#and takes into consideration what he wants or feels

[velvetvexations]

you’ll see a trans boy be like “i dont personally have the power to oppress you” and then later the same day 3 of their little trans boy friends will start calling you out for making the first trans boy cry so hard he almost died (by disagreeing with him) and then all the cis women in the space will instantly side with the fragile little boys against the scary big [t-slur] who uses intimidating words like “transmisogyny” and thats how the whisper network against you starts, leading to far reaching professional and social consequences that never leave you

This didn’t happen.

Not this way, at least. All marginalized people are at all times at risk of being canceled unfairly. Their marginalization tends to play a major part in that, obviously. Trans women get hit with it a lot and that fucking sucks, and some transmascs are in TERF-y circles and can theoretically use that against transfems should they feel the need to.

This that I’m quoting, however, is a fantasy. It’s a page from a dream journal. People are giddily imagining things like this happening because they live in a world where trans women are feared and have their reputations ruined by lies, and they want to exploit that for their own benefit. The best way of doing this is putting themselves above other trans people, because cis people don’t give enough of a fuck to care or get involved with these bullshit arguments, but if you whine about other marganalized people they will actually be affected by it and forced into the conversation you created out of thin air. It’s not so much a victimization complex as it is a death cult fascination with the misery of transfemininity identical to the TERF obsession with fymyl suffering, defining ‘trans woman’ as 'the thing that feels pain always and forever.’

It’s disgusting and I can’t imagine identifying with such a sniveling and pathetic vision of what being a trans woman is like. It’s so undignified it makes my skin crawl. It’s embarrassing. There’s nothing in this crying little effigy covered in pins and needles I can relate to. I can’t tell if these people need more self-esteem or less. I’m so fucking tired of this wounded gazelle shit.

But for the TRF, transfemininity is all about the abuse. Just look at the beyond absurd assertion, made over and over again, that trans women are maliciously called the t-slur by other trans people. That’s just. No? No. But in claiming that the t-slur can only ever refer to trans women, and that transfeminine suffering takes priority above all else because everyone forever at all times hates trans women more than anyone else, it again becomes necessary to construct this false vision of intercommunity dynamics where “scary big t-slur” is a stereotype that exists within the community in the first place, and which trans men are constantly using against trans women.

It’s just so blatantly selfish for one to act like a transfeminist when all one does every single day is bitch about other trans people. We’re all about to get fucked harder than ever and there are people who profess to sincerely believe they’re fighting the revolution by making up lies about their siblings. I’m easily triggered by transphobia outside of the community and yet even I manage to engage with actual transphobes and make them considerably less transphobic, yet people who don’t even know enough about what TERFs believe to understand they hate men too will fritter the day away on how they could theoretically be canceled if they did something bad ,and wouldn’t that be the worst thing ever? Oh, what if I broke up with someone and our mutual friends believed I was the jerk, because that’s a situation that exclusively happens to poor helpwess twans women and the mere suggestion I could possibly be a jerk in the first place is unthinkable? Hate to keep saying this, but trans women are being actually murdered and this obsessive fixation on “social murder” within the trans community exists purely to spice things up with a feeling of danger because the spaces we’ve managed to carve out for ourselves are otherwise a little too safe and it feels more authentic to the Laura Palmer Ultimate Victim narrative. Massively popular transfems with over ten thousand followers will happily sic them on people for the most upsettingly asinine reasons and then cry-type about how they’re the underdogs in every possible social situation.

But most obnoxious of all is the implication here that, because this can only happen to trans women, gossip and slander does not happen to other trans people, or other marginalized people in general.

That’s fucked, considering how much this discourse has attacked specific targets. It’s most maddening to see that “the coiner of the word transandrophobia has dykebreaking+detransitioning-of-transfems kink” has evolved to “most people who believe in transandrophobia have those kinks” because I constantly see TERFs making huge compilations of transfem blogs engaging in cis dykebreaking kink from the dom perspective. Just transfem dom blog after transfem dom blog enthusiastically into cis dykebreaking, which TERFs use to paint us in a way that fits their narrative.

Literally the only example they can ever give of a transandrophobia-connected person* being a dom for dykebreaking with transfem subs is someone who was being paid by a transfem. Detrans kink is overwhelmingly non-transfems, but almost exclusively as subs to either transfems or cis men, and those transfems aren’t getting paid for it, they actually are just in it for the love of the game. There’s nothing wrong with that, but people want to act like there is when it’s anyone else, and that’s not only weird but also setting up a bear trap to step in later.

Which gets to the point that, hey, wow, I’ve noticed a lot of cis women in particular who self-identify as TME are super into anti-shipping. You cannot possibly imagine you’re safe for trans women if your big issue with trans men articulating their oppression is “they masturbate evilly.” Popular transfem blogs will talk at length about how you shouldn’t judge transfems for their kinks but cis women are so eager to kinkshame transmascs that they not only make shit up out of thin air, but specifically copy and paste kinks almost entirely made up of transfems onto transmascs. Someday very soon a TERF is going to show them it’s much more convenient to be a general transphobe and not make special exceptions for the ones that use the same pronouns as you. They’re going to show your anti-ship cis lesbian friend one of those transfem dykebreaking blog compilations and she’ll take Trans Rights Are Human Rights out of her bio within the hour.

Like, even if you didn’t care about being monstrously inhumane to others, all of this is so against transfem self-interests in the long run, but people who consider themselves the most transfeminist transfeminists there are, of a radical nature, one might say, care more about notes than helping anyone, least of all the transfems they’re feeding into a grinder of paranoia and isolation. Especially the isolation.

It’s a little hard to take it seriously when I get accused of calling all trans women groomers for thinking it’s bad when people talk about “curing” other trans women’s “comphet,” how “TMEs” are obligated to bottom for them to compensate for transmisogyny, and writing long treatises on why it’s one’s moral responsibility to throw forcefem kink at random men because they may like it. Like, am I saying trans women are groomers, or am I saying some people use being members of a marginalized community to be kinna gross? People somehow find it in them to be angry at gay men who cross boundaries in spite of the messaging that they’re all sex abusers for the past two hundred years. Especially since 90% of the concern is for other trans women.Like, sorry, but I care enough about trans women that I’m going to say something if I think you’re putting them in a bad situation, and someone being a trans woman doesn’t make them immune to that. But oh, it does if you assume that this is all just common sense transfeminism, and I am in fact making this accusation of most trans women instead of an extremely niche group.

Never mind that in the screencap people use to accuse me of calling trans women “rapists” I was saying something a self-identified TME said was coercive, and whose identity as a Not a Trans Woman I explicitly noted.** Never mind that I’m the not the one telling people to name their blogs after the original transbian separatist group that famously fell apart after resulting in heavy sexual abuse. Never mind that I have said over and over again that TRFs act no more entitled to people’s bodies than lesbian TERFs who treat people they perceive as women the same way.

But I’m supposed to believe that those cis anti-shippers who post things like “every time someone says kinks are fine they’re just protecting predators in the LGBT community” is a great ally and I’m a traitor because they hate men and I don’t?

Sorry, no, not a traitor. A “pickme begging to be beaten to death with hammers.” Who’s probably not even actually a trans woman. Great transfeminism, yall. You’re really fighting transmisogyny.

It’s especially galling now that TRFs have taken to calling transandrophobia “reactionary,” the most bullshit possible way to call a group that includes a huge number of PoC, who they constantly accuse of tokenization, a pack of Nazis. What is transandrophobia reacting to? Bigotry? Golly gee, I guess so! Or maybe it’s “reacting” to transmisogyny as part of the completely absurd idea that trasnmascs steal everything from transfems. Like, yeah, sure girliepop, and we stole misogyny from cis women, right? Sorry you failed to not sound exactly like a TERF yet again but maybe try again tomorrow and you’ll finally earn not being called a radfem.

But isn’t it sooooo mean of me to compare a small amount of trans women to radfems? Like their oppressors? Well, first of all, they regularly refer to Jewish people as Nazis, discourse aside that they do that is simply a true fact which shows they indeed think it’s possible to justify comparisons like that, although in their case it’s just because it feels like getting off a sick burn and rhetorical W to go “ah, but what if this Jewish person…was a Nazi? Checkmate, Zionists.”

Secondly, for as much as TRFs want to claim TERFs only hate them, that’s simply not true and I have conclusively proven this with basic use of Tumblr’s search function and the tag “radblr.” Twice. If you believe they love transmascs and only want what’s best for them, congratulations dipshit, you fell for their propaganda so hard I’m surprised they haven’t managed to convince you you’re not a woman. Or is it only an obvious lie when it’s about you?

Most annoyingly, just on a personal level, is the way TRFs get pissed off at non-transfem feminine AMAB people for daring to exist. The idea that femboy is a slur for trans women would be laughable if it weren’t grotesque in it’s ignorance. The things I’ve read people say about how transmisogynistic it is for an anime character to be a crossdressing man instead of a trans woman are just infuriatingly racist. Not everything is about you and it’s not actually a big deal if people talk about others once in blue moon.

The constant posts about how non-transfems are evil for not making more transfem headcanons, or for headcanoning the TRF’s favorite canonically male character wrong, are particularly childish. I can’t even go into MY favorite blorbo’s tag without seeing people call transmasc headcanons of him inferior literary analysis completely without irony, and every single time they shit like this, they do it while making up the most convoluted and nonsensical explanations for why the character can only be transfem instead, as though the hostility is defensiveness born out of their particular blorbo requiring a lot of creativity to headcanon that way, necessitating going to war to prove they can’t really be a man to assert it as The One Truth. Then they’ll complain until the fucking heat death of the universe about how everyone loves transmasc headcanons because of transmisogyny.

It’s the same unbearable on-sight hostility as when a TERF sees a child on the subway and goes home to type up a novel of a post on how he had the eyes of a future wife-beater, and it’s so irritating to see it spread from one corner to another. Literally, TRFs say that trans men will always turn on trans women and eventually detransition to wield their wymbnly power against us, and I’m expected to not see that as having severe hang-ups about people born into what they want to transition into and have denied to them by society’s transphobia?

What about the fact that they constantly mock AFAB trans people in ways specifically targeting that trait, calling non-binary people “theyfabs,” joking it’s easy to misgender trans men when they have large breasts, and reduce transmasc stereotypes to feminine “soft bois?” Like, yeah, okay, you’re not projecting any gaping insecurities you may have about assigned sex and gender roles when you say transmasc music is ukuleles and transfem music is heavy metal, next tell me about how transmascs all enjoy tea parties and transfems all go to football games.

But it’s not even mostly trans women who keep this shit alive in the first place. A higher percentage of total trans women on this site are into this framework, but the total number of non-transfem trans people and cis women so outweighs them in the first place that it cancels that out. Like, if x is higher than y, and x% of trans women on Tumblr agree but only y% of “TME” people do, that’s still a movement mostly consisting of “TME” people. The full separatist angle would very quickly reveal how little air it has to burn if trans women truly only had themselves to watch out for each other. Unfortunately, self-identified TMEs are much more likely to get TERFier rather than simply less TRF-y when the spell breaks and they realize how fucked up this shit is, while the people who’ve been batted at continue to exercise the patience of a saint and continue to fight for trans women anyway.

And that! Is what hurts! The most! The fact that people do not care about transmascs and in particular the ones who believe in transandrophobia are constantly tripping over themselves to defend and help trans women as much as they possibly can. I wish people saw that. I wish that mattered. It’s like watching a black hole suck up an endless font of goodwill and love. And then going “lol reactionary transandrobros hate trans women.”

That’s it, though, the great irony of it all is that if it were true, it’d never have become popular in the first place. It’s kept aloft by self-identified TMEs who are well-meaning if not especially good at critical thinking, except for the the contingent that are convinced trans men are all misogynistic because they personally are, or even outright seem to get gender euphoria from the idea they have male privilege. But for whatever reason, if “TME” folks didn’t care? The people making up elaborate tales of their potential (social) murder would have to find some other way to get attention.

I suggest throwing on a big red nose and joining a circus.

*and I specify “transandrophobia-connected” but you’d have a hard time rustling up transmasc doms in general from those scenes

**also, despite it being something I saw with my own eyes, I notably did not even feel it hit the level of needing to directly name someone as being who I was basing my assessment of sexual coercive behavior on as being sexually coercive, because I think it's much more a prevalent attitude of pressure in sexual contexts than individual behavior

[jikooklove9795]

With the news just of JKs series, which seems to be the film split from the trailer, just with extras, am I wrong to pray that we don’t get a documentary for Muse?

I just have this really bad feeling that Jimin would say something more unhinged than he did during the Bangtan bombs we got and the interviews with p dogg, when he said he couldn’t remember the last time he had a crush, that he was alone, and he couldn’t relate to the love songs. That telling the producers what he wanted for Who was like them reading his diary, basically that whole segment is sus, and technically debunked Jikook. I can imagine him saying he’s never been in love etc. I just know he would do that. We’ve got Jimin choosing Who, about not having love, and JK chooses all songs about being with the one you love, so I wasn’t worried about him saying anything, just Jimin.

I am wrong to feel this way? I pray every night for it not to happen

Hi Anon!

First I need to tell you this before I go further on explaining why MUSE, the album as a whole does nothing to debunk Jikook:

As much as I love celebrating Jikook's bond and relationship I'm not someone who has any kind of expectations from both Jimin and Jungkook. I won't demand them to behave a certain way so that I get the confirmation my ship needs. Having such kind of expectations is not ony wrong but also unfair to them.

Anon, I hope I don't sound condescending which is not my intention at all. I'm just saying this in your best interest. I hope you'll take it in the right spirit.

Now I'll share my views on why MUSE does not debunk Jikook.

MUSE is a conceptual album as opposed to FACE which was autobiographical. As stated by Jimin and the producers they were following a storyline for MUSE. Also, when it came to MUSE Jimin had so much to share, ideas to give and discuss while for FACE we didnt get that, did we? Since FACE was about his own life and the struggles he went through, he was hesitant and holding back not letting us know much about it. Which was not surprising knowing how serious he is about his personal life.

And something which I think you're forgetting is that Jimin is an artist. An artist who will experiment with his work and explore diverse genres in order to bring to the table different stories for the fans. Stories which fans also can relate to. Stories which aren't about his personal life and experiences. His work is not always going to be solely focused on his personal life. So, try to separate his work life from his personal life.

Also, taking into consideration his situation (his country, the industry he works in) its highly unlikely for him to say "Hey! Jungkook is my bf. We have been in love for a long time now". That's not gonna happen anytime in the near future. So, what we will be getting instead is "I'm single for as long as I can remember. I don't even know how having a crush feels like".

This is the exact reason why "Letter" gets passed off as a fan song in the general fandom. Cause Jimin is not in a position to say "Letter" is for Jungkook. That's a sad reality. But its for their own safety and well being. Which provides them a cover, a protection. The same cover cause of which they were able to enlist together. Which in my opinion is the most important for them, I mean being able to stay together rather than risk everything and expose themselves.

However Jimin did provide a few hints here and there for those who are willing to listen.

And an even BIGGER HINT with this one here:

The billboard falling at the same time Jimin goes "Who's my heart waiting for". Someone whose facial structure is not that of a woman but of a man. A man with doe eyes. A man who stole his heart all those years ago. A man with whom he's happy and very obviously in love.

Have a nice day Anon!

Credits to the owner of the video

[yuurei20]

Short Translation from Twst 2nd novel: The Day of the Tournament (3/6)

"Instantly, the auditorium erupts into sound. The students must be feeling that, finally, the long-awaited tournament is really about to begin. 'Let’s hurry to the coliseum and grab some good seats,' ‘Let’s check out the food stalls before the ceremony starts’—excited students crowd the exits.

Yuuya, waiting off to one side for the crowds to thin, hears his name called aloud. Ace and Deuce raise their hands in greeting as they make their way towards him. Their dorm uniforms—which Yuuya has not seen in quite a while—suit them well.

‘Good morning, you two.’

‘Yeah, morning. Today’s the day, huh.’

Deuce clenches a fist in determination. The injures he sustained in his fight with Jack have healed considerably, hardly visible unless you are looking close. Yuuya points this out to him gesturing to his own cheek, and Deuce nods happily.

'Thanks. Ace couldn’t keep his mouth shut around the guys in the dorm, so things have been rough.’

With a questioning look Yuuya glances to Ace, who responds with a mischievous grin.

‘With Deuce all about becoming an honor student, getting into a fistfight with a classmate isn’t something he’d want people to know, yeah? So, nice guy that I am, I came up with a cover story.’

‘What did you tell them?’

‘Mm, a few things? Like he slipped on a banana peel, fell over, and hit something on his way down, stuff like that.’

Grim points at Deuce’s sullen face and bursts out laughing. ‘That’s totally something Deuce would do. Bet everyone believes it, too.’

‘I’m not that stupid!’

The exits have cleared during their conversation, and the group leaves the auditorium. The moment they step outside the school building they are met with a refreshing sea breeze. It is a beautifully clear day. Several students descend the long stairs before them, lit by white morning light.

Most students will be going straight to the coliseum, the location of the tournament, to cheer from the school’s designated seats. Only the athletes themselves will be allowed on the field.

Ace takes a step down the stairs, looks down towards the coliseum, and sighs.

‘Man, in the end, we didn't become athletes.’

Neither Ace nor Deuce were selected for their team. Among the Heartslabyul students that Yuuya knows, the only ones who will be playing are Riddle and Cater.

Just as Trey had assured them, it seems that Cater has been included for his flying skills.

‘It really is too bad, but you both still have next year.’

‘Well, that’s true, but still. All that effort, wasted.’"

[frozen-snowflakesandsunflowers]

Jared Bush says Frozen 3 will surprise people | Latest Updates

In an interview during D23, last weekend in Brazil, Jared Bush, the recently appointed CCO, gave away some teases about Moana 2, Zootopia 2 and the future of Encanto, but he also mentions a bit about Frozen 3.

He says:

“Yeah, yeah, Frozen 3 is coming. And from what I've seen so far [of the film] I think people are going to be surprised. I can’t give away too many spoilers, other than to say that Jennifer Lee is leading the charge and that the story and the direction that she’s taking these characters, what they’re facing, what they’re going to go through, I think is going to surprise a lot of people but it's also going to deliver on everything that people love about Frozen.”

