#because there are things they don't like that many other dogs enjoy that a lot of people don't get

[mantisgodsdomain]

(via @zombiebugbites)

Ah, but you see, he doesn't smell like Dead Ant. He doesn't smell like anything, at all. Like a statue in the shape of an ant, except it is moving and breathing and Biting You. He can't actually produce more of a pheromone on command, just shut off production of that pheromone, which means that oleic acid smell is off limits to him unless he either Is Dying or Is Feeling Bad Enough To Convince His Body He Is Dying. Which he does not want to do particularly, actually.

Fun fact: ants will also produce Dead Ant Smell if they are infected with cordyceps! Scarlet can Do This To Himself if he drains any bug who is currently infected with cordyceps, even if the cordyceps itself isn't actually capable of reproducing, because his life drain effect is less of a literal drain and more of a metaphorical drain of pieces of a bug's state of being.

Things like cordyceps, which are technically an extra living being in his body, are very annoyingly prone to persisting even past when the effects otherwise should have dispersed, which is... not great for him. He can also temporarily contract genetic diseases and syndromes that are not normally transmissible. He doesn't enjoy this very much and tries to avoid it when possible. Ideally life force donors will have zero things that will threaten his life and also zero things that will persist past when he has used that life force for being alive. In theory he has gotten better at this in practice there's a bit too much range between types of awakened bug in kingdoms for him to reliably identify anything and his current "accidentally giving himself a parasite of some variety" count is at like 37.

Every living bug has a personal scent - a blend of pheromones that generally acts as a personal "name", or "voice", in pheromonal communication. In social bugs, this tends to be stronger. As communication via pheromone is extremely species-specific, learning to manipulate them in more detail than some basic altering your expression of any given emotion tends to be something of a niche skill set, particularly among solitary bugs. It's most commonly learned for in-species communication, or by the bugs responsible for putting up pheromone signage in social-bug-heavy areas, but also has some fairly wide utility in less legal manners.

As pheromones are highly specific by bug, a bug of one species may have significant difficulty parsing the pheromones of a bug of another species. While social bugs in hives and colonies generally have something of an instinctive grasp of what various pheromones mean, and will often pick them up as part of communication among themselves, solitary bugs tend to be significantly less sensitive to them, and may struggle to distinguish between similar pheromone signals even if they know what both mean.

As a consequence of this, the vast majority of signage within a hive or colony can be wholly illegible to a solitary bug, even if it is perfectly clear to the hive's inhabitants. Bugs with reduced sensitivity to key pheromones used in social signalling can also suffer from this, particularly in places where pheromone signage can be important to operation. While these can be learned over time, unfortunately, it isn't always enough to make up for the social impacts.

Though it is possible to learn to suppress your personal scent, it isn't a widely distributed skill, and it's associated with criminals more than anything else - on a similar level to learning to lockpick, it's a cool trick to show off that also has a solid chance of getting your coworkers to ask you if you've stolen anything recently. Though suppression can make your scent more subtle, it can't eliminate it entirely, and most bugs who are seriously concerned about hiding their identities will wear some sort of masker to confuse their scent.

Monsieur Scarlet, due to a side effect of his personal flavor of mage, is capable of cutting off his own pheromone production entirely, or selectively shutting off specific pheromones. To other bugs, this will smell uncannily "blank". Since pheromones are still the main means through which bugs will communicate emotions, even beyond being a personal identifier, it's sort of like someone's face... slipped off, and there was just a void where it used to be.

Along with his short-range teleportation tricks, this makes him very good at slipping a tail, but also works against him in being an extremely distinctive trait that's very prone to freaking people out. Generally, you don't stop producing your personal pheromones until you die- but he's not producing a dead-ant smell, and he's very clearly up and moving, just lacking any personal scent. It's prone to tripping a sense that something is horribly, unnaturally wrong. Also, it's not very good for his body to stop making a bunch of major compounds. Generally, he'll opt more for things like cutting out stress pheromones than taking out everything.

[nemesyaaa]

bones and all au // rafe cameron x reader

summary : “ you're so handsome when I'm all over your mouth. ” strangers by ethel cain.

warnings : if you were not comfortable with the movie by luca guadagnino, don't read this !! mature plot. a lot lot lot of blood. sick and gore attitude. cannibalism used as a form of love. strangers/ode to eaters by ethel cain muse. smut. pomegranate used as a metaphor of cannibalism. jealousy. mentions of organs and anatomy. some b&a refs but you can read it without watching the movie. violence. minors DNI. +18.

author's note : crdits to @starfxkrreloaded for this au. you can reach for her ode to eaters au which is very insane ! please, i know this is very twisted but don't send hate or be mean in the comments. if you dont want to read something like that, it's your right and i respect it, just scroll. to the rest, hope you will enjoy. it's my first time writing something like that so i'm kinda nervous. and by the way, the movie is very beautiful, taylor russell was incredible in this. i highly recommend you.

you lived in an old house in the midwest, the southern gothic type with an empty fridge, broken stairs, carcasses of eaten animals in the garden, a tv too old to be turned on, a radio player too damaged to be listened to , a completely dirty kitchen with dishes full of dishes in the sink, and nasty dirts on the floor. there was also that damn lamp that flickered and came on every other time, that icy water that froze your bones, that cold tiles that creaked under your feets. the windows were rarely open but when they were, the shutters slammed against the wind, your underwear hung over the radiator. but you really liked this place, in fact, it was the only place you could call home without wanting to collapse in tears.

you had your headphones on in that empty quiet space, and a probably dead singer in your ears living through your swaying body. you found this pomegranate on the table while searching. it was intact, still shiny and full of good things.

you didn't need a knife when you had a hungry beast inside you to cut the fruit with your teeths. you had dug your molars inside the seeds, directly into the fresh and virgin skin, opened the eviscerate flesh, tearing away everything you can with your mouth, the still delicious juice ready to feed your thirst and starved your hunger.

you smelled the fruity and juicy scent through your nose, splitted open the pomegranate, discovering the clean and clear inner bones, a pretty red color, even more oozing and sublime than your blood, a perfect complexion reminiscent of the sanguinary meat of your anatomy. your tongue and teeth were sunk in, completely buried in the dripping morsel. your face and cheeks were full of it, shining onto your dirty and sticky fingers. the juice burst, squeezed in your hands as you devoured this fruit, the liquid of which flowed, dripping down your neck and chest, slipping toward your tummy like an unstoppable river.

you were bad as a demon, but nothing stopped you. you bit and bit like a mad dog into the flesh of the fruit like a piece of meat, extracting with your molars everything that you could recover and stuck in your throat.

the more you ate, the more the fruit bled. but you heard nothing, no lamentations. nothing could stop you from eating, from the rage beating. it was sickly, obscene and depraved.

you looked like such an innocent thing, but inside you, there was nothing like that. and you couldn't fool anyone with your tears and your regrets, because you didn't have any.

you had dropped the pomegranate on the ground, there was nothing left except a broken corpse. you had consumed everything from the flesh to the bones, from the skin to every part.

your dress was stained. you stank of pomegranate as much as sin. there was nothing good in you, and above all, there were too many people in you.

rafe had come home in the night while you were waiting in the armchair in the living room, with this juice stuck to your body. you hadn't moved. for some reason you were faithful to your partner. maybe because he scared you, or because you understood that without him you couldn't survive.

he had thrown the key in the table and came before you.

he came toward you in the same state you had seen him for the first time, covered in blood and with glowing blue dilated eyes. you knew that he had eaten, that he had devoured someone because he was not like you. rafe was worse. he understood that nature was to kill but beyond that, it was something he was trying to teach you as your mentor. that we should not regret giving in to impulses, that if we did not listen to them, they would end up killing us.

that we were originally monsters, and that we had to deal with it. you didn't know if he was telling the truth, if he was right. but he was taller than you. you found a maturity in him that fascinated you, that forced you to listen to him.

he had taken off his shirt, and you looked up at his face. he smelled of blood, that strong, metallic smell that you could sniff from several meters away but especially his because you knew him by heart.

“jesus, don’t look at me like that. you wanted to stay at home, i didn't force you to. ”

“it was a girl. what was she like? did you like it ? ”

you didn't know if it was jealousy, or curiosity. you just knew you didn't like knowing he was with some girls even if it wasn't going to last.

with a smirk but at the same time terribly cold face, he answered you. "if you're that jealous, use that energy and mouth to taste it. maybe, you will have some answers. ”

you got up from the chair to join him. you didn't want to share him, even though you knew there was only you in his life. you knew it because since you knew him, he had never talked about his family, nor contacted relatives in the payphone. then, he rarely spoke about his private life. he often made fun of you, because it was more your type of thing to open up about personal moments. you never knew if he was really listening to you but he stayed until the end of your speech.

eagerly, you kissed him, that girl’s blood sliding against your lips, your mouth capturing rafe’s in a kiss, as your cheeks crushed against his bloody face. “ mine, mine.” you whispered, pushing your tongue against his. “ clean that blood, babe. i can't be yours if she's still here. ” he had slipped his hands under your skirt, pressing the flesh of your ass. he had a ring on, the cold metal playing against your skin. you could smell it, just like what he had eaten before coming home.

he sat on the probably moldy and torn couch in your living room, you were almost his height now that you were sitting on top of him. you were hungry, as much for him as for sex. he made you feel so many things, or it was this jealousy, this thirst within you that made you so hungry. you weren’t really sure.

you took one of his fingers still covered in blood, the recent taste of raw flesh now in your cavity. he had pushed his thumb deeper in your mouth, making you suck the pulp properly. the liquid bleeding against your tongue, as his flesh quickly brushed your cavity, your drooling lips curved around him. he pushed it in until he felt your throat.

he was playing with fire, he was playing with you, because he knew you could bite him at any moment but he had also conditioned you not to.

“so, how is it? ”

“nothing tastes better than you.” you simply replied. “ right ? nothing can be as good as me. ” he said in a mocking tone.

he had undone the strap of your dress, revealing one of your tits which he had taken in his palm before taking it in his mouth. your nipple was pressed between his teeth, your skin trapped in his hand as he sucked on your piece of flesh, pinching it only ever so gently in his mouth. he still had remnants of blood, slipping between your body and his tongue.

there was something sensual between this slow sucking, fast suction of the tongue around your throbbing nipple, your spiraling stomach against the void, the movement of his adam's apple in his throat while he tasted every beads of your boobs. rafe was good at it.

he pressed your tits, grabbed them tightly and firmly against his palm, nibbling the tip, caressing the pulp, kissing the flesh. and maybe if he had bitten into it, you would have cum instantly.

his hand was on you, covering your body in blood and sweat, tracing your figure with his soiled and bloody fingers like a canva, letting them run over your skin like a paintbrush.

he was hidden by your sucked breasts. and you wanted him full. you had started to grind against him, even with your underwear separating you from him and his piece of jeans, you managed to be completely soaked on him. your hips moved in motion, lifting delicately like a porcelain doll too afraid of getting hurt.

you were no worse than him, and he was no worse than you. you were both terrible people. there was no hierarchy among people like you.

but the first time you saw him, in that shirt full of blood, with that mouth so red and that oozing dripping neck.

it was dark, but you knew very clearly what he had done, and perfectly well who he had eaten. you had observed it and you had not seen a monster. you weren't afraid.

he wasn't mean and monstruous, just indifferent.

"if you want to eat, that man is still over there." he said simply, not trying to hide or deny what you were seeing.

and you liked it. you instantly liked it.

“ you're the one who interests me.”

“you know the drill, we don’t eat each other.”

“i mean, will you let me come with you?”

"listen to me carefully, i don't have the face of a babysitter, nor the skills to do so. get by, you may be a minor but if you're old enough to do what you do when mom and dad have their backs turned, i swear, you can get through this on your own. ”

“i’m an adult.” you cut him off.

“your age was a nice excuse for me to tell you that i’m not interested. i bet you're an adult. ”

you had followed him when he approached his pickup. "i wouldn't bother you. but i need help. i mean, this is new to me. i don't do this often while you seem to be experienced. i want.. .i want to be like you, not to be afraid of that.”

“what makes you think i’m the right person for this?”

“you may not necessarily be the right person, but you’re the one I want.”

“you know, i already have a lot of problems, i don’t need a burden on all of them.”

“please. i won’t be one. you have my word.”

"you really don't give me a choice. come up crybaby, but if you bother me, i won't hesitate to abandon you, no matter where."

you nodded. it was going back, but in the meantime, you had traveled to many states of america, and probably left a pile of corpses on your way. even though it hadn’t been easy, he had taught you how to drive.

one cold summer night, in the darkness of a tent in the middle of nowhere, you hadn't managed to sleep. but when you opened your eyes, rafe wasn't sleeping either.

“you should sleep, you’re the one driving tomorrow. ”

“you want to know who my first victim was? "

"i guess even if i don't care, you're going to tell me. so go ahead. knock me out, tell me something your little lips haven't told me yet. and don’t say victim, you're much an innocent thing than a killer. but don’t worry, i'm about to raise you very well. ”

his hands had gripped your hips to position you above him. “but for now, tell me about your boring story, maybe it will help me sleep.”

you had told him a lot of your past. the first time you had eaten someone, the babysitter your father had hired who had ended up torn apart on the floor and another part in your mouth. oh it really wasn't beautiful. and this time, in the summer camp where a boy had mysteriously disappeared because you had devoured him in the woods. and that friend at school whose finger you swallowed. it was stronger than you. you needed to eat.

and rafe was the only one to understand it.

the most intimate moments in a relationship should be sex, but for the two of you it was different. it was when you ate together, when you both had blood around your mouth, that you could taste his, and he could taste yours. when there was this connection between you.

he was a different eater from you, he was bestial and cold, sinking his teeth straight into the flesh, tearing off the parts of the body one by one. his bites were mean and cruel. the way, his teeths pulled the organs, the ribcage. you watched him, his hungry raging mouth embracing the darkness of his needs, ripping all the raw meat out roughly. oh the blood, it leaked into every corner of his pretty and bloody lips that you wanted to kiss so badly, to feel the liquid and flesh filling and consuming the space of your throat and your tongue as your body swallowed everything he gave you. oh how much, rafe loved to feed you directly in the mouth, letting you suck the flowing red wet all around his jaw, and down his neck to the cool grass. he was beautiful. insanely handsome. but also, so scary.

his skin was covered in a red, metallic coat. his eyes were consumed with pleasure, while devouring the body of your victim.

he was very different from you, who was more delicate in your movements, or rather clumsy. your bites were messy, your touches lighter, even with the blood all over you.

but it was in those moments that the sex was the best afterwards. when his tongue, still red and famished with blood, circulated over the skin of your stomach, leaving a reddish river against your flesh.

and it went even further than that, when he found himself lost between your legs, his warmth muscle completely buried inside you, lapping your soaked folds, licking you like a starving man, his mouth pressed around your sloppy wet cunt. your juices dripping against his open wided mouth and jaw, the throbbing of your clit against his nose, the way your beating pussy smeared the blood across his lips and cheeks every time he entered and devoured your delicious slick.

since you didn't eat each other, it was your only way to feed him, to make him taste you. you didn't know if he loved your taste but in any case his tongue always came back to find you, to fuck that cunt, lodging itself between your soggy walls.

he forced you to keep your thighs apart, one hand resting on your bruised tummy which contracted every time you felt him on your core.

your legs shaking around his shoulders, the way his bloody mouth nibbled on your clit. you moaned in the middle of this abandoned place. you could shout as loud as you wanted, no one would come, no one would hear you.

you loved feeling his large hands on your bruised skin, especially after eating, because they were dirty and sloppy. you let your tongue clean the blood stuck to his fingers, the drops falling into your mouth.

it was strange how love can be perceived for everyone. ever since you were a child, you have been unable to show affection without hurting people. when you loved someone, it was tragic because you had this need to devour and consume them, to make them a part of you, to make them live within you.

but for rafe, it was different.

you were total opposites. and even though you lived together, you wondered if he felt things for you. if he had ever been in love.

because you liked to think that the way he kept you around, the way he let you stay with him at night, the way he always came home, and was open to doing all these things with you, that was his way to show you that you mattered to him. you even wondered if he came back every night because he couldn't let go of you. yet, at the beginning of your relationship, he wouldn't have hesitated.

here, in this rickety house, you didn't pay rent. it belonged to one of your victims. you always did that, you killed people, and robbed them of their belongings. you took their money, clothes and possessions. you were stealing the lives of these people. at first you felt guilty but now you feel nothing. it was life.

“i love you. ” you told him, as you straddled him on your shared bed, your fists curled in the pieces of sheets. “i really love you, rafe.” you were moaning and feverish, every inch of his thick cock buried in your core, hitting your spot.

while you were bouncing on him, your ass slapped against his muscular thighs. he grabbed your breasts moving over his face, as his dick was ruining you, each of his thrusts destroying your canal. you were as tight as the first time he fucked you in the back of the pickup. he gripped your ass, pinching the flesh.

he wrapped his hand around your throat before losing his face in your neck, his mouth kissing that immaculate part of your body. he placed kisses, before lightly sinking his teeths into your skin, nibbling and sucking on this skin offered to him, while you continued to take him just below him. “yea, you love me. ” with a hard stroke further into you. “still fucking tied to me. ”

and he wasn't wrong, you were so glued to him, completely submissive. he was inside you, filling you completely, every part of his length stuck to your walls, parting your pussy lips, your moans muffled above his head as your arms wrapped around his back. you were desperate and whimpering, the wet sounds of your repeated moans echoing around the room.

you could feel the twitch of his stomach against your skin, the perfect harmony of your two bodies in sync, he speared you violently with his fat cock, let you hear his grunts and heavy breathing against your neck, coming straight from his throat.

you were sweaty and noisy, like one of his victims, but most of all, you were his, his hands all over your body like a prize. every touch was possessive, your head tilted back, and his mouth melted onto your jaw. he fucked you roughly, making you bounce on him and cry.

his blue eyes shone in the darkness of the room. they were on you, in a perfect focus.

“do you love me? " you asked him, your body going through trembling spasms, your skin covering his. you were desperate and suffocating. your breaths were rapid and frantic.

he moved your head with his hand on your throat, his gaze flickering above your collarbones. you felt like you were pretty with the importance his pupils gave you.

you wondered if he had ever wanted to eat you alive, because after all, even if you were an eater, you were still easy prey.

and maybe even sometimes you fantasized about what he could do, because you wouldn't have minded seeing him dug his teeth into your flesh like meat, seeing him consume you one by one, your bones getting sucked, your blood spurting against his tooth.

you would have loved to sacrifice your body to feed him, to be that pomegranate to him, to see him smile through your organs, to see his belly swell because you were in a thousand pieces inside.

you would have loved for him to eat you alive, because you knew rafe would have done it out of love.

“ don't leave me or i will eat you. ” you said to him, his hands brushing your hair like a lover. “ every part of you. like you taught me. ”

“ bones and all ? ”

“ bones and all, my love. ”

and he smiled, fucking smiled all over your kisses, his lips covered yours.

“ then, what are you waiting for ? sunk those teeths in me. scared for what, babe ? nothing that you have not tasted before.”

[capslocked]

KINKVEMBER DAY: 8

[prompt: phone sex]

male reader x shin ryujin

16k words

The phone rings one too many times, and Ryujin is in the middle of scrunching up the paper slip that Chaeryeong handed her earlier that afternoon when she hears your voice.

The sounds of her scrambling for the receiver and her head smacking against the headboard come through in pretty good quality.

That never gets old.

"Stimulating conversations," you offer smoothly, like it isn't a euphemism and instead some high-brow intellectual pursuit. "How can I help you?"

Ryujin is speechless for an unbearable five, ten seconds until she lets out the kind of low chuckle that probably sounds better than it looks. "Hi," she says, "hello, I, uh- I don't know how all of this works."

"Why don't we start with who you're looking to speak with tonight?" you ask.

Ryujin sighs. She runs a hand through her hair, looking at the messy tangle of clothes on her bedroom floor with mild resentment. She’ll take her chances, figuring a direct approach is the best route when she doesn't really know where any of the lines get drawn or who is allowed to say what and who isn't.

"Um. Okay. Who you got?"

"We have a large variety of operators to suit any taste," you explain kindly. She appreciates that. "Do you have someone specific in mind? A gender perhaps, to start?"

"Well," Ryujin starts, running her tongue along the edges of her teeth. Lia has this thing she constantly says, that there's always a thousand and one reasons not to do something, and Ryujin is the first person to make fun of her for it - but here she is, finally putting that adage to use.

"I was actually calling to, um," she exhales loudly. "A guy? I mean look - girls. Girls are great, but if you - mmm." She clears her throat. Because she knows how she wants to do this, and it's most definitely: "A man."

You wait for a second before replying, and Ryujin allows the stillness to expand over and fill out every corner of her bedroom before a bright, "Alrighty, well," comes filtering out her phone, tinny but as enticing as ever. "That would be me."

"Oh."

"Yeah," you reply, easy and unhurried. You sound exactly like the kind of person whose company people pay handsomely to be around; the professionalism is undeniable, but there's something to be said for your tone. The softness to the vowels, the almost imperceptible upward lilt to the words - Ryujin gets that, maybe.

You're pretty confident in the answer, but you ask anyway, "have you ever done anything like this?"

Ryujin opens her mouth and hesitates for a brief moment.

"Well," she muses. She's tried porn, she's tried her own fantasies, she's tried cranking up the hot water and touching herself with the head of the shower aimed somewhere she's told by other girls: it's there, free of charge. "I haven't."

"But you have a boyfriend," you state. "You have a man, who you enjoy things with?"

