when you were just the prefect, y'know? Regardless, it's human instinct to mimic each other's demeanor so he'll openly yawn all the time - normally in succession of you.

"Hey...you're dozing off again. Am I seriously that boring to hang around? - Nah. Just messin' with you. I'd suggest taking a nap during next period but I doubt a goody-goody like you is gonna take that advice. Let's just ditch juice at lunch and go back to the dorm. Don't get mad if I forget to wake you up though"

Medications (Developed): Ace is the last person to become a human apothecary, but he's always got a pack of pain-reliever meds in his pocket with a few bandages, etc. He also attached one of those tiny capsule bottles to his keyring with some stomach meds inside. You took a spill running laps? Dang man. That sucks. Here's a band-aid for your knee. Curse you for making him the slightly-more responsible one.

"Eh..what, like it's a shock? You saying I'm a bad influence? Cause yeah, that checks. Nothin' I can do if they want to take a card outta my deck though," == Ace is entirely neutral on the topic. He is definitely smug that you're coming over to the dark side, but he doesn't need anyone to point it out. He was your first after all. Maybe the start could have been a bit better - but hey, you came around. It's not like he's hurting anyone by helping build your backbone. Although Ace will instantly deny going soft for you in any way, shape, or form.