So surprised is the word he uses to describe how we'll react to Frozen 3. That's given because as Jen has said recently that the concept art that was shown during this year's first D23 is just a glimpse of what we could see in the movie. Apart from what we make from that concept we have no clue what Frozen 3 is about and tbh I have to give it to the team for not spilling a single detail about the movie. I know we want to know more but imo I think they're saving all that content for the end of 2026 and into 2027. Maybe a few teases or better insight of the story by the end of 2025, but who knows. Probably also because they're still working on it so whatever they would have told us about the film so far, could have changed and form opinions in our heads about it which they really don't need at this current stage of production. I don't think the cast have even got the script yet as the story is still developing!

Bush also mentions that Frozen 3 is going to deliver on everything that people love about Frozen. Now that's the only real piece of information given - the focal point being on what we want to see. That's what the questions on the first D23 event were about - what we would like to see, what we feel is left to tell. We love the characters, the story, the individual arcs of those characters, the dynamics, the settings, the potential, the mystery, and so much more and so I'll take this a positive sign. That's all of what I make of it.

I know nothing major was revealed in this interview, but I still thought I'd share for those who do take into consideration these little hints and teases. Since Frozen 3's date has been pushed back from 2026 to 2027, most of the content will be given the year of the release and some the year before base done the previous two films promotion (it could be different as this movie is a two parter). I know that's quite long to think about (😭) especially with the honest disappointment that Frozen Winter Festival was not a short film or an official short series but rather just a YouTube series (which is cute nonetheless and good to see they're feeding the younger fans of the franchise), but now moving into 2025 we have 2 and bit years left so we should get more teases in interviews and events here and there.

But regarding FWF, I don't blame them too much because all their focus is on the Frozen 3 and 4 as it is being made back to back, then I'm certain it'll be worth the wait. We can still hope for some kind of Frozen content soon as we do have a couple more years to go so let's see. 🤷🏽‍♀️

P.s I have some Frozen edits I'd love to share so I'll post those if you need something new regarding Frozen. ❄️

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

It's funny to watch you insist all the time you're not into L*ona and J‐Word and then roughly every 6 months you stage a takeover of the Sebek-Zigvolt-Defenders-Club and loudly and proudly proclaim he's the best boy actually and we should all love him.

In all seriousness, it was your thoughtful analyses that changed my mind about Sebek some months ago and I now also preach the good word about him. He's so loud and dumb and silly and I cry when we get more of his lore and personality revealed, so you're doing great work soldier 🫡

(P.S. Is this confirmation of the list of your favorite first, second, and third year? Two secretive schemers known for taking advantage of people and one tall, loud, loving croc boy with a big ol' heart😏)

[My two big Sebek analysis posts: here and here! Other Sebek analysis can be found in this masterlist.]

I insist I'm not into J word and L*ona because I am, in fact, not into them :) Trust, trust. I cannot tell a lie :))

IS IT REALLY EVERY 6 MONTHS... If so, that's totally unintentional on my part 😂 If I put out a Sebek analysis, it's because there was an ask about him or there's been new official Twst content that I want to scream and shout about. Between Sebek, Jade, and Leona, I feel that Sebek is definitely the most easily understood and most disliked one, especially from the get-go. General opinion of him seems to have improved considerably thanks to book 7, but to this day I still remember the visceral hate he received because he was labelled a racist or loud or an ass-kisser or having no personality outside of liking Malleus. It was sad to see him getting trashed... so I guess I felt like someone had to defend his honor www (And to be clear, it's okay if you dislike Sebek!! Not everyone has to like him. I'm only saying that I don't agree with the opinion that Sebek is a shallow character.)

AAHHABIHFAHSFHQGTG830TQ3P9Nadfhubabyoifam;,; I'm happy that my analyses helped you to see him in a new light!! Again, Sebek truthers rise up ✊ He's a himbo, but he's OUR himbo...

I'd say that Leona is at the top of the third years for me, yeah. B-BUT NOT BECAUSE I LIKE HIM OR ANYTHING, GOT THAT???? It's mostly because I don't find most of the other third years that appealing to me. Jade faces much stiffer competition, since I like most of the second years. However, he manages to pull ahead of the rest of them by a smidge. It's actually Sebek that's fighting hard to keep the spot of my favorite first year; the other two I really like are Ace and Ortho. Ace fluctuates a lot though... While I do find his bratty personality cute (especially when he's doing vocal impressions of the other characters) and appreciate him having the gall to tell others off (regardless of power or social statuz disparity), I also find him very annoying and immature. So I guess it's actually Sebek versus Ortho, the more solid candidate. I think Ortho's relationship with his older brother is very sweet and, of course, tragic. I also love that he looks so innocent but has a deep capacity for violence (laser beam to the face, anyone?) and a strong curiosity to learn more about what it means to be human.

Assuming that Sebek, Jade, and Leona are my respective favorites of each year though 💀 They’re all freakishly tall and pretty muscular (sliding scale of least muscular J word to most muscular Sebek www)… Two big brains and there there’s just. The baby with brawn.

chsjwvjwjwow I mentioned this to some friends and here’s how that convo went:

THIS WAs 100% UNINTENTIONAL… OTL

[marchofmistria]

Can I request some headcanons for March, as in a long-established relationship? I'm a sucker for slice-of-life stuff...

Thank you so much for the ask! Aaaah I absolutely love slice-of-life as well. This was so fun to think about <3 Sorry this turned into some proposal HCs as well! Let me know if you want some wedding/married life HCs because I'd love to write that ⁠:)

March has been alone for a really long time, basically his whole life. The only person he has is Olric. But now he has you!

Because of this, you two get really intertwined in each other's lives. You basically become family as soon as you start dating. 

Even after dating for some time, you both keep your lives and your work. It's just better now, because you're doing it together. You wake up together, eat breakfast together at home or at the Inn, go off and work (while thinking of each other), have dinner together, and go to sleep together. It's the easiest and most wonderful thing in the world. 

March is surprisingly considerate of you. That's how he shows his love. He's not good with words, even after you're together for a long time, but he thinks of you and your well-being often more than you think of it for yourself. 

This includes helping you a lot with work around the farm. He's always very busy with his own work, but will never allow you to lift anything too heavy or repair things yourself after your start dating. He loves taking care of you and helping you take on your responsibilities, just like you do for him. 

He's also always excited to smelt and create things for you any chance he gets. He loves his work, and he loves it even more when he's making something for you. 

That includes swords and armor for your trips to the mines, yes, but also jewelry or charms or anything else he can think of that might make you smile. It helps on those days when he can't stop thinking about you while you're both off working. 

On special occasions, he'll spend days to weeks working on something really special, all while keeping it secret from you and shoving off any teasing comments from Olric. 

When you first start dating, he's still embarrassed at all the comments from the townsfolk. He's never experienced a relationship like this and he's not really sure what to do with this pride. But after a while of dating, he's extremely proud of his relationship with you and doesn't attempt to hide or minimize it at all. It's just the most obvious fact that you'd be together, and he can't even try to pretend that being with you makes life so much better. 

He's not very into PDA usually. Hand-holding or an arm around your waist or shoulder is as far as he'll usually go around others. Unless he's drunk. Then he's all over you, to the point where you're nearly fighting off your own embarrassment (and pretending not to love every second of it). 

Olric and Ryis are so happy that you're together with March, and truly feel that you bring out the best in him. It's a side they've never seen, and they appreciate how you've accepted and loved him. You spend a lot of nights hanging out with them and March and they fully embrace you as family.

Your friends are so happy about your relationship too. They've heard all the miscommunications and anxiety you went through when you both were coming to terms with your feelings for each other and were so happy when you finally told them you were officially together. They really see March in a new light after seeing how much he cares for you. 

Everyone in town notices and appreciates that March loses a bit of his rough exterior after meeting you. He's still a bit standoff-ish, sure, but that slightly mean edge noticibly lessens. He just seems happy, everyone in town can feel it. 

That goes for your relationship too. Before dating, March wouldn't be shy to dish our biting comments that could even hurt. It caused a number of misunderstandings and arguments before you finally understood each other's feelings. Now he's rarely mean to you or anyone else in town. 

You do bicker about silly things sometimes, but it's always clear that the conversation is light. Real fights and arguments are rare, and it really only happens when March lets his secret insecurities get the better of him and shows some jealousy towards you. 

With time, he learns that he can truly trust you and that gets better. 

Although you spend many nights over at each other's houses, March would be hesitant to move onto the farm at first. He's just worried about leaving Olric alone there. Who would be there to make sure he's eating enough vegetables?

But March surprises himself with his love for you, and even having separate places to live seems stupid and pointless pretty quickly. 

You don't start to live together until you're engaged though, which would come pretty quickly too. March doesn't see a point in waiting when he knows you're going to be together for the rest of your lives anyways. 

The idea of getting married makes March nervous at first, but only for a short time. As soon as he realizes that that could be possible for him with you, it means everything to him. I mean, the most incredible person in the world wants to be with him? He can't mess it up.

He smelts a ring from perfect gold ore and a diamond he mined himself on days you were busy running errands for the townsfolk. He keeps it in his pocket for weeks, always trying to hype himself up to finally ask but getting too nervous each time. 

It's not that he thinks that you'll say no. It's just that he can't believe that he's living this reality with you. He didn't think anyone as lovely and kind as you could be with him. And he doesn't want to fuck up. 

He thinks of so many different ways to ask, but always backtracks and worries that it won't come off right. He's rehearsed what he wanted to say to you so many times, but curses inwardly when he can't explain himself properly. Why can't he speak as kindly and carefully as you? Fuck. 

Ryis is the only person he tells for a while. knowing how supportive he'd be and wanting his advice. He can't even bring himself to tell Olric his plan for a while, unable to take the teasing he'd get from his big brother. 

He even consults with Elsie, who corners him one day after her "someone-in-Mistria-is-about-to-propose" senses start tingling. She swoons at the idea that he's so nervous to ask you, and offers the advice that you'll be over the moon no matter how he decides to propose. 

It ends up happening pretty suddenly. You're sitting together at the summit at night, not an unusual spot for you two. You lean into his arm around you, using his body for warmth and he pulls you closer. And in that moment, thinking of how he could imagine sitting here with you when you're old and grey, he can't help but say "let's get married." 

When you look up at him, he's staring out at the view before turning to look at you. Before you have time to ask if he's being serious, he pulls out the ring from his pocket, takes your hand, and places it on your finger. He doesn't give you time to object or say no (not that you would). 

What he didn't expect, though, is your tears of happiness as you kiss him and nod your head. Now it's real, and it's forever, and he can't remember ever feeling this happy in his whole life. 

[someverygaymoth]

NIGHTMARE WITH OSDD

I love your headcanon and I'm going to take it and it into a 5-star meal🙏

May I have more please🙏😔 /nf

I love NM with OSDD!!! Yay!!! Free ramble pass!!!!

There are so many good options for this. I'm gonna go with fuzzy system of 5, where Nightmare(the corruption) is their host, Night(little guy before the apple whoopsidoodle), Moon(the hurt, scared, grown up version of Night), Dream(little guy before the apple whoopsie doodle), and Sun(a grown up Dream. The kind of brother he wanted and needed, but never quite got.) Lots of fuzzy cofronting, lots of gray amnesia and emotional amnesia with occasional blackouts.

Silly BSP hyjinks ideas:

Nightmare worrying, trying to find one of his boys because he doesn't remember that he sent them out on a mission that morning. (Killer finds him and reminds him that Dust and Horror are out on a mission, and not to worry about them)

Horror finding out they're plural and learning that alters have different tastes??? He would be so excited to figure out everyone's favorite food!!!

Cross learns NM is plural and immediately does all the research possible so he knows he isn't accidentally being offensive, and also so he can be more helpful. (He has to be the helpfulest all the time! That's what he's good for!)(he is so mentally ill)

Killer does the research in secret and then purposefully says ignorant shit so Cross gets scandalized and NM gets to watch them argue and have a little snack on Crossy's indignance and terror. NM knows he's being annoying on purpose because he starts doing really considerate shit without being outward about it. (Bringing back a bunch of sticky notes in different shapes and colors from his missions, casually asking him how to be more helpful, wrapping him in a blanket and laying on him when he's dissociating into high hell so he's nice and grounded, or just cuddling with him while he's having a long, slow switch. Bringing him water and headache medicine once it's leveled out, catching up whoever is in front now, making sure they know they're safe...)

Dust is obscenely good at telling who's fronting. He noticed way before Nightmare told any of them. "[Shrug] Shit didn't add up," is all he says about that. Nightmare has no idea what that means, but at least Dust can tell him he's doing the hand wringing thing that Night always does when he's fronting, so he can tell who's cofronting and giving him a massive migrane. He's just very watchful.

Evil ideas:

Moon is so frightened and overwhelmingly broken, for a long time. Nightmare can tell he's near front when he starts to feel tearful and hurt seemingly without reason.

Sun lashing out at one of the boys because he feels like they're being threatened (the boys are trying to be nice to him)

Sun feels helpless in the body because he has near no control over their tentacles. He can't protect them and that's very scary for him. He doesn't like feeling out of control.

Night had a phase where he would write in books, Nightmare hated this.

Sun has a habit of trying to convince the boys to leave them because he doesn't want anyone close to them. He feels like he has something to make up for, with all that Moon went through. He feels so much pressure to be better than Dream ever was to them.

More silly to cleanse the owie:

Nightmare's system is relatively functional and stable once Sun gets off his "hurt them before they hurt us!!" Horse.

Sun has a silly lil crush on Killer that he will vehemently deny if asked about.

They're silly and I love them.

[curvywrites]

❝ PROVOCATION ❞

Mingyu x curvy!reader︰1.3k

AUTHORS NOTE︰ i'm too sick to finish desecration, so please take this from my drafts ( ˟◡˟ ) ― xo Raye ✽ FIC NOTES︰18+ ⋅ established relationship ⋅ pet names (babe + darling) ⋅ swearing

✽ SMUT NOTES︰ bdsm themes ⋅ big dick ⋅ choking + crying ⋅ degradation (slut + whore) ⋅ hard dom!Mingyu ⋅ mild exhibitionism ⋅ pain ⋅ rough + unprotected sex ⋅ sub!reader

His lips dropped to your neck, finally giving you a chance to breathe. Fingertips pressed into your waist, his nails leaving crescent marks as he tugged you closer in his lap. Your hands weaved into his hair, scratching against his scalp as he sucked another bruise onto your throat. As soon as a new mark bloomed over your skin, Mingyu shoved you back roughly and moved to hover over you, all his clothes somehow still intact.

"I've been waiting for this all day, babe." He smirked as his tone dripped sarcasm. "Couldn't wait to get home."

If the hour you spent naked in his lap told you anything, Mingyu could and would wait. You were a different story. His kissing and touching and teasing had gone on far too long, leaving you dishevelled and covered in a sheen of sweat, with no relief in sight.

Mingyu's hands had been everywhere on your body, clinging to your curves as he kissed and kneaded your flesh, giving special consideration to your tits and ass. He made sure to ignore where you needed him most, not even letting you sit over his thigh.

You wanted him inside you since this morning. Mingyu slowly stretching you with his big dick in your dreams had you wet and ready as soon as you woke up, his side of the bed already empty. But you were good and didn't touch. All you did was text him some details of your dream, letting him know how much he was on your mind. You sent a picture or two, just to illustrate how much you needed the help only he could give.

You really didn't think you'd end up like this, begging and pleading for him to stop his taunts and fill you up.

"I'm not teasing, I just need to make sure you can take me." He smirked, the little quirk of his lips increasing your ire. "I'm not going to be gentle, not after what you pulled today, darling."

That had you keening and twisting as he chuckled darkly. You wanted all he could give you now, and it was so much, but he was feeling petty and denying you on purpose.

"Gyu, please—I need your cock, I can take it!" Tears of frustration were pricking along your lashes. You had been turned on for too long, and Mingyu never behaved like this unless you pushed him too far.

Sighing and shaking his head, his hands worked open his fly as he chastised you. "This is your fault. If you hadn't been so fucking filthy my cock would already be splitting you open."

His harsh words had your heart and pussy fluttering with anticipation. You took in his chest and abs as he pried off his shirt, looking down to see the very visible bulge of his hard cock. Heat flared over you as Mingyu removed the last of his clothes, finally showing you his heavy and throbbing dick. It had you spreading your legs automatically, and you didn't miss the way his erection jumped or the hoarse fuck that he tried to swallow.

"Such a fucking mess. Just from thinking about my dick?"

Slapping his cock against your slit, he coated his length as he ground his hips into yours, pleased with your cries. Satisfied with your wetness, he aligned his tip with your entrance, a brutal thrust burying him in your cunt. The sting had your lips parting in a silent scream as he pulled back, giving you no time to adjust. The drag of his cock was burning and the next roll of his hips had you calling his name, clinging to him for support as he fucked you hard.

"You said you could take my cock, don't act like you don't love getting fucked rough." He grasped your hips to keep you in place.

He was never this cruel, but maybe you finally deserved it. You did ignore his warning to save it for later and sent the second photo, a close up of your soaked underwear clinging to your chubby pussy. You knew there would be consequences, but you didn't imagine this.

This was so much better.

Mingyu was still running his mouth, making sure you knew how frustrated he had been, how close his coworkers had come to seeing your surprise selfie. "This is how whores deserve to be fucked—raw and with no prep."

He was being so mean, but this was scratching an itch you didn't know you had, making your cunt pulse around him as you got closer and closer. Sobs forced themselves from your chest, the mix of pain and pleasure had you incoherent, but Mingyu understood your broken pleas.

You were begging to cum, and if your throbbing heat meant anything, you were on the edge. And Mingyu was about to let you, getting lost in your pleasure and almost forgetting his purpose, until the ring of his phone cracked his concentration.

Stilling his hips with his cock deep inside, he caught his breath as he reached for his phone, silencing your whimpers for him to continue with his palm across your throat.

"Good things come to sluts who wait."

Just as he was about to pick up, you let out a sharp ah as you bucked against him involuntarily. Mingyu squeezed tighter, cutting off your air as a warning. "Will you stay quiet if I answer this call?"

He accepted the rapid nods of your head, picking up and loosening his grip enough to let you breathe. You thought the call was going to stop him from fucking you, but you were wrong, wrong, wrong. You weren't ready for him to slide out and sink his cock back into you so suddenly.