Ryujin laughs nervously. "It's...it's been a little while. Not recently. Sorry. I know you don't-"

"No, no, not at all, you're doing fine, it's just that you sound very attractive over the phone. Excuse the assumption."

Ryujin laughs and rakes her fingers through her fringe. She knows it's a line, but she laughs anyway. She could - if she was looking for the deranged fulfillment of it - pore through a billion comments on instagram, on twitter that call her a lot of things: gorgeous, beautiful, hot. The last comment she read before almost deleting her app entirely was someone who decided to textually imitate a dog barking to a picture Yeji had taken of her in a coffee shop. There's a novelty, she thinks, in being charmed by someone who has no idea who she is.

"You have good ears then," she says, smirking into the receiver. "So do you normally do, what, ask questions? I have no idea."

"Yeah, it helps me build a profile," you reply, "but if you had something else in mind-"

"No, please, shoot." She grabs the pillow from behind her back and flops against the mattress, staring up into the ceiling fan.

"Do you feel comfortable sharing your age with me?"

"Twenty," she answers without missing a beat, even though that isn't right. It's weirdly important to her, keeping it private, and she isn't sure why - but then you say something pleasant and complimentary about college and new experiences that she's unable to register, and you ask her for her name so quick she just blurts it out:

"Ryujin."

"Pretty."

"Fuck," Ryujin grins, immediately chewing on her knuckle to bite back a gasp. "Sorry. The name is cute or, whatever. Whatever. Sorry for the curse. God, I don't really have a filter - what about you? Do you have a name, Mr. Operator?"

"I do."

Ryujin lifts a leg up and puts it down again. She doesn't know if she should already have taken off her pajamas or if that's weird. Or if the fact that it doesn't bother her means this is more or less wholesome. She turns over onto her stomach, humming into the phone and now she doesn't know why she's thinking about your face. You could be- well, fuck, you could be anyone, but there's this gnawing compulsion to put something together.

You tell her your name and she scoffs for a second, before quieting down and returning you a, "pretty."

"Ryujin, tell me." There's probably a slightly too long pause from your end of the line before you get on with asking her, "when was your last orgasm?"

She drops the phone right in her face. It bounces off the bridge of her nose before landing in bedsheets beside her and her eyes are welling with tears while she scrambles blindly across her bed, cursing into the receiver and squirming. She pulls the phone to her ear and catches the last couple seconds of you reassuring her that it's okay, that it's completely fine if she's hung up or gone.

"Actually, I have," and she curls her fingers into a fist, "never came in my whole life."

You clear your throat to keep a less than professional sound from coming out. A quiet space she feels necessary to fill: “Not even once.”

"Really?"

"I know. And I've only recently realized that's, uh - er- a pretty un-normal thing." Ryujin makes a waving motion with her hand even though you can't see it, trailing off into silence and blushing furiously. "Sorry," she apologizes. She doesn't know what she’s apologizing for, but she does it again. "Sorry about that."

"I should be the one feeling sorry for you," you rib.

"Fucking tell me about it."

"Hey, this reminds me, would you be averse to the idea of touching yourself?"

The question stutters Ryujin in her tracks, and she doesn't even say no but a drawn-out "nngh" leaks out before she can stumble into something more intelligible. "Isn't that, like, what you're supposed to do on these calls?"

"Every call is different, Ryujin."

She chews on her lower lip, rolling it under her front teeth. You say her name like you know her, and it's throwing her for a loop. The comfort you have with the whole situation - asking her a million questions and not demanding answers, taking cues and reassurances in stride and turning everything into some sort of ploy for getting her naked. Fuck, she'll take a bit of a plunge:

"Should I be touching myself?"

"It's not my place to say."

"Okay, well that's kind of a frustrating answer."

"So you're saying you like being told what to do," you tell her, and you hear the sharp inhale in reply.

"If I knew what I liked, you think I'd be calling a sex hotline and hoping some stranger might take pity on me?"

You laugh out loud, and her response is the quickest, the cutest little, "seriously!" before she chuckles too.

"Ryujin?" you ask.

"Yeah?"

"Are you straight?"

She nearly chokes - because it's like you're able to just read her mind - and if you can do that then there's nothing you can't do, maybe. And here, excitement feels a lot like apprehension. She twists and curls in on herself, thighs rubbing together, the flat of her hand traveling across her stomach.

"I'm-"

"Because no one should have to pretend that they're interested in guys," you interrupt her and, god, for as much time as she's spent dwelling on that, she wishes it were that simple. 

It would be a hell of a lot easier if she knew why she wanted to get her face between Yeji's thighs and drag her tongue all over her clit until that prettier-than-perfect face of hers cinches up in a pleasure that comes with just the right amount of agony - or if she knew why she didn't feel anything like remorse or guilt or envy when her boyfriend came around instead of wanting, you know, to get on her knees with her mouth around his cock too -

Fuck, it's all very complicated.

"Straight," she answers. She likes cock, as much as anyone realistically can, and she knows the body on a man can get her dripping and easy in all the right ways. So, she just swallows. Says, "straight enough."

"If you were to touch yourself, right now, and someone - say, a man - were telling you exactly what to do: what would spring to mind, if anything."

"Mmm. Is this you asking me to touch myself?"

"Again. That's up to you."

Your voice is light. Very pleasant. Very male, Ryujin realizes. She gulps.

"Can you, I mean," she says, running a hand down the length of her thigh, pressing down at the hollow.

"Ryujin,” you say, letting her mull over how it sounds in your mouth. “Take a breath for me, please."

Her exhale leaves her with a heavy push and she tries not to laugh. Nervous tic. She's getting goosebumps, but she feels warmer than before.

"We could say this isn't the first time, you and me, in some very broad and abstract sense. How does that make you feel?"

"Strange." She touches her outer thighs again and arches her back. "Kind of horny," she admits. And it is odd - your words, the things you say - and maybe it's her nerves because the experience is new, and so are you, and so are her feelings, all wrapped in one.

"Do you want to do something about that?"

There's silence between you for what seems like a very long time, your breathing quiet but apparent - a signal you haven't abandoned her in some state of vulnerability. Ryujin inhales deeply. She's shaking in her fingertips. The tension has her taut and waiting, and that's funny, really, because it's what she's been doing for years. The rubbing. The touching.

Her hips rock forward gently and she answers the unasked question with a sweetly husked, "uh-huh."

"What are you wearing?"

"Ah, really?" Ryujin laughs. Her fingers pause at her waistline. "That old, bad porn trope."

"I like hearing about people's clothes, is all," you excuse yourself lightly. "Helps me get a sense of things."

"Yeah, alright. Sweats. Baggy ones." Her lips fall apart. "Shirt."

"Is that all? Nothing sexy."

"What's sexy?"

"Sexy is…"

She listens to you mull it over, listening for a ruffling or two. "For a girl with a nice body - some body - some curves," you continue, and Ryujin has to drop another finger to the hot line of her thigh, her lower belly. "You need lace. Silk. You've gotta leave the best bits a little hidden, at least for a while longer."

"Wow. You sound a hell of a lot like you'd enjoy taking someone's pants off," she half-teases. "Do you make all your calls like this? One sordid fantasy at a time, huh?"

"Something like that," you reply. And then, as if reading her mind, "are you doing anything, right now?"

"I'm touching myself," she exhales. "Are you?"

"Ryujin, not yet. Please be patient."

She makes a face even though you can't see it or taunt her. That's an unfair request - you have an unfair request.

"Just, wait," you tell her. She's drawing lazy, winding circles across her thigh. "Let me show you something, will you do that for me?"

"But, what."

"Tell me everything. All the things you're thinking. Things you want to do."

"Everything?"

"Yes."

She blinks away her initial disbelief and reaches around for her lamp to switch it off. Until it's just the hallway light peeking in through the crack between her door and the door jamb and you, a stranger who won't be seeing her face or hearing her say anything stupid. She shakes out a few more breaths, shuffles against the sheets, and glides her fingertips past her belly button.

Her hand rises up her stomach in one decisive movement, until her fingers curl beneath the bottoms of her bra, trapped in its underwire. "I'm thinking - unh - about, ah. My friend?"

You're quiet and let the silence linger, until she seems like she might not find her way; so you repeat, "Go ahead."

"And a guy she used to like, fuck, she'd show up here, drunk on, ah. A weeknight. Somewhere, fuck, around midnight. Walk past me into the kitchen where we had the - the light. God." Her hips stutter and she grits out the rest through her teeth. "In the refrigerator. Ah, yeah, a midnight snack. Always looked way too fucking good for, um, oh, for a casual booty-call."

"Does your friend have a name?"

"Yuna," she practically pants, and immediately realizes she shouldn't have said that either.

"Did you always know what was going on? Between Yuna and her-"

"Boy-toy, yes - it was so obvious, I always knew, yeah," she said, clumsily grabbing the sheets with one hand as she drifts further between the peaks. "Just - fuck - he'd be picking at, ah, something with chopsticks."

"In your kitchen?"

"My, uh, table. And I'd be working up the nerve to ask."

You sigh over the phone, "ask him what?"

"What it was, like, I knew she was only- shit." She keens high in her throat. "What it was like, fucking taking that cock of his, and bending Yuna's tight little, ah, ass over and, mm, railing her on the side of her fucking bed - and just pumping her full of cum just like that until- Jesus, she would walk around after and sometimes-"

You groan softly. This encouraging little sound.

"-fuck - sorry, I mean. Yeah, he, sometimes he'd make her walk around with his, ah, stuff inside. Down her fucking pants and, it's like, fucking disgusting, I swear-"

"And?" You breathe a heavy edged noise over the line.

Actually okay, so maybe this was more than she bargained for, maybe she bit off more than she can chew - maybe, she feels like her insides are collapsing; all the fire pooling around in her stomach and gathering into a melting sort of weightlessness.

"And it makes me feel fucking-"

"Fucking what."

"Why am I talking about this, why-"

"Talking to me? Fucking wet, Ryujin, answer the question."

She pants down at her phone and then turns her face into her forearm, rubbing and making sounds. She thinks about, oh, fucking Yuna and how she showed up to hang out once, with cum leaking down the crease of her inner thigh, smearing against her skin and down between her legs.

"Wet." She swallows. "How do I-"

"Say that you wish it was you," you tell her. "That you wanted that, to be fucked. To feel a cock inside."

Her head falls back. "That," she manages, "fucking, that."

You drawl so that the question might roll off, easy: "Is that the kind of girl you are? Told not to curse, not supposed to let anyone else play with you - you just need it, don't you? Do you need someone's cum? Just tell me."

"I think so, ah," and she stops moving her hand. "I think I'm gonna go now. This is fucking embarrassing, like. Okay, sorry."

"Don't hang up," you tell her, and the soft edge to it is one she really wants to indulge. "Don't," you repeat, a little louder.

You start talking, about the same sorts of things she's imagined herself: the sex and the sounds and what he can do to her. You build a slow and aching heat between her thighs that has her dripping through her underwear and grinding against her fingers. Telling her how she's the one that needs to be filled, needs a man who can wrap her legs around his waist, get to the deepest parts of her, the parts untouched and willing.

Ryujin gets that - she wonders, half out of it and stroking faster than she usually would be, how much of it has anything to do with who the voice is on the other end of the receiver, and how it could be what a desperate, pathetic, tired part of her has always wanted.

"Are you?" she asks, panting over the phone.

"Am I what?" you whisper back to her.

"Are you," and you hear how she inhales sharply through her nose, a desperate gasp leaving her lips on the exhale, "going to, um. Are you touching yourself right now?"

Your reply is immediate, and her eyes flutter and close the second you tell her exactly what she wants to hear:

"God, yes."

She drags her hand up the center of her body, runs her fingertips over her jaw and presses the heel of her wrist to her neck to feel her pulse slamming hard.

"I'm fucking throbbing, Ryujin; you sound gorgeous like this, like nothing I've ever heard, I'm stroking my cock just picturing you, please-"

"Tell me." She's mouthing into the center of her palm, saying the words, tasting salt and musk. "Fuck, ah," she babbles, "tell me what you would do with me."

"I'd get you on your knees," you tell her without hesitating for a beat.

"Fuck."

"I'd come up behind you and tell you not to be scared, baby. I wouldn't hurt you, I'd just touch you real gentle. Push my fingers past your tongue, slide a little down your throat."

"Uh huh," she moans, her head falling back and rolling, rocking against the mattress.

"Want you sucking on my fingers. Need your hands around my cock, or better, my balls, play with them. You're going to take those fingers - every finger I got, all five, yeah?- all ten of them," you joke, "and open up your tight cunt - like you are now, like such a good fucking girl-"

The girl fucking yelps. Just this honest sound of depravity; it's what she's paying you for. It's a silly line of bullshit, but it makes her bite hard and ache a little around her own knuckles and moan in her palm and dig her nails hard into her flesh. Her thumb fumbles across the top edge of her underwear and you pant again into her ear as if on cue, giving her a small bit of guidance that has her jolting in pleasure. She didn't know that was there, fuck, fuck-

"Like that, Ryujin. Breathe," and she does.

"Please," she whines, trying to find somewhere for her arm to settle, resting finally in her hair - setting the phone to speaker in a foolish moment of lapsed-judgment, just before it nearly clatters off the side of her bed.

Keep going - she's telling you over and over - keep going, and you’re picturing her there: eyes closed, legs spread wide, bent knees quivering and toes curling into the sheets. It doesn’t sound fake - you've heard a million of them, you've learned them in their different tones and accents and you can spot a faker a mile away. And the girl on the phone right now isn't pretending or thinking about whatever's happening somewhere else.

(You don't join in for everyone. You can't. It's an asinine consideration that you'd be rubbing your fist up and down your cock while it's sore and wanting - aching from the neglect or lack of rhythm. You have to remind yourself it's just a job, that the logistics just can't support such selflessness.

But then there's the very fucking premise.

That the girl on the other end of the line is inches from the goalposts, fingering her cunt and sighing into the throes of her first orgasm - first ever, because you did this, you brought her this far - you're the fucking culprit, and no matter how many girls, or boys-pretending-to-be-girls, how many people have gotten off with the help of your voice, your instruction, this one sets a different fucking precedent.

You're not lying when you say, "I'm rock fucking hard, Ryujin," or "there's precum all over my knuckles, baby."

Because there is, and the poor thing chokes out another desperate sound when you tell her.)

"I'm right there, ah, fuck, keep going-"

"I've got my hand around my shaft, just enough that I can fuck it, can't I? The head is getting slick - baby - and my palm is gliding nice and easy. Are you cumming, Ryujin? You better be, you better be cumming right now."

There's a heaving gasp and she calls out for you, babbling curses and "please" and "fuck" in alternating succession, with enough punctuation for you to have to let your lip slip under the hard bite of your front teeth. "Don't stop," she tells you, voice thready.

"You need this so bad."

"Yes," she gasps. "How would you-"

"How would I fuck you?" you finish her thought.

She waits a moment, sucking in shallow breaths and then replying weakly, "I really like... I like doggy."

"On your knees?"

"Yeah," she stammers, "I like when, like- ah, like, pulling my hair."

"Fuck, I love that," you say into her mewling. "Splayed out with your tits against a pillow and getting your pretty, little pussy pounded? I bet that'd feel so good, huh? Hands so rough on your hips, on your throat, squeezing your neck so you'll turn pink. Just to see you smile, I'd probably fucking let you take whatever you want."

You're met with a broken moan, a long string of syllables ending on a note that has your shoulders clenching and cock jumping in your grip.

Tense over the things you can't see: Ryujin biting down into the side of her hand, the other knocking painfully against the wooden side rail on her mattress, her thighs tightening and screaming and clamping around her wrist as she pulls weaker, wilder whimpers out of her chest each time her fingers drag across her slit and the sensitive curve of her swollen clit. She's dying, she thinks, she's going to fucking die - the in and out of her soaked pussy, through all that sticky, satiny skin, slick fingers diving in, twisting until there's nowhere for them to go.

No other recourse than to fuck in, fuck, fuck, like that, fucking god.

There's heavy silence on the line for god knows how long - well, you have to check the log. But for her, it feels like fucking forever. That was - that was it. It's so fucking mind-wracking how good it was, she can't quite wrap her brain around it. Nowhere near. She thinks she'll have a better idea after two rounds, definitely by four. She'll buy something, use the discount, go shopping - an orgasm just to make sure she's not bullshitting herself.

You clear your throat.

She moves sluggishly, away from the side and against the headboard - the heat still unbearably oppressive, her t-shirt clinging and sticking. "That," she stumbles through the afterglow.

"Do I need to apologize to you?" you ask lightly.

"What? Oh god, no - no way. No way. I just."

"Yes?"

"Like I didn't know it was this-"

"Did you just cum, Ryujin?"

She's laying there with the phone pressed to her brow. A hand palmed over her own racing pulse. The faint smell of her own cunt lingering around her face.

"I don't know," she tells you, and promptly hangs up.

-

The darkness in Ryujin's bedroom is punctuated only by the faint, hazy light streaming in from the hall, and her bedroom fan making its creaking little circles, as she waits in her post-nut-high for her breathing to normalize. Her mind is buzzing, and out of all this, she has a hell of a bill and a couple conclusions:

She's a coward and a pervert, but definitely, definitely bisexual.

Or, like. She's in some weird gray area between not liking whenever anyone buys her drinks, but also the girls at least let her dance a little close. That's a strange thing, isn't it? For how often her mouth does stupid shit - you think at least someone would figure it out for her.

But you, oh fuck. You-

She's fucking shaken up, for sure.

-

(It's a home office set-up, actually.

Your desk isn't organized; you're sure the photos on the wall are askew and the paint looks slightly worse for wear if you were to turn the lights on - which you never really do. There's an aging lamp tucked into the back corner, a bottle of scotch next to your handset that's closer to halfway empty than halfway full, and you can't stop imagining it.

Promise, This never happens.

You've got the name stuck to the roof of your mouth even though you know it's fake. Stuck with something so painfully abstract. Imagining this girl that is probably as brash and bawdy as her voice, or more exciting than either - maybe her hair is long enough to brush along her breasts. Or maybe it hangs just over her shoulders. God knows just how that would frame her features.

You can see it, really. You pump a handful of coconut oil into your palm and the details solidify so easily in your head: her pretty mouth, nose, the dimples in her cheeks - eyes glazed and sultry and gazing at you.

Smelling sweet, all the places you need, skin hot, clit swollen-

Just- fuck. Fuck.

Ryujin, huh, imagine that.

Ryujin.

And you jerk off right into the soft embrace of a tissue.)

-

A little more than a week later:

Ryujin's all wrapped up on the couch, with an arm cushioning her head and watching TV when there's a sudden commotion from the front door. Yuna - her friend, her very nice, very male friend who never shows up after midnight unless there's a promise of sex - comes bumbling into the room.

He has no regard for boundaries.

So,

Yuna starts to say, smug, from where the hallway becomes the living room, "Ryujin - look at us. Stuck on a Friday night. You gotta boyfriend or something?"

She's completely unfazed by this interaction. She's pretty sure he has his own key, so like, he should be used to it by now too.

"Kind of." She shuts off the TV to turn her attention towards the topic at hand. "Why?"

Yuna runs a hand through all her long, silky hair and gestures her cock-du-jour on over to the door of her room. "Waiting for a call, maybe." She waggles her eyebrows. "Are you any good, I mean, you never seem to..."

Annoying brat. 

Ryujin smacks the back of her neck and interrupts, "you gonna fuck him? Go ahead and fuck him, Yuna." She checks the lock. The kitchen. Gets up and tries to ignore the heat flaring behind her ears.

"We could pretend," Yuna muses, tugging the waistband of Ryujin's shorts around her fingers before she's out of arm's reach. The elastic flips back into her waist with a dull snap.

"Dumb idea. That's a dumb, dumb idea," she reasons, because she knows Yuna has no self control. None, and it's showing; the second her shoulders sag forward and her eyes dart, craving, Ryujin steps back in. "Don't be stupid."

Yuna's lips are tilted, playful. Ryujin wants to smack that look right off her face. Like she fucking deserves any kind of victory just because she found out she can fuck anyone she wants while lacking the self-awareness to somehow be contented with anyone. She's not going to call her a slut - out of a matter of principle - but god, does she fucking want to.

"Gotta get ready, is what you should do," Ryujin mumbles under her breath.

"Fine." Yuna shrugs and pecks an annoying kiss to Ryujin's temple on her way to the shower, waving a hand over her head with a casual, "If you want something, you've only got a half-hour."

Ryujin pushes her hair out of her face and does what she does best: overanalyze and overthink the situation.

Whatever. Yuna won't give it up regardless, not in any way she'd actually be able to enjoy. Her cheeks go a little redder while she pretends to not be considering it.

God, a threesome in total functional harmony however: her working her mouth on Yeji (Ryujin doesn't know why she's thinking about Yeji, but she is), Yeji working her mouth on her boyfriend, her boyfriend working his mouth on her -

That'd be something, she thinks. Like one of those Escher diagrams, but one where everyone cums at the end.

The thought makes Ryujin wet enough to squeeze her thighs together and stand up a little straighter.

Then she hears the showerhead turn on, and she wonders just why, exactly, Yuna is such a spoiled asshole.

-

Turns out,

The universe just has this habit of providing Ryujin with what she wants right alongside everything she doesn't.

She’s stretched out in her sweats, sat up at the top of her bed again and touching herself beneath the sheet in a pointless attempt to contain the mess. Fucking horny - it's honestly unbelievable - and her left hand's making lecherous, slick noises until it's absolutely gross. Until Ryujin's gasping and panting and sweating from the nape of her neck and the back of her knees.