Moaning against your will, your boyfriend muffled you with brief pressure, his icy stare sending shivers throughout your body. You had to be good, you didn't know who might be listening on the other end.

"Sorry about that, there's a lot of background noise."

Mingyu kept his fingers pressed in place, giving you another chance to behave. Canting his hips upward, the head of his cock grazed your walls just right, forcing a loud yelp past your lips that didn't last. Choking you into silence, you struggled against his grasp as he apologized and hung up, exasperated.

"You just won't listen, huh? Well neither will I." Releasing his grasp on your neck, he surveyed your red face as you coughed and inhaled shakily, his face twisting into a smile. "I'm going to fuck you like you deserve."

It didn't matter what you cried beyond that point; he ignored it all. Grunting, he slammed into your sore body, pussy raw and red from the abuse, spasming as you approached another orgasm. Tears had been free flowing since your first peak, the overstimulation almost making you yell your safe word as Mingyu ruined you.

"Take it, whore. You provoked me and cried for this cock, and now you're being ungrateful?"

That had you writhing under him, your pussy clamping down impossibly tight as you creamed around him. Mingyu's pace faltered as you let go, sucking him deeper into your heat and breaking him.

“Such a fucking slut.” Groaning wildly, his hands squeezed the fat of your thighs, forcing your legs around his waist. “I’m gonna fuck you so full, make this pussy so messy.”

A few more thrusts had Mingyu falling over you, catching himself as you felt his cum pump into you, moaning shamelessly about how he loved you and your pussy. It was a relief when you felt his dick start to soften, the sting fading when he slid himself out to admire the way his cum flowed from your spent cunt. Proud of his work, he leaned down to connect your lips, feeling you tremble.

“Fuck, you’re so perfect. Are you alright, babe? Did I go to far?” His touch was instantly gentle, smoothing over the dimples on your thighs, calming you down. “Let me take care of you.”

[johanna-swann]

The annoying thing about the break up is that it would have made so much more sense if they'd had Tommy break it off because of any of the multiple things Buck says in that conversation that are kind of weird. The vibe that Buck also kind of wants to be Tommy, which isn't helped by him replacing Tommy twice over. The fact that it's been six months of Tommy apparently being open about the kind of work he had to do on himself to get to this point but Buck still hasn't really taken Tommy off the pedestal. Asking someone who probably has a house to move in to a loft. Springing a mention of a possible future marriage on him when it doesn't seem like it's come up before. The writing in this episode was so bad but they still managed to unintentionally give Tommy actual reasons to decide he was done.

I'm not sure what Buck "replacing Tommy" is referring to here, but a lot of the other stuff I agree with. Even upon first glance that break-up made so little sense to me that I immediately jumped to the conclusion that this was merely one of the "hurdles" we were promised and they'd get back together in season 8b.

It was always a possibility that Tommy wouldn't be Buck's "forever love", but the way they broke up was... strange, to say the least.

First of all the Abby thing makes zero sense. It doesn't fit with the way Abby talked about her ex. Even if she didn't want to talk to Buck about being engaged before, she would've at least mentioned to Carla that the terrible break-up she had to relive over and over again came from her fiancé, not just a boyfriend. It doesn't make sense that Tommy never mentioned her to the 118 either. She was basically his beard, right? Isn't the point of those relationships that you can pretend to be straight in front of others? And then Tommy actively hid his relationship with her instead?

This only served as a conversation starter though, it wasn't the reason they broke up. In his conversation with Josh Buck didn't feel comfortable using the l-word, but he did admit seeing and wanting a future with Tommy. Which he later also said to Tommy himself.

Then the very moment Buck said the words "move in" I immediately went "not a-fucking-gain!!" Because this rushed, overcorrecting clinging - throwing ideas of marriage and so on around without even having exchanged "I love you"s yet - is such a Buck 2.0 thing to do. He didn't even take into consideration that Tommy lives in an entire ass house. You promised us Buck would get off the Hamster wheel Tim! He has been more grounded than I've ever seen him in a relationship, but then suddenly, nope. Character growth who?

And lastly Tommy's answer. Maybe he just got cold feet, but. Why did he even give Buck a second chance in the first place when he already thought this wasn't going to go anywhere. If he thought what Buck needed were more casual queer experiences, then why did he stay with Buck for six months? And if he liked Buck enough to be afraid of getting his heart broken, wouldn't he have left that relationship earlier?

I mean. They ended up breaking things off over liking each other too much, essentially. Find the sense in that.

And maybe while Tommy was too pessimistic and scared, Buck was still viewing the relationship too much through rose-tinted glasses. But that's when you say: "Hey, we kind of want the same thing here, but I think we still have a lot to talk about and to figure out about each other. Maybe let's just date a little longer and come back to this conversation in two or three months."

(Though I think Tommy struggling and working on himself is one of the very things Buck so admires about him. It's not that Buck is (love-) blind to this information, it's part of what makes Tommy's confidence so attractive to Buck.)

[thequietkid-moonie]

Troublemaker!reader tries to be a good influence for them

[ PLATONIC HEADCANONS ] [ Kotoko, Monaca, Masuru, Jataro & Nagisa ]

[ Danganronpa Ultra Despair Girls ]

Its been so loooong since last time i wrote for my babies that i didn't even remembered how to do it properly! But but but I did try my best in this one and actually have fun while thinking about it

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did my dear reader <3

For all of you is more likely to be an accident or simply a coincidence, crossing paths when you were about to do something, even so it would take a while for them to warm you because of how much they dislike grown ups!

For being an ultimate the sistem of the school is way too permissive so that would lead you to have enough free time to just end up messing around the other parts of the school, including the section of the little ultimates, then again they may be a little wary at first specially if you have come simply to cause problems but the friendship would grow with some patience

Monaca is one of the first ones to warm up, she easily become the leader of the group of friends and she can easily see how of a troublemaker you are, not really caring about the school, and thats the main reason why she grows to like you so quick! Your rebelious and carefree attitude is what make her grow to like you in a second and why she decided to follow your example, she was already wishing to cause troubles and maybe even take advantage of those who she hates but now you are finally helping her take that last step so of course she would start following you around

The second to grow to not only like you a lot but also to admire you is Masuru! He is already energetic and loves playing around but getting to know someone who just wants to have fun even if that means causing troubles to others is something incredibly cool in his childish mind, so of course he would start following you around and ask to let him play with you!

Kotoko would take even longer to warm up but is thanks to Monaca that she does, she just doesn't like grown ups (and if you male it would be even more dificult) but it is until she notice how with you is just pure fun and without anything to do with her directly she would simply give a try and will end up asking for more games! She would even end up having a rivality with Masuru, both trying to show of they are the best and the one who can follow your rythm with ease

It would be too dificult Nagisa to be comfortable with you, he is too mature for his age and is too dedicated at his studies to waste his time in such childish and stupid things, but at the end is the rest who end up making him just relax and play around (probably being teased a lot by Masuru and Kotoko simply get on his nerves and thats why he end up giving up)

While for Jataro is surprisingly easy to warm up, it may take time because he just see himself as a horrendous monster and a burden but soon will find the same joy on simply going around and having fun while causing troubles, at the start he would feel like is not a good thing to do but with some reasurance and when he grows comfortable around you he will simply start doing what he wants and may even become as caotic as you can be

It could be quite the surprised when one day you look back and then notice a bunch of kids suddenly following your steps, calling you admirable and funny and wanting to follow your example, it could be then the moment you realice this new responsability because despite being considere ultimates they are still kids, and kids follow the example of whoever they admire so maybe following a total troublemaker who gets away for what they do thanks to being an ultimate isn't exactly the best example for their childish minds

Wanting to give them a good example could be understandable but quite dificult to do when you are used to do what you want to do as you please, and since they are already used to seeing you being caotic it could be a little hypocrite to tell them to behaive, so it would be quite dificult to now try to give a good example

It may end up being a learning experience for all, by you trying to change at least enough to don't raise a bunch of brats and them to have someone who cares for them. There is probably moments where you have to stop yourself for a moment to think twice before doing something, even asking them if they know how to solve a problem in a pacific way

However, when you suddenly try to stop yourself from doing something reckless and try to teach them to not be so caotic it isn't going to be well received for them, suddenly they would be accusing you to act like those boring adults they hate so much and will try to push you to go back to be the troublemaker they know and like so much

At the end it would be easier to show them important things you know without stop being you, otherwise it would just feel unatural, besides, teaching them things as the troublemaker you are would not only make them happy but also will make them actually want to grow as a person, and since they are still kids honestly they still have their whole life awaiting for them to grow and learn, so for now some fun wouldn't hurt, right?

It may not go the best way posible and end up being all a caotic fun but at least all grow a little, including you

[perpetualcontrolleddrowning]

Moshang Fic - Part 3

half of something else

JRaylin441

Summary: A few things are added to the Overarching To Do List

Content Warnings: some discussion of bad childhoods again, EXPLICIT, NSFW, light restraint, dom/sub undertones, size difference, temperature play (a little), and anal sex

Read it on ao3 here (x)

Read Part 2 here (x)

Shang Qinghua wakes up with his entire body aching. His legs are both asleep. He can't feel them. There's a terrible crick in his neck and he's not sure where it's from.

There are nice things about being an immortal cultivator. Even though it took so much more work than he would ever want it to take, and he didn't really have a choice, it's nice that a lot of his injuries heal quickly and that he doesn't really age. His original body was in much worse shape, and he always had to be doing wrist stretches and move around to maintain any kind of mobility with the amount of time he spent writing. Mostly, he wouldn't do those things and then would be in pain day in and day out.

This is a very long way to say that he has gotten used to not feeling all those terrible aches and pains, now that he has a body that rapidly heals itself.

So it's disorienting, waking up like this. He's warm. He's really warm right now, more so than he usually is in this palace. It made him all sweaty and he knows that he stinks right now.

When Shang Qinghua opens his eyes, he is in his King's chambers. Right. That's right. He was here last night. Talking with his king until late late late into the night. Telling him, fuck, did he tell him stories last night? He's pretty sure he made up a silly little child's fairy tale version of their life? And his king just watched him and listened while he talked for hours?

Who does that?

When has that ever been something that people do? What the fuck has been in the water in this palace for the past few days? Did Tianlang-Jun start up a very slow carbon monoxide leak? There's not any other possible explanation for this stuff and Shang Qinghua is going to lose his mind. This is ridiculous.

He stretches his limbs out. There are so many blankets on top of him. Where did all of these come from? He definitely didn't fall asleep with this many blankets. The blood flowing back to his legs prickles with pins and needles. He circulates his qi to make it all happen a little bit faster, bring that crick out of his neck that he can now tell came from sleeping with his head against the back of a chair for the whole night.

Or, okay, maybe not the whole night. The sheets of thick ice that make up stained glass skylights in this room are not letting in any kind of light, just yet. The fireplace is full of the fire from earlier, smouldering in quiet embers now.

When Shang Qinghua glances behind him, he can see the dark shadow of the shape of Mobei-Jun, asleep in his own bed. He is sprawled out atop the nest of pillows and blankets, rather than huddled under them to protect from the cold. There are notably fewer blankets on his nest than there were earlier this night.

The blankets on top of Shang Qinghua smell like the air right before it starts to snow.

His King doesn't do things like this. This isn't how they interact, except for the way that it absolutely has been for the past few days. This is still more. This is consideration for Shang Qinghua's needs and, like, gentle and shit. Shang Qinghua has literally never had anyone do something like this for him, not since before his parents split, and that was when he was five fucking years old. So, you know, it's been a while.

That doesn't mean that he's not burning to death right now, under all these blankets. He shoves them off, and then it's not clear what to do about them. Should he just throw them on the ground? Put them back on the bed? Is it weirder if he folds them back up?

Mobei-Jun is sleeping over in the corner. He doesn't snore, but he's breathing in that deep, dragging way that people who are deeply asleep do.

Shang Qinghua could probably sneak out right now without waking him. It's what he would normally do in a situation like this. Not that there's been situations exactly like this before, but he's most certainly been in a room when Mobei-Jun is asleep there before. It happens, when you've been living life alongside each other for literal decades and also your relationship has to stay a secret, due to all the betraying humanity and double-agent aspects. They've spent nights in the same places before. Shang Qinghua generally handles it by making himself as quiet and invisible as possible and not doing anything to upset his king and ruin all the tentative peace.

Things have been different recently.

He could sneak out again. It's easy to do that, in this castle. He's been living here for years. He knows how to make his way back to his room without it being something Mobei-Jun gives a single thought to.

He could do that. He knows how. It wouldn't be hard.

Things have been different.

He takes some of the blankets in his hands and starts to make his way over to the bed on the side of the room. He hasn't been over to this side of the room before. Never once, no matter how long he has known Mobei-Jun. He could leave. Some would say that he should leave.

He doesn't do that. Instead, he is going to take the blankets over to Mobei-Jun's bed and put them back where they belong. He'll probably sleep through it. He's sleeping pretty deeply. If he wakes up, though, well. There's no way he could have known that would happen. No way that Shang Qinghua could have controlled that. He's just trying to be a good guest at the surprise sleep over.

Shang Qinghua gets closer to the bed. Mobei-Jun's face is smooth and expressionless in his sleep, much like it looks when he's awake, except that little line between his eyebrows is gone. He's huge, laying on his side like this, so that his shoulders are almost the same height as Shang Qinghua's shoulders, even though he's standing. His voice is always deep, and the tone of his breath is similar, huffing in and out with just the edge of a snore to it.

He's so...physically here. So present. So much more touchable and real than he ever feels. He sounds like a man. A man much larger than Shang Qinghua. Spread out on his bed, heavy with his physical presence.

Shang Qinghua licks his lips.

He should redirect this thoughts. He's acting like the old pervert that he actually is right now, creeping on his king while he is asleep. That's not good. He definitely shouldn't be doing this.

Mobei-Jun heaves in another deep breath, slowly lets it out. His long, straight dark hair is tied into a loose braid and strewn across the pillow to the other side of him. He's not wearing a shirt. The lines of his musculature are round and soft, the way that real muscles act when they're relaxed, rather than the dehydrated, porny version that Shang Qinghua would always imagine. It would be the perfect snuggling place, the way his two pecs are large enough to look like pillows. Each one is the size of Shang Qinghua's head. His thigh is thicker around than Shang Qinghua's head. Everything about him is thicker than Shang Qinghua.

He shouldn't be standing here, perving at his sleeping king.

Shang Qinghua clears his throat.

He is holding several blankets in his arms. Slowly, he reaches out and begins to tuck them in around the sleeping form of his beautiful king. He is maybe clumsier about it than he technically needs to be. There is no shift in his King's breathing or his body, and he thinks that the blatant ploy for attention hasn't worked, until the last blanket is placed. When he glances up at his king one more time, he sees the steady gaze of two ice-blue eyes, clearly trained on him.

Shang Qinghua knows he is trembling. He would like to say it's from the cold, but it's not really that cold in here right now, with the fire and the blankets and everything.

They don't do this.

They don't do things like this. They really, really don't do things like this. He's not sure where the courage for something like this is coming from, except for all the comments and letters over the past few days (Your King). It's all ringing in his head and it's making him act like he never would. It's killing his endless pragmatism and all that terrified anxiety that always keeps him right where he knows is safest. That's gone. It's all completely gone and there's nothing he can do about it.

Qinghua can know whatever he likes, regardless of reason.

Because Qinghua does not have fur.

I want to make hand-pulled noodles for you every day that you want them. If you decide you do not want noodles, then I want to know what else you like and learn to make that too.

He created Mobei-Jun to be his perfect man. From the very moment he came into existence, he's occupied a special place in Shang Qinghua's heart.

When he was living his first life, it's not like he pretended that Mobei-Jun was alive or anything. He never crossed the line that far. Instead, it's more like Mobei-Jun was a character that lived inside his head. Something that was always so nice and comforting to think about. When he was on a long train ride and his phone had died, what better thing was there to do than look out the window and imagine all the things Mobei-Jun would be saying, if he were there too? When he was alone, and it was so late that his fingers weren't working and he had to stop writing for the night, who better to imagine while he flicked mindlessly through songs? He could be another person there to share in the experience. Shang Qinghua liked to imagine what he might think of each song that played.

When he wrapped his own lonely hand around himself because he was bored and alone and horny and didn't have anything better to do, and he'd been writing endless straight smut for days on end and just needed a cleanse from all of that, what better thing to fantasize about than his dream man?

When his family remembered he existed for the first time in months, invited him to attend the graduation of one of his younger half-siblings, just so he could see what a huge party they had been capable of throwing for him but didn't. When he was in a situation like that, can anyone blame him for this? Standing there, in his too-tight and too-small suit jacket, watching as his own family members forgot that he existed, feeling the way that his hands were starting to shake in his pockets. In a situation like that, of course he knew it wasn't real, but it was still nice to imagine someone strong and powerful and beautiful and cold and intimidating standing right by his side. Driving away all the people who didn't value him enough to push past that, fully focused on Shang Qinghua.

Mobei-Jun has been a source of comfort, warmth, companionship, everything for longer than he's even been alive in this world.

When Shang Qinghua met him for the first time, he was young. So young. He didn't desire him the same way, exactly, but his soul still recognized him. Suddenly, that silent, strong, and beautiful presence over his shoulder was very much a real thing, and Shang Qinghua wasn't alone.

As he aged, as they grew closer, as he truly did begin to accompany Shang Qinghua everywhere, answer his call, stand by his side, what could Shang Qinghua do but fall utterly and inescapably in love with him? It's a trap he set for himself! Thank you, past self, for thinking only with your downstairs head and surrounding us with a completely inscrutable and incomprehensible man who will forever be so far out of our reach that we could never even hope that he might love use back! Way to go! Really looking out for the team there!

But it's fine. It was all fine. Shang Qinghua has a whole fucking lot of practice being in relationships with people who forget that he exists. Who would happily trample all over him and his silly little feelings while going after their own heart's desires. That's not new. He knows how to live off something like that alone.

It's been years. He's thankful he even got to have what he's had up until now.

I want to make hand-pulled noodles for you every day that you want them. If you decide you do not want noodles, then I want to know what else you like and learn to make that too.

It's early in the morning, so that the icy skylights are letting in only the very faintest hints of gray light.

Shang Qinghua is standing over Mobei-Jun's bed and he's awake. He's staring back at Shang Qinghua. He's not moving. It seems like he's waiting for Shang Qinghua to do something first.