All because Yuna's the loudest little-fucking-whore of a roommate anyone has ever heard.

She's moaning like she's getting fucking plowed into the next life. And apparently, the cock she's got in her cunt is fucking huge if those little murmuring whimpers are anything to go on. She keeps begging the guy, coy, for a kiss while she's probably folded up like a lawn chair in there, getting railed, and the fact that the boy keeps obliging is as admirable as it is kind of insulting.

"Goddamn," she thinks out loud, because the walls are paper-fucking-thin. The apartments in the area are built in an earthquake-safe way, which in reality, means they can either withstand a magnitude 6.0 and come out without any severe structural damages - or that it's so cheaply constructed the building will go down like a matchbox house before it stands a chance against a tremor of any significance.

They're easier to replace that way she’s told. And Ryujin's apartment is definitely of the latter; she can hear everything.

The skin on skin, their bodies sliding together in the slippery sheets. Her mouth smacking wet around his tongue as he bucks forward and asks her to do a hundred filthy things, asking her where it feels best - that sort of thing, which gets her wound and agitated and frustrated, and fucking horny as fuck. Ryujin's bent-inward and panting when he really gets to work - the creaks and groans, their mingled pants and the constant thudding and swaying of the headboard smacking into the wall.

She doesn't even need to put her ear to the partition like she's sixteen years old all over again, hoping to catch her old brother going at it while her mom was out. Trying to figure out this whole sex thing - what all the fuss was about.

Just the way Ryujin sighs is nothing short of despondent. Slightly pitiful.

And every tight circle she's running over clit feels so fucking good, until she realizes the room goes real quiet for a bit. The stillness - no slapping, no movement, just wet, panted-breaths and muffled speech. She nearly asks aloud what's wrong - but she hears it: Yuna's hushed but totally undeniable,

"Been so long- don't, don't- hold up," she croons in these high, sing-song little huffs. "That - uhn, ah - that's my - that's my good spot, there, keep - yes, harder!"

Ryujin slams her eyes closed, dropping down onto the mattress and wishing she'd slipped her hands into her sweats sooner. Fuck. And as Yuna's back starts banging against the wall - so rhythmic and fucking thorough - Ryujin can feel the heat curling behind the backs of her knees, radiating along her calf and reaching into the smalls of her feet. Fuck. Fuck, she doesn't even get to watch.

Right there. So good, please, so fucking good, is what Ryujin can’t not hear coming right through the drywall.

She’s three knuckles deep in her pussy, all stretched out, and she's practically drooling - "spread me, baby. Hold the, fuck, spread my lips open. See me- unh. Ah - see me? Please, do it-" - the boy groaning about it as he fucks her, and then, Yuna, needling him with a quiet, breathy, "harder, can't you?"

The answer seems to make Yuna squirm and scream.

And Ryujin's nearly rolling - rocking, fucking humping her own fingers because it's starting to ache a little, a cramping in her wrist and arm and jaw that she's trying really hard to ignore, rubbing and fingering and fucking herself closer, the heels of her feet sinking hard against the sheets, throbbing and aching around the flicks of her knuckles, harder, faster - faster -

"Fucking hell-" she seethes and stops moving all at once - because god, Yuna is un-fucking-believable.

The absolute bitch, she's doing it again: squealing and cursing and calling his name into her orgasm and just basking, it sounds like, right in it. Because she always does this, every single fucking time, she acts like it's the best feeling in the fucking world and she fucking loves everything, and that shit just - Ryujin grits her teeth and grimaces and pulls her slick fingers from her body - that just ruins it.

All that build-up and for what?

Fuck, Yuna really has the nerve to go there too. She's talking about sucking her own damn cunt or some bullshit-

Yeah, it's not fucking fair, Ryujin concedes.

Or maybe she's being punished. She could live with that, but god. The unfairness of it all. She tries, for a half a minute, to let her throbbing stop being a goddamn nuisance. But the noises coming from the other room are making her crankier, more angry, more irate - and definitely hornier than she ever really intended, even though she knows Yuna is thoroughly distracted in there.

Ryujin sits up a little straighter. Squares her shoulders, steadies herself and fishes around in her pockets with her uncoordinated, cum-coated hands until she finds her wallet, a credit card, her cell -

And there's an aching, a sore pulse of neglect between her legs; that's all too much. A quick peek down confirms that, yep, she's practically dripped right out of her shorts and even gotten a dark spot in the front of them. How great is that.

Yuna is over there, all, "thank you - ah - can you please do me a favor and fuck my mouth with your big, big, huge, fucking cock-" and this guy, he sounds so patient, telling her how he wants to do exactly that, but he wants to fill her tiny pussy up first, fuck her here, fuck her there, fuck a baby right into her. Wants to get his cum all over her face, smear her mouth and her throat and her cheeks - 

Ryujin inhales through her nose and holds, eyes falling closed in something between misery and anguish.

He's telling her, yeah, of course he'll fill up her throat - give her so much it's leaking out of her fucking nose - and Yuna sounds like she's moaning and garbling an objection to that last part - but it doesn't actually fucking matter.

"Geez," is Ryujin's quiet, little gasped-out response. He just fucking pounds her right back into place; her next orgasm. Fuck-

And there it is: the slew of moans that start back up and just keep on keeping on.

Shin Ryujin is going to lose her fucking mind.

-

Ryujin only lasts a handful more days before she calls again.

It’s another Wednesday night, if only to increase the odds that you’re working. Yeah, she could go with another guy, but another guy might not do everything you did, talking quietly and calmly - so composed while Ryujin was losing some part of her sanity to the thumb she pressed on her clit. 

No, it has to be you.

That's what Ryujin makes herself say when the operator apologizes and explains you're busy.

"Will he be working much longer? Please, I, um-"

"If you give me your number," the operator tells her, "I can add him as a preferred associate. You'll get him next time instead of going to the line."

Ryujin pauses, finger held to her chin. Will he know that? There's all this implication isn't there, that maybe he won't. Maybe you're popular - are you? It's a lot like texting someone for the very first time. And if you did - know, she means - would she be acting like a stalker? It would feel weird, probably, but no worse than some people do it already.

Oh god, this is kind of fucked up.

Maybe a little. Maybe.

Ryujin pauses, finger to her chin. Will he know that? There's all this implication, isn't there, or maybe he won't. Maybe you're popular - are you? It's a lot like texting someone you like-like for the very first time. And if you did - know, she means - would she be acting like a stalker? It would feel weird, probably, but no worse than some of things other people are undoubtedly doing with this service, Ryujin decides, and rattles off the digits so fast the operator asks for clarification.

"If your schedule doesn't open," the line says, "call back and leave a message with when."

Ryujin shrugs and says, "yeah, okay."

-

You make Ryujin sit through forty-five-fucking minutes of on-hold music - this barely audible synthetic noise that signals a connection is still there, truly a genre for no one - all before she just cuts the fucking line and lays down on the couch.

Okay.

Okay, fine.

Whatever.

-

(You are… going through the motions.

Some girl on the other line is barely holding it together; you can hear her thighs making slick noises. God. She sounds desperate, she's holding the phone all tight and saying your name. She's fucking babbling; it's not attractive, not while you're tilted back as far as your office chair will go and staring up in the ceiling.

You're bored, mostly.

"Please, please, I'm-"

"Going to cum, I know, princess." She asked you to call her that. "Mouth all open? Can't help it? Just need to lick it nice and fast?"

The answer comes all choppy: "I can't, ah, a-ah-nymore, no, I, can't, need-"

"Do you have any idea? How hard I'm fucking stroking my cock right now? Sitting right in my lap. Jerking it right for you," you say, and then she makes an embarrassingly wet noise, gasping through a choked whine, "so I'm ready to give you what you really fucking need."

"Yes," she chokes. "There - um, please, I just-"

"The biggest fucking load," you tell her. She has no idea, really, that you've got one hand on the receiver, the other just pinching the bridge of your nose - neither of which are you jerking the cum out of your cock and balls like a fucking hydrant as you’d described. What she doesn't know won't hurt her, and you keep your face turned to the side as she starts screaming. As it starts running into one noise that lasts forever - so unbearable that, this time, you consider going out to the bathroom to grab a glass of water and a handful of painkillers. "Need it deep. Let me pour it in, yeah?"

"Yes," she gasps again, heard on this distant frequency because, yes, yes, you've plugged your ear with a finger.

"That'll satisfy you. C'mon, now, princess - give it right up," you tell her, but your eyes are a little dull when her moan turns out all-gagging and twitchy and spasming through it, until finally:

"Ugh."

You wait a moment for the gasping and hitching to finish.

"Good girl," is your distant reply, followed by a polite, perfunctory, "call back anytime.")

-

Ryujin feels like she's in grade eleven again as she stares at her phone. Boys. Drama. Girls. The drama.

The overanalyzing, the wondering, the hesitating. Fuck. She wishes she knew a way to change this, because she doesn't feel particularly mature and is somehow reduced to this girl, this idiot sitting here all embarrassed and staring and moping about a thousand different calamities at once.

She's looking right at the lock screen: the wallpaper of her and Yeji and Chaeryeong out getting coffee on a random Sunday, all bundled up. Winter. Like three, four years ago, maybe.

Ryujin looks like shit, it's funny.

But Yeji -

How she can make the winter pallor look good is beyond Ryujin's understanding. It's unfair. All the things are. Her brain is back and forth and spinning, spinning like the hands on the old clock hung up on the wall in the kitchen. So stuck on what's not quite normal. Stuck on what doesn't fucking matter - who even fucking cares who the fuck she's attracted to?

She feels it between her legs.

Has been for like a month, or longer, without an outlet. Without anything to give her the hint that maybe she can get back to it - the right it.

She doesn't need to call, she tells herself. She's not some weirdo who's sitting on this for days just in the hopes that her boyfriend is having a bad week with work or whatever. It's only Wednesday, technically. Still way early. Just another few days, she reasons, another few hours - what does it matter?

Wednesday. She can feel the word settle inside of her.

Though only once her bottom lip is chewed to hell, does she pick up her phone and decide she will.

-

(You're in your bedroom this time around, finishing up your own weekday workout - on the bike, fifteen-second sprints - when your phone goes off. A simple dinging. Very unassuming.

The operator comes in with a cool, level, "line two, callback."

Then there's nothing but silence for a few beats.

You towel some of the sweat off your face. It's warm - your skin, flushed. Bouncing your phone in your palm. The same feeling that's been tugging at your throat for the past two weeks starts to flare and swell.

Not quite a hope, not quite expectation: just something close.

"Are they still there?"

The operator confirms. "Shall I put them through?")

-

Ryujin fumbles in her own rush of bravado, hands pressing against the fronts of her thighs in an unflattering, nervous little gesture as the connection clicks and picks up.

"This is him," comes your voice, a little husky and raspy from all the day-to-day talk, but even and easygoing and maybe - just maybe - something she can hang on to. Ryujin gives an acknowledging "Mmmn," like the phone call isn't causing her major inner-turmoil.

"Right, ah." You sound kind of, dare she say, nervous yourself. You clear your throat into the line and ask, "what brings you here, stranger?"

Ryujin pauses at this; the red in her ears reaches her fucking jaw. Stranger. Jesus christ, okay, okay-

She laughs. Stops immediately at how self-conscious she sounds. Clears her throat and tucks some of her hair back - settles herself into it like her life hangs in the balance. "I'm here to get my rocks off."

"It's not usually my place to say," you begin in earnest, "but if you're anything like me, and this is gonna sound completely off-the-cusp, but those two weeks really seem to build up, don't they?"

God.

She pulls her sock off her ankle. There's eczema on her heel, and it's the kind of thing she can imagine Yeji telling her to not scratch - that she's going to fuck up her skin. It's funny the stupid fucking things she can remember and all the things she forgets. Like just now, with your voice in her ear, a little unsure in a way that says you've got other, much more important things you should be doing. But you're here with her.

With Ryujin.

God. She might hate herself a little.

"Um," is how she finds her bearings. "Actually."

"It's a joke. Not that- I mean." She hears some rustling - assumes it's coming through the ear piece. There's an abrupt slamming on her side of the line and it seems like the worst kind of deja-fucking-vu. Her neighbors. She forgets it's even this late into the evening. That other people don't have to work so hard in their free-time.

"Maybe this isn't a good night," she says, not so much as thinking the words.

"What?" you ask. Then it dawns on you. "No, no. If you're there, I'm here." You clear your throat. "Besides, there's nobody I'd rather hear from than a woman so desperate she's signed onto my frequent flier's club."

She stops chewing the insides of her cheeks long enough to give you a tired, irritated sound. "Whatever."

And you nearly choke trying not to laugh.

"I don't, um-"

"What, do I have a nice voice?" You laugh quietly.

Under normal circumstances, that wry edge, the bit of try-hard-humor would have her rolling her fucking eyes clean out of their sockets. So when instead she opens her mouth and a fatal-fucked-flirty-feminine, stop, comes out, the vowel pulled long like a plea or a request - well, Ryujin's forehead drops against her bedspread in immediate regret.

You seem startled by it too, going quiet for a second.

"I-I'm-"

"Cute," you decide.

Her ears are red-hot and her cheeks have to be pinking and god, she hates this. That she's hearing this so soon, and it's making her brain hazy and soft and stuttering through, um's and yeah, well, um's. A part of her can't believe she's paying for this, and then, at the same time, she can't believe she's not actually putting cash down for more right this second.

Because it feels -

Like maybe -

Her shoulders rise. She wants this to be quick; she hates this feeling of embarrassment creeping its way in and grabbing onto her with both hands, like this weird, pseudo-affection. She's a grown fucking woman and here she is, letting all her guard down for someone she doesn't even fucking know.

You can feel the tension, hear it. Your lips purse. You try for something easy.

"Go on and give me the details, Ryujin."

Before you'd even picked up, she'd already half-undone her shirt, the flaps of the collar hanging loose with her hands gently petting her ribcage - so easily giving and pliant that there's a good portion of her, in spite of the doubt, in spite of what seems completely illogical about all this, that has her realizing maybe she wants this more than she can possibly understand.

God, she feels like a fucking fool.

"It's pretty boring."

"Not to me. I've spent the last few weeks talking to a bunch of assholes who don't appreciate what they got in the first place," you reply. She imagines you're a little playful about it. Wonders, momentarily, how good that smirk looks - if your eyebrows are lifting like you've been teasing her since day one. Fuck. 

“Your operator is a total asshole too, by the way."

"Don't say that," is Ryujin's shy reply, practically moaned out. "You sound like someone I'd absolutely fucking hate, jesus, stop that."

"Just because you don't get on with someone, doesn't mean they can't get you off."

"Smooth, or something."

"I'm taking a break, relaxing a little, enjoying an overrated TV show or whatever this is - not really minding my business," you say, but your smile is so audible it's fucking offensive. And she's - she's maybe, definitely into that. Like the fucking embarrassment in this is turning her on. Ryujin puts the tip of her finger in the waist of her shorts, experimentally, gently, this small brush and press to her sensitive lower stomach. And it's true. All she hears is her own breathing in the receiver, a bit labored over the slightest, least indecent touch. It's amazing, how much her body can want even when her head can't seem to catch up.

"What do you like?" she asks. “You’re a person, working bits and all, something’s gotta get you all worked up and flustered, no?”

"Will you believe me if I tell you this is my absolute favorite?"

"Do you always dodge the question?"

"It's just like a courtesy," you clarify, "it's not personal."

"Now I sound like a desperate pervert."

"On the contrary," is your warm, buttery reply, and it is fucking aggravating just how well this works on her. "I think there are much better things people can say about you."

God, that - the thought, the possibility of something about her that has nothing to do with how 'thick' or 'thin' her thighs are, or the silhouette of her ass in safety shorts, or how her voice makes guys want to ask if they can take her home and fuck the answers from her, or any of that; it's kind of liberating, just a tiny bit. That it can be a good thing for some reason. God.

Ryujin rubs herself. "Yeah, well."

She wants it all the same and says nothing, shifting a little until her hips tilt slightly upwards, letting her pull at the drawstring of her shorts, loosening the grip. She's already kind of feeling woozy in all the best ways, soft and feminine in how she slides her hand underneath her shorts. Over panties first, with no clear idea if you can tell and honestly, too distracted to wonder about that, if she should care or not, too caught up with her fingertips over the raised seam in her underwear - where the fabric's wet from her.

A shush comes into the line when Ryujin swallows.

The ache between her legs grows louder.

"You still there, Ryujin?"

"Of course," and then, she finds a little more reassured finality: "fuck, yeah, fuck. Please, I..."

"Ryujin," you say with all the calm and control in the world, "talk to me."

-

(So - truthfully, honestly, factually - you are a total wreck.

You're sitting there in a heap of bedsheets and a cold sweat when Ryujin finally mutters into the silence, "thanks, for that, I, uh- that felt really good, exactly what I needed," and hangs up before you can ask about her day or comment on the weather or suggest calling back tomorrow.

She is just perfect, the way she lets a small "I..." slip when she's close. Perfect, how she groans her little broken, satisfied sigh of a yes, her last, fleeting exhale just a sweet, high, barely there please, her body tensing with every little shudder and moan and pant. How the pace goes fast and then slow - like she's gotta think it out a second, her own fingers bringing her closer and closer until there's nothing but a flurry of movement and ragged breaths - an enthusiastic little mmph noise - followed by Ryujin's wet and slick little laugh that sounds like relief.

Like you did something to help, like she needed you and wanted you.

There's cum sticking all up your torso and along your wrist, the inside of your thigh - everywhere you could manage, frankly - and, shit, it's not fair, you realize:

She can find you, whenever she needs you.

And you -

You're just sitting here. Nowhere near sure she'll even call again.)

-

There's a sizable difference between being lonely and being alone, Ryujin thinks, running the cloth under the stream of the shower and then pressing it damp against her throat, wiping at the backs of her knees.

Lonely means that something's missing - it's something she feels when she catches a glance at the handsome arm reached around Chaeryeong's waist, the way she dances so close to someone she just met, or whenever she tells her that she's thinking about, maybe, probably, definitely, absolutely going home with him if her friends don't stop her from leaving. God, her smile is always so cute when he's near. When someone's calling her over for drinks - hips sashaying like she doesn't know the whole bar is staring at the creases where her thighs flare into her ass - because he gave her a look from across the room, and she's swaying from drink to drink.

Like, of course, they're fucking; it's a known, unsaid thing.

She knows it, he knows it. Chaeryeong fucking owns it.

Alone however, is just what it says on the tin.

That's something else Ryujin has yet to learn - that everyone loves differently, cares for different things. Yuna is still single after all, and she can never shake the feeling that it's simply to spite her for some perceived slight or another; Yuna can't live without company, no matter how brief or short or meaningless, so perhaps it's better she never catches on or finds anyone worth keeping around.

And Yeji?

Ryujin sighs, rakes the comb through her wet hair.

The showerhead is running hot between Ryujin's fingers, and the water coming off of her skin turns to steam instantly, filling the bathroom with a permanent cloud, stuck in flux - rising towards the ceiling. She passes her fingers under it, watches the flow, a quiet hm escaping the back of her throat - and she considers the way it feels beating against her throat and chest.

Down the concave curve of her stomach. How it burns red right over her thighs. The pressure slips and sinks low, lower - and when she puts a palm out for a little stability, her left leg can't help but buckle just so, lifting itself out and off to the side. So she stands, toes pointing against the shower floor, face first into her arm against the cool tile.

Ryujin sees where the rivulets of water have gathered above her clavicle - feels them trail down over the tightness in her breasts and between. A couple images pass through her mind at once - thoughts of fingers trailing a line back up the center of her body and a gentle tap against her chin, turning her face to some perfect all-consuming kiss - a hand squeezing at her calf, rubbing her muscles gently - Yeji smiling into the crook of her neck, the grasp on her hip, wrist flexing. Her back bowed and fingers, broad and experienced -

"Don't need you," Ryujin quietly says to nobody, which -

You're doing so well, Ryujin hears back in her imagination, you're so beautiful, you can keep this up, I know you can. I bet it feels good, doesn't it? Just let go and I'll...

Ryujin whimpers out. She can feel that line deep inside her going taut, buckling in her core, the reverberations down to her wrists and fingertips and toes. If she didn't have the wall in front of her, she knows she'd be on her knees - kneeling to the hot water pulsing around the knots of nerves right behind her clit. The pressure hitting her like the crack of a whip.

"Fuck me," she says to no one, gasping in that way you only can when no one is listening.

Yeji's smile is what's gotten her this close so many times, the smell of the ends of her hair tickling Ryujin's nose. Hell, she can't stop thinking about the way her nose crinkles or her dimples flare just when she finds Ryujin's name in her mouth.

It's not fair.

She's so close to cumming and letting whatever happens happen. The slick of her release pouring right out into the drain of the shower, washed away with the excess. So when her whole hand shifts and catches in just the right, delicious, frustrating way, Ryujin inhales so deep through the end of the sentence that, as a result, her knees wobble.

She feels like fucking crying.

It's that sweet little lilt in Yeji's voice, saying things like: "It's alright. I promise you can keep this up a little longer." And "Oh, god, baby." And, at worst, the way her voice shakes with a "come here, honey. Let me-"

Ryujin has to catch herself when her footing slips a little from under her. Then, your voice, coming in distant at first, grows louder, clearer. Into something catastrophic, right against her throat, like it knows the very inside-and-out of her, "go on. Fuck, please, cum all over me, baby - show me a face no one else gets to see."

And for the first time,

Ryujin gets herself off. Alone.

She moans and sighs out. Gasps, "there you go-" and whispers an, "ah, jesus." She manages the most silent, the least decipherable, fuck, as it leaves her mouth like a prayer. Her left knee twitches, body curling into itself, and her hand moves - fingers closing and her eyes clenched shut, a wave, cresting - she just-

Collapses.

Wanting: Yeji, sure - and she came - but the only thing she can really wrap her head around is the truth that she's so, utterly fucked.

-

"Are you sure there's no one you can bring?" Yeji asks in the middle of slapping the ever-loving shit out of a coffee maker that has, for as far as anyone can remember, never worked.

"Uh," is Ryujin's inconvenienced reaction, the tips of her fingers idly sorting through her credit card statements, which a more-sober, less-horny version of herself is a little out of sorts over. "I'm not sure there's anyone I'd want to bring."

"Uh huh," Yeji replies.

She pauses and rests the bottom edge of the coffee maker on the edge of the kitchen counter, stopping herself mid-smack - leaning away to try and give the stupid thing a once-over.

"Who the hell says it's got to be someone you wanna make babies with? Maybe it's just someone you'd think would look good beside you, smiling at the cameras with. Or."

"Or."

Yeji's lips tilt. "Or someone you wouldn't mind screwing in the bathroom."

Ryujin spins the pen in her fingers and gives Yeji a look that says back off and can you chill out already, in the sort of way it takes years to ferment - the silent understandings, the good-natured naggings, the good-fucking-luck-with-that-buddy's. Yeji knows she's getting on Ryujin's nerves. Knows that has never stopped her before.

"In my defense," Yeji clarifies, "I can count at least a hundred people that would crawl over broken glass to sleep with you and, uh-" She knocks the coffee maker off of its stand and holds it gingerly to her chest like some child, motherly. "-I don't wanna take a bullet for your unintentional chastity, Shin Ryujin."

"First of all, don’t pretend you’re doing me a favor here," she replies. "Second-"

"Can't hurt just asking, right? I could set you up, you know, someone you've never even met - no pre-burnt bridges to maneuver."

There’s a world, and Ryujin imagines it for all of a second, where she stands up and grabs hold of Yeji by her cute little ponytail - if nothing else, just to stop the way it bounces every time she steps - and maybe, she also kisses her on the mouth so hard she stumbles. Or perhaps she could pull that ribbon free of its holdings and unravel it down against Yeji's jaw. Pull a whimper, a tiny little ah that says this was inevitable. Maybe they crash onto her bed. Maybe she gets her fingers sticky with how soaked through the cotton of Yeji's shorts have gotten in those short, heated moments - what a world that would be.

"One of what's-his-name's friends? I’m assuming."

Yeji looks annoyed and proud and beautiful; all at once.

"Yes, and what's-his-name's pillow talk is exceedingly whiny about how my best friend is so incredibly standoffish and abrasive and-"

"Okay. I'll go." Anything to stop the image of Yeji with the comforter pulled up to her tits and hair splayed all over the place; red and flushed. Her lips curling with the curve of the sheets and god -

"Just for an hour?" Ryujin asks.

Yeji finally places the coffee maker back onto its stand.

"I mean, nothing much happens an hour into a birthday party," Yeji reassures. "It'll be fun."

"Uh-huh."

"Trust me."

Ryujin wonders just how far Yeji could go - if she knows that she can snap her fingers together, and Ryujin will be there: ready to do anything.

-

Ryujin is trying to go to sleep, is how she'll explain it if anyone asks. Though she prays to god no one ever will.

She tries books. And she tries scrolling aimlessly through Instagram. And there's this one guy she kinda-sorta-dated's updates: photos of a vacation to Boracay, which seems nice; his chest is a little more defined, more chiseled than when she was seventeen and kind of fumbling her way around a college boy and his stupid fucking preoccupation with who should be paying for drinks at whatever run down establishment was his pick of the night. Ryujin makes a face at the screen, pursing her lips; there's a girl in the photo - she looks too young for how her ass is falling out the one-piece. To the extent that she makes sure to send an unsolicited meme she's tagged herself in - like "here is my past and here are his balls", and gets a block and a report as a thank you.

It makes her feel good. That's what's most important.

And then, with little other distraction and a decent lack of luck, she picks up the phone.

It rings for a while before the operator comes in and says, "You're at number nine."

"What?"

"The queue. This call has you at number nine."

Ryujin slowly leans up from the pillows and squints into her bedroom.

"Huh."

"Would you still like to be connected, miss?

Ryujin thinks it over for a moment. Of course you're popular, a part of her mind comments, because you've got a voice like gravel-slung honey-gold. She's imagining eight other girls just like her, laying in their bed, panties on their ankles and thumbs covered with spit. All desperate for you. All curled up - one right after the other - with no fucking idea.

"Miss," the operator comes back with.

The line goes quiet - a few beats, but not too uncomfortable a silence. Then she gets a soft little exhale out, saying, "can I leave a callback number?"

"If you like." The operator considers the idea. "I can’t promise whether he’ll call you.”

“No, yeah.” Ryujin curls an arm under her chest and plays a finger against the swell of her breast through her night shirt. Gets lost in her own consideration. “Don't think he would anyway."

-

A new day is defined by new possibilities, or something or another you read once stitched into a frame; Something you muse over the rim of your coffee, nose-deep in the laptop at the kitchen counter top.

Last night ended a bit unexpectedly - this not considering the couple's awkward fight which took up two-thirds of the evening. Or the girlfriend-slash-fiancée of that guy, which somehow led you to wonder just how old was too old. But as you were logging your final client session of the night a ping came through the employee portal and let you know that someone had left their number with the operator in the hopes you'd call.

You swig back the rest of your coffee, roll your shoulders and shrug. Oh, there are at least a million reasons not to call a number that randomly, offhandedly arrives in the middle of the night and gets patched through a phonesex hot line under the cover of darkness.

The same number could be out there, defacing the wall of a truck stop bathroom, or inked into the skin of a squat prison convict who's got a brow like the horizon. Maybe, it belongs to that married business man that took your personal phone number as his private line and spent all the time bragging how he was going to quit his wife and make a run for it with you - just you - even though you'd rather stab him with a fork than be involved with that kind of psychopathy and are honestly just looking for that extra bump in commissions every time his wife calls to ask the exact same thing.

Your clients call. You talk.

You take the cash.

The point is: there's more fucking deviants out there than there are stars in the sky. You would know; you talk to a new handful every goddamn day.

Yet it doesn't really matter. You're gonna do it. Because you're feeling restless. Because - and it sounds insane - there's at least some probability, no matter how remote, that you will pick up that receiver and punch in a number and the line will connect with the girl who's been on your mind almost constantly for the better half of two months. That you might listen to the dial tone turn into her answering with a genuinely indifferent, "this is Ryujin," or whatever her name actually is -

You're living in a pipe dream. You're probably reaching, actually. And all you know about this woman, is, what? What does it really, factually, truly amount to, the amount you feel you've come to know about her.

You know more about how she prefers to methodically, meticulously begin, then draw out, and finally end a blowjob to someone that ain't you than you do about any detail in her life story, frankly. You're reaching, and you know it.

You pick up the phone and dial.

-

(It goes straight to voicemail, and get this: that’s her real fucking name.)

-

Yuna has the audacity to ask, as she slides into the booth, "who do you keep texting?"

Ryujin's eyebrow arches.

The younger girl nods towards where Ryujin's thumbs are practically flying over the keyboard.

"No one." Ryujin puts the phone on her lap and crosses her arms over her chest. Then the words seem to echo through the inside of her skull, so she shakes her head a little, in emphasis. "It's nothing, don't worry about it."

She's right though - and maybe that's the problem. Maybe that's why it's hard to answer.

Chaeryeong washes the shot of whisky down with a swallow of lemon-lime. Her eyes slide open to Ryujin as she wipes at her bottom lip. Then she spikes a finger into Ryujin's ribs.

"Spill."

It's a dangerous order, and she doesn't realize it at first. Chaeryeong's bad ideas have an annoying habit of flinging themselves on Ryujin, like a bomb dropped at low altitude - sudden, quick, and more than enough to shake everything up. Chaeryeong will make Ryujin go out dancing - and then she'll lose her clutch purse. Chaeryeong will remember she started the evening with a scarf - so they need to walk out a whole block or two to find it.

More importantly: Chaeryeong is not a great drunk.

So, of course she spills. She relays her findings, carefully and as deliberately as she can muster.

"Does he have a nice voice?" Chaeryeong asks.

"It's kind of deep?”

Chaeryeong snorts. Apologizes immediately.

"Not... deep. Sultry. I guess. Smooth, easy to hear." Ryujin tells the two across the table.

Yuna whistles low. "Romantic as shit."

“Fuck, I don’t know. In, like a sexy sort of way." Ryujin raises both palms in a vague gesture. She clears her throat at the two pairs of eyes staring back at her as though the words coming out of her mouth belonged to a foreign language. "Uh. Sort of raspy, or something, sometimes, like he's... on the phone a lot, and you know," Ryujin flushes, suddenly caught and wondering where all the confidence went, "yeah."

Yuna's leaning forward, chin in her palm. "I'm having a hard time believing texting is a sort of standard operating procedure."

"Well try a little harder," Ryujin snaps, eyes finding Yuna's and making herself fucking clear.

Chaeryeong has this look about her, she's trying to keep it all in, but then there's her eyes, cinched at the corners and dead-fucking-giveaways. She puts an arm against the table and points at Ryujin with an up-reaching thumb. "This is the cutest shit, like ever, and you two are texting like actual lovers instead of two, apparently rando-stranger fuck buddies, or whatever."

Yuna - for whatever reason - feels at liberty to throw gasoline on the fire. "Does that mean you think he's going to get jealous if you bring some dude along to Lia's birthday?"

Ryujin sucks in a breath; the fact that he'd never - well.

"Ryujin's in love," Yuna adds for dramatic effect, for the sake of being the worst fucking person. She can be so fucking petty. It's a side of her no one ever sees, because she's just so sweet all the time. Like right now, she's doing that smile-smirk thing that gets Chaeryeong giggling against her hand and then coughing into it a second later.

"Jesus christ," Ryujin starts gathering her jacket and purse. "He's- not- this is- God, I'm done." She slips her shoulder under the strap. "Thanks for listening to me sound like a teenager."

"Isn't that just normal for you," Yuna quips back, pulling at her straw until there's only air rushing through the bend of it. "Where are you going?"

"I can't stay here," Ryujin says as if it's obvious, as well as her point, the argument she's trying to make. "Besides, Yeji is gonna want me to get my dress and shit all sorted out."

"Don't fall in love with one of the robot voices at the cross-walk on your way home, or anything!" Yuna laughs out, giving a flippant wave goodbye.

Ryujin lets her eyes roll because sometimes, she hates her friends.

-

It still throws you for a loop whenever Ryujin pings your phone with a text that says something like:

have you jerked yourself off to exhaustion or is there one more in you for someone like me?

Or,

my roommate is getting pounded through the springs of her mattress, wanna see if you can hear it?

Or,

are you free? I really fucking need to cum. bad.

Each text is something you tuck into yourself. Save and mark and spend all your time in those long-form responses imagining how her face looked when her brain typed out the words for you. You wonder if she's sighing through her fingers or hiding her lips behind a pillow while the heat coils in the pits of her hips.

As time goes by, Ryujin slips a little more. From one text about whatever book or series she was rereading last and another about the sadism of politicians and how people are more likely to agree with what they've heard someone else say than the facts of a given subject, to texts with a few scattered thoughts to strings of sexting that has you cumming into the palm of your hand and through your sheets and in the middle of a dream in which there's no clothes and a pretty fucking filthy proposition.

"How have you been lately," you decide, and consider, briefly, the very strong likelihood this call is gonna send her right through the goddamn roof.

When Ryujin eventually finds herself able to get out: "fine," there's a tell-tale pause, then an even longer pause, that implies she'd definitely rather say anything else. Then she kind of stutters a, "pretty good. Not too bad. All that stuff, I suppose."

And not to say any part of this has felt like routine. Both of you breathing into the end of a telephone and letting your eyes clench tight while you cum all over yourself - imagining everything she told you she wanted you to do to her, how it'd all go: "fucking with my arms grappled behind my back," she'd hum, "head pushed into the bedsheets, you're smothering me, ah- I'd let you cum wherever the fuck you like, but please-" or maybe a bit simpler: "so my thighs are straddling your face?" is about the gist.

A second goes by, another, a third.

"Hang on," you end up having to tell her sometimes, "I need a fucking towel-"

"You really are, huh, jerking off with me- I get you that hot, is what you're telling me? Or is just too much imagining how you'd fuck your way right into my guts through my pretty little pussy? Ah, jesus," the cadence of her voice climbs high before ending up back where it belongs, "Jesus, fuck."

"Can you imagine," is how it'd start, "how good it'd feel? My pussy, or- anywhere, everywhere. I think you'd ruin me for anyone else - you- with how, god-"

You can hear Ryujin shift on the sheets, licking at her bottom lip. Silently cumming. Cumming for you.

"Okay."

"Okay what," Ryujin quietly says back.

The gears turning.

You press your hand into the side of your neck. "Fuck me. Now, in a second. Tell me the last fucking thing in the world you want me to be or do and-"

"Wait."

There's this half-breath. This hmm that almost trips off Ryujin's tongue. Her eyes squinting open to a new thought. You think she's about to be sly. About to surprise you with an offhand fuck yes I'd ride that face like a bus seat; that she might come back with, yes I'll put you right in the middle of the best part of me, god you'll love it, and I promise not to make you cum if you're nice enough not to let your hands wander. But.

It's funny how things are -

"I have a confession," she says, matter-of-factly.

That's not entirely unusual. You've had more of those come through your line in a year than a confessional grate might get in a lifetime. So it doesn't sound like something special to you; Ryujin and you are in this candid don't-ask-don't-tell in regards to payments and the exchange of goods and services, but here you are, still using lines and bits. Practiced.

"In the name of the father, and of the son, and-"

"Funny." Ryujin gets the hint to backtrack. "Uhm, I mean. Remember the roommate I was telling you about?"

You hum a, "maybe."

"Uh," and now the hushed voice from her throat sounds distant, suddenly out of the scope of the receiver, "can I be totally, honestly- just really, extremely honest here, are you- or?"

You stop thinking about the ebbs and flows of her voice, how it dips down then arches up a little. Because now her voice has become something that is nervous, bordering on uneasy. So you stop, take stock and hold on. You weren't expecting a voice of worry or tension, or not at least while she wasn't thrown back into her bed and rubbing furiously at the ache between her legs.

"Yeah, of course," you offer her up.

"This is so embarrassing," she's saying, and some part of you feels ready to sink - you haven't the faintest idea for what, but there is something. Your chest clenches.

You can't help the worry and reply: "Okay, um. I mean- yeah. Me too, I can admit I feel a bit- and you can, y'know, be a little-"

"I'm not straight," she says finally, with a little quiver of her voice right at the tail end.

A blink comes, another - there's nothing coming out of you and you have no idea why that should be at all difficult, so the silence grows long. A new sort of awkward; the kind that you find out isn't just the rush of cum cooling in a pair of sweat-damp underwear. No - this is embarrassment, the kind that taints you.

"What?" You exhale a strained laugh, almost too-bright. "Are you- is this some sort of-?"

"Nope, no, this is crazy, sorry." She laughs. "Sorry."

"You certainly had me fooled." You sit up straighter in your bed, resting elbows on your knees. The moon is filtering through the windowsill and bathing the room in blue - casting light all the wrong ways. Making your own heart beat just a little too fast. "Fuck, um. Can I ask a personal question?"

"Sure." Her voice sounds uncharacteristically soft.

"What are you into?" and you as soon as you ask, you're laughing - because you've heard Ryujin wax lyrical for weeks, pontificate about every manner and way she'd take a cock between her hands, lips, fingers. Every. Single. Place, she wants one in - and now you can't believe this is what you went with: "I mean, like girls?"

"It's probably safe to assume I have some, y'know- degree of- yeah."

You chuckle a bit. The stiffness in your shoulders settling out.

"I've been in love, I realize - boy, with my roommate - for a while."

It's said with a sad laugh - as if this were a little shameful. Some deep, dark secret no one could ever be privy to; some stain on her soul that might wash out only after one final scrubbing with dish detergent and the cruelest bristles. A thing that keeps her up at night -

“Not the roommate, by the way, who we listen to get fucking railed like she’s on-demand pornography every weekend. Just to be clear."

"Good, jesus, that'd be fucking something."

Ryujin sounds more cheerful when her voice comes back through the line, "right?"

You wipe the perspiration of your top lip. You laugh nervously at this girl admitting to being in love over the phone - a stranger, truly, in all ways - to some fucked up audio-fetish sex line personality. And now - the fuck's wrong with you?

"Are you mad?" she asks, and some part of you is wrung. A small string of tension twisting so hard inside your gut, you're losing touch.

"No," you let her know. "No, not at all."

And that is honest. This is honest. There's this itching little scratch all over the insides of your skin that seems intent on driving a fucking wedge. Right at the center of your chest, tearing you apart. It feels as you've lost - not an object, not a material. Not an idea, nor a concept - but a feeling, that for once, was distinctly, overwhelmingly yours, without your wanting, or permission, or comprehension.

Ryujin sighs, this elongated relief coming in. She sinks back against the headboard.

She tells you everything. How Yeji smiles, and it's like the whole fucking room has gone up in lights, just from her and her alone. How there is nothing that she'd rather spend all her days around. She talks and you sit there, silent and listening. She talks about her. Her name and everything Yeji does and everything she wants.

The more you listen, you realize it's all real; she's not confused, or mistaken, or out to play a game or convince herself of something she believes is inherently untrue. She's not frustrated, or longing. She doesn't have this stomach-rolling pit of anxiety digging a cavern at her center because she just can't go through the rest of her life, living a life like everyone else. Not ever.

Because, all you really notice is-

She loves Yeji. The quiet kind. And she's sitting there, legs curled under her ass, crying. Not sad, or frightened, or wounded, just this beautiful sort of awed: it's the kind that only someone who is too inexperienced at crying should have. Where you just-

Look away.

"I'm not taking my phone into the bath with me," is the last thing she says to you, tears flooding out in her last couple words, before you can only offer her a meek: "anytime, Ryujin, I'm here."

-

(Four, five weeks go by in the blink of an eye. A month where you figure it's best to let her text or call or make it clear she wants your voice.

She never does.)

-

Lia is taking her sweet time to apply concealer over the cut Ryujin earned herself trying to get a stupid thing off a shelf - that's how low and unreasonable her tolerance for anything mildly inconvenient is.

"That fucking hurts," Ryujin tells her, wincing.

Lia ignores her.

She keeps on dabbing at the spot on her temple with the makeup brush until there isn't any trace of bruising, or where the jagged scar of a cut ends and skin begins, not anymore. At this point, she has gotten better, has developed a kind of surgeon's eye: zeroing in and unblinking, until every inch of damage is looking like Ryujin did when she was brought into this world -

(which is not perfect, but what it ought to look like, all things considered.)

Lia holds her hands in place on either side of Ryujin's head. "Stay."

It takes less than five minutes, and during those, Yuna just offers from around the bathroom door, "Ryujin, sweetheart, you’re looking hot tonight."

There's nothing more Ryujin wants to do than set the girl straight - the girl can't not keep a chirp to herself, for once in her fucking life. Because this flimsy slip of a dress around her middle feels too tight, the air choked out of her lungs if she shifts her weight onto the wrong foot. The hem rides way too fucking high up her thighs. So, if anyone didn't want a good long look at her ass tonight, they better come up with a plan B if she has to so much as approach a staircase.

"Have I ever not," she bites.

Yuna snorts.

And luckily for Ryujin, Lia feels the same way:

"Yuna, would it kill you to find something productive to do with your time?"

Yuna opens her mouth like she has something to say (she usually does) before retreating further away, the edge of her hair disappearing around the doorway. Then Ryujin's grinning - eyes taking in how Lia glowers a bit back, silently judging the stupidity in Ryujin's expression and also, admiring how good the girl looks. "Not bad, though, really."

Lia tells her with an underhanded wave of the brush and a wink: "historically, you do always get laid on my birthday, remember?"

Ryujin jerks a little, and the scar above her eye throbs into Lia's thumb. "Thanks?"

-

The party is miserable, but it's not Lia's fault. It's not really Yeji's fault either. They tried, that's really all she can say for them - her and her permanent-plus-one whose face Ryujin wants to both claw at and kiss until it’s swollen-

What she really can't wrap her mind around, though, is the guy sitting right fucking beside her. The idiot.

"Really, I'm telling you," her date - who is about 3.5 out of five stars at best and not so much handsome or hot as he is 'okay in a pinch' - grins up at her with the smarmiest of smiles, "if you'd just have taken me up on dinner, I would've spent all our time talking about you. We’d figure out how to enjoy ourselves."

"Likely story."

This fuckwad has the absolute goddamn gall to look wounded when his arm starts circling its way around the space where her dress is suffocating her at the waist, and Ryujin starts to shimmy her way out of hot water - again. God, she thinks, god save me-

"I think," she manages with a stilted grin, "I'm going to make myself useful- drinks, no?"

When he leans forward to grab her hand, it's only so she doesn't leave.

"You're not going to ask for my order?" he presses. The only reason Ryujin hasn't knocked out a couple of his front teeth is because Lia would be the one hearing Yeji whine about cleaning up the fucking mess.

"Just scotch. Neat."

Ryujin's a natural when it comes to smiling fake; it's part of her goddamned job. "Of course," she says, like she's not absolutely loathing him.