And that just really isn't going to happen. Shang Qinghua isn't the sort of man who takes a leap of faith. What part of reclusive shut-in author did you not understand? He's never going to be the one to take the first step for something like this. If there even is something. Which there almost definitely isn't. It's just the early-morning light that's doing his head in and making him think about impossible things. It's a lifetime of imagining a version of Mobei-Jun that doesn't exist in reality.

His hands are shaking. Actually, there's a fine tremor running all through his body. Every part of him. He can't tell if he's panicking or turned on. Probably some terrible combination of both. Shang Qinghua has never pretended that his libido is anything healthy or sane.

Mobei-Jun is still just...waiting. Watching. The same kind of intense watching that he always does, except it's different right now, because he's in bed and Shang Qinghua is standing over him and Shang Qinghua's hands are separated from touching his ribs by a single layer of thin blanket. Something woven by a silk spider demon in the court, responsible for making sheets and blankets that slide off the skin and keep heat in.

He can feel the chill of his king's body through the blanket now. He wonders if Mobei-Jun can feel the warmth of his hands on the other side of things.

It would take just the smallest movement, just barely anything at all. It could be an accident, really, if you think about it. Shang Qinghua moves a single pinky, allowing it to shift the blanket out of the way, brush against the bared skin of his king's ribs with nothing between them to block the heat of it.

Mobei-Jun hasn't moved for all of this. They have been suspended in some kind of terrifying limbo, while he seems to merely stare piercingly at Shang Qinghua and wait for him to tell him what they're going to be doing next.

At the touch of the pad of his very smallest finger, he can't miss the harsh breath that gasps into Mobei-Jun's lungs. It is loud in the silence of the early morning. More than that, his finger is resting just against his ribs, and he can feel the physical way that they expand with the gasping inhale and slow, hissing exhale.

God. Fuck. This is not anything he knew to be prepared for today. This is not on the Overarching To Do List. This is so ridiculous. This sort of thing does not happen. They don't do things like this.

Shang Qinghua shifts his hand, allows gravity to tug the blanket down to settle alongside Mobei-Jun's body. It leaves absolutely nothing between his hand, fingers spread and palm flat against his king's ribs. He can feel the muscles stretching from his back to his abdominal muscles. Fuck, but he's a man and he's a demon and Shang Qinghua imagined the exact person that he wanted more than anything, and now he's touching him and it's dark and he's not wearing a shirt.

The first touch of his finger could have been an accident. This, clearly, is not. Shang Qinghua has no excuse for completely letting go of the blanket, and even less of an excuse for lingering in this space, rather than moving away as soon as it happened.

Mobei-Jun sits up, moving slowly like he's interacting with a spooked animal. Maybe he is. Shang Qinghua can feel the way that he is still trembling, all over, and can't help but hear his own panting and panicked breathing in the silence of the room.

The blankets that Shang Qinghua spent so long painstakingly moving shift and rustle with the movement, and then Mobei-Jun is sitting up before him, and now he's back to a height where he can look down on Shang Qinghua again, and it's exhilarating.

He's moving slowly. Predictably. There is no excuse for the shocked gasp that Shang Qinghua makes, when Mobei-Jun's enormous hand finally touches the side of his face, brushing some of the loose strands of hair behind his ear. There is no excuse for being surprised, but he still is.

His hand is so big. Shang Qinghua likes big hands. Mobei-Jun's hand could wrap around that entire side of his head. If he brought both hands into play, he could probably cover the entirety of Shang Qinghua's head. It's cold, because he's an ice demon, and Shang Qinghua made him that way. It's cold, because he's an ice demon, and he's been cold since the moment they first met, all those decades ago.

Shang Qinghua hisses out his own breath, and then leans his head into the touch on his face, allowing his cheek to fully press into the hollow of his king's palm. They freeze there, for a moment, Mobei-Jun still silent and still watching to catalogue every movement, because he is the kind of man who makes sure he understands what is happening before taking his next step. Shang Qinghua made him that way. Shang Qinghua watched him grow up and become that way.

The two versions of all of this keep overlaying themselves in his vision. The man that Shang Qinghua created to be an indulgent daydream on the nights when he was his most alone and invisible. The man that Shang Qinghua has spent the last several decades of his life working with, getting to know, understanding. Of course he knows him. Of course he knows him ten times over.

Shang Qinghua leans into the touch. Mobei-Jun is still not moving a single part of his body, except for one thumb, which is stroking a delicious line from the edge of Shang Qinghua's temple to his hairline. It's just a small thing. It's the only thing he can think about right now.

He is still not moving. Why won't he just take over and take control and then Shang Qinghua doesn't have to worry about whether he's reading any of this wrong, or whether or not it's an okay thing for him to be doing? Why can't Mobei-Jun be the kind of man who just takes what he wants without asking? Isn't that how Shang Qinghua wrote him?

It is how he wrote him. It is not the man he has watched his king become in the past few decades. What does that mean, when Shang Qinghua is the only thing that has been different in his life?

It doesn't matter. It could not matter any less right now. Shang Qinghua is waiting for him to do something else, but he's not going to, because he's waiting for Shang Qinghua to show him what is happening right now.

Dammit. Fucking damn it all to hell.

Shang Qinghua can't stop noticing that delicate touch at his temple. He doesn't even try to distract himself. Instead, he turns his head, just a little, presses a soft, dry kiss to the very edge of the hollow of Mobei-Jun's palm. That's as clear as he can allow himself to be. What else could that possibly mean, but that he is willing to do whatever it is Mobei-Jun wants from him? What else could that possibly mean? There is nothing else to see in that.

And, sure enough, he can see as the fire flares higher in Mobei-Jun's eyes. This, then, is the moment when it has all moved from coincidental to undeniable. Shang Qinghua has made the lay of the land clear enough, finally.

Mobei-Jun leans in with inexorable force. He is an iceberg moving across the land, carving new landmarks in his wake. Changing the geography irrevocably.

His lips are cold when they touch Shang Qinghua's, but the shock wave it sends through Shang Qinghua is blazing hot. This is something he hasn't had in years and years and years. In over a lifetime, really. He can't help the way his entire world is narrowing down to this one instant.

Mobei-Jun is so large. His presence is overwhelming. Just this gentle press of lips, barely moving, Shang Qinghua can feel the cold of him radiating down to his bones. This is the closest he has ever been to his king.

Mobei-Jun is keeping it light. He's keeping it courtly. Shang Qinghua has been writing porn for longer than this demon has been alive. He has been lusting after this specific demon for longer than he has been alive. He is also, potentially, completely and utterly in love with him, which is a terrifying complication to this situation that he is not willing to examine at this point in time.

Instead, there is nothing he can do to stop a frantic whimper from making its way between his lips. Cannot help the way that his hands are drawn to Mobei-Jun's long and glorious hair. It slides gently between his fingers, light tension from the hold of the braid he wears to sleep.

Shang Qinghua changes the angle, gets their lips just that littlest bit off center, so he can press in even closer than before. Mobei-Jun's hand moves to the back of his neck. One at the back of his neck and one pulling him closer by the small of his back. With the new closeness, he breathes out a cold breath that warms on Shang Qinghua's flushed face.

That's all the welcome Shang Qinghua needs. He presses closer, closer, takes advantage of the opening of his mouth to slip him the tongue, just for a second. Or, well, he was planning for it to be just a second until a low groan echos out of Mobei-Jun's chest, at which point Shang Qinghua figures that this is ridiculous and that they should stop pretending that they want this to be chaste in any kind of way.

To help with properly throwing that idea out of the window, Shang Qinghua pushes his way closer, lets that hand at the small of his back guide him, clambers up until he is properly straddling his king's lap, just as he has always kind of fantasized about doing when he's sitting so grandly on his throne.

Mobei-Jun is quick to get with the program. Good boy. Shang Qinghua trained him so well, over the years, to follow his lead and do whatever he tells him to do. Good boy. Clever past Qinghua. This is all setting him up for nothing more than perfect success.

Their teeth click against each other with the change, but it hardly matters. Shang Qinghua yelps a little, pulls away, but doesn't get far before his king is smiling softly, just a little, just if you really know where to look for it (and Qinghua does because he made him this way, because he's known him for years), and reeling him back in.

With this new position, Shang Qinghua can press his flushed and super-heated body against the cool skin of his king, since he apparently doesn't sleep with a shirt on. The combination of arousal and cold is making his nipples tighten. His whole body is tightening. He's shaking again, still, but it's a different thing now. There's something electric running through him. The tremors are just a side effect.

Mobei-Jun can read the position well enough to know that Shang Qinghua would not mind getting a little bit more intimate, apparently, because the hand on his back slides lower, to take a proprietary grip on Shang Qinghua's ass. It's making little sparking shivers run up and down his spine. The hand on his neck is still there too, but it's pulling him in even closer, so that Mobei-Jun can lick deep into Shang Qinghua's mouth, let him suck on his tongue. There is absolutely no part of this that Shang Qinghua does not want.

It's clear that Mobei-Jun feels the same. If not only from his body language, from his smile, from the way that he keeps escalating the physical contact, then from the way that Shang Qinghua cannot help but notice the shared state of arousal where their hips are helplessly close to each other.

Shang Qinghua has put more thought than most people in this world into the exact mechanics of having sex with demons. He would argue that he may actually be the person who has put the most thought into these mechanics, if it weren't for the existence of Cucumber-Bro.

That said, he knows that he gave demons monster cocks. He stands by that choice, even as he can feel the undeniable proof of it pressing into his hips and lower stomach. He also knows that he put extensive thought into how someone much smaller might be able to take on such a thing. Although, that was primarily in a heterosexual kind of configuration.

There's still a lot to be adjusting to here. They are so close, and he knows better than most other humans what to expect below the pants, but it's one thing to write about it and another thing to jerk off to the fantasy of it and something completely different to be here in the moment.

They're so close to each other. They're so close. Shang Qinghua wants to babble himself to death, just because he's feeling so much all at once, but there's no way for him to do that and keep kissing his king, and there's only one of those options he's been wanting to do for years and years.

Mobei-Jun probably doesn't need to talk. He's a quiet man. He does keep making these faint noises, though, something growling and possessive and satisfied. They're shaking down to the very bottom of Shang Qinghua's bones, curling in his stomach and making him helplessly grind his hips forward.

That makes Mobei-Jun let out the same kind of noise, a little louder, a little more aggressive, and all that old fear that sometimes flares up when he has this vibe has magically transmuted itself into raging libido, and Shang Qinghua can't help but throw his head back a little.

Mobei-Jun wastes no time at all, clawing Shang Qinghua's body even closer to himself, moving his mouth down to nip against the bottom of Shang Qinghua's chin, making its way down his neck. There are cool, sucking bruises being kissed into a ring around his neck, and there is nothing that Shang Qinghua can do but lean into the pressure of hands, of body, and let himself revel in the feeling of it.

"My King," he gasps, and he can't stop thinking about that letter from yesterday. Your King. His king. It's coloring the way that he says the words. He can't help it. There's no way to hide it, and maybe he doesn't have to, with the way that Mobei-Jun is holding him even closer now. Maybe there's nothing he needs to hide about how he feels anymore, and isn't that a fucking thought. "Yes, good boy, you're so good. You're doing so good. I can't believe you're here right now. I can't believe this is happening."

He can't shut up. Mobei-Jun doesn't seem to mind. He wouldn't be the kind to mind. Shang Qinghua designed him to be the kind of person who listens when he talks, who cares about him. He invented him to be the perfect man, and then they spent decades building up a trusting and knowing relationship between them. Mobei-Jun really does listen, and he's doing that right now. He's kissing his way down to the edge of Shang Qinghua's fluffy and thick outer robes, and there's nothing that could keep Shang Qinghua from babbling away right now, and there's no reason he should try, so he's spilling out praise and commentary and compliments.

"My King, you're so good. You're doing so good." Mobei-Jun hits the edge of the robes, tugs a little bit in that entitled way he has, where he's communicating his desires without bothering to ask the other person a question. It should be presumptuous and offensive. Shang Qinghua used to see it that way, but that's really just the only way that he knows how to ask for things, after a lifetime where it was never safe to openly put himself in a vulnerable enough space to ask a question.

"Yes, yes, of course." Shang Qinghua will answer the question anyway. He frees one of his hands from the grip in his king's hair and uses it to tug the folds of his robes open further. Loosen the ties. Let them drip a little bit off of his shoulders.

There's something powerful about the way that Mobei-Jun's eyes fly directly to the newly-exposed skin of his shoulders. Shang Qinghua knows that it's just pale and freckled, nothing to write home about, but Mobei-Jun is staring like a feast has been laid before him.

They are so wrapped up in each other. Time doesn't exist like this. They might have been kissing for hours, except the sun still isn't up, so it can't have been that long. At some point, they ended up where Mobei-Jun scooted up the bed, Shang Qinghua isn't quite sure when that happened. It means, though, that he's leaned back a little bit, indolently, like the lazy king that he is, with his weight slouched against the headboard and both hands full of his closest advisor. Shang Qinghua, for his part, is sort of draped over top of him, if he's being honest about things. It helps to make up for the height difference, plus the coolness of his body is the only thing keeping Shang Qinghua from spontaneously combusting.

They kiss like that. Mobei-Jun makes his way back up from his shoulder and Shang Qinghua can't help but shove his tongue back in his mouth.

They might have gotten stuck like that, if the cold air hadn't started to conspire against Shang Qinghua. Now that his robes are falling down, and he's moved away from the fire, and he's pressed against an ice demon, the cold is moving away from sexy temperature-play and much closer to freezing his balls off. There's a fine line. When his testicles try to crawl back up in his body, it's a barrier to the rest of this.

He's been shivering this whole time, because he's pretty much always shaking. Just a byproduct of being himself. It shifts a little bit, though, a combination of cold and panic now. The change is subtle, just the smallest little thing, but Shang Qinghua has only just noticed when Mobei-Jun seems to adjust. They've been enjoying this sort of draped-over-his-king position for a bit, but now Mobei-Jun takes one solid handful of Shang Qinghua's ass, wraps an arm tight across his shoulders, and then they're flipped.

It's a new position, Shang Qinghua flopped back with his head against the pillows and his king huge and pressing down onto him. In the hustle of all that shifting, Shang Qinghua is pretty sure he let out a high-pitched yelp. He's never been manhandled quite like that before. It's no secret that it's the kind of thing that he enjoys. He worries, sometimes, that it's annoying, the way that his voice goes high-pitched and whining at the drop of a hat. Something about the way his king's grip tightens immediately to a bruising degree makes him think that he might not have to concern himself with such things.

They have to pause, enjoy the liberties granted by this new position. Or, well, not quite. Before they can do anything like that, there are more immediate concerns that Mobei-Jun seems focused on addressing. His king is looking around and trying to drag the blankets closer, to surround his smaller, human advisor. Said advisor has the better idea to wrap his legs around his king's waist, cling like a limpet, and roll his hips up into the delicious pressure and coolness of him.

"Stop," Mobei-Jun growls, and it's one of the first things he's said since this all started. His voice is so low, raked through the gravel. Fuck, but Shang Qinghua really did a good job when he created this one. No regrets here. Just to be a little bit more of a shit, he rolls his hips again and locks his arms behind his king's neck.

"What do you mean, My King?" Shang Qinghua is an immortal cultivator. He should be more than able to maintain a simple grip like this. Mobei-Jun is stronger though, and he isn't really fighting that hard, so it's almost effortless for him to reach behind his neck, unhook Shang Qinghua's arms, gather them above his head and pin both wrists in one enormous hand. "Ha, is this not what you wanted?" He's wiggling his hips, and he can feel the tension, see the tension, in every one of his king's muscles as he tries to stay focused despite it. It's so fucking good. Fuck, but why haven't they been doing this for decades? Why did they wait so long for something like this?

"Hold still," Mobei-Jun snaps, and he's reaching behind himself to try and wrangle Shang Qinghua's legs.

"Make me, My King," Shang Qinghua teases back, because he's never known how to quit while he's ahead, and he has consumed far too much porn in his life, and he's dizzy with the glare that he gets in response. It doesn't take long for Mobei-Jun to fully pin him. As soon as both his legs and arms are held still, Shang Qinghua can feel a peaceful hum through all of his body. It's easy to lay there, limp, knowing he's staring up at Mobei-Jun with relentless heart eyes. How can he do anything else? At the sight of him, his king merely scoffs, and then continues to hold his arms in place while he gathers the blankets closer. It's going to be a little bit counterproductive to cover him up, but his king makes a sort of nest all around him, bolstering the edges of Shang Qinghua's body with the thickest furs and blankets, so that the rest of him is kept warm even while he's still exposed to the chill of his perfect ice demon.

It's brilliant. It feels like sitting in a car with heated seats while blasting air conditioning at full blast. There's something about it. Pinned and warming up and taken care of by his king. Shang Qinghua feels so held.

There's an easy peace winding its way through his muscles. He could live in this moment for the rest of his life. What a way to go. What a life to live.

When Mobei-Jun finally swoops back in, mouth open, claiming his mouth again, there is nothing standing in the way of Shang Qinghua's eager welcome.

*~*~*

He keeps looking at Mobei-Jun.

Qinghua's eyes are wide and a little bit glassy, and ever since this started they haven't stopped staring right into Mobei-Jun.

That's not how this usually goes. Mobei-Jun is the one who stares like a fly caught in honey, unable to do anything, say anything, but unable to stop watching. Qinghua is the one who flits from task to task to task, always off on some new check list to make sure that Mobei-Jun's kingdom stays standing and his power remains unchallenged. Obtaining his focus for a full minute is a gift granted maybe once in a week. This kind of laser-focus, without any distractions, is completely new.

It's drugging. It should simply be gratifying, and it is that. It most certainly is appreciated: Mobei-Jun finally feels as though he is desirable and appreciated by the man he has loved for more of his life than he hasn't.

More than that, though, this bright-eyed, teasing focus that Qinghua is bringing. The way that he is relaxing back into the bed that Mobei-Jun made comfortable for him, it is settling onto his shoulders with the weight of responsibility. Like the day that he was coronated, and felt the crush of a kingdom resting on him.

Qinghua never relaxes. He is never still, never calm, never present in the current moment. The idea that this is what it takes, that Mobei-Jun has the ability to change that, he is responsible for it now. He will take this on with more honor than even that of his kingdom. He will worship at the feet of this responsibility. There are no words, for the way that it is coursing through him now.

He kisses Qinghua, kisses him, kisses him. He is learning how to pleasure someone right now. Mobei-Jun never bothered with things like this before. He didn't have a name. He didn't have any power. He was never safe enough to trust another person to have them this close. It was never worth the risk of it all.

And then, when he was finally in a position where that was not the case, it was only thanks to the actions of this small, precious human before him. By then, his heart had already pinned itself to the man before him, and there didn't seem to be much of a point learning how to pleasure someone generally when he had such specific interests.

Qinghua likes it when he presses down. He had been holding himself back at first, careful with the larger size of himself, but when he lost a little focus, leaned in too far, there was no denying the gasp that tore from his human's lips. Even less denying the praise and commentary that flowed from his mouth like sugar.

Mobei-Jun doesn't want him to stop talking. He wants to listen to this voice for the rest of his life. It's not even a particular barrier to anything they're doing. If he's talking right now, why would Mobei-Jun ever do something to make that stop? He kisses his way back down his neck instead, allowing Qinghua to ramble about whatever might catch his fancy.

"Come on, you went through all that trouble. Got me all comfortable. My King, My King, come on. You know what you want. I can't move. You've got me all pinned and trapped now. Come on, keep going, I know you want more than this. I know you. Come on, take it."

It should be lovely. It is, it is, it's everything that Mobei-Jun has wanted from the moment he realized he could want such things.

He has thought, before this, that he was doing the right thing. He has thought they were in the same place of understanding, only to later discover that Qinghua had been hurt, scared, thinking of running away. Tianlang-Jun knows nothing at all, except he was right to say that Qinghua is a man of words.

Mobei-Jun is not. He hates all the effort it takes to speak, only to end up with an unsatisfactory result. He can never manage to take all the vast, animal urges and feelings that course through him and pare them down into such small little syllables.

He will speak, for Qinghua. He will learn how to do this, if it means that he gets to keep him. If it means that he can stay Qinghua's king and never lose him again.

He pulls back just a little, lets the space between them grow, uses the last of his self-control to overcome the siren song of Qinghua's grumpy little noises and grabby hands.

"You are willing." He drags the words out of his chest. They aren't enough to clarify what he's asking. It's so few small words for the riot of thoughts and feelings inside. He has to trust that Qinghua will be able to hear what he is trying to say with all of this. That his man of words will understand where his own abilities fail.

"Yeah, that's right, you're doing such a good job. You're-, wait, huh?" Qinghua has been clinging to Mobei-Jun like a second skin, wiggling and arching to get closer than he already was. It clearly takes a moment for the haze of pleasure to clear from his eyes enough that he can process that Mobei-Jun is trying to have a conversation. "Are you asking if I'm, like, into this?" His voice is disbelieving. There may be some space between them, but Qinghua hooks his heel around the back of Mobei-Jun's legs, rolls his hips up against where they are both straining against their pants. "What part of this makes you think for even a second that I might be phoning it in?"

The words are confusing, but Mobei-Jun learned long ago that, while more than half of the words Qinghua chooses are absolute nonsense, the tone is generally a good guide to what he's trying to say. Mobei-Jun has never been very good at reading tone. He has put extensive effort toward developing this skill.

"There have been times, before, when this king thought he understood Qinghua's intentions." This is all that he can manage to say. Qinghua deserves more. This is more of an admission of fault than Mobei-Jun has given to a single other person in his entire life.

Qinghua is below him on the bed, nestled among the best of his comfortable things, his brown hair sprawled across the pillow and fully free of the bun. There is a pause after Mobei-Jun says his piece, as Qinghua clearly works to parse through what it could possibly mean. Words, words, words. They're such dreadful things. And then, maybe not, because he can watch as the understanding softens over Qinghua, melting him like ice in the summer sun. There's this tiny, cautious little smile that spreads across his face and it's the most beautiful thing that Mobei-Jun has ever seen. Qinghua tugs one of his hands from where it is still pinned above his head. Mobei-Jun lets it go easily. He had forgotten he was still holding on.

"My King," Qinghua murmurs, brushing along the edge of his cheekbone with just the very tips of his fingers. "My favorite. This one is willing." He seems to laugh at some private joke, and Mobei-Jun already knows that the next words from his mouth will not make any sense. "This is all very safe, sane, and consensual of us. I never thought it would be like this."

Those words are shaking through Mobei-Jun, and how could he resist, now that he knows for sure, gathering Qinghua's hands back up and licking a long stripe up the burning hot skin on his neck?

"Qinghua has thought of this."

He knows what he's doing, with a question like that, now that he has a proper read on what Qinghua is thinking. Sure enough, Mobei-Jun is able to set himself to systematically removing every one of Qinghua's layers and fastening his mouth around one of those pert, dusky nipples while listening to the endless ramblings of the only person he has ever been able to trust.

"Thought of this? Of course I've thought about this. My King, what else did you think was happening, when you were walking around this palace with your tits fully out? Lounging around on that throne of yours, ha, that throne of yours like you're just waiting for someone to come along and pleasure you?" He lets out a yelping laugh then, because Mobei-Jun can't listen to something like this without bringing teeth into the equation. "My King, ha, you animal. What do you think you're doing down there? Are you trying to turn me into a chew toy?"

He nibbles a little harder, because it's what Qinghua deserves, and it's what he deserves too, after waiting this long for something this good.

"And what about you, My King? Sending me letters like that. I thought I was supposed to be the one who was good with words." Mobei-Jun is kissing lower and lower down Qinghua's body. He can't help the smile that he is pressing here as well, because there is no other way to respond to such ridiculous comments, and because he knows that Qinghua is going to ask for a response anyway, and how else is he supposed to contain this much knowledge of another person? "You called yourself My King, do you know that? Do you, ha, do you remember that?" Qinghua keeps rolling his hips up into the grip he's got around Mobei-Jun's legs. With the size difference, the way that he's been moving down his body, it's pressing his erection into Mobei-Jun's chest rather than his own hips. It's fairly obvious that this is not an accident.

"I remember."

"You're laughing at me. I know you're laughing at me. No, don't stop that. I'll just talk and you keep that up." Mobei-Jun continues back up Qinghua's body, leaving cold hickies around his neck and reaching down with his one free hands to finally palm against the erection that Qinghua seems so intent to focus on. "Haaaaa, yeah, like that, My King. I almost lost my mind, you know, when I saw that. You can't just call yourself my king and not expect me to lose my mind a little bit. Did you do that on, ha, on purpose? You have to tell me if you did it on purpose."

Mobei-Jun has a loose grip around Qinghua's cock, not enough to provide any real satisfaction, especially not while he's still wearing his loose pants, but that isn't stopping Qinghua from thrusting into the loose circle anyway. There is a red flush high on his cheeks, and he keeps squirming against the nest of blankets, and he is so dear that he could live inside of Mobei-Jun's heart for the rest of his life.

"It was on purpose," Mobei-Jun confirms, and the noise that Qinghua makes at that is nothing short of filthy. He sort of lunges, pressing back against the grip on his wrists for leverage, and smashes his face into Mobei-Jun's, mouth open. The kiss is an immediate transition from the luxurious, sucking ones earlier. This is flame-hot and desperate.

Mobei-Jun is happy to oblige. He lets Qinghua take the lead, because he always does when Qinghua asks for it. When the small, hot tongue plunges deep, Mobei-Jun can't keep himself from sucking against it desperately, keeping it there. He leans in closer, so that it's less of a reach for Qinghua and he can get a little more leverage with his head, shoulders back against the bed beneath him.

"My King," he breaks the kiss to gasp, and he's saying it that way he does sometimes, an endearment rather than a title, as if he doesn't know how much it destroys Mobei-Jun every time he hears it. "My King, more, I need more. You can, ha, come on. I know you can do it." He's shifting and writhing more and more against the grip, thrusting into Mobei-Jun's hand. It should maybe look foolish, the way that he is so focused on chasing his pleasure. Something about the unselfconsciousness of it, though, is ripping right through to the core of Mobei-Jun.

This is Qinghua. Mobei-Jun has known him and loved him for decades. He has never seen him appear to be comfortable and happy in his own skin. Rather, it is simply a matter of noticing the different degrees of panic and finding the ways to lower it. To see Qinghua like this, flushed and happy and comfortable, focused on nothing but increasing his own pleasure. Mobei-Jun would burn civilizations to see this happen. It's a miracle, that this is all that it take, just his own touch, his own attention.

That same, heavy settling of responsibility on his shoulders.

How can he do anything other than exactly what Qinghua has asked?

He breaks away from the kiss to allow himself to gain some level of focus, pulling frantically at the ties around Qinghua's waist and tugging the loose trousers he wears under his robes free. Finally, finally, finally he is fully unclothed in this bed. He's flushed pink and soft and human and so incredibly small and eager. Mobei-Jun wants to lay on top of him and hide him from the entire world for the rest of their lives.

Instead, he palms at Qinghua's erection again, rough with friction, and returns to kissing him.

Qinghua permits it, frantic and hot, for just a minute before he starts to wiggle more determinedly and begins to pull back.

"No fair, no fair, My King, you can't do this to me. Ha, you, ah, My King, you can't deprive this lowly one now. After all the hard work I put in, all the fantasies. Pleaaaahhh, please, My King, it's not fair." It takes a moment for Mobei-Jun to work out what the point of this rambling is, because his brain completely whited out at the pleading tone he just heard from Qinghua's mouth. He has to work to pull his thoughts together long enough to realize that Qinghua is waiting for him to remove his own clothes as well.

It is a privilege to be desired this way. He does not take the time to make a show or a tease of it. Mobei-Jun stands from the bed, ignores the pleading whine at his withdrawal, and strips the loose-fitting sleep pants from his body. When he makes his way over to the bed, Qinghua licks his lips and reaches for him, squeezing at the air like he is already touching him.

"Come here, come here, come here holy shit yes. You're perfect, literally perfect. My favorite, come here." And how can he do anything but follow, when that is his reception? Mobei-Jun lays himself back atop Qinghua, and the press of skin without anything between them is intoxicating.

They rut like that for just a moment. Mobei-Jun wonders if the temperature difference feels as stark and exhilarating to Qinghua as it does to him. Whether or not it's the case, Qinghua's body is certainly receptive. Mobei-Jun can feel the drag of his erection against his own, between their bodies, electric and too-dry and still so staggeringly good. How is he supposed to do anything else but this ever again? He's the king of the Northern Desert and, together, he and Qinghua pretty much run the Demon Realm. How tragic, that everything else will have to fall to disrepair and anarchy, because he is not going to allow either of them to ever stop doing this.

"My King, My King, My King," Qinghua is chanting. His voice is high and whimpering, like someone is squeezing the words out of him with every movement of their bodies.

And suddenly, the lazy heat of this moment flares into a roaring fire. Mobei-Jun needs to be inside of him, and that needs to have happened yesterday. There is no more desire for lazy touching. He is ravenous.

Counterintuitively, Mobei-Jun pulls away at this shift. The whine that spills from Qinghua's lips is almost enough to bring him back, but there is a goal that means more than that.

He has envisioned this many a time. For most of his life, when he thought of sex, it was in vague images and impressions of pleasure. Only in the past few years has he learned more about the specific mechanics of sex between two men.

This was not unwelcome, but it was also not intentional. Rather, several months after the weeks-long celebration of the marriage between the Junshang and his empress, Luo Binghe had come to Mobei-Jun with a list of destinations he wished to be teleported to and extremely limited patience.

Apparently, it is complicated to have sex in a way that is pleasurable to the receiver, rather than painful, particularly when the receiver is a human and their partner is a demon. This is not something that Mobei-Jun wanted to know about his boss, but it is also the sort of thing that is inevitable, when he is the one in his retinue able to transport over vast distances in the blink of an eye. When Junshang had wanted to quickly travel to find experts and information on the appropriate way to make sex more pleasurable, Mobei-Jun had been the one accompanying him.

If he was already going to be there, and already holding these fantasies in his head of what it might be like to one day take his closest advisor, then it would have been foolish for Mobei-Jun to do anything but listen.

This is all a very long way of saying: Mobei-Jun has recently come into possession of a fragrant unguent, meant to ease the way. In this pause in their activities, he goes to the dresser further in his room and retrieves it.

"Oh shit, is that what I think it is? Yes, well done, My King. Come back here. Good thinking. Good job. Good boy." Qinghua is doing that same thing as before, reaching his hands out in front of him and opening and closing them in the air. He is still sprawled on the bed where Mobei-Jun left him. His small body, flushed and nestled in a nest of the finest fabrics. His legs are open, the knees spread wide so that Mobei-Jun might fit himself right back between them and be sure of his welcome. At the crux of him, his flushed member stands red and glistening.

Mobei-Jun has waited for decades to have this moment. He is unable to wait any longer.

The noise Qinghua makes as his king returns, licks deep into his mouth, wraps a slicked hand around both their cocks, is nothing short of rapturous. That's good. That means he's feeling at least one tenth as much as Mobei-Jun is right now.

He's slicked the way, made it easier for Qinghua to thrust up against his King's stomach, but that's not enough anymore. There is so much more that he is craving.

While still kissing him, this beautiful, small man, Mobei-Jun holds one hand to his cheek and allows the other to move lower. His hand is slick with the oil he gathered earlier. It is likely still chilled from being against his own skin. There is no helping that. When he first touches the soft, silky skin at his inner thighs, Qinghua jumps in his hold, yelps into his mouth.

Mobei-Jun cannot help but smile at that, swallow the sound down. How is he meant to do anything other than build a home in the feeling they are creating together? How could he ever hope to leave?

"Ah, My King, yes. Yes yes yes." Qinghua gasps the words into the connection between their mouths. He shimmies his hips to press into the touch, making his fingers slip even closer to the crux of him. It's everything Mobei-Jun ever thought it would be. There are parts of this he never would have even dared to dream about. It's good. It's so good that it's blasting through him, leaving him scorched and remade. There are no words for this.

His fingers are slick and Qinghua's body is warm and wanting. In the end, it is nothing at all to slide one of his long fingers along the rim of him and then inside. He was mocked, as a child, for his long thin hands. Artist hands. Not those of a warrior. But here, he cannot help but think that thicker, rougher fingers might not feel the same way. He is thankful, now, for every part of him that is allowing him to please Qinghua in this way. It is as if he were made for this. This, specifically, is the point of him. Of his life.

He is shattering in half. Magma is bubbling up from the core of him and filling the wreckage left behind. He is being reforged into something new and unrecognizable. There are no words for this feeling. He would simply feel, revel in it in silence.

Qinghua is a man of words. As Mobei-Jun presses another finger inside of him, alongside the first, he throws his head back and gasps toward the head of the bed. There are no words for this, but Qinghua is a man of words, and so he will try. He will try.

"You are beautiful." That, after all, now that he has said it, was not that hard to say at all. That is true. Even so, the effect of the words is immediate. Qinghua's eyes blow wide. His head rears back and he searches to catch his king's eye. Mobei-Jun allows himself to be caught. In that moment, spun between them like filigreed ice, he watches as a splotchy flush crawls its way up from his chest. "You are so beautiful," he says, again. It is more true every second.

"My King." He's gasping with it, and his voice has gone so soft, so tentative, so worshipful. There is something here. Something terrifying and deeper than Mobei-Jun had ever thought they would be able to have. Deeper than Mobei-Jun had ever thought he might deserve. "My King, please, you can't say things like that unless you mean it." He wiggles his hips again, thrusts down onto the two fingers deep within him even as he struggles with the words. "You have to, ah, you have to be careful when you say things like that to me or I don't know what I'll do."

It's a warning. He is afraid too. Afraid of the feeling that is swelling up between them right now.

Mobei-Jun does not listen.

He widens his two fingers from where they are held in the clutch of Qinghua's body, dragging them against the inner walls of him and crooking them. He is not trying to accomplish anything in particular. More, he is simply trying to make his presence here undeniable and overwhelming. Prove to Qinghua that he means what he is saying.

At one solid drag of his fingers, he feels as he brushes past something of a slightly different texture. This is particularly notable, because as soon as that happens, Qinghua lets out a shocked yelp-shout and jumps in Mobei-Jun's hold, almost fully escaping his touch.

They stare at each other in surprised silence for a moment, and then Mobei-Jun has one hand on the jut of his hip bone. He drags Qinghua's smaller frame down the bed, back onto his fingers, and thrusts them back inside, aiming for that place. It takes a moment to find, but soon enough he's got him again.

Qinghua seems to be overwhelmed with it. That hectic flush is growing deeper, darker, and it seems as though the rest of his blood has flooded to his neglected cock, which thrusts damp and proud up toward his stomach, bobs in the air with their movements. The feelings seem to have him caught in some kind of disoriented pleasure, and he keeps rolling his head back and forth on the pillow and mouthing at the fabric of the pillowcase. It's intoxicating. Mobei-Jun would shove his fingers in that mouth, since it seems so desperate for something to fill it, if both of his hands weren't busy here.

"Yes, God, fuck. My King, My King, my favorite. You're so good. You're doing so good. I'm going to die right here. You're going to kill me if you keep doing that. My King, My King, My King."

It is impossible to make Qinghua be quiet. Mobei-Jun has never particularly wanted him to be, either. Even less so in this moment. He is pushing further and further. There are three fingers buried deep and spreading within Qinghua, and he keeps whining just on the edge of his gasps for breath. Mobei-Jun can feel something terrible and wonderful welling up within him, pushing against his lungs.

And then he's got four fingers deep in Qinghua, spreading them on the pull out, and he's not grimacing in discomfort at all. He's pressing back against it, and that is all that Mobei-Jun's self-control can take. He pulls his hand out, releases his vice grip on Qinghua's hip. Qinghua makes some kind of confused, bereft noise at that and it's more than any person could be expected to resist. Mobei-Jun lunges his way up his body, a predator with prey sprawled out in front of him, defenses down. He slams their mouths together, graceless and teeth-clacking and hungry, so hungry, so desperate for every part of this. Qinghua's hands, which have been grasping uselessly at the sheets beneath him, jump to his hair and dig in deep. His small legs wrap around Mobei-Jun's waist and his hips keep thrusting, thrusting, thrusting while they kiss, like he's trying to draw Mobei-Jun into him by feel alone.