"Try the oakier, single-barrel variety, alright," he explains, because what's hotter than a man who's an expert in alcohol and being an insufferable tool? Nothing of course. She hopes he knocks back a few too many and his liver explodes - the painless way out. If god would ever fucking allow it.

She barely manages a half-strangled laugh over the blare of the music before he finally releases her wrist. 

The absolute fucking prick.

-

Here's something Ryujin never thought she'd come to appreciate:

Being alone.

It's just her and the breeze through the open doors of the rooftop garden, which is something every bit as refreshing as it is teeth-chatteringly cold. The wind picks up in gusts and billows, until it starts nipping up the fabric around her knees, like it's any one of the drunk, stumbling guests milling about and looking for a noncommittal lay.

Her left foot slips a step outwards, the uncomfortably tall heel bouncing on the edge of her toe and tapping a tune against the brick. Ryujin slouches on the railing that encapsulates the entire terrace, arms pressed over it, hands folded one-over the other - letting the night sky caress her bare shoulders with its wind-brushed kisses. This, is okay. It's better.

Maybe not ideal, but better.

And all it really took was a few fucking moments where she isn't smiling with pursed, stressed lips; where the pressure in her jaw finally settles out enough for the knot in the back of her teeth to fall loose and for her mouth to actually feel, y'know - good.

Not forced, is what. Not fake, or not real, or whatever-

Ryujin almost fishes her phone from her clutch. Almost. Almost texts to tell you that: this fucking night, like all the others in the past month or two or year, has left her feeling particularly done for, and yeah, no, it isn't helping that she'd take whatever would be the alternative if it meant a face like yours came in handy to lean against, or your shoulder or thigh to use. Like some pillow - that's all.

And you are, like. An option. But not, she sighs out, exactly the right one.

An errant chill shudders through her and down her spine.

"Shin Ryujin."

She'd recognize the tilt of that voice anywhere; even if her ears were pounding and her head filled with static and noise, she'd be able to place Yeji at the end of the world. The truth is easy to see, if only Yeji knew where to look: the corners of Ryujin's eyes screw up tight for a second, an immeasurably long time, in order to not do what they wanted. What it would mean.

She does anyway. "I'd hug you," Ryujin throws behind her with an airy sigh, "but I know where you've been."

Yeji's jaw has set at this point; a twist is still in her lip and she lets out this dry, half-laugh, half-not sound - which is the thing that drives Ryujin a little crazy. Yeji turns her attention from the concrete ground, to Ryujin's profile, her body leaning forward, toes tipping in: "sometimes I wonder if my partner in crime can breathe without saying something incendiary."

"Nope." Ryujin offers no further response or follow-up. Instead, the quiet gush of air makes itself the center of attention and a victim of silence.

"Sorry about-"

"Don't be. Don't give it a second thought." Ryujin stretches, leaning a little over the railing. Her fingers arch before her. Her words sounding the slightest bit cold, "can't win 'em all, right?"

Yeji's eyebrows pull together. "That's not how this was supposed-"

"God, Yeji." Ryujin smiles. Yeji hates that she never knows what that means. "I'm trying, really, I am, but you know - I really, I have tried my best, so can we just lay it to rest?"

Yeji leans over the railing - the fucking moon reflecting in these lustrous pools where her eyes go darker than night - and doesn't say anything for the longest moment. Ryujin chews her tongue, and tries to look as interested in the void of stars and night clouds as possible.

"Fuck's going on with you, lately?"

Ryujin just laughs back.

"Really," and the last word dips in a groan. It's almost childishly tragic how petulantly she insists, "talk to me."

But Ryujin has nothing else to say - no witty, scathing remarks. No deadpan observations or funny asides, not even a morose comment to throw back. There are times and moments and fucking periods of her day where she'd happily chew glass if it meant that Yeji would sit there a second longer, be beside her for a while and smile, just smile at only her, once - for once.

Her only response is the worst kind of lie, this soft: "really nothing."

The moment where it slips and hangs between them, when it lingers the longest -

She could reach out, a hand on her thigh, the small of her back, if she could only reach. And Yeji, she'd listen to her, for once. She'd really, genuinely hear what Ryujin says; like she can see it, plain as day, everything there's in Ryujin's eyes, the thoughts inside her head, written on her goddamn face and across the open night air in neon:

I love you. I'm in love with you, you're too close to me.

The seconds pass. They tick, they stretch and grow thin. Yeji looks at Ryujin expectantly, and Ryujin knows. It is something like being put on the spot and called in. Something like a long, pained whimper caught somewhere in her throat.

She is very much still, unmoving, and feeling nothing at all.

Maybe she can blame the alcohol, the dark, the series of events that saw her hiding away behind a bunch of decorative trees and fighting for breath where the wind blows a little cooler. She can pretend like the stars aren't absent above her, and it doesn't hurt a goddamn bit.

“Yeji, I-” She licks at her lip, ready, willing-

Ryujin grabs at her waist with a hand. Her knuckles white around the black of the railing. And with no further fanfare, she spits it out like venom, with no small measure of shame or guilt or worry for how Yeji will take it - or worse: how she herself would react in the wake of admitting it aloud -

“I love you,” Ryujin says, and it pops out of her mouth as neatly as it had the first thousand times practicing alone in her car.

A blink, and another. The look on Yeji's face is hard and blank, as if she'd understood every syllable, but didn't hear it at all - maybe. Her gaze drops, it trails a path along the long line of Ryujin's pale neck. Of the two ways it could ever go in her head, stuck on loop for as long as she can remember, Ryujin had never considered that Yeji might turn this still and vacant. A sudden feeling, a pull or a grip, starts in the lowest part of Ryujin's guts.

"And not-," she hears her own voice falter, "like-"

Then - it's on the back of Ryujin's head and in her hair, a hand curled at the base of her skull and pulling her head a little downward and her, until their foreheads meet. And before she has a chance to walk it back - to stuff it down where it came from and seal the bottle tight - before she can clench her eyes, shake her head, and spit out anything else like the fact that there was not much that had to change, between them -

Yeji just says plainly: "Yeah, hun. Love you too."

And it's shockingly, the most painful thing - that she just squeezes her hand and pats her back like it's all they could ever be. Without even the wherewithal to reject her properly; to tell her something like "don't ever say that again, god," or "oh shit- Ryujin. Sorry. So, no," or at least to spit back with a scathing laugh: "welcome to the fucking party," like what she always does.

"Yeah." Yeji clears her throat quietly and starts retreating back from the brink - with no apparent aim but to pull away as she draws herself away from the warmth of Ryujin's space, "uh, don't forget to say hello to some of the staffers before they go home, okay?"

Ryujin is left with nothing but the air that follows Yeji's outline; left with her heart sinking into the depths of the night; left trying to make sense of the bitter sting ripping her chest in two.

Left with her own hopelessness - the pining - when Yeji walks away.

To be lonely, to be alone; neither are the same. 

And she hates knowing she is so incredibly both.

-

The worst part is she knows how it looks.

Her pace just on the verge of unsteady, the way her feet come up from the ground: Left foot, the right. The other. Back and back and forth again, faster and then slower and- fuck.

A damsel, severely distressed.

She sits down on the curb. She wants to cry, but even just the way she looks, carrying her heels and struggling with this fucking dress she wishes she'd never bothered with at all - oh, the tabloids would be sure every detail gets pinned under all the wrong lights. A breakdown would only serve to confirm all the right things; it would paint a story for anyone who cares enough to glean from her crestfallen posture and red cheeks that she is yes, a little broken, and that everyone wants to be loved and she's no different - and -

She sucks a breath. This time, when her tears fall, it's a quick, perfunctory action, no show in it.

Her palms rub her face - and she wipes, and wipes, and wipes - smearing at the foundation under her eyes before she takes a long drag of night air. Deep from her core, filling up her lungs until she can't hold anymore. Until it hurts and stings the backs of her ribs - it's enough for a single, fleeting moment. The street is mostly empty; an occasional car will speed by every now and then and it's those few and far between intervals that hurt most, that nearly shatter her: if she can barely do this, alone, how can she possibly be enough for anyone?

Ryujin’s smiling only to hold back her tears, and it fucking stings. She flicks hurriedly past the lock screen of her phone and swipes through the message stream with blurry eyes - there’s a whole host of people that want to know where the fuck she went, if she's safe, why she up and vanished the moment Yeji couldn't keep an eye on her. And well. The girl sighs.

Finds your name in her contacts and puts her thumb right beside it.

It rings exactly three times, and she hates the number. She hates how many things can be associated with that number in those seconds alone.

Four, the pause where you must have had the opportunity, but didn't decide to pick up - just leave it be. Then five - Ryujin is definitely no longer looking forward to any of this.

Six: it stops.

There's this crackle, and through the night -

"Just what brings you here, stranger?"

For an indistinct amount of time, Ryujin drifts in the whirlpool current of that question; it sinks her deeper, into the currents of your voice and the tone and what it's suggesting and demanding from her. All the things your voice is giving her permission to ask of and with and-

Until finally she answers back: "do you ever just, like, wish," a shallow pause for the hitch in her breath, "something, someone was a little more for you- or to- with you-"

The swell of a smile through the receiver; and you can't help your laugh, soft.

"Sometimes," is what you say, "that's just human, don't you think?"

She doesn't understand how something like love or life or desire should be a universal trait.

"Uh, maybe," she shrugs out, and thinks.

"It's pretty normal," you tell her.

Quiet, as if you were right in front of her.

"Look," you start, and you can hear how she sniffs her nose and swipes the pad of her hand right along the side of it, to catch anything stupid and stupid sounding leaking down to her upper lip. "You don't have to. Let's just hang out. Tell me anything."

And for once, she does.

She talks.

-

(The whole story.

From the first time Ryujin realizes the world is never going to be fair - that she shouldn't have to look at herself like she's unlovable because she's seen her friends be held as though they are - or at Yeji like she's completely unattainable or somehow, unlovable, and that someone as amazing as Yeji should have been loved from the moment she was born.

The rest comes through as fragments: the truth of her career. Yeji.

The balcony, the breeze, the bitter-fucking-disappointment.

And what came of that -

When Ryujin isn't a million and one words per minute, it feels, almost, it feels - she'd swear there was less noise in her own head: this thrumming in her brain has settled out; the walls around her and the echo coming off of them - the booming and pulsing - it's, gone.

Because even though there was an indistinct shape for where she had landed, in the aftermath, and nothing much had changed - all that did. You listen, and that alone makes it so you're both exactly where you’re supposed to be, even if this, tonight - you are unsure, if it will actually fix anything - if anything needs fixing at all.)

[claudiafrankie]

Pick a Card: How They See You

DISCLAIMER: TAROT IS NOT AN EVIDENCE-BASED PRACTICE. YOU ARE IN CHARGE OF MAKING YOUR OWN DECISIONS.

Pile 1: The Dog

This person sees you as having mastered the earth element. I think you are pretty detached with the way you approach your goals and it like doesn't compute in this person's brain that this is how you get the things that you want and build the world around you that you have.

They see you as someone who revels in the simple pleasures in life - sitting in the grass on a sunny day, stretching your body in the morning, a delicious seasonal coffee creamer. You are rich in the ways that count pile 1. You take good care of yourself and because of this you kind of exude a nurturing quality to those around you. Whether you intend to or not, you help other people get to where they want to go. You build people up and show them that they are capable of achieving their goals. I think you have a good eye for material goods and know what to splurge on and what to buy generic brand. Maybe you invest in nice cookware and knives because you know you'll use those for years to come, or in a high-quality bed spread or mattress. You take care of your body and appearance, you understand this to be an art form. But you also know that it's not everything. And this down-to-earth quality of taking good care of yourself but also not taking it too seriously or to extremes is really sexy to a lot of people. I think this person thinks that other people see you as husband/wife material. If you're single they're scratching their head like "how the hell are they not wifed up yet"

I think they see you as someone who doesn't stay in people's lives for very long, and they are worried that this is going to be the case for your relationship with them as well. They think you are in tune with the rhythms of nature and aren't afraid to let go and move on. You enjoy the good times when they come knowing they won't last forever, and you don't let the hard times beat you down when they come because you know they will pass.

I think they see you as someone who has learned all this the hard way. As someone who has been through many highs and lows, someone flexible in the circumstances you can thrive and survive in. You know when a tree lifts up the concrete of a sidewalk? That's you. Pavement be damned, you are going to keep growing and growing. You understand setbacks are part of progress. You don't let the hiccups hangups and obstacles sway you from steady movement forward.

I think they think that you are very loyal to those you care about, perhaps to your own detriment at times. I think this person sees you as someone who feels easily caged and needs a lot of space to try new things and be your own person. They see these two sides of you being at odds with each other at times, whether that is true or not.

This person sees you as being perhaps at times unwilling to open up emotionally. I think they respect you for your stoic disposition, but they think that sometimes you take this position/approach when it isn't necessary and that you actually hold yourself back a little bit in this way. Like you are a little blocked in your self-expression. Again, this is how they see you. It doesn't mean that this is actually who you are.

Pile 2: The Moon

This person thinks that you are in an incredible amount of pain underneath a calm surface. The card you picked, I just really tried to sense what it would be like to be there. Sitting next to a lake on a cloudy night. You have that smell of the freshwater and grass, and the sound of maybe a frog or two. Some light wind ruffling the surface of the lake... sitting in that setting depicted on the card it has the vibe of "something happened here and there's this weight hanging over the whole place." Like the trees are clinging to the ground so tightly because they are afraid of a strong wind knocking them down, and maybe there's a dock with a small boat that has rusted over from getting no use anymore and with no one around to take care of it or store it properly.

That's how they see you, as someone who has been through something, or maybe a series of things, that have deeply impacted you. And it's like you're still processing and aren't quite sure what the you that comes out the other side of all this processing is going to look like yet. This goes beyond sadness, this person sees you as grieving. Who or what I don't know, but they see you as dealing with some kind of loss. I think it could have to do with your family. Maybe you have been dealing with family troubles or grieving the loss of a family member or a family friend. Or, if it's not a literal death that you are processing, it could be that you are beginning to understand your family in a different way, a deeper way. Maybe your perspective on your family is expanding, you are understanding the pain and wounding that they have been through, and you're angry. You could be reconciling feelings of bitterness or anger towards your family with feelings of sympathy for the difficulties they have faced in their own lives.

I think this person sees that you are holding on to this pain and struggling to let it go. Maybe they sense a despondency in you, a subtle hopelessness. Not detachment so much as fear of encountering the same lessons with different people, of being hurt in the same ways again. They can feel a deep anger in you, seeing you as someone who is looking for their place in the world, wanting more than anything to feel like you belong.

This is really sad pile 2. You are so strong and this person wants to help you but they know that you have to want to get better, and they think that you don't even see the sadness, anger, and longing in yourself. They won't offer unsolicited advice, so for the time being I think they are taking the role of being a supportive friend and willing to give advice should you go to them for it.

There is some judgment coming from them. Like "why can't they just get over it" or "they are so stuck and don't even realize." It's weird, they want to help you, but they do kind of want you to lean on them as some sort of savior/hero/rescuer figure. I think they believe that you really want someone like this to come along and sort of take care of you. I'll say it again, this is how this person sees you not necessarily who you actually are, so don't get too fixated on their perspective - especially if it is not accurate. You know yourself best.

I think this person is equally invested in making you feel better as they are making themselves feel better. Maybe they think that your well-being is what they're concerned about, or this is what they're telling themselves, but really they are dealing with their own insecurities and need to feel like the hero to be worthy of love. Maybe this person is an overachiever, or highly successful for their age. They could come from a family where this was expected of them - to win.

So yeah they see you as a little bit of a damsel in distress pile 2. I don't think you need anyone to save you or are trying to signal this to people, but I do think that this person thinking that you deep down want someone to come along and sweep you off your feet has some truth to it. And I feel like I should tell you that wanting to be saved and taken care of is totally normal and human. We live in a world where it's difficult just to be a person. Dealing with deeply rooted pain while navigating the mayhem of daily living is incredibly difficult. You are doing a good job, pile 2. Maybe no one has said that to you in awhile. Keep up the good work. And, while there's nothing wrong with wishing for a knight in shining armor, remember who it is that has been saving your ass this whole time in their absence. ;)

Pile 3: The Broom and Whip

Hey pile 3! Lets get into it

This feels like someone that you had or have a romantic connection with but there was a falling out. They see you as someone who is defensive and in a lot of pain. They know that you are not the type of person to lash out and take your hurt out on other people, but they almost wish that the two of you could have it out - I just don't think that you are expressing your anger to this person. I think they could be concerned that this is eroding you mentally and emotionally, that you aren't expressing to them how you really feel.

I think you guys aren't talking right now and they are feeling this separation big time. They really want to work this out and come back together. You literally got the Lovers and the Two of Cups side by side - whoever you are asking about sees you as a soulmate, as their endgame. They are worried that this won't work out and they are trying to plan how to fix things with you, possibly asking about you to their friends or asking their own friends for advice on the situation.

This person sees how naturally cooperative you are with the people around you, how you are so willing to work with others and put your own interests aside if it benefits the majority - it's like this is just how you operate, you don't even have to think about it. They could see you as working on some kind of skill and gaining notoriety for it, gathering some attention for your diligence, attention to detail, and team-oriented attitude.

Yeah dude this person just thinks that you're it for them. The Lovers and the Two of Cups??? Come on. I think that even though this person is upset they see whatever upset is currently going on is temporary. It's like they aren't even entertaining the option or possibility that things are over over between the two of you. It will not compute in their brain.

I think this person thinks that you're pushing them away. They think that you are retreating into yourself where it's safe and keeping them at arms-reach. I think the way you are interacting with them now compared to the way you used to interact with them is very different - I think right now you are giving them friendly, polite energy but it's just a way to maneuver around them so you can keep them away. You are relying heavily on your manners to protect yourself in this situation and they can tell. They hate that you used to have so much vivaciousness when you used to talk to them and now they don't get that side of you anymore.

I do think that there is part of this person that enjoys the suspense and tortured waiting of what's going on. I think that they want to comfort and soothe you, to coax you into their arms and hold you while you hang onto them. I think this is part of a sexual fantasy of theirs as well, where they are the one to console you and then fuck the sadness out of you. They could be into BDSM type stuff, or if it's not that heavy/intense, they just want to test your limits a little bit. They like the idea of being the one to inflict some pain on you and then show you that they can make it better, that they can make you feel even better than you did before the pain even occurred.

It's hard to explain but it's not really an exotic fantasy or unusual I don't think, I'm just having a hard time putting it into words. They want to like........ stretch you? LMAO Like yeah just see... what you can take. And when they're done having their way with you, being the one who you collapse into. They want to be the person with the power to harm and to heal you. Not sure if that's your vibe but that is what I'm getting from this person. Very intense and steamy, if this is your situation then please write smut about it or something so the rest of us can live vicariously through you lol.

Take care pile 3 :)

[chailovesu]

a list of everything ive manifested and what i want to manifest

having alot of friends + also having at least one best friend (in short never being lonely)

people always approaching me first

not living with desired people

instant appearance changes

instant weather changes

very very pretty almond doe eyes and long eyelashes

a puppy

oddly specific tiktoks to pop on my fyp

being "popular" in school

having big boobs and a big butt naturally

being a semi big submaker

my face shape (younger me listened to round shape face subliminals but i had a thin one before)

alot of mcdonalds

bigger prettier lips

alot of sps coming back because i believed in the saying "they always come back"

revising something completely and there being no evidence of it ever happening

long breaks off of school (i feel like since i was listening to ALOT of "cancel school" subliminals b4 the corona break and i've had so many breaks off of school)

soft pretty 3a/3b hair

alotttt of compliments

being seen as very attractive in my own eyes and other ppls

being alot of ppls comfort person everyone tells me they enjoy my company

being right abt random things

manifested alot of things for my old friend

constantly passing classes knowing damn well i didn't do any work 😭 went from a 34 to a 92 doing absolutely nothing

all my teachers liking me enough to bump my grades to passing even if i did nothing in their classes

strangers always being nice to me all the time

people being obsessed with me (i don't recommend manifesting this 😭) 

being lucky in games 

immediate weight loss

having 300+ absences when the county's limit was 10 a semester and never getting in trouble for it

moving out of houses 

being spoiled by people irl and online simply for being attractive

ppl texting me immediately after i think abt them

being able to manifest fast in general 

having a high pitched cute voice

+ other tiny things

what im current manifesting

being extremely rich + living in a mansion

knowing how to speak Spanish, Korean, and French

revising any trauma I've experienced

desired baby pictures and childhood memories

having no anxiety and never overthinking

being everyones type + being like kokomi teruhashi

revising that i have close childhood friends

butt length hair

having no body hair

having a vivid imagination

4.0 gpa + perfect attendance + being naturally smart + being good at math

hazel eyes with mostly green

a cat and a pink bird and a bunny + my current dogs but they're all going to be babies and get along well (also manifesting that ik how to manage all of them)

being shorter

desired parents + only one sibling

a lot of rich love interests

desired body and face

old friends coming back

being a huge submaker like roy

bringing certain family members back to life

im manifesting this by affirming and listening to subliminals because thats what i prefer

[weaselle]

RECOVERY

I spent a lot of my life depressed without admitting it to myself and then i spent a year so depressed i could hardly make myself do the bare minimum to keep my body alive, and now it's about 3 years since i got up from that lowest point and while i am still struggling with myself things are objectively a lot better.

and i just want to put a couple things i've learned, both to remind myself of how far i've come, and in case any of what i've experienced helps anyone else.

You can't run from the darkness

When you're super depressed it's easy to focus on how much you don't want to be depressed. When everything is darkness you tend to wish you could escape that darkness.

but you can't. The darkness is all around you. You can't run away from it without running deeper into it.

instead, follow the light.

don't think of it as escaping depression, think of it as seeking joy. Don't run away from the darkness, walk toward any lights you can see.

At first it will be very small things. The taste of a food. The way your favorite color looks. A smell you like. For me one of the first things i could find to remind me of joy was the way a warm shower feels.

I would just stand in the shower and lean into the tiny, tiny joy of that feeling. I would describe it to myself, how it felt good, what about it felt good. It didn't cure me, it didn't make me less depressed, but it was a little point of joy to focus on, to breathe into like a tiny candle flame in my darkness.

I would memorize that feeling, so that later, when i felt like nothing ever brought me joy anymore, i could think, no, that's your depression lying to you, you felt joy, however small, right there in the shower just yesterday. And, maybe there is more somewhere else.

Even today, it's been a hard week, i'm feeling a lot of hopeless and helpless feelings clamoring away at me, but... i have spicy soup. And spicy soup is a NEW joy. I found spicy soup joy as i was following any little light i could out of the deepest part of my depression.

I never put hot sauce in soup before then. But today i am drinking the broth of a very spicy soup and as much as everything else is complicated and difficult and scary and dark, there is a bright mote of joy in this sip of spicy soup. And in the next one. And the next. I enjoy it, i love it, all the more that it is new, and if i had given up four years ago, i never would have known this small joy, this new favorite tiny thing.

Who knows what other little joys i may find?

If you have come to a place in life where you have lost the knowledge of how to feel joy, it is important to remember that feeling joy is like anything else in life. The more you practice, the better you get, the more of it you can do at higher levels.

And there are only so many minutes in the day. The more of them you spend acknowledging what feels good, the less of them will be left for feeling bad.

you can't escape the darkness by fleeing from it, but you can find the light by moving toward it.

Chop Wood Fetch Water

Another thing i learned was a truth about the exercise advice you always hear.

For where i am in my recovery now, common exercise has very little impact. I don't really get the endorphins people talk about, and i don't tend to feel better about myself after i work out unless i already feel pretty okay about myself to begin with. i don't mean to say there is no point in me exercising, but, i walk about ten miles a day holding onto 8 energetic dogs and i do a fair amount of lifting and bending and stuff for my job, and it's fine but it's not, like, doing a whole lot for me at this point in my recovery (tho i do think more recreational exercise will come back into play a stage or two on in my healing process)

HOWEVER

There was a year there where i was only getting out of bed to go to the bathroom. When i was only able to force myself to eat just enough each day to stay alive because i'd made a promise to myself, and that promise was almost all i had left.

and the right kind of exercise is what pulled me out of that.

the RIGHT kind.

See, someone close to me needed help with a physical job. That was an important part and why this method is known historically as some variation of Chop Wood Carry Water -- it's intensely physical, which is important, but also, it helps the people around you. These days our personal communities tend to not need wood copped and water carried the same way. But you can get the same effect helping someone move all their furniture, doing all the yard work for your friends and/or family, volunteering for a charity that builds housing for homeless people, SOMEthing physically taxing that helps people.

In my case, my aging father needed help re-shingling the roof. So i promised i'd help.

So i got up every morning because he was expecting me. And i climbed the ladder because he would see me if i didn't. And i lifted and carried and hammered and worked hard. It took a week of six to eight hour days.

Right away, the fact that it was helping someone else made it not matter so much that it didn't feel like it was helping me at first. I couldn't deny that i was doing something good, that my existence had positive meaning, however small.

But very soon, it changed something fundamental in my state of depression. You can't do physical labor in the sun 7 hours a day without drinking a bunch of water. Without working up an appetite. Without getting very tired at the end of the day.

See, i had been struggling to make myself drink enough water, i was fighting to make myself eat even one small meal's worth of food each day, and i couldn't get a good night's sleep to save my life. And these things all made my depression much much worse. You think you get sad or angry from skipping a meal, consider being chronically undernourished. You think your mental state is worse after pulling an all nighter, think about what never getting a good night's sleep does.

But a couple days into this job with my father, and suddenly i was hydrated, i was eating full meals, and i was sleeping soundly at night.

THAT is what pulled me out of that deepest part of my depression.

So in a way, it was exercise that saved me. But not how people often say "have you tried exercising?" More like pushing myself physically to the point that my body demanded the things that previously i couldn't get it to want for itself.

Instead of forcing myself to eat i was craving food. Instead of staying up to all hours and then tossing and turning, i was physically exhausted and slept early and hard. (and, weirdly, being physically exhausted was somehow a relief from being emotionally/mentally exhausted)

Lastly

Healing often isn't noticeable while you're doing it

"healing is a process" is something you hear a lot, but i think it's more helpful to say something like

"Healing is like growing your hair out from short to long. You can look in the mirror every day and not notice it happening. And even when you can tell for sure it's longer than it was, you still can't really do anything with it, and it may seem pointless. But then one day you can tie it back in a ponytail and you realize how much it's grown and how many options are open to you now and you're really glad you stuck with it"

Now excuse me while i go meditate on the joys of my remaining spicy soup.

[ravensmadreads]

Unhinged totally unasked for thots about Riding Pedro Boys

Authors Note: So this came from me chugging entirely too many energy drinks and then projectile vomiting in Taylors inbox. I'd like to warn you that: English isn't my first language, I have never written smut before, I'm not a real writer, and also I'm trash goblin levels of unhinged about this. That being said; Enjoy and uhh. Forgive me Fandom

JAVIER PEÑA

Javier Pena doesn't let you do it.

Don't @ me LISTEN! (YES I STARTED OFF WITH A CONTROVERSIAL THOT FUCKING BITE ME.)

That man does not have the time, or the patience, or the good sense (the sense is at the other end) to let you ride. He needs the control okay? And sometimes it's not even about the control ! It's the frustration. It piles and piles and piles until he snaps. He needs to do. He will bend you over and work his frustration away until he has had enough and you let him because he needs it. (And lets be real he makes it worth your while every single time)

BUT. When he finally fucking retires, and gets a ranch, and breaths air not tinged with the smells of death, cigarettes and guns for the first time in however many years, and maybe drinks some fucking water, he takes you out on a date. He fumbles through the entire thing, panics because he thinks he blew it, still manages to get you home, gets ridden for the first time in like 6 years, and can't walk straight for an entire day and stammers every time someone asks him why.

JAVIER GUTIERREZ

Javi G loves it. He loves watching you. Gets all puppy dog wide eyed (remember the pool scene face??? Thats it.) and you have to really focus because his look of straight up wonder and awe and bright eyed eagerness makes you want to cry. He's panting like he's running a marathon, running his big hands EVERYWHERE he can reach. He makes you feel worshipped and adored and so very very loved. Thanks you after. For being so amazing, and so wonderful to him, and thanks the universe that he found you. Cause he's sap. You definitely cry after.

JOEL MILLER

(Watch me be controversial again) Joel is fucking tired okay? He has old man bones and creaky joints and his back is achy. Patrol was agony, Jesse wouldn't shut up the entire time, and Tommy was giving him shit, and he has no energy to drill anyone into the mattress (as much as we all want him to). He's just plain tired. He likes you on top. Likes it slow (like a roast chicken on a sunday slow). Enjoys the gradual build up, likes to lean back, watch with half open eyes as you take your time. Wants to indulge in something beautiful at the end of the world, and that something is you. He makes sexy grunting noises, mutters a whole lot of praise ~and filth~ and just y'know. Savours it. 🫠🫠🫠 savours you. 🫠

DIETER BRAVO

Dieter is a maniac. (Leave him alone he has adhd!!) He can't still still for the life of him so you best believe he changes positions 6 times and the only way you're getting to ride is if you're also putting some weight elsewhere. To hold him down! You squeeze his neck once and he MELTS. INSTANTLY. Loses all sense. Starts babbling and whimpering and making extremely pathetic noises. Will definitely buck up and whine. PRAISES YOU. BEGGING. LOUD NOISES.

MAX PHILLIPS

Max is a heathen. He just likes watching you bounce. That's it. That's the post :p

MARCUS PIKE

Marcus P is a romantic. He will be doing the whole "lean forward and try to get kisses in between" while also "moaning and maintaining eye contact" and he's holding you so tight , squeezing your sides and also muttering declarations of love. About how he wants a life with you, and a family, and a home, and a future. How he's going to "make you so happy baby, I promise I will, I swear to you". Doesn't let you off for from on top of him for atleast a half hour after; kissing all over your face and rubbing your back and petting your hair "I meant all of it sweetheart. I want all of you." shsbzgwgsvsg ilovehimsomuch and I've only ever seen gifsets of this man what is wrong with me

MARCUS MORENO

Marcus M is A MENACE. He wears his stupid glasses, and has his stupid shirt off, while he does stupid taxes/meeting plans in bed. You keep throwing side glances and getting increasingly wound up and he just has this gentle smirk but he's mostly ignoring you. You sidle up to him and maybe start kissing his jaw, laying gentle pecks down his neck, and he's still fukcungh working "Baby. I need to finish this. I'm sorry, you need to wait." But that smirk is still there and it's driving you crazy and maybe you keep kissing until you reach his *coughs* and then you're working on getting him interested. You can still hear the fucking pen scratching though and so you go deeper, and he raises an eyebrow. "be good now honey" You're settling in his lap and he has you sitting there until he has finished his paperwork with you whimpering and trying not to squirm because you want to be good you really do and you know he'll make it so much better but he feels so good and when he's finally finally done you get to move but you're so wound up you can't pull yourself together enough to find a rhythm and you're nearly in tears and he has to grip your sides and murmur instructions in your ear and help you until you're satisfied and just when you think he's done, and about to flip you over, he adjusts his grip and starts moving from underneath you until you're crying and he's finished ~which doesnt happen until you've come 2 more times~

DAVE YORK

Dave. Oh my gosh Dave. Dave is a strict dom if ever there was one. With him it's a punishment. He'll tell you to hold off until he's done which is freaking impossible with how deep he gets, and how he likes to warm up his hands on your butt while you're trying desperately to hold onto that last thread of control. He is muttering absolute filth, holding your arms behind your back with one hand while the other is either laying smack after smack or rubbing you furiously all the while he's got the smuggest look. "Don't you dare baby. Be a good girl now. Listen and obey for once". But you can't because he's not fair and he knows it. And when you do finally fall apart he's clenching his teeth trying to hold back himself and his hands are holding you up as you gasp his name like it's the only word you know. He's running his hands down your back and kissing you softly and helping you catch your breath and when you finally get your heart to stop pounding and look up at him, he's watching you with this dangerously soft smile and he goes "oh you're in for it now aren't you honey?" and kisses your forehead while you try not to whimper.

FRANKIE MORALES

Frankie is a soft boy. He loves it. Craves it. He loves giving up control. Wants you to tie him up and have your way until he has no thoughts left in that pretty little head. He is swearing like an absolute sailor the entire time, calling you ma'am, begging to be released so he can kiss you and touch you, absolutely nearly breaks the head board once he was so desperate. Wants to be edged but also is the biggest WIMP about it. Will pout and swear and beg and plead but then want you to deny him again. Will definitely be mumbling absolute nonsense once you're done. Needs all the aftercare. Blushes pink when he gets it. Wraps himself around you like a HUGE koala bear after. ~and returns the edging favour 3 times over when he gets in his Captain Francisco Morales Mood~

JACK DANIELS

BONUS TWO I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT and tumblr won't let me put gifs for:

Jack makes every single cowboy joke known to man. You have to put your hand on his mouth to get him to shut the hell up. His eyes get all glassy when you do. He puts his hat on top of your head and busies himself in your neck (dual benefits: A. He shuts up and B. HICKIES) will definitely drag you on top of him in his Bronco (he likes to show off) will pull up on the side of the road almost 70% of the times you drive together. Bites you over your clothes. Loves the way you grab desperately at this leather jacket. Definitely makes you bend over and 'clean up the mess sugar' before driving like the hounds of hell are after him all the way back home and doing it all over again because "we gotta make you a mama now love"

PERO TOVAR

Pero got married after he came back and retired as a sell sword. His wife is a soft but sassy thing who's a little (read: not at all, she returns his snark twice over) intimidated by him but also thinks he's a good man because he saved her village from raiders. She has seen him grumble and snark at but then also share his food with the orphans who works at the village inn. She's inexperienced (let me live my victorian life) and he doesn't really think he deserves her but also he's not so much an idiot to say no to someone like her. She's the village "healer" and he met her when he got stabbed by one of the raiders (arm wound: not serious.) He has to teach her. She gets shy and flustered, which is a total 180 from her sassy self, and Pero loves it. She makes the most amazing sounds that have him thinking that maybe he did something right in his life to end up in her arms. She wants to please her new husband and asks her married friends for advice and they tell her about this new position. So she asks him, stuttering and tripping over words, if she could try something she heard about? From a friend? She straddles him and Pero loses his mind. He's closing his eyes and clenching his jaw so hard and she's whimpering in the most DELICIOUS way and he's trying so hard to hold back and let her take her pace and she's so worried "am I not doing it right?" Pero has to take 3 deep breaths before he's centred enough to answer and then he helps her. Puts his hands on her hips to guide her. Puts one of her hands on his shoulder "steady now pequenita" and puts the other low on her belly and presses in so she can feel him. Loves the way she cries out. Bends forward to leave little marks everywhere he can reach. She's scrambling at his chest, leaving nail marks he loves, and finally grabbing his hair and pulling until he groans. And when they're both done and sated and sweaty he kisses her, looks her in the eye and winks. "I'm going to have to go thank your friend now, mi esposa."

DIN DJARIN

Din and you dont have time. The razor crest is finally in hyperspace, you got shot at for the 50th time in 2 weeks, (because Murphys Law seems to be the only law Mando never breaks), you're exhausted, sweaty, and the giggly green monster of chaos only made you chase him down from the top of a weapons cabinet twice before he finally decided to take a nap. You're frustrated, and in desperate need of a shower, and a nap, but also you can't get the image of Mando fighting out of your head. Before you know it, the hormones have taken over and you're attacking him in the pilot seat. The bucket is off (I refuse to look at my own reflection in the tin cans helmet while we do the do), he's got you arching into him, your shirt is half torn from the top because Din refuses to wait for "so many fucking buttons Meshla" the gloved hand is squeezing the back of your neck, his mouth is on your chest, his other hand (you only managed to get one glove off) is splayed out on your back. You're riding him like you're trying to break him and his thigh holster? thing (do i look like i can figure out what they're called?) is digging marks into your skin but you're too turned on to care. It's frantic, it's messy, you're PRAYING the tiny green menace stays asleep as you do your best to muffle your sounds. The refresher isn't big enough for a round two, (you still do your best), and your legs feel like jelly, when you finally pass out; curled up on top of the human space heater while he hums Mando'a in your ear.

*****

TAGGING: @chronically-ghosted (you are a menace but ily)

@fuckyeahdindjarin (here I go trying that writing thing again, stop me pls)

[fountainpenguin]

Wild Life Session 1 takeaways thus far:

- Tiny Grian blends in with the fish

- Scar and Jimmy are doing their best... I don't have anything specific to say, but I like their cherry hill base plans. And I'm just really glad Scar decided to call them Bam Boys instead of Bang Boys.

- Grian's reputation as a cheater precedes him and it cracks me up... He really is out here like "You really think I'd cheat on you guys? I've been gone for like 5 minutes" and Mumbo and Skizz are just not having it.

- Grian: "I'm not here to share." [Realizes Martyn took all the sugarcane right in front of him.] "Oh, wait... Can I have some?"

- Etho calling BigB his big brother and saying he's nervous about wandering away and needs someone to hold his hand...

- I really enjoyed the Etho-Bdubs banter over the black horse. Bdubs had so many great lines throughout this episode. I especially liked "Wait, I can't take this- That's a bad example for the children."

- Giant Etho and Tiny Scott in the boat...

- Martyn looking around in confusion when he can't find Ren like "I think Ren shrank so much, he perished."

- Ahasbands... save me, Wild Life Ahasbands... Martyn gushing over Mumbo (to Ren) and imitating Mumbo's voice and talking about how cool he is (followed by their later teasing chat over Martyn inventing the wheel) is killing me slowly...

-> sldkfjsdklfj wait, Martyn really is gunning to bring Mumbo on his team, huh? Yeah, that's not gonna last.

- Ren and Martyn talking about how they were going to claim the top of the cherry hill unless someone already put down a sign, and then they reach the top of a long climb and there's just a sign saying Scar and Jimmy live there. Comedy gold...

Martyn: I think [Grian] thinks of you as 'less than half.' Mumbo, who has spent an entire episode bragging about being tiny and loathing anyone big: Or more than half. That'd be worse.

I'm crying.

- I enjoy Martyn saying "I love that for us" in regards to a group he's trying to schmooze his way into, but isn't yet part of.

- I'm fascinated by Sub 1 Club's obsession with getting as tiny as they can and opting to go into swim mode as a form of land travel.

- Oh gosh, Mumbo knows Martyn so well... The lack of faith he has in his honesty is incredible.

- Mumbo screaming at Martyn, "I knew you were tall! I knew it! You're just pretending to be small!" in regards to his personality despite him being small enough to fit in a pocket.

- Martyn leaving by saying "I'm not your friend anymore" sdklfjskd?? Drama in the Ahasband household tonight (/jk)

- Pearl, reluctant to kill animals that have low respawn: Yeah, but porkchops...... Scott: Taste great; yeah, you're right!

- The dichotomy between the other groups I watched, who mostly kept trying to mine or build after they shrank, and GGG + Impulse who started doing parkour.

- CACKLING at Pearl dying, asking her teammates for food, and Cleo looks straight at her and says "Arguably, you shouldn't need any" since her hunger meter refilled when she died.

- Impulse is going to be a really interesting balance to GGG because Cleo is being lightly "aggressive" towards Pearl (Denying her food, teasing her and Impulse for having a thing for soup since they're the Soup Group with Gem). Cleo and Scott cling to each other a lot, so Pearl having a close friend and not ending up a third wheel is interesting.

Scott, digging, calling up in a wobbly voice with his heavy Scottish accent: Pearl, there's a drowned down here! Pearl: There's a... clown down there? Impulse: There is now!

- I doubt the bit will be continuing, but wouldn't that be hilarious if the Clocker family tree extended due to Cleo joking that Pearl and Impulse were her parents?

- Considering I'm currently in the "Impulse and Cleo struggling with half-smothered resentment and weirdness over 3rd Life and stuff" arc in Dog's Life... their conversation about Cleo saying she doesn't trust Impulse is perfect timing. That is literally the arc I've been posting.

- Etho said they're playing in a 500 x 500 world instead of a 700 x 700 one this time. There are so many people this time, so this should be interesting!

-> Even on a server brimming with people, BigB's alone again... (It is very late when I'm scheduling this, so I will watch him another time <3)

[byelacey]

so you want to keep a great pyrenees as a pet

recently a little comic i made did big numbers on here and i keep seeing tags like "gotta get me a great pyrenees" and like AWESOME there are SO MANY of these big boys looking for adoption, especially in the US but i feel like as a person who got a pyr as their first dog (because i'm insane) there are some things you need to know - they BARK. all day and all night. they've been bred for barking. this is not bond spyxfamily borfing this is LOUD and CONSTANT. barking is their job. working pyrs protect their livestock by looking intimidating, bluff charging and barking very loud. they're also often naturally nocturnal, which means a lot of their barking is done at night. if you're the type who doesn't enjoy loud noises for most hours of the day, reconsider keeping a great pyr as a pet - they are LARGE. they are large when they are hormonal, idiot puppies. their bodies grow VERY FAST but their brain takes 2-3 years to catch up and during that time you've got a 75-150lb puppy on your hands. everything is more expensive because your dog is big, too. beds, accessories, food, vet stuff, medication, grooming, *everything is more expensive* for big dogs. get yourself some pet insurance. you'll thank yourself later. - they're sensitive creatures who form strong bonds with their flock. if you're keeping one as a pet: congratulations, you're now this dog's flock. separation anxiety is huge. they're meant to be guarding their flock, and if you go off without them, they're gonna worry about you. they also don't take well to you shouting at them for doing their job (barking very loud at wayward leaves). i'm serious. they're so so sensitive. - they're extremely smart and independent, which reads as stubbornness to us. they think they know better because they've been bred to work on their own, without humans around to tell them what to do. they're gonna pick up commands really fast, but they do shit on their own time. and recall? forget it. "an off-leash pyr is a dissa-pyr", as the saying goes. this is not a dog you'll be able to have off-leash, as he's gonna do and go wherever he damn well pleases - THAT BEING SAID as they are a large breed dog (extra large, actually), training is extremely important. small untrained dogs can get away with a lot more than a large dog. some people are afraid of dogs. you need to teach your pyr early and often what isn't a threat to you so they aren't causing trouble with their guardian shenanigans - they shed. they drool. they're large, double-coated dogs with big jowls. i have cleaned drool off of every surface of my house, including the ceiling. they blow their coat twice a year and also shed undercoat all of the time. i brush mac once a week during regular season and every other day when he's blowing his coat so that his coat stays healthy and doesn't become impacted or matted. - EDIT: someone just tagged this with a great point as well. you need a lot of space for a pyr! a fenced backyard, at least, with a fence tall enough they can't easily climb over (6ft preferably). they aren't high energy dogs but they do get a lot out of being able to roam around and patrol their yard. they are not apartment dogs (unless you walk them a lot, and you hate your neighbours) admittedly my fenced backyard isn't huge, but mac gets around 2-2.5 hours of walking per day, split between a morning & afternoon walk. they need the mental stimulation of walking around and sniffing stuff! if i haven't scared you off yet, owning a great pyr as a pet is a difficult, but rewarding experience. try and find a breed-specific shelter, there are many, because unfortunately these dogs are overbred in the US (either on purpose or by accident), and they're also often surrendered as puppies because people didn't know what they were getting into. a shelter will also take your lifestyle into consideration when pairing you up with a dog, because they want to find permanent homes for these guys.

anyway i think that's it. and if you have a pyr i am wishing you a very (show me your dog)

[pricegouge]

Get Her a Dog (She'll be Happier For It)

Part One | master list | MDNI

Soap x reader, Price x reader, eventual PriceSoap x reader

series cw: cheating. dubcon. angst. cuckholding. pet play.

chapter cw: angst, pining for someone who isn't your husband

reader is fem and fat

You know where it's going. Part of you wants to tell him to fuck off, get out of your house, scream and yell and pin everything on him - for always taking your husband away or for being an impossible standard to hold him to you don't even know.