He wants to pull back, slam home, take him as ferally as he feels. He almost does.

Mobei-Jun is a man of actions. Qinghua is a man of words. He has thought they understood each other before. He is trying to be better.

"Qinghua," he has to pause, press his face against the side of Qinghua's and breathe deep to catch his breath. Get some kind of control back over himself. This is all so much more than he ever imagined it would be. Qinghua is not helpful in his quest to gather the faintest hint of his composure, nuzzling and searching for his king's mouth so they can go on kissing. Mobei-Jun indulges him twice more before he is able to pull any kind of thought together. "Qinghua, wait."

"My King," he gasps, and it's a new way of saying it, something he has never heard before. There is sometimes fondness in those words, but it is nothing compared to the way that he is saying it now. As if it were something holy. As if it were a secret, just between the two of them. As if they have known each other for decades and loved each other the entire time. "What, what, My King. Please. Come on. Comeoncomeoncomeon-"

Mobei-Jun kisses him again, briefly, because if he keeps talking like that then he is going to have to start this all over again. He pulls away before the intoxicating drag of it can pull him back under.

"Qinghua, you are willing." He can't keep kissing him while he talks, but he noses his way between the soft brown strands of hair that hang sweaty around this beloved face. "You are willing to continue further."

It's too little. It's always too little, to capture everything that he is feeling inside. To illustrate the abstract and overwhelming shape his thoughts take. He needs to know the answer to every question welling up inside of him and he doesn't have the words to ask a single one of them.

Qinghua, Qinghua, Qinghua, the man who knows him better than anyone else in the Three Realms. Qinghua, who would never let him get away with saying something like that without a little bit of gentle teasing. He can feel, under the bulk of his own weight, as Qinghua stills, all motion stopping as that brilliant mind of his puzzles through what his king has just said, pulling out every piece of meaning hidden in those few words.

"Ha." He's still got his legs wrapped around Mobei-Jun's waist, and his hips seem to be moving in occasional, helpless little jerks to chase some kind of stimulation against his neglected cock. "My King, My King." He pulls a hand through the long strands of Mobei-Jun's hair, all fallen loose from any semblance of a braid, pulling him until he is no longer able to hide his face and must face his closest advisor head-on. "This really isn't how I thought you would do this. What happened to that brute who used to beat me up every day, huh?" Mobei-Jun can feel himself closing off a little, maybe pouting a little bit. Who could say? Either way, Qinghua makes a chastising, coaxing little noise and holds his king's face between his hands.

"No, no, no. Don't go hiding now. My King, what would give you the idea that I am anything other than completely into this?" He rolls his hips again at that, this time very obviously intentionally.

"I am making sure."

"You're good." Qinghua pulls his face down, smacks a kiss to his forehead, and Mobei-Jun can't stop himself from blinking in shock. This is not at all what he imagined. This is all so new. "Good job getting consent. Yes, yes, we all love to see it. Such an unproblematic fave." It is important, when you love Qinghua, to understand that you will only understand approximately half of the words that leave his mouth. If they are important to understand, he will repeat them or write them down. Mobei-Jun listens closely anyway. "Now, My King." Here, his gaze turns serious, in that cheeky way that he shows so rarely. Qinghua pulls his face down until he is able to speak directly into Mobei-Jun's ear. "Are you going to fuck me, or do I have to do it myself?"

And that, really, is all that Mobei-Jun can take. That fire that had been dimming slightly, warming instead of burning over the course of this conversation, flares so high that he can feel it in his throat.

He raises himself back up to his hands and knees, crouching over Qinghua's disheveled form. He shifts down, grabs a handful of Qinghua's ass on each side, lines himself up. They may have paused, but he is still stretched and eager and waiting. It is nothing at all, in the end, to haul him down and thrust into that tight heat.

At their coupling, finally, Qinghua releases a high and wandering moan that breaks in two places. Mobei-Jun feels animal with it, grunting and doing everything he can to hold himself back from immediately losing his mind.

"Yes, yes, yes," Qinghua chants, and he wraps his legs around Mobei-Jun's waist again, like they live there now. Mobei-Jun is doing what he can to override the possessive voice in his head that is telling him that he should never allow Qinghua to leave again. He's strong enough. He could carry him around like this all the time. Let him live like this. Mobei-Jun could feed him cold grapes and refreshing drinks and they could never be separated again. "Come on, My King, please."

A sharp kick from a small foot at the small of his back is what brings Mobei-Jun back to be fully present in this moment in time. He was trying to be gentle, take his time, as he learned on those trips with Junshang, but Qinghua does not seem to be interested in such things.

He pulls out, thrusts back in solidly, testing. Qinghua scrambles up the bed, clenches tight on him, wraps his arms around his shoulders. That is a positive response, and the welcoming clutch of him is staggering. There is nothing that could have stopped the next several judders of his hips, thrusting into that tight heat.

And Qinghua, Qinghua, Qinghua. He's so beautiful. He's flushed and sweating and scratching at Mobei-Jun's back. He's so beautiful. Why did it take them this long to get here? Mobei-Jun thrusts in as hard as he wants to, hears the filthy sound of their bodies slapping together. Qinghua yelps and holds on tighter and it's good.

It's all so good.

The sun is still not even up, but the sky above them has gone dove grey, just enough to catch in his wet brown eyes, and Mobei-Jun cannot look away. He uses one hand to grab at Qinghua's shoulder, haul him down when he thrusts up, and Qinghua shouts his approval for everyone in the palace to hear. Good. Let them try to comment on this. Let them try to take Qinghua from him ever again. He will murder them all for even looking.

The scrape of Qinghua's soft little nails down his back are still drawing blood, and the scent of it, along with the sweat and oil and sex of it all is coiling through the air. There is something tight and hot building in Mobei-Jun's lower dantian. He can feel his balls pulling in closer to his body and he cannot let that happen yet, not when this moment is still so lovely and so perfect and Qinghua has not come yet.

He refocuses on his companion, pulls himself out of his own pleasure. Qinghua is gasping in overwhelmed pleasure, clinging so tightly to his shoulders. Mobei-Jun moves his arm from his shoulder to help brace himself, so that his other arm is free to move down to his cock. Qinghua's cock is smaller than his own, able to fit within his hand and barely emerge through the tunnel he has made with his hand. It allows him to get a proper grip, stimulate the entire thing in one motion.

At this touch, combined with the relentless pace Mobei-Jun has set with his hips, Qinghua releases a hiccuping little sob. Looking closer, there are tears limning his eyes. One drips down the side of his face, and Mobei-Jun licks it up, bites the apple of his cheek while he's there.

"Don't stop, don't you dare stop, My King. This one is willing. I'm willing. Please, My King. Please."

How can he do anything but comply? Mobei-Jun can feel as Qinghua grows tighter around him. His voice is raising in pitch and his grip on his shoulders has grown ever tighter. His head starts to shift restlessly from side to side again. Mobei-Jun cannot help the sudden, visceral hunger that sweeps through him. He needs to see Qinghua come. He needs to know what he looks like when pleasure overtakes him completely.

He continues to stroke his cock in time with his own thrusts. When that seems to be almost enough, he lets one of those long artist fingers dip down and fondle his balls, press firmly along his perineum where he can feel the heat radiating from the stretch at his hole.

And that is all it takes. Qinghua comes with a bubbling, yelping laugh. His cock spurts onto his own chest and Mobei-Jun rubs him through it, still thrusting into him even as the pressure around his own dick flutters and clenches.

The laughing moan turns into something of a whimper, and Mobei-Jun forces himself to slow, even though it's going to kill him. The sight of Qinghua like this, ruined and satiated and calm for the first time ever, it's scratching an itch deep within him. That sense of responsibility satisfied. He did this. Qinghua works so hard to take such good care of him, and now Mobei-Jun has managed to return the favor in some sort of way.

His own erection is aching, still locked deep within Qinghua, but it seems like it's causing him some kind of discomfort, and there are other ways to achieve his own pleasure. He starts to pull away, only for Qinghua to muster some level of awareness and lock his ankles closed at the small of his back.

"Nope nope nope, My King, don't you dare. I haven't waited this long for you to fuck me for you to not finish inside me. If you don't come like this, I'll never be satisfied. Come on, come on, you did, ha, you did such a good job, ah, taking care of me. Come on, My King, keep going."

With such an encouraging litany, Mobei-Jun can do nothing but obey. At each deep thrust, Qinghua makes a whimpering gasp, but his body remains welcoming. He keeps holding on tight.

It takes nothing at all for Mobei-Jun to return to that same place. Not with Qinghua below him, flushed and ravished and covered in his own spend. Not with such things being said in such a breathy, desperate voice. Not when this is everything he has wanted for decades.

He can feel that pleasure building in his lower dantian again, the tightening in his own balls, and he does nothing to try and divert his attention now. He knows he is grunting like some kind of animal, but Qinghua is receptive. He is welcoming and warm and so good and Mobei-Jun can't help the pistoning of his hips now.

He's close. He's close and the reality of the moment is swelling up and crashing over his head. There is so much and he could never capture any of it in words but Qinghua is a man of words and so he will try. He will try, because this is the most important thing in the entire world and he will do whatever it takes.

"So good. Qinghua is so good." He is close. He's so close. Just a few more seconds of this and he won't be able to last. "This king is yours, Qinghua. I want to be with you every day. Cook for you every day. Fuck you until you can't worry about anything else. Qinghua. I think I was made to please you."

The words strike true. He can see the way Qinghua's eyes fly wide, and that's it. That's all he can take before he finds himself wrapped around Qinghua, animal, and shaking through the waves of pleasure that shake out through his core.

He realizes, only a few moments after he is able to think again, that somewhere in the middle of all of that, he had latched on to the soft skin of Qinghua's chest, just above his heart. He can taste blood on his teeth from the force of his bite. He would worry about that, about letting the more violent and painful urges of his demonic instincts influence things again, if it weren't for the quiet way that Qinghua is murmuring in his ear and the soft, hesitant hands he can feel stroking along the hair at the nape of his neck.

He could move. He probably should move. But why would he go anywhere, when everything that has ever mattered is right here?

*~*~*

It should be more awkward than this.

Shang Qinghua keeps waiting for it to get uncomfortable. They just fucked. They've known each other for decades. They've built a kingdom together, and they've never had sex or even kissed each other until right now.

He's laying, sprawled in the comfortable and silky nest his king has made up for him on the bed in the royal bedchambers. There is an enormous demonic ice king laying on top of him.

Honestly, he's kind of being crushed by the weight of his king. He can feel the cold stick of sweat cooling in the blankets around him. The tacky itch of come drying on his own stomach. The strain in his ribs when he tries to breath past the much larger weight of his partner. The sting on his chest where Mobei-Jun's fangs had sunk deep. The ache in his own backside as he is forced to reckon with the realities of his old, wish-fulfillment tendencies to make all demon dicks inordinately large.

There is so much happening. It should be horribly uncomfortable. It should be awkward.

Instead, Qinghua lets himself snuggle in a little closer, tangle his fingers in the fine baby hairs at the base of his king's skull.

How long has it been since he touched someone else? Like, physically? He honestly can't think of the last time. Maybe Tianlang-Jun bumped into him or draped an arm across his shoulders. Maybe Mobei-Jun had grabbed his arm to redirect him or something. But, thinking of it, it's been years and years since the last time he really spent time touching another person. Snuggling? It's been ages. Probably not since he was a young child for the second time.

So, sure, maybe this is weird. Maybe this is a little bit uncomfortable. He's still going to take advantage of literally every moment of it, because Shang Qinghua has never claimed to be anything other than the worst kind of opportunist.

They rest there, in silence, for an uncountable length of time. The icy skylights above lighten and lighten until it's properly sunrise. Fuck, he can't believe this literally all happened in the early hours of the morning. He's not some college kid with endless energy and stamina. What's he supposed to say? That he was swept up in the heat and lust of the moment? He's the advisor to the king. He runs the demonic and human realms. He's pretty much 80 years old. That shouldn't be an excuse at all.

It's true, though. And, you know, #noregrets. Not when it means that he gets to have this moment.

Still. The endorphins are starting to fade a little and the discomfort isn't.

"My King, ah," he murmurs. "I don't think we can lay here all morning."

"Mmph," says his king, very persuasively, from where he is nestling his face in at the crook of Shang Qinghua's neck and shoulder. To be fair, it's a very good point.

"We have a kingdom to run. The sun is coming up." He pokes a little at one incredibly large deltoid muscle where it's within his reach. Please see this action as a functional way to get your attention and not as him acting on a fantasy he has held for literal decades. Please also see the motivation for this entire conversation as admirable dedication to his profession rather than any kind of avoidance of a longer conversation. There's a lot to do. There's always a lot to do. This is the reason for the Overarching To Do List. They are in the position that they are in because they do their jobs and they do them well (unlike a certain emperor and empress of the demon realm). There is no time to lounge around and waste the day away.

Shang Qinghua, seeing that he is going to be ignored by the enormous demon king currently crushing him, starts to wiggle his way out from under him. Mobei-Jun makes an even louder unhappy noise than before and tightens his grip. There is no way that Shang Qinghua is going to be able to escape this position until Mobei-Jun decides he is willing to allow it to happen.

The thought of that doesn't make his dick twitch. Or, if it did, then he doesn't know how he was supposed to help that. He is a simple pervert and purveyor of fine pornography! So what if the implication of a little restraint gets to him? That's not important! He is still going to escape! There is work to do! Also if he looks his king in the eyes right now he might die!

"Qinghua is sending two different messages." He can feel the smartass smile his king is hiding by pressing it into his neck. He knows exactly what expression is on his face. He's known this man since he was nothing more than an acne-ridden teenager! "There have been times, before, when this king thought he understood Qinghua's intentions. He cannot help but work to make sure that he is understanding Qinghua now."

The nerve of this man! What was Shang Qinghua thinking, making a love interest like this! He slaps ineffectually against his king's arm. Mobei-Jun starts to laugh in response, low and quiet and happier than Shang Qinghua has literally ever heard him before. Fuck. Fuck, but he's so fucking in love with this stubborn asshole. He slaps a little harder, wiggles to escape more thoroughly. Mobei-Jun just continues that low chuckle that rumbles through them and bites playfully at the neck right in front of him.

Shang Qinghua yelps in offense, slaps a little more aggressively, until Mobei-Jun has no choice but to pull away and pin his arms back down again. Defeated by the strategic mind that runs both the demon and human realms! Take that!

Ah, but this was something of a miscalculation, because now he can see his king's face again, and he's even smiling a little bit. There's a deep contentment there, more than he's ever seen before. What is he supposed to do about that? Not that he has much of a choice either way, because all of his muscles automatically go lax at the sight, and he flops back into the grip his king has put him in.

"Stay," Mobei-Jun orders, exactly like the kind of command one might exasperatedly say to a puppy who hasn't actually learned how to do this trick yet. Asking for something but clearly not expecting to be obeyed. "Qinghua is always in such a hurry to run off somewhere else." He presses in a little more firmly against his grip on Shang Qinghua's wrists, makes sure to catch his eyes in intense eye contact. "Stay."

Then his king gets up and wanders over to the ensuite attached to his bedchambers. Shang Qinghua considers getting up, just to be a little shit, but he doesn't actually want to move yet, and also he kind of liked the way that his king had ordered him around just then.

In just another minute, Mobei-Jun has returned with a damp rag, warmed with his demonic qi. That's not the natural way that his qi works. It would have taken intention and thought and focus, to make it warm rather than cold.

When he makes it back to the bed, Mobei-Jun begins to slowly wipe down Shang Qinghua's body, clearing it of some of the worst of the messiness they just created. It's so much softer than Shang Qinghua ever would have thought to expect from a hookup with his king. Also not the roles he thought either of them would take. He can't help but sit in paralyzed silence while it happens. He feels like prey in the eyes of a predator again, but in the kind of thrilling way, not the terrifying way, you know?

Maybe that's stupid.

When his stomach and chest have been wiped clean, Mobei-Jun tosses the rag to the side of the room and grabs his shoulders. Before Shang Qinghua can do something logical, like get up and start his day, Mobei-Jun has tugged the blankets up from underneath him and wrapped him up in something of a blanket burrito. After that, his king gets into the bed and hoists Shang Qinghua up into whatever position he wants. Shang Qinghua wiggles a little, just to put up a token protest, but there is nothing that can stop him from ending up snug as a bug in a rug and tucked beneath his king's chin.

"Tell me, Qinghua." He can feel the way that Mobei-Jun's low voice resonates in his chest while he speaks, from this angle. It's going to lull him back to sleep if he's not careful. "How does this king's closest advisor go about categorizing the items on his Overarching To Do List?"

"Huh?" This is not at all what he thought the sexy, post-fuck pillow talk would be. But, well, he is always able to talk about logistics. So, you know, whatever. "Um, well it's divided up by a couple different categories. There's the Immediately Pressing section, which isn't sorted out any further because it all needs to happen, like, right now. But then, after that, I've got it sorted between area of the world and realms, and then by whether I have to do it or if I have to delegate it, and then ranked in importance based on how much trouble it's going to cause us or how much it might impact relations with someone important-"

He is cut off there by a sweet kiss. It's one of the more effective methods someone has tried for shutting him up. The things you learn about yourself.

"And what might cause something to end up in the Immediately Pressing section?" his king asks, tone utterly indulgent. Shang Qinghua still has no idea what to make of this conversation but, as this is what he spends almost every minute of every day of his life thinking about, he is more than able to answer.

"I mean, it really depends, I guess? That's the sort of thing where, as soon as you try to put some kind of criteria on it, something is going to come up that doesn't fit at all, but still definitely needs to be on there, and then you have to start all over again. Which is why I can't just delegate this to anyone else, because they're never going to know what things actually need to get done right then and what things can wait, even if it doesn't sound like they can wait when whatever messenger is panicking to you about it." He knows that he's rambling, but his king asked, and he doesn't seem to be losing interest? Qinghua could talk about this forever, because this is basically what the inside of his head sounds like all the time.

"I guess, if I had to talk about general timelines, it's things that are going to be, like, realm-endingly bad if they aren't done right then. So, like, making sure we're keeping peace with the other tribes and making sure that Junshang doesn't go off and start a war because someone looked at his husband a little bit funny. After that, it's also the stuff that's going to make my life hell if it isn't handled right away. So, like, things that would make the castle wards break and stop the temperature regulation from working the way that it should. Or, sometimes, requests from certain demanding kings." He reaches out at that, to flick at the exposed skin of his king's chest, just to make sure it is crystal-clear who he is speaking about.

He has more to say, but it seems that, whatever was motivating Mobei-Jun to ask in the first place has been answered, because he leans in again to steal another kiss. This one isn't the short, sweet kiss from earlier. It also isn't the same as those heated, desperate ones from earlier. Instead, Mobei-Jun leans forward on his hands to press against Shang Qinghua's blanket-bundled form and dives between his lips in a deep and languid kiss. It is dragging and heated and intoxicating, so that, by the time that he pulls away, Shang Qinghua has fully and completely forgotten what it was he was even talking about in the first place. It takes a moment for his brain to even start to blink back online and have complete thoughts. Fucking wild. His brain literally never shuts up. He can't believe this is all that it took and it still took him this long to actually go for it.

"This King has a demand." Shang Qinghua feels the Pavlovian urge to roll his eyes and grab for a scrap of paper at those words. It is the sort of thing Mobei-Jun has been saying since the day they first met, and it usually means that he is going to have to take careful notes and rearrange his schedule for at least the rest of the day.

"Yes, My King. This servant is listening." This is kind of weird, considering the fact that they just fucked, but it's also so incredibly normal to the pattern that they've made over the past few decades that he almost doesn't notice all the weirdness. He's so mad that this is happening while he's all bundled up and can't write. He'll just have to listen closely and fucking repeat it to himself over and over until he's somewhere he can write it down. This ridiculous demon. Why was this the kind of man he dreamed up for himself?

Mobei-Jun smiles a little, like he's just played a winning move in weiqi. He pecks another brief kiss to Shang Qinghua's lips and then pulls back to hold his eye contact with great seriousness.

"This King commands Qinghua to spend at least the next several hours in bed with him." Shang Qinghua, who had been prepping his mind to pay very close attention and memorize words, is offended at the grievous trick that has just been played on him. He starts to wiggle out of his king's grip and off the bed, just to show him what happens when he decides to pull things like this.

He doesn't get more than a few cun away before Mobei-Jun drags him back with an arm around his waist, slings himself up and over, pins Shang Qinghua down with a hand on either shoulder.

"I am afraid this is a very important demand." He is clearly doing what he can to maintain a straight face, but there is a deep joy shining out from his every pore. It's going to kill Shang Qinghua, probably. "If my advisor does not follow it, I may even go start a war." He leans down, drags a kiss down Shang Qinghua's neck, cold tongue flickering along the tendon. This is all horribly unfair.

"My King, there are actual tasks that need to be completed today." He's not even just saying this to be difficult! There is an Overarching To Do List! There are two separate realms to be run! Things will fall to pieces the second he stops looking. It's happened before.

"This King has complete belief in Qinghua's backup systems." And, well, okay. There's maybe something valid there. Shang Qinghua definitely has safeguards in place. Obviously.

"Those are for emergencies only, My King. They can't be counted on for the everyday." He doesn't even know why he's arguing against this so hard. He does want to be here, in bed, with the man he created to literally be his ideal. Well, he sort of wants to be here. He's also pretty sure it's going to all blow up in his face in just a few minutes, and it might be better to just dip before it has the chance to do that. But, you know, most of him wants to stay. There are things to be done, though. He really is the one thing holding all of the human and demon realms together. If he suddenly starts slacking, there will be no one left around to pick up all the extra jobs from everyone else's laziness.

"If Qinghua does not stay with this king, who knows what he might do. It could be realm-ruining." Shang Qinghua knows that his king is joking about this (which, weird, this never happens), would never actually go start a war without Shang Qinghua's say-so, but he really doesn't have the time to sit around and joke like this. He was so relaxed, for just a second, after that incredible orgasm, but he can already feel his brain running off and making a list of everything that should be on his list for today, and what the most efficient order would be to get it all done. He's a wind-up toy, and someone is constantly winching the spring inside of him tighter and tighter. He's going to snap if he doesn't get up and start moving. He opens his mouth to begin explaining all of this to Mobei-Jun when he is once again interrupted by a gentle kiss. This time, it's not against his lips, but cold and soothing against the center of his forehead. He doesn't know if he's ever been kissed there before.

"Qinghua works too hard." The call of the bed, the call to relax and actually let everyone else do the work for once, is strong and seductive. Still.

"This lowly one wouldn't have to work so hard if everyone else would carry their own weight for once. Why don't you go take it up with Junshang, if you have such a problem with my workload," he grouches. Mobei-Jun doesn't laugh, but the fond breath that huffs across his face is something close to it.

"Qinghua would not allow anyone else to take over his tasks."

"As if you know that! No one else has even tried to help, so you've never even seen how I would respond to something like that!"

"Mm," Mobei-Jun is laughing at him. He knows he laughing at him, even if he isn't doing it out loud, and it's winding Shang Qinghua up even tighter. "Of course. This king will write his next speech for himself."

"Well, now, hold on a second." Shang Qinghua knows he's being played, knows that this is a trap he's walking into, but he really can't take the risk that his king might follow through on this joke and accidentally fuck everything up. "Don't do that. The next speech you have to give is to the Eastern Snake Clan. They aren't going to respond well to your, ah, more direct approach to things. Don't do that, My King. I'll just write that speech. Please don't get any ideas like that in your head. If you have something you want to say, maybe just come let me know and I'll see if I can fit it in."

He finishes this ramble, and Mobei-Jun still has him pinned down and trapped within a blanket straight jacket. There is a smile hiding in the crease of his eyes, and it's smug and knowing. Shang Qinghua rolls his eyes but doesn't try to defend himself. He knows what just happened.

"Qinghua works too hard."

"Yes, yes, okay, My King. But, still, I can't just suddenly stop doing that. Everyone's counting on it, at this point. If I stopped, no one would even know how to pick up the tasks that they would need to start doing again. And then they would fuck it all up anyway."

"What is on the Overarching To Do List that needs to be done in the next few hours."

"Oh, sure," Shang Qinghua snarks, because he hates being backed into a corner like this. Hates feeling like his control and choice are being taken away from him. Hates when someone acts like they know how to do his job better than him. "Let me just pull up the several-dozen-page-long, always-changing document that I just keep memorized in my head at all time." His king gives him a Look, as if he's calling Shang Qinghua on some bullshit, which is absolutely unfounded. "I really don't have it memorized! Have you seen how long my list is, My King? Even if I tried to remember all of it, I would maybe forget something really important. I can't just pull it up like that."

"Mm," Mobei-Jun hums. He is using the tone that he employs when he is in the middle of a political negotiation that Shang Qinghua has perfectly prepared him for, when he has all the cards in his hand and already knows exactly what to say to counter every argument. It is not turning Shang Qinghua on. Especially not when he also kisses a line down the tense tendon in his neck. "Then we should go back to Qinghua's office and check."

"Fucking, okay. Fine. Let's go, My King." Mobei-Jun stands up and does not help while Shang Qinghua wrestles and scrambles to get himself out of the constricting blankets. He shoots a glare in his king's direction and receives nothing but placid calm in response.

He still has that feeling like he's walking into a trap. He knows that his king is secure in the knowledge that, whatever he's trying to prove, he is going to win. Shang Qinghua hates this feeling. He rarely ever has to feel it because, generally speaking, everyone in his daily life ignores and underestimates him, while he holds all the cards and knows more than just about anyone else. He does not enjoy the feeling that someone is looking at him, sees all that he is capable of, and is still secure in the knowledge that they are winning anyway.

There's nothing he can do about it now, though. If he suddenly changes his mind and doesn't follow through with going to look at the Overarching To Do List, then his king will have already won. So, they walk down the hall together, Mobei-Jun striding leisurely at his side while Shang Qinghua mutters and grumbles to himself, generally making things more difficult. He's already halfway to his rooms when he realizes that he's actively shivering, the few layers he hastily threw on doing nothing to offset the chill in the halls of the Northern Palace, particularly when he still has a fine layer of sweat on his skin.

He tries to just keep walking. There's nothing he can do about it now and this is something he just has to come to terms with, as a human who has chosen to build his life in the northern desert of the demon realm. He has only been thinking these thoughts for a few moments when a heavy, thick cloak whoomphs down onto his shoulders. He is immediately surrounded by the sharp smell of his king and the deep comforting warmth of fine pelts. When he glances Mobei-Jun's way, he is already staring back, watching with a steady and laughing gaze while Shang Qinghua cannot help but wiggle deeper into the thick ruff of furs in the collar.

"Shut up," he says. His king continues to not say anything at all, but grandly gestures with his hand for Shang Qinghua to go ahead of him.

They make it to Shang Qinghua's rooms without any further incident. When he stomps inside, it's to the sight of multiple piles of work already there and waiting for him. There have been several pieces of correspondence that arrived in the night, and they have been stacked on his desk where the letter pile will build up throughout the day. Several scraps of parchment are on the pile too, reports on the movements of VIPs from various members of the spy network. His Overarching To Do List looms large and ominous in the center of his desk, the first stop for all things. There is always something that needs to be done.

He strides over to the desk, pulls up the Overarching To Do List, begins reading it out loud. Maybe he reads out every single word. Maybe he's showing off (and complaining) a little about just how much he does every day and just how busy he actually is. Who can say. He'll certainly never tell. The point is: he reads off the first full page of the Overarching To Do List, putting extra emphasis on the items that are more like seven thousand items under one big task umbrella (like maintain peace in the Northern Desert, as if he hasn't already broken this down into a thousand different sub-points that are all also part of the Overarching To Do List).

Mobei-Jun watches on with the indulgent smile of someone who has been through this kind of rant before. In his defense, Shang Qinghua can admit that he has forced him to sit there and listen while he reads out every item on the Overarching To Do List before. Just so that he might have a better understanding of all the things that Shang Qinghua is forced to manage by himself every single fucking day. He didn't realize that he was actually listening every time, okay??? That's not on him! What kind of king listens to every word that his main advisor has to say? What's the point of even being the king, if that's what you're going to spend your time doing? If anything, Mobei-Jun is the strange one here, not Shang Qinghua.

He gets through all of the items on the Immediately Pressing list, as well as several items into the general list before Mobei-Jun interrupts him again. There's a smile on his face like he already knows that he is going to win this argument. Shang Qinghua wants to kill him and also fuck him until he can't make a face like that anymore. It's a complicated feeling.

"So, at the end of the list, this king cannot help but notice that none of those items will cause the end of the world if they are not completed in the next several hours."

"That's what you think!" Shang Qinghua exclaims, furious, furious about all of this. His control over everything is being slowly taken out of his hands and he hates it. "But if I don't get in touch with the representative from the Owl Clan in the next few days, then that's going to throw off my entire sixteen-step plan for building rapport and relationships with the clan. If we're going to pursue a truce with them at the next meeting we have scheduled, then we need in-roads before that ever happens, and if we wait until the autumn solstice hits then it will already be too late."

"This king is not asking his foremost advisor to wait until the autumn solstice." Mobei-Jun walks forward, prowls, really, and slides himself right up alongside where Shang Qinghua is standing. The smell of him washes over the space between them. He still smells like sweat and sex and himself. Shang Qinghua is not going to let the useless gay hamster in his brain take over at that. He is going to be stronger than that.

"This king appreciates all the things his foremost advisor does to maintain peace and prosperity in this kingdom." He reaches out, one long, thin-boned hand, made that way because that's how Shang Qinghua likes for men's hands to look, and plucks the Overarching To Do List from Shang Qinghua's hand. He is furious with himself, for how unresisting his grip is.

"This king is asking his lover to come back to bed, for a few hours more." He's so close. His body is cold, his breath is cold, and it's all bringing up goosebumps across the tops of his arms. Fuck. He needs to stay focused. He has a point here. He can't remember what it was, exactly, but he definitely has a point. Never let it be said that forgetting exactly what the plot is has ever stopped Shang Qinghua from speaking hundreds of words anyway.

"My King, this is all," he pushes at Mobei-Jun's chest a little and, thank every good fucking thing, his king moves with the pressure. His head clears up just the smallest little bit. "This is all very sexy and romantic and everything, and we are going to come back to that comment about me being your lover, but it's also true that if I stop doing all of the things that I do, things are really going to fall to pieces in the demon realm and in the human realm. So, it's nice that you want to spend the whole day languishing in bed and everything, but my whole entire job is to work my ass off so that everyone else gets to do things like that. So, you know, really appreciate it, really want to do it, but also really just can't make that happen right now. If you want to do something like this again, which, again, lover, wild to think about, then let me know and I'll try to make sure it's on the Overarching To Do List."

He realizes that he is breathing pretty hard. The trembling panic attack of it all is something that he feels pretty much every minute of every day of his life. Still, it's only the fact that it's coming back that helps him realize that, for just a second there, he wasn't feeling like this. Maybe it's just the post-nut clarity, or the afterglow, or whatever the fuck, but he was definitely feeling, like, settled and shit. Indignant and angry, sure, but usually the panic is so loud that there isn't even space for feelings like that.

Mobei-Jun is going to be pissed about literally every fucking thing he just said in the past few seconds. That's not how you're supposed to talk to your king. That's not how you're supposed to talk to your new lover. Schedule him in??? Like they're some washed-up married couple making a last ditch attempt at holding onto intimacy before they split up and never speak to each other again. Like all that they just did meant nothing more to him than any other little bullet point on a list. He's braced for something, a hit, if he's honest. Physical or emotional, it would be the same.

"Qinghua works too hard." The words are not said harshly. Shang Qinghua wasn't even really looking at his king while all of these thoughts were flying through his head, so it catches him a little off guard when he feels sudden pressure around him. Rather than touch him with his cold hands, Mobei-Jun has stepped forward and pulled his cloak, already around Shang Qinghua's shoulders, even tighter around him.

This is all completely stupid. He should be clinging to his king's thighs and crying in thanks for the opportunity, not whatever he would call this. He designed this man to be the perfect man for him and he finally got the chance to get with him after literal decades of pining and even more decades of fantasizing. He could still be in bed, snuggling with him right now. Why is he spending so much time thinking about the Overarching To Do List, as if anyone else in either life has ever taken a single moment to appreciate all that he does? So, what, he's just going to throw his gold opportunity with Mobei-Jun into the garbage as soon as he gets a chance to taste it, just so all those people who never thank him a day in his life keep not noticing all that he does for them?

Oh, look. He's crying. It's about time.

His king does not hush him or whisper quiet, comforting words. It would probably be terrifying if he even tried to. His grip, though, tightens just a little bit more, and he stands there and holds Shang Qinghua for the entire quarter shichen it takes for him to remember how to breathe properly. When he pulls away, puffy and embarassed and rubbing at the itchy dryness of his eyes, his king is staring down at him with that same terrifying fondness that makes him want to run screaming out of the room. When Shang Qinghua huffs a self-depreciating laugh and shrugs his way from the grip, Mobei-Jun lets him go easily.

He grabs a handkerchief from over by his desk, blows his nose, somehow finding a way to still be embarrassed about the noise that it makes, even though he's already made a thousand more shameful noises than that since he woke up.

"Ah, so, yes," he says, because he needs to say something or he's going to lose his mind. He'll find the point of it all once he's got the words already flowing. "That was, ah, this one is perfectly fine. Don't worry about any of that. Thanking my king for his patience."

Patience is not the right word. Patience does not encapsulate the way that Mobei-Jun continues to stand there, soft and smiling just a little, if you know how to look. The way that he just held him for so long without complaining and still looks happy to see him. A better word would be a much scarier word, even to just think it, and so Shang Qinghua isn't going to do that.

"I am, that is, this one did not intend to make it sound as though he is not, ahem, is not honored that the King of the Northern Desert would deign to see him as someone worthy of such status as a lover." Mobei-Jun steps toward him again and Shang Qinghua shuts up. He's just talking. The words don't mean anything at all. He doesn't know why this is such a big deal.

"When would Qinghua schedule this king?"

"Ah, ha ha, not like that, My King. It's not like that. I don't want to you to think I don't care about this, or that, you know, it doesn't matter to me or anything like that."

Mobei-Jun steps in closer, doesn't say a single word, holds his hand up to the side of Shang Qinghua's face. A line of cold and grounding touch. And then he just stands there. His king. Quiet and calm and waiting for Shang Qinghua to tell him when he's willing to spend time with him. The man of his dreams, who he created to be everything he wants. The man he has spent the past decades getting to know and building a friendship with. The man he loves so fucking much it might as well be carved into the marrow of his bones.

Why is he doing this, again? Why is he standing in the middle of his office, fighting to spend more time hacking away at the endless pile of work, rather than laying in bed and snuggling with the incredible musculature of his king?

The panic is draining out of him, and there's something twisty and quiet left behind. He's happy to be held like this. Embarrassed for making such a scene. Frustrated that the trap set up for him is going to work. Excited that any of this happened. Worried worried worried about what all of it could mean. It's all twisted up and nauseous and happy inside of him, but he thinks maybe that's just how it feels, for someone like him, to be handed the thing that he's wanted after so long wanting it.

He knows what he's going to say. He wants to say it, even. It's still hard to get the words out. His fellow transmigrator, Cucumber-Bro, can never bring himself to say shameless things without a hardy blush and hiding behind a fan. Shang Qinghua has never struggled with shameless things. This, though, admitting that he was wrong and that someone else, who he'd been arguing with for a long time, is the one who is going to win. This is almost impossible.

He forces the words out anyway.

"The Overarching To Do List can wait a few more shichen." There. He said it. It's fine. The world is fine. Just admitting that he is going to let someone else take control over what he's doing instead of following his own list of priorities. Mobei-Jun doesn't smile, because he's never been that expressive, but his eyes go soft and warm and he gently strokes his thumb along Shang Qinghua's temple.

"A few more shichen," he repeats. And then he uses that hand to draw Shang Qinghua into a deep, toe-curling kiss, and maybe this isn't so bad after all.

He's going to have to shift a few things around. Schedule around this. Because spending time like this, pressed together and touching, is about to jump to one of the top priorities of the Overarching To Do List. It's maybe not the level of relaxing and not working "too hard" that his king would want to see, but it's more than Shang Qinghua has done for anyone else. It's already a terrifying prospect.