It's raining in York again, the soft tatting upon the windows your only indication. It's evening, but you've still got the blinds pulled because you couldn't be arsed to draw them. In the apartment next door, a baby cries its head off and you sigh, turning up the volume on your b-movie romcom. It cries a lot.

You don't immediately reach for your phone when it buzzes against the coffee table because you can't think of any pressing reasons someone would be contacting you tonight, but it goes off twice more in as many minutes so you relent, unlocking it without really looking. Thumbing through to your messages, you find your husband's contact photo beaming back at you, top of the list. You pause, lip twitching slightly. Johnny's supposed to be halfway across the world, his phone inaccessible to him. It should be a good thing that he's texting you - returning from a mission early could go one of two ways, but if he was well enough to text then surely you should be excited for him. Except you're not, because you know what his message will read before you even open it.

Used to be, Johnny would stumble through the door after a deployment all battered and bruised, laughing when you yelped because you weren't expecting him - wandering the house in lazy day clothes because you thought he was supposed to be away another week. He always rushed home the second he could, never wasted enough time for so much as an 'I lived' text because he couldn't bear to be away from you one more unnecessary moment.

Used to be, you two missed each other when he was away.

>having the boys over for dinner

<you're back in town?

>got in yesterday yea

>can u make that pasta dish gaz likes? owe him my life

You sigh, torn between being more annoyed by Johnny's presumption, the fact he hadn't even let you know he was alive let alone at base, and the fact that you know you should be worried after a comment like that.

Mostly, you're just too tired.

The pasta dish Kyle likes involves heavy cream which you don't currently have. There's a small shop just two streets up and you'd hate to waste the gas so despite the weather, you grab an umbrella and some boots and head out, patting yourself down for the mandatory keys, wallet, phone check. It's dreary out. In addition to the rain, the season's coming to its long, slow end and bringing with it the cold sort of damp that soaks into everything, the whole world seemingly saturated with the miserable chill. Normally, this is your favorite kind of weather, but lately you've been too dreary yourself to properly enjoy it. So you amble along, unfocused. Unappreciative. Foggy. 

Identical brick houses line either side of the street, stretching out around the bends in either direction. The winding of the road lends a claustrophobic feel to the entire city, population density driving houses tall enough to obscure the movement of the sun throughout the day. 

It wasn't a bad place all told, but Johnny had chosen it for its proximity to base back when he was still just a young recruit and it had never really felt like your home. There'd been promises, back when the two of you were still engaged, ones you should've known better than to hold him to. Dreams of a house in the country, or talks of moving you out to Scotland. You hadn't been lying when you'd told him you didn't need any of that, but you'd never expected him to interpret that as you being content to live in the same dingy building the rest of your lives. It wasn't really your place to complain about it, though, given it was Johnny's income that paid the bills. You worked as well, though mostly just to keep yourself busy, as Johnny had insisted on your being a stay at home mom for the first few years of your babies' childhood. You weren't sure why you didn't find something more stimulating now, given how many years had come and gone without the man committing to the prospect of children. 

It used to hurt, the reneged aspirations. You've gotten used to it.

You're a regular at the shop by now, having lived in the same little apartment for the last five years. The owner greets you as you enter, the little bell above the door chiming as you close your umbrella, tapping it on the doorframe a few times to dislodge any excess droplets. 

"How are you now, Mr. Hudson?" you call, making a beeline for the kitchen staples. If there were still good things to be said about your marriage, at least you no longer cringed at convenience store pricing. 

"I'm well, yourself?" the old man croaks back politely. He's not doing well, actually, as his wife is wont to tell you anytime she's the one manning the counter, but you think it would be impolite to ask him how his prostate is out of the blue, so you don't call him on it.

Instead, you tell a lie all your own as you set your find in front of the register. "Can't complain."

"What's for dinner, then?" he asks, nodding at the carton.

"Smoked sausage alfredo." Not for the first time, you're grateful Gaz's favorite dish is consistent enough that you regularly have thawed sausage on hand. The last time Simon had saved your husband's skin in the field, Johnny had thought you'd be able to whip up a chicken dish in two hours and you'd had to run half across town for protein. 

"Mm," Mr. Hudon hums appreciatively. "Am I invited?"

"May as well be," you laugh, perhaps a little meanly given the poor man isn't in on the joke. You take mercy at his confused look. "My husband's inviting a few friends over. Wasn't expecting to cook for so many people." You weren't expecting to cook for anyone, actually, completely content to rot away with a bag of crisps but that's beside the point.

"Oh, yes… big man? With the… hair?"

"The very same," you grumble, taking your receipt.

"Haven't seen him in a while, how's he been?"

"Well, I gather he almost died recently, but I couldn't tell you much else. Haven't seen him either." The parting smile you give the old man feels rotten on your face. You bid him a good night and wave, scurrying out the door before he can properly respond. 

The sight of John standing on your stoop when you return startles you, although you should really be used to his early arrivals by now, as John tends not to linger in the company of his subordinates too long and often finds his own rides to and from base. He's also generally more eager to stop by than your husband is, though you can't think too long about that without feeling like you're going to walk off a pier. 

John greets you warmly as he always does, pulling you into a one armed hug as he kisses your cheek. With his free hand, he pulls your umbrella from your grasp, keeping you both under its protective circle as he straightens back up. 

You search your pockets for your keys, a good excuse to eye yourself over to be sure you hadn't accidentally worn something inappropriate out of the house. Like hosiery and a big graphic tee that said 'fuck me daddy' or something on it. John always brings out this paranoia in you, that same instinct that has people re-reading work emails to check for porn links four times before hitting send. But with him it's, 'Are you dressed? Is a dildo about to fall out of your shirt sleeve? Did you remember to put your wedding ring on?' 

You didn't.

"Hi John. Sorry to keep you waiting. I didn't realize anyone would be in so soon." 

"And here I thought I'd be the last to show for once," he counters, grabbing the cream from you and slipping it into the brown paper bag he carries on his hip. Something about his expression darkens minutely when he clarifies, "The boys left base a few hours ago. They still not in?"

Somehow, you don't find this as surprising as you maybe should. "No."

John hums, following after you obediently as you make your way to the lift. Normally, you try to get some exercise in by climbing the stairs, but you don't feel like huffing and puffing your way up with John in tow. Instead, the two of you pile into the small shaft where John does nothing to minimize the width of himself, standing directly by your side instead of slightly behind, squishing you between himself and the mirrored wall. You keep your eyes forward, glued to the metal doors. You can feel his eyes on you, shameless and assessing. Can even see his head turned toward you in the blurry reflection before you. He's always like this when he first gets home, as if he can ascertain how you've been spending the time without your husband's company just by staring a hole through your temple. 

Probably, he could.

John's an attentive man. Always has been. So it shouldn't surprise you when he huffs gently and pulls himself to his full height with an air of grim determination. He's gonna ask one of his questions again, you just know it - the kind that leaves you exposed, crawling back to your husband's familiar apathy with renewed appreciation. John draws a breath, you close your eyes, and then the lift dings, doors opening with a rush of air that rivals the relieved breath you take. You step out before John can motion you forward as is his custom, ducking through the door to prevent him saying a word.

Distraction comes with the general din of settling in. John tucks your umbrella away in the tiny entrance closet and brings his bag into the kitchen. You dip quietly back to your bedroom to make yourself more presentable, calling from the bedroom for him to make himself at home. It takes you no time at all to get ready, the casual dresses at the back of your closet all hanging clean and untouched. You check to make sure they've not gone musty before pulling one on and applying some basic makeup. Rotting on the couch hadn't called for mascara, but a houseful of men certainly did. 

You blink when you realize the implication of that, smudging the dark product all under your lower lashes. You only resist the urge to roll your eyes at yourself for fear of repeating the process under your brow.

John's in the kitchen when you emerge, sudsing up the dishes from your lunch to your horror. "John! You don't have to do that," you squawk, attempting to shoo him along with fluttering hands, as if he were an overgrown pigeon. 

Unflinching. "Of course I don't. Wanted to be helpful but I didn't know what you'd planned for dinner so I couldn't get started on that."

"You didn't have to do anything," you counter, still hoping that your defiant presence at his side would cow him away from the sink.

He just smiles at you, that overly cheeky one that crinkles his eyes charmingly. "Wanted to, love,"

Well, who are you to say no to that?

The two of you slip into companionable silence as you get to work, though you play it up when he completes his task, leaning his hip against the counter with that same intense expression from before. You're not ready for the question, whatever it is. Maybe never will be.

John seems to sense this, changing approach by making a show of unpacking his paper bag, setting the options he's brought for wine out in front of himself. He eyes the ingredients you've assembled carefully, and sets a white bottle aside for dinner before helping himself to the drawer where he knows you keep your corkscrew, popping open a bottle of red as he knows you prefer it. You collect glasses as he does so, watch him warily as he pours you a generous glass. Once he's served you both, he settles into  an island stool with an exaggerated air of relaxation.

When he starts, the question is blessedly easy, though you remain on high alert lest he pull some intelligence acquisition maneuver on you before you even see it coming. 

"Well, how's it been on the home front?"

You know where it's going. Part of you wants to tell him to fuck off, get out of your house, scream and yell and pin everything on him - for always taking your husband away or for being an impossible standard to hold him to you don't even know. Another part of you just wants to be seen. John's got his arms crossed in such a way to make him impossibly broad, imposing. There'd be no getting past him even if you wanted. 

The worst part is, you don't.

"All's well, John, thanks." A lie, despite knowing how you feel, how you want him to force you to talk, crack you open and pry your injuries from you with strong hands, get you back in working order. You both know it.

"You sure? Been looking a little blue of late." It's not judgemental. You remember the old tan line he used to sport on his finger - wide and pale on his weathered hand. It's long gone, a nicely healed wound. He doesn't even worry the space with his thumb anymore, a habit you'd picked up of late, as if the band itself burned. You wonder how long you'll try soothing it once the ring is gone and nearly bite through your tongue when you realize what you'd just thought.

A clatter at the door saves you from answering and you force a smile as you turn to greet Johnny. He roars through the door as is his custom, loud and singular and enigmatic enough to make you forget your qualms when he hoists you into his arms and peppers your face in kisses. "Oh, ah've missed ye, bonnie," he crows, only putting you down when Gaz insists it's his turn.

You're turned about between the two of them, a mess of 'missed you too's, and 'good to see you's, and 'come on in, can I get that for you?' Gaz kisses your cheek, tells you dinner smells lovely despite it barely being comprised of more than its base components yet and you grin at him, letting yourself be charmed through another boisterous night with the boys.

It's not until much later, as you're sending everyone packing with to go containers of extras and squeezing shoulders in parting that you notice your fingers gripped tight around John's bicep, finger conspicuously empty.

Next>>

[thesummerpetrichor]

𝓖𝓸𝓭’𝓼 𝓰𝓸𝓷𝓷𝓪 𝓬𝓾𝓽 𝔂𝓸𝓾 𝓭𝓸𝔀𝓷

Dark!Javier Peña x afab!fem!reader

Summary: What you assumed would be a routine sale to a regular customer turns into a drug deal gone wrong when you realise it's not her, but her uncle, that has showed up to bury the hatchet

Warnings: 18+ only minors DNI you will be blocked. DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT DDDNE, NONCON/R*PE, mentions of DEA, age gap [reader is in her early 20s Javi is in his 40s], reader sells drugs, reader wears a skirt, rough sex, semi public sex, knife and threats with blades, reader is actively experiencing Stockholm syndrome, degradation, dumbification, humiliation, victim blaming and punishment [he is teaching her a lesson], size difference [Javi is bigger than reader and can lift her], using panties as a gag, crying, very mean!Javi, domineering!Javi, slight praise, petnames, choking, creampie, unprotected P in V [don't do it!!] this is much darker than my other work. I may not have included something that could potentially trigger you, so please proceed with caution. I am not responsible for your media consumption.

Word count: 3.8k

A/N: Surprise dark Javi Peña for you lovelies. Please heed the warnings, this may not be for you, it gets pretty dark. If it isn't, scroll past. You are responsible for your own media consumption. Big thanks to @toxicanonymity for brainstorming with me about this like a year ago (when it was meant to be about Joel) lmao! I finally finished it!! Anyway, I hope you enjoy!! Mwah!!

Masterlist

You can run on for a long time

Run on for a long time

Run on for a long time

Sooner or later God'll cut you down

Sooner or later God'll cut you down

Go tell that long tongue liar

Go and tell that midnight rider

Tell the rambler, the gambler, the back biter

Tell 'em that God's gonna cut 'em down

Tell 'em that God's gonna cut 'em down

What you did was a little side job, a way to make a quick buck after long school hours had tired you out beyond measure. Frankly, that was all you had to say about it. 

Business in the wealthy part of town was far from rough- kids in picket fence houses were your prime demographic, after all. They had the time, and they sure as hell had the money. If you weren’t going to supply it, someone else would. Of course, if their parents got a whiff of how their children scrambled to you like a pack of dogs you wouldn’t hear the last of it. 

It's not like anyone would have suspected anything to begin with– not from the neighbourhood’s golden child. But you had to thank your parents for that reputation. No one would expect something like that from a sweet thing like Sarah either- which is why you were surprised when she rang you up on your second phone shortly after her 18th birthday. 

It had been a couple of months since she’d been coming to you– before parties and such. You didn't ask many questions. She was only a senior, but who were you to play moral policeman? You were barely two years ahead. 

Besides, she wasn’t really a resident of your neighbourhood– just came to hang at her uncle’s every weekend. 

It probably felt a lot more dirty considering you knew him quite well. Well, knew was a strong word. Your parents were acquaintances and he’d helped fix the fence of your house a few years prior. You’d see him every now and then and even tried the batch of cookies Sarah had roped him into baking and sent over. 

He’d often see you around and ask about college and the like. He had quite a good impression of you and you just couldn’t stomach telling him you sold his niece drugs on the weekend. Especially because, when he wasn’t getting roped into baking cookies, in his day to day life, Javi P was your neighbourhood’s most beloved narc. 

You wondered how Sarah didn't let the fact that her uncle was the head of the DEA and its most notorious, cartel busting agent, deter her from calling upon your services. You couldn't deny, you felt quite bad. You usually wouldn't. His job be damned, something felt a little dirty about lying to a sweet, kind man like Javier. 

But that was not your problem. 

Everytime Sara showed up no qualms- with the money, and her backpack, in the exact location you instructed her to. 

Spring came and went. So did summer. And before you knew it she had become a regular. 

Which is why you weren’t irked at all when on a drizzly autumn Friday Sara had asked to meet you around 5pm in your usual spot– near the fence behind the Willson’s orchids– in between those brutalist brick sheds you’d sneak off to with boys you liked. 

She was punctual, in fact she was always there a good ten minutes before you showed up just to be sure– which is why you continued forward when you caught a shadow and a rustle of the leaves emerge from the shed’s side. 

You brushed a stay raindrop from the side of your cheek as you looked up at the grey, drab sky. Thank god for the leaves– they painted the brown of the path and all that stood in your way fiery reds, yellows and oranges. 

As you approached you heard the wet ground crinkle under your feet– the leaves and the mud swallowing your shoes with every step forward. You felt them stick to the soles, and you made a mental note to leave Sarah as quickly as possible as to not be late to family dinner. There was no way you could walk fast- or even briskly, considering the state of the ground. 

When you neared the shed and rounded the corner however, you noticed Sarah's shadow seemed to have caught the light a different way– looking a lot taller, a lot more elongated under the last of the autumn sun before the clouds completely eclipsed it. 

She looked a lot taller, a lot more imposing, with broader shoulders and a cut jaw, with short, curly, dishevelled hair. A crack of thunder sounded in the distance. At a moment you knew that shadow, and you scrambled back on your feet to get up and out the Wilson’s orchid. 

But the mud in the ground was damp from the rain, and your shoes were stuck to it like toffee, and before you could realise it was pouring rain. You stumbled on the garden rake that had been leant against the shed. 

A voice called your name from behind it.  

You might as well have thrown up seeing simple, warm eyed, cookie baking Javier Peña leaning up against the wall instead of his niece – looking neither simple nor warm eyed, and sporting the scent of a hard day’s work out on the field rather than the scent of baked goods. 

You desperately tried to suppress the lump in your throat as he came into full view. His white button up shirt was damp from the water the trees had been steadily dripping onto it, his hair dishevelled, curls haphazardly sticking to his forehead. Another crack of thunder sounded, closer this time, and you felt your sweater become all the more wet every passing second. 

For a moment you contemplated playing coy, but you knew that he knew exactly what you were doing there. If he had a problem with his niece ’s purchasing habits he ought to take it up with her, you were merely supplying a demand. And that was exactly what you told him– albeit a lot less courageously than you would have liked. You could barely recognise your own voice- monotonous and flat, but importantly shaky and scared. 

And he noticed. 

He scoffed, shaking his head and giving you a slow once over– in your tattered socks and sneakers. “Disturbing the peace of this neighbourhood, corrupting the kids with your behaviour. You’re ruining it.” 

“I-” a leaf drifted through the wind and landed on your wet hand, cutting you off as you squeaked, dusting it off yourself. 

He stepped to the side, then took another menacing step in front of you. By the time he’d met you chest to chest you were backed up against the wall without realising it– unable to escape, trapped. He smiled at you- tight, and sickly sweet. He reached for the damp hem of your skirt. You felt your skin crawl under his touch. 

“Goddamn. To think I thought ya were a good one” he shook his head, a humourless laugh ringing in your ears. “Should’ve known…” You shivered when he lifted his hand to your cheek, stroking your face with his thumb and a false sense of gentleness. 

“Those whorey little skirts- tight lil tops” the lump in your throat grew as he continued, mind blank and racing simultaneously. It was nothing short of appalling. His words were harsh and cruel. His hands dropped to the waistband of your skirt, fingers slipping in to curl it. He didn't care that you recoiled at the touch, and attempted to shake off his prying gestures. He laughed again. “‘S the only way remembered ya played tennis” 

You swallowed the lump in your throat, watching horrified as he grabbed your shoulders and shoved you backwards. Your back hit the shed once again, more violently than the time before thanks to his push, his voice had picked up that aggressive tone that had simmered down since he first started talking once again, and you felt your heart jump at the change. 

“Y’a poor dad thought I was so invested in your lil family…”  his fingers traced lazy patterns on your skin, toying with your sweater to expose your soft flesh to the harsh cold of the autumn rain. Each swipe of them leaving a trail of fire behind. 

You didn't dare meet his eyes, nauseous at the very thought. You caught a bolt of lightning strike behind his back, the grey sky complimenting the tone of the entire situation. The fingers that had been drawing shapes on your hip had slid up your chest to find home around the column of your throat, and as they squeezed– gently but threateningly, you felt your legs finally begin to give way under you.  “Shame ya ain’t a good girl huh..” 

“Real fuckin shame.” he shook you lightly, and your hands flew to grip his wrist. Unsurprisingly, your efforts were to no avail. His hand maintained the unrelenting grip on your throat, his eyes trained on yours like a predator. You screwed your own shut, unwilling to meet the fury in his. 

The sound of the swish of a blade barely registered in your head. Before you could look down to catch a glimpse of the utility knife Javi had clicked into place, it was being pressed gently against your jugular. “To think ya had the nerve baby…” 

The blade grazed your skin, a hair away from piercing your skin and slicing it open. “Couldn’t even keep yourself away from the girl with a DEA agent for an uncle?” The tear that streaked its way down your cheek almost burned a hole in your skin. Followed by what seemed like a thousand more, your watery eyes set you a harsh reminder of the mess you’d fallen into. And yet you couldn’t seem to muster up the courage to actually respond to him. 

Javier seemed to like those tears though. “Oh baby, babygirl…” the hand that wasn't holding the blade against your skin came to gently cup your cheek. “Shhh, shhh, my babydoll.” With his thumb Javi wiped the tracks off your face, leaning down and kissing the dampness lightly on each side. The touch of his lips made you wince.  “Don't wanna cause a ruckus..” That sweetness of his voice made you shiver, made your chin wobble. 

“Please, Mr-” 

You yelped, feeling that blade press just a little harder against your neck, then drag itself to lift up the hem of your sweater and move under to shift between your breasts. “I said shut that whore mouth.” There it was, that harsh, cruel tone once again. You felt the blade drag up and down your skin, then hook at the collar of your warm sweater to slice through that cable knit pattern you so loved. 

The sound of the wool fraying and splitting apart rang in your ears, distracting you momentarily as Javi bunched up the fabric of your skirt, grabbing you by the thighs and hoisting you up against the rough wall of the shed. You had no choice but to wrap your legs around his waist to keep yourself stable, and away from the knife that was so close to your throat. 