Shang Qinghua pulls away from the kiss, holds his king's hand and starts walking down the hallway again, moving as fast as he can so that his thoughts don't have time to take back over and argue aginst this plan. They head back toward his king's quarters, because that's where Shang Qinghua wants to be, because the bed there is bigger and softer and he's going to take advantage of that as much as he can.

"Ah, it seems our resident lovebirds have finally managed to work out their differences."

Right. The royal nuisance in residence. Tianlang-Jun is lounging against the wall just outside of Shang Qinghua's rooms, even though it's still so early in the morning that no one should be up and moving.

"Tianlang-Jun!" He yelps, because it becomes clear quickly that his king is not going to say something, and someone has to speak up before they piss off the Heavenly Demon staying in the palace. "Is there something Tianlang-Jun needs from this servant?" He sketches a hasty salute, not putting too much effort into it because they both know that Tianlang-Jun outranks him but they also both know that he keeps sneaking into his room at night and stealing all his shit. And then holding it hostage. So, you know, no real mutual respect there.

"I was merely coming to pay a visit to my dear friend, Shang Qinghua, but it seems as though he's found another member of demonic royalty to entertain himself with."

Shang Qinghua knows that Tianlang-Jun is being a little shit on purpose. Mobei-Jun probably does too. That doesn't stop the sudden flare of staggering demonic qi that pulses at his side, or the possessive hand that clamps around the back of his neck. It seems that Mobei-Jun will be a very possessive lover. Shang Qinghua is trying to tell himself that this is a bad thing, a red flag, has the potential to turn into a toxic relationship. Shang Qinghua is trying to ignore that he's suddenly half-hard.

"Tianlang-Jun will return at a later time, if he would like to petition for a conversation with the King of the Northern Desert's consort."

"Consort!?!" Shang Qinghua yelps, contradicting Mobei-Jun's surety even though one of the very first things he ever nagged his king about was how important it is to present something of a united front in the face of foreign dignitaries. But come on, my king! This lowly servant has only just started to wrestle with the idea of being his lover! A consort? The very idea of it is so hilarious that Shang Qinghua might break down cry-laughing right now. Fuck.

Also, if he's going to go making grand changes in the power structure of the palace, he really should have told Shang Qinghua about it several weeks ago, at least, so that he could start getting things in order. If that is happening (which, fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck is happening), then there would need to be all kinds of political moves made ahead of time to make that a success.

"Ah, it seems that congratulations are even more in order than I thought when I first arrived." Tianlang-Jun sweeps into a half-sarcastic salute, which he can get away with because everyone here knows that the only reason this entire palace hasn't been exploded is because he's in a good mood right now. Shang Qinghua would like to go back in time and convince the past version of himself to make the entirety of PIDW into a fluffy, slice-of-life thing. Except with one super-hot demon king in the background. That only he knew about. All these other ridiculously OP characters are welcome to depart, please and thank you. He never should have written them in the first place, crowd-pleasing or not.

Please disregard the fact that it is suddenly becoming painfully obvious that their entire relationship would not exist right now if it weren't for the fact that Tianlang-Jun had so blatantly meddled. Shang Qinghua honestly didn't know he had it in him, but, then, he'd never really bothered to think about or write about a version of Tianlang-Jun that made it out of the mountain and also found out the truth of his whole tragic imprisonment in the first place. Huh.

It doesn't matter too much. He doesn't have any more time to think about this stuff, because Mobei-Jun is scooping him up by the scruff of his own robe around Shang Qinghua's neck, and then they are moving past Tianglang-Jun and back toward the warm and luxurious nest they built in the center of his king's bed.

To think. This is all it took. Just a few letters and conversations. Just taking the time to actually participate in some acts of service. Ones that Tianlang-Jun may or may not have implied were actually demonic courting actions, which Shang Qinghua really should have already known, considering he's the one who invented them. It really wasn't at the top of his list of priorities, when he was stuck in the body of a toddler and working to remember everything that might be able to keep him alive.

To think. This is all it took. Decades of knowing each other and learning the strengths and faults of each other. Learning how to lean on each other and build something better than either one of them ever could have alone. Just Mobei-Jun pushing past a lifetime of self-protection in an effort to learn how to speak what he was feeling. Just Shang Qinghua, taking the time to step away from the lists that are the only ways he's found to make sense out of his life.

To think. This is all it took. Waking up in the light of a fading fire and finally acting on the thing that has been buzzing in the air between them for as long as they've known each other, now that he knows how to look for it.

Mobei-Jun hoists him up and places him in the center of the nest, before Shang Qinghua can take the time to clamber up there himself. It's in no way an unpleasant feeling. He certainly wouldn't mind doing something like that again. Potentially experimenting with other ways that Mobei-Jun could pick him up and move him as he pleases.

But, for now, that frantic need is no longer shimmering between them. Instead, Mobei-Jun pulls Shang Qinghua close, so close that he can rest his head right on those fantastic pectorals that he created for this exact purpose. They wrap themselves together, there, with both of them tucking blankets in strategic places so that Shang Qinghua doesn't get too cold in the middle of all of this.

There is so much he should be doing right now. But, for just this one moment, he doesn't feel guilty about relaxing. This is where his king wants him to be. More than that, it's where he wants to be.

As they lay there, Mobei-Jun's hand moves up Shang Qinghua's back and begins tugging lightly through his hair. It feels fucking glorious.

There are things to do. There will always be things to do. But this is so nice, so comforting. Maybe he'll stay here, for just a few hours longer.

And then, you know, maybe for a lifetime after that. If his king will have him.

He'll put it on the list.

[celerifleuri]

i often worry about some aspects being too implicit/obscure so seeing things being picked up on makes me incredibly happy!!

i think you can never truly achieve a perfect balance of implicit vs explicit because it depends heavily on the individual and how willing they are to engage with the text

as a reader who loves specificity, word choice and generally reading into things, i try to write so that one line can be read in multiple ways

this kind of writing may not be for everyone but it's a kind that's very fun to me and knowing that im not alone in this is always quite reassuring !

to your comment on the title and tongues, im going to add a silly expression

silence is a key part of maelyn's character (the game as a whole even) and she quite literally holds her own tongue at times!

depending on how you read hold and which tongues you associate it with, the title can also refer to the tongues maelyn physically held in her hands, the tongues held together as feathers for the wing, anything you see fit!

(was going to put a screenshot there but it'd be quite long so just go ahead and google 'hold meaning' and have fun 😭)

eric is one hell of a character and i have plans to really highlight the facade he used to have back when everything seemed fine

that will probably be easier to see in bonus episodes but at its core, his character is all about the duality of abusers. how no matter how good someone may seem, you can't know how they think and what they can do, especially when things don't go how they want them to

you mention the dress (rightfully so) and there's also another thing he gives/leaves her with! the braid and ribbons!

he used to tie her hair (//trap her into a sort of feminine ideal) and you'll notice that no matter how loose, she still keeps her hair tied. until a specific ending!

but even there, she didn't untie them herself, she simply became the doll of another. so no matter how free she can appear then, she is very much dead (you could totally argue that death freed her of everything but if she/her mind was freed, her body was not!)

more things can be said about the hair and the doll but ill stop there, you can think of them yourself !

thank you for the 'grounding yourself again' because yes!! it might be in the details but here and there, feelings will take her out of her thoughts and bring her back to reality

for the 'to be kept' part too, thank you

not commenting on everything but i am very much chewing on your words, i love reading interpretations!!

the 'so she could breathe' is also quite ironic because if you're not deluding yourself like he is, maelyn is dead, so what is the point of giving her room to breathe now? like many out there, she needed that way before. it's pointless now, it only serves the one that does the act, it only makes them feel better, considerate

feel free to share your thoughts anytime, i love reading them and rambling in response!

MERU😭😭😭 i finally had a free moment to relax and the first thing i wanted to do was play hold your tongues and i've spent the last few hours pouring over how absolutely beautiful of a piece it is in storytelling and visuals. i genuinely have so much to gush over and idk where i should be doing it so into your inbox it goes. i apologise in advance, you also don't have to respond to this bc 1) i am aware it's gonna get vv long and 2) spoilers will definitely be mentioned

i hope sel knows what an absolute gem of a writer she is for executing all of this bc i am fucking gobsmacked by how well certain ideas and concepts were interwoven throughout the entire piece. maybe a lot of the things following are just my interpretations, but that's another thing i really really love — there's enough ambiguity in the prose to be able to infer it in so many different ways

first to the namesake of the game, ‘hold your tongues’ and the many connotations of tongues that are explored throughout; as symbols of liberation and entrapment that intermingle so so well. i feel like the game really delves into the struggles that women face in society, in relationships, just in general and i like how since it's done so through maelyn's own perspective, we're privy to a more complex and raw display of how deeply emotionally scarring it can be.

eric is a little bitch imo (i won't retract that statement ever) but the ever judgmental, taunting and superior tone he has as the ‘voice’ in maelyn's head speaks volumes of the character he possessed and the lasting impact it had on her. giving her dress to another man makes her ‘unfaithful’, the fact that it's emphasised that these are only ‘remains’ of a dress too — bc eric left her with shreds, physically, mentally. 

if we take the dress to act as a metaphor for maelyn herself, he left her in shreds.

in response to this, maelyn bites her tongue, so hard that it bleeds. it's restraint, quite literally biting back your anger and the feeling of being wronged. grounding yourself again to the harsh reality of it all, and it brings her back to the present moment when starling points it out.

we see a similar occurrence later on when maelyn relays her tongue ‘longing for a taste, was to be kept down.' so again, she stops herself (and i think the wording here is particularly interesting, that it was to be kept, so intrinsically this too may also link to how women are commonly taught to be submissive and forced to fit to certain standards). 

in both contexts, the act of biting the tongue can be taken as a suppression of some sort of desire — the first is the desire to be mad, and the second is the desire of lust. both which women have been criticised for through the ages.

i also like to think that the tongue is a representation of freedom. starling is very much making wings to fly out of them, and taking them away from ppl has ‘forever deprived of their ability to lie’ (in which case lying = freedom, i won't expand on this too much bc it'll be another whole essay😭) so going back to maelyn, her biting hers can also be seen as her freedom being hurt, prevented.

another thing is, the line just before ‘he never ran out of tongues’, we can take this as starling never having his freedom threatened. and it poses further questions. is this because of his strength? is it because he has the ocean ‘wholly’? is it because he's a ‘man’?

on my first run through, one of the most prominent questions i came away w/ was what was it that attracted maelyn to starling? to the concept of these monsters of the sea that had surpassed human constraints that had her waiting out all those hours to catch a glimpse of one to begin with. what was it that kept her coming back? time and time again, day after day when she could've not gone back to that shore after leaving.

the text narrates a couple of things that i think contributed, there's a sense of warring humanity and animosity in the repetitive motifs of dirt and uncleanliness, in her noting that starling looked ‘half a man’ and that one half could've ‘consumed’ the other. maelyn has an envy that's touched upon frequently. does maelyn want to be closer to a monster so that no one can hurt her? or does she feel like a monster is all she can be now?

then there's a dynamic with power that was honestly done so well. again, my praise to sel for how well thought out it all was. that part where she put her hand into his guts and he made sounds he was ‘unable to control’, another when she tells him ‘cut’ and he does so without question — she recognises she holds the reins in that moment, acknowledges, ‘in control, I breathed.’ 

starling listens to her for the most part, it's a reoccuring theme. even when making his wings, he's following her instructions although it's made clear that he learns quick and is capable. perhaps this gives her comfortability.

but we see this turn on its head when things start to go left, starling begins to do as he pleases and maelyn is taken back into her trauma, back to feeling ‘disgusting’ and ‘unclean’, she even apologises and promises to do better.

leashes are mentioned a few times, maelyn first describes them as a sort of ‘necklace’ — perhaps this is tribute to the way a woman's submission is often beautified and normalised. the ‘leash’ starling puts on her in one of the ends is made of pearls, he keeps it in his mouth before this. could this be a reference to eric's sweet words that bound maelyn before he revealed himself? starling ties it somewhat loosely ‘so she could breathe’ yet that doesn't take away the fact that it's still there. it has a sort of your cage is not small, but that doesn't mean you're not locked in it kinda feel.

there's so much more i could say but i think ive alr said too much😭 i didnt even get to touch on the cuddle ending which was my favourite, or the symbolism of losing fingers, the significance of the numbers two, three and four to the story. I DIDN'T EVEN TALK MUCH ABT THE ART😭😭 MERU SORRY I GOT DISTRACTED BUT THE ART WAS PHENOMENAL❗️❗️❗️❗️

maelyn is super pretty and i love how her and starling contrast each other in design so nicely. starling's expressions were stellar ++ the bgs and cgs were beautiful (you're right, if you didn't clarify it i would think you were behind the chest one haha). also the body horror aspect was really brought to life with the visuals and ik it definitely mustn't have been easy drawing all those organs, thank you for your service meruuuu

i'll shut up here before i write another 3k, but both you and sel did such a great job w/ this. the two of you deserve a nice break to rest so pls make sure to take things easy and take care of yourselves!! drink water and sleep when you can, and know that you've made a masterpiece♥️

OH MY GOD THIS ASK IS MAKING ME GO FERAL

It's so well written??? You did such a good job picking up the details hidden behind their lines??? I fish you continued writing because I for sure did not want to finish it and please do send the other thoughts you had if you can, I love this so much

I'm sure @celerifleuri will too so I'll tag her

You already mentioned the spoilers at the start but I'll also note it down here for people who haven't played the game yet. I'm sure sel will do a much better job answering your story analyses but I'll also say you're completely right with most things you've said.

The story takes place in 1800s with dated gender roles we unfortunately can still relate to. Maelyn is a curious woman who wants to study and experiment, but is being held back by society and even people who she thought she could trust, but again Sel will do a better job explaining those.

I'll talk about the art a bit. One thing I really enjoyed that was kinda unintentional on my part was the use of night and day.

The story starts at night time, the first ever cg we get of Maelyn is her jumping down the cliff, with the moon's reflection on her left and the waves giving an illusion of wings as she looks up, in that very moment she is free.

On the other hand the first ever cg of Starling is day time. The sun is shining brightly from his left, almost blindingly, as he looks down. His hair covering the screen like spider webs.

To contrast these, it's night time in the wood ending. Just like the first cg of Maelyn, we can see the soft moonight shining upon them but not quite reaching Starling's face. Maelyn is alive.

Meanwhile in the bone ending, even though they are underwater we can tell it's day time, just like the first Starling cg. We get to see a glimpse of them through the seaweeds covering our view, the sunlight showering them gently. Starling is alive.

For the character designs too, a bit of a reverse but I'd say Maelyn resembles the sun, meanwhile Starling is like the moon.

They both share green eyes, although quite different shades. Maelyn has bright red hair that contrasts Starling's red tongue tail.

I also like that Maelyn's hair, albeit a bit loosely, is braided and kept tidy. Meanwhile Starling's hair is usually all over the place and quite messy.

[venting-corner]

Miraculous sibling AU part 1

What do you think Adrien needs? Good character development? Correct. Being the mc of his own story? Indeed. Screentime? True. An honest person in his life? Also true. He needs all of those things, but most of all, for these to happen he needs a good role model. After all, every adult in Adrien's life failed him (not sure about Emilie yet). Therefore, introducing older sister au!

(basically, this is me giving Adrien a role model that loves him with no strings attached)

Name: Lovett Agreste

Age: 19

Looks like a carbon copy of "the father of the year"

With her always being there for Adrien, whiplash of Gabriel changing from bad to worse would affect him more and not at the same time

However, as Lovett is 19 she is away in college (rebellion!) and can't support Adrien like she used to. Because of her 'little' rebellion Gabriel keeps an eye on Adrien more, but this also inspires Adrien to fight back and go to school behind his father's back.

Mr. "Fashion designer" tries to limit Adrien's interaction with Lovett, deeming her as a lost cause and a disappointment, but Lovett's collage knowledge comes in handy to help Adrien from a distance, giving him advice on love(she doesn't know anything about love), girls, interaction(from her own limited experiences, she's also learning), and even heroing, without knowing. She promises to get him away from mr.desperation, unfortunately despite her efforts Adrien still excuses his father's action, but not as severe as in canon. She's there as a good ranting partner, letting Adrien express his emotions in his civilian form and she listens.

That doesn't mean they don't have fights, especially regarding Mr.Insecurity. While they both have tempers, Lovett doesn't have a good handle on it and raises her voice to defend her argument without knowing. Screaming in general is a great way to let out her frustration, but it affects Adrien as it reminds him of their father, showing how similar they are. Adrien immediately falls into his obedient behavior he has around Mr. Superiority complex, but there's a different feeling that he doesn't have around Mr. Loneliness. Years of trusting his sister and feeling free to be himself with her makes him feel comfortable enough to argue, push back and scream. Something he would never dare to do to anyone else, maybe villains. So there are two sides that are fighting to be the main one. (I don't know how to continue)

She constantly sends memes to him and challenges him to a pun war.

When Chat Noir started his hero career, she became his fan and always gets into an argument with Adrien about how he is the best, funny, important. She even sends him pictures of his merch that she specifically ordered from France. Adrien doesn't know if he should be happy or die from embarrassment, so he decides to do both.

They sometimes suddenly play out anime or movie scenes, throwing quotes left and right. It also helps to be close to their mother, as she was an actress.

Because Mr. Hypocrite is Mr. Perfection, she also learned how to play piano and she has conflicting feelings about that as she loves piano. She bought a compact keyboard, so they could play duets over face time. When Adrien practices whatever piece he needs to perfect, she abruptly interrupts with other music. Like anime intros

For the last part she comes back before the collector, if Marinette is going to have a master that knows who she is, then Adrien is going to have a role model that knows about Chat Noir. A good parallel, don't you think?

[ahalliance]

how do i turn qantoine’s spontaneous marriage proposal to qetoiles into evidence of his early-days fear of qfrench drifing away and keeping secrets from one another

[futuretrain]

i don't know how to fucking explain it to you but scott not waiting hand and foot on stiles and coming to personally kiss his every booboo is not scott being "unsupportive" or a "shitty friend" especially when he continues to stand by his friend for every season of this whole show jfc

[thenotoriousscuttlecliff]

Magneto had a really great character arc in the 80s which just got completely chucked in the bin because the new editor taking over the title thought that he should always be a one-note maniacal villain, and I'm disappointed to see X-Men '97 doing the same because the ex-showrunner wanted to recreate his favourite issue.