The rain thundered and came down against you, its sounds drawing out your weeping and whimpering. A sheet of mist and water engulfed the both of you in a horrid blanket of union. You felt Javier’s hard length press against your clothed core and you shivered. Despite it all you felt your panties dampen at the contact. 

He chuckled against your skin, knowingly, mockingly, and slid his fingers between you to rub your now wet cunt through your panties. “Cant even help yourself can you?” you felt the arousal pool in your panties, but shook your head nonetheless. Your eyes rolled back at the feel of his fingertips drawing slow circles on your clit. “Look at that, sluts gettin’ all wet and achy, huh?” 

The thunder and lightning only picked up pace as his calloused fingers pulled your panties aside roughly, fingertips grazing your swollen, sensitive flesh. “Fuck, such a pretty pussy” The elastic of your waistband tugged against your soft skin, rubbing against you– leaving you sore, tender. You were dripping, and the feeling made you turn your head away from Javier in disgust. 

He notched his tip at your drooling entrance and you whined, wiggling your hips to shake off the desire that stirred in your tummy. “Don’t ya worry baby, gonna take care of this tight little snatch.” You shook your head no, and he only responded with a laugh. 

In a sharp, single thrust you felt his throbbing, hard length stretch you open. There was no mercy, no grace period, just a snap of his hips towards yours and his cock parting your insides in that cruel, uncaring manner. “Y’a gonna shut your ass up take what I give to ya because it looks like you’ve got no choice.” 

“Excited for family dinner? Gonna be a lot more fun when you’ve got my cum leaking out of ya.” The length of him stretched you open, no time to adjust with his sharp, quick thrusts. The pain came in sharp just the same way, made you wince and squirm at the burn. 

You had never felt so full, every sensitive spot inside you being nudged just the right way by his cock. He continued to thrust inside your wet heat, fast and deep. A tightness began to build in your tummy. 

His thumb brushed your lip and the urge to part your lips to take it into your mouth for a sense of comfort overtook you. Had you not been as frozen as you were, you would have acted on it. But that thumb pressed itself against your lips, a silent order to hush yourself as Javi’s thrusts became all the more gruelling, faster, harder, harsher. 

“Ya’ might be an adult- but y’a sure as hell act like a dumb little girl” The drag of his cock against your throbbing walls had an unwelcome moan tumbling from your lips–the pleasure more horrifying than the pain. His words had your stomach flip flopping. 

His fingers wrapped firmly around your throat, palm placing enough pressure against your skin to stutter your breathing. “Listen baby, I know words are really fuckin hard… they’re so big, and confusing. Too much for your pretty little head.” He heard you heave a loud, stuttery breath, but left his hand where it was for a few more agonising seconds. “So I had’ta’ tell you a way ya understand” 

You felt the blade that had momentarily lost contact with your flesh drag slowly against your waist and under your skirt. Yet again the sound of fabric ripping rang in your ears, the elastic of your panties snapping against your hips only marginally less painful than the feel of Javier's thick cock splitting you open. When you turned your head to catch Javier’s gaze, his own eyes were inspecting the tattered white cotton that had once had a place on your hips between his fingers. 

“Goddamn. Pretty even underneath it all? Expected something more…” He laughed maliciously, then turned his head like he was searching for the right words. “Slutty…..? whorish?” His relentless thrusts didn’t cease. “But goddamn, like keepin’ it holy dont ya?” His hips snapped towards yours again, and he groaned in pleasure. “You ain't foolin’ me.” 

“No-” you were promptly cut off, face unable to dodge his hand. Javier rolled his eyes, annoyed by how animated you were being– too much for his liking. He forced the fabric into your mouth, and you had no choice to let him.

“Goddamn, that college degree don't count for much huh? That oughta shut you up, bitch.” Soon enough, and to your horror the wetness between your legs began to spread, each movement of his prompting more sounds of pleasure than pain to embarrassingly get muffled against the fabric of your own panties. 

The way his brow furrowed, the vein on the side of his neck bulged from the strain, from how good you felt around him, from the way your pussy was milking his cock, it was all a lot more appealing of a sight than you were willing to acknowledge at the moment. “Fuck, should try whoring out this pussy for some extra cash too.” 

“Next time ya wanna make a buck, walk that pretty little ass down the block” Splinters from the wooden shed wall grazed your skin, poking through the cable knit ever so slightly, an uncomfortable little pinch that palled in comparison to the delicious stretch of his cock splitting you open. 

“Would be nice. Won’t have to drive on down to the whore house.” His cock thrust achingly out of your wet heat, building a tension inside you so strong it set your skin on fire. “Would fuck this pretty little cunt in my bed.” Your hips felt heavy, the spot between your thighs tense, aching with a desperate need to feel a release that had unwillingly been building inside you. 

“Fuck ya till you’re a mess.” He growled in your ear, lips ghosting your skin. “That’d be nice, huh? Might let ya scream that time..” The image of Javier shoving you on his bed and taking care of you flashed in your mind– perhaps a soft, gentle, deep lovemaking that you were horrified to find appealing at the moment. 

At some point the expanse of his chest became a security, his broad, looming shoulders a sickening comfort. “Look at you- fuckin liking it. Tight little snatch squeezin’ my cock.” If perhaps that gentleness had come to you some other way you would’ve died for it, but now you were crooning for it, silently begging for it, for some respite, for a sick sort of comfort that gave you butterflies. 

What you had thought to be the unbelievable, the merciful, law abiding, law enforcing protector of the innocent and the weak, was ripping you apart piece by piece, watching you crumble around his cock, your eyes roll back with that pleasure you couldn’t ignore, your hands reach for him because you pined for the gentleness he had given you a taste off.

Your sweater caught the wood of the shed, you were sure it was full of holes at that point, the knit pattern ruined forever, something to remind you of the way your pussy quivered around his cock. “Look at that… fuck… bein’ a good girl now arent ya? Learning how to behave.” The obscene sound of your wetness, the squelch of his cock pumping in and out your swollen, abused cunt had you cringing, had your heart pounding desperately against your chest. “Never too late to change your ways.. Feels so good you can't help yourself huh? Just wanna cum..” He closed the blade that he had previously had a close grip on and shoved it into his pocket. 

Your mouth loosened around the damp fabric of your panties, pleasure shooting up your spine and making your toes curl. “That's it, learnin’ well now, aren't we?” You felt hot and cold simultaneously– a chill of terror so strong you began to sweat. He pulled your hips against his, chuckling at your desperate squirming in an attempt to put off your release. 

Javier caught your face between his thumb and forefinger, squeezing your cheeks and relishing in the sight of you drooling around your panties. Showing some mercy, he pulled the fabric from between your lips, tossing it onto the dirty ground. “Wonder why a slut like you would even bother with these?” He chuckled in your ear, then pressed a sloppy kiss against your neck. 

His tip brushed that sweet spot inside you, made you tighten your thighs around his waist. “Feel so fucking good.” You felt your chest burn, your pussy bare down on his cock. The tension inside you finally snapped, a ragged moan escaping from your throat and slipping past your lips. You felt yourself gush and quiver around his cock, whole body on fire with the intensity of your release.  

“That's a good girl– fuck” His voice was strained and low, a gravely sound dripping like honey from his lips as he neared his release. The praise made your heart flutter. With a few final, sloppy thrusts Javier’s hips stilled, his cock twitching and throbbing inside you– painting your still fluttering walls with his spend. 

You felt your pussy clench around nothing when he pulled out. 

He pressed his head on the shed wall beside your cheek, catching his breath. The smell of cigarettes off his hair finally registering in your mind– something you were perhaps too preoccupied to notice prior. Another stray tear slid down your cheek, along with an ice cold raindrop that fell from the sky. 

Javier’s hand reached for your face and you flinched. He stroked your face and took it in with his eyes once again. You dared to meet his cold, unwavering gaze– so detached you wondered if he even registered life in anyone else's. Their browns drew you in despite this, and called you to make a home in them. 

He sighed, dropping your thighs from his hold and pressing you against the shed with his body.You felt his spend leak out of you and drip onto your thighs obscenely. Your hands flew to grip his shirt to maintain your balance, but Javier was quick to step back. 

Your knees shook violently as he finally retreated from the side of the shed. The damp soil and crackly leaves clung to your wet thighs as gravity forced you to the dirty ground. Instinctively you pressed your back against the shed, bracing yourself for another one of Agent Peña’s cruel jabs. You caught a glimpse of your white panties– dirty, torn and unusable, discarded on the ground. 

Worse however, you watched him fix his shirt and jeans as you trembled and caught your breath, paying you no mind whatsoever. With his body no longer shielding you from the rain you felt the gentle thud of the raindrops against your cold skin, drenching you even more than before. 

When you sank your fingers into the mud to find your bearings you felt a tickle on the inside of your ring finger. You looked down momentarily to catch a stay earthworm wriggle out from beside your hand and attempt to scurry away. 

You yelped, bringing your hand to your chest, and tucking your knees further into your front– too exhausted to pick yourself up off the ground. 

Javier's soft snicker rang in your ears like a merciless, menacing bell. When you finally looked back at him it felt even more dirty than the first time. His face scrunched in displeasure at the sight of you huddled on the ground, your clothes and overall appearance dishevelled. “Got fuckin lucky today, dirty bitch.” His words made you shiver. 

He stalked over to your hunched form once again, towering over you. His shadow covered your entire body in its shade as the evening sun peaked out from under the clouds, the final drops of the shower cascading down the sloped roof of the shed and onto your damp shoulders. 

“I better not see ya around Sarah again.” 

Well you may throw your rock and hide your hand

Workin' in the dark against your fellow man

But as sure as God made black and white

What's down in the dark will be brought to the light

You can run on for a long time

Run on for a long time

Run on for a long time

Sooner or later God'll cut you down

Sooner or later God'll cut you down

You can run on for a long time

Run on for a long time

Run on for a long time

Sooner or later God'll cut you down

Sooner or later God'll cut you down

This one was much on the darker side, but I hope you enjoyed! Thank you to everyone who reblogs and engages with my work- you keep me writing!! 💗🐝

[signedkoko]

Hi hi!

How would Striker, Bee, and poly Stolitz (romantic) react to their chubby s/o being very physically strong and working out a lot?

No pressure to write this, and If you don't write for this many characters, you can choose who to focus on!

Sending lots of love your way 💚💛💙

-🐻

Beelzebub | Blitzo & Stolas | Striker [Romantic]

In which you are considerably physically stronger than them, and work out plenty to match.

Naturally, all of the sins are extremely strong in comparison to any overlord or sinner

Even so, you were surprisingly up there, without her magic Beelzebub couldn't begin to carry half the weight you did, and usually had to resort to her larger form- or just asking for your help

It's part of why she found you so attractive, it felt like in some way you could protect her more than anyone she knew

A lot of the people around her were already small, so it was also nice that you compared to her in size, though she found you to be much more curvaceous than her own lanky figure

" Ugh. I'd kill for hips like these, babe. "

She loves to feel you up and down and hold you close because god, you are just sooo comfortable

And when you flex your muscles it drives her crazy! She thinks you're the hottest person she's ever met

She also may be partially to blame for your chubbiness, because she never stops feeding you sweets, oops!

Both of these fools are physically WEAK, however strong they might be with guns or magic

They recall their first encounter with you was when someone was making fun of Stolas for dating an imp, and you totally rocked their shit with a punch straight to the face

Blitzo is already on you, asking so many questions about who you were, why you did that, making jokes

And Stolas has a faint blush because god, that was so attractive

They kept inviting you over until eventually you were closer than most- present on every date, called by the same sweet nicknames

Stolas likes to go with you when you work out, he especially loves to see you boxing

Being able to cheer you on against an opponent, or imagine you protecting him- oh it was just so exciting

Blitzo enjoys walking around hell with you because he gets to see everyone fuck off

Scary dog privileges

Stolas is always squishing your cheeks and hugging you tightly while speaking of all his fantasies involving you both

Blitzo is sneaking pictures of you after workouts for his office

Stronger? Than him? Sure thing

Striker first heard it at a place he frequented for drinks, that there was a guard for hire poster put up on their bulletin, someone new

When he hired you to see what'd happen, you sweeped the floor of some royals security team in minutes, and all he had to do was pull the trigger

Admittedly, he didn't feel the need to work with you more than that, as he enjoyed the hunt as much as the kill

But it was certainly fun seeing what someone else pulled

He’s straightforward about that, but also admits that he'd like to keep in touch

OBVIOUSLY so he can hire you on tougher missions, not because he thought you were interesting or fun

Suddenly, he's always popping up in the places you go, always offering you a drink, always getting tipsy enough to invite you to dance

Oh yeah, he certainly wants you

Fortunately for him, you're his lovely significant other only a few weeks later

He enjoys practising sparing with you, though he usually loses with just strength to strength, hsi wits certainly make him a tougher opponent

Striker find your resolve fiery, and something about you ignites something in him that leaves him wanting more

Author's Note - Actually love these guys sm... good crew you chose bear non I respect it!

Also I CATCH all the love you sent my way and EAT IT 🖤

[followthebluebell]

would love a list of low energy enrichment activities to try with cats. im always looking for more ways to be involved with my cat but she is 3 and very high energy and after a long day i often dont have the spoons to chase her around with a toy while she finds new exciting hiding spots to look at it from. this makes me sad :( i dont want her to be understimulated

Food-based enrichment:

Feeder toys are a favorite! But these carry the drawback of requiring cleaning afterwards, so calculate that into your spoons. Some of them are machine washable, so that may be an option if you've got a dishwasher.

Snuffle mats - another favorite, these also require the occasional clean but don't need to be cleaned every time you use them. You can make your own pretty easily. Or, hell, just grab a very cheap bath mat from a dollar store. Your cat won't know the difference.

Scatter feeding - literally just. Throw a handful of treats or kibble on the floor or down the stairs. Literally, that's it. Calculate clean-up into your spoons because cats aren't reliable vacuums. But it keeps them busy for a few minutes.

Toy based enrichment:

Get a cardboard box. Crinkle up some brown wrapping paper or whatever cheap paper you've got on hand and put it in the box. Congrats, you've now combined your cats two favorite things in the world: boxes and paper. For extra fun, add catnip (or silvervine or whatever your cat's drug of choice is), toys, or treats.

Ripple Rug: this is actually a specific product. It's literally a square of carpet or rug with velcro on the bottom that attaches to ANOTHER square of carpet or rug. It's fairly stiff. The idea is that cats can dive into it and make their own little tunnels. My cats LOVE it. You can probably recreate it quite cheaply using cheap rugs or carpet, tbh.

Cat crinkle mats: again, this is something fairly easily made at home. You get some cheap crinkly plastic and sew it into two old washclothes or something similar. Congrats. You now have a little mat your cats can sit on, bat around, and crinkle. You can also just buy them in multiple sizes. Many have catnip in them too.

Paper bags: cats just love paper bags. Be sure you remove the handles to make sure no one gets their head stuck. Most cats entertain themselves pretty well with bags.

Cat springs: those little plastic springs are a favorite, and so are those cheap rabbit-fur covered mouse toys.

Cat race track toys: another favorite.

Cardboard cat scratchers: the cardboard ones require MORE cleaning because they leave little bits of cardboard all over the place, but it is kind of nice that you can just throw them out when your cat is done. Any scratcher is good, though. I've listed cardboard for ease of clean-up and because it's a very popular material for cats.

Cat tunnels: like bags and boxes, cats just love tunnels.

I'm not a big fan of laser pointers or robotic toys. I haven't seen many cases of light chasing disorders in cats compared to dogs, but it's an issue enough that I don't readily recommend them. I also don't really recommend robotic toys because a lot of them make noises that cats don't like. If your cat enjoys these things, congrats; I just don't find them universally popular enough to really recommend. But I had to mention them, because if I didn't, my notes would be full of 'but what about Product X!!".

I've tried to keep this list to low cost toys and activities. There are other things you can do, like installing wall shelves or getting a big cat tree, but these things are more likely to be expensive, either in terms of money, time, or energy. I wanted to focus on low cost activities that I felt were more accessible to disabled folks.

[thefoxtherapist]

hello! hope you’re doing well and taking care of yourself! if it’s alright with you, could I request hcs about Calcharo (and/or other characters of your choosing if you’re interested) with a S/O with dogs?

Calcharo’s hobby voiceline makes me so sad bc if it weren’t for his job, he would definitely have half a dozen dogs (at least). like, I 100% believe he struggles not to adopt every stray he sees and tries to find them all good, safe homes (maybe most of his informants have dogs bc he knows they will treat the dogs well, if only because they owe him). and maybe after he gets comfortable with his S/O and knows they’re okay with dogs (maybe the S/O already has a dog/dogs, maybe not), he starts bringing strays home with him regardless of whether or not they stay there temporarily while he finds suitable homes for them or become permanent members of the family (as long as it’s okay with his S/O ofc). I like to think the strays all follow him around too, so whenever he’s with his S/O on dates or smth in the city, it’s like that one meme.

S/O: “whatcha got there?”

Calcharo: *being followed by Jinzhou’s entire stray dog population* “a smoothie”

thank you for reading my aimless ramblings, I just have a lot of thoughts about him and wanted to know what you think!

I am doing well thanks for asking! I was sick yesterday but I'm doing better now. I hope you're well too.

And don't worry about 'aimless' ramblings. I quite enjoy seeing what you all think of the media we're all interested in :)

Anyways, I hope you still like this, it isn't exact to your request but same ballpark I hope.

“I won’t tell if you won’t.”

Calcharo watched the german shepherd tilt her head to the side, tongue lolling out of her mouth as she stared up at him. He quickly looked around the living room, your living room, before he broke a piece of his ration bar and fed it to the dog. With a small bark, the dog swallowed the biscuit quickly.

“Sh-”

“Everything okay?”

“Yes. Things are fine.”

Calcharo stood quickly from the couch, stuffing the remains of his ‘dinner’ wherever he could in his uniform before you entered the living room. The dog barked once as she ran up to you, circling your legs quietly. 

“Did Cal give you another cookie?” You cooed as you knelt down, petting her ears. The mercenary’s expression didn’t change but he was surprised you managed to bust him so easily. Though, he quickly supposed, that was one of many reasons he’d fallen for you. You played off him well.

She barked, eyes closing, head tilting to the side.

“Ghost Hounds don’t take betrayal lightly.”

You couldn’t help the sharp laugh, immediately coughing as if to cover it up. “Oh you’re just the worst, Mei.” You bit the inside of your cheek as you grinned at your blissfully unaware dog, her tail going crazy. She was the cutest.

Calcharo had a soft spot for dogs for as long as he could remember.

The mercenary exhaled sharply when a dog barrelled into his legs, its leash attached to its collar but no owner. He quickly caught the leash, wrapping it around his wrist with ease to stop the dog from getting any further.

“Mei!”

Silver eyes flicked up as he watched the stranger quickly approach, out of breath. “Is she yours?” He questioned, voice gruff as he stared down at you. You keeled over slightly, hands on your thighs as you panted.

“Yes, I’m sorry, did she hurt you?”

“Not at all.”

“Mei.. You shouldn’t run off like that..” You inhaled air before bending down, the german shepherd immediately sitting pretty for you to pet her ears. “I honestly just found her recently so her training isn’t that great yet.” You looked up at him with a bright smile as Mei panted happily.

“She’s a stray?”

“Sure is! Jinzhou and the surrounding area have quite a few strays.” Your smile turned far more solemn as you turned your expression back to the overexcited puppy. “We take care of all the strays around but when I saw her face.” Mei whined softly, flopping onto her stomach and stretching out.

“You had to take her home.”

You nodded. “Yeah! You get it! Oh! I’m-”

“Calcharo.”

You stood up and he offered you her leash, which you took. “Do you keep dogs? You definitely seem like the type.”

Calcharo rubbed the back of his neck. 

“I don’t, no.”

Mei flopped into a lying position before rolling onto her back, paws in the air as her tongue fell out of her mouth again. Calcharo crouched down, rubbing her stomach much to her joy. “Good girl.” He mumbled, stroking her fur, soft even under his gloves. 

“I found a home for the dog you picked up by the way.”

He lifted his head to you, waiting for you to continue. “Jingling, she’s a Patroller.” You leaned your head against his shoulder and he returned his attention to Mei. “She wanted a cat but I convinced her that her active lifestyle is perfect for a dog like Kanna.”

“Thank you.” 

You laughed, Mei whining when Calcharo’s hand on her stomach stilled. “You don’t have to thank me. I’m happy finding homes for all the dogs you manage to wrangle up. Plus it's good for Jinzhou.” You turned your head to kiss his shoulder instead.

“Does the same apply to my recruits?”

“Oh no, did Meneo get lost again?” You couldn’t help your giggle, Calcharo had told you of his latest recruit’s utter inability to traverse the Huanglong landscape.

Calcharo pinched the bridge of his nose. 

“I could try to find him a partner but I don’t know.” 

“Don’t even joke… Let’s stick to the dogs.”

You laid your head on his shoulder once more, sighing softly, contented. 

“I’m sure we will. Don’t think I don’t know about the dog you have in the bathroom right now.”

“How do you-”

“I’m dating a mercenary, I learned quick, Ghost Hound.”

[a-spes]

T H E D O G ' S F A L L - One shot.

Words count - 5,2k.

Tags & Warnings - mob boss!Natasha Romanoff x fem!Reader, angst, harm/comfort, manipulation, mentions of blood/past abuses, human trafficking.

Summary - Anyone that can beat her in a fight will earn her, and Natasha intends to be the one, working hard to get what she thinks is hers. A dog can't fight for eternity, can it?

Moodboard here.

N/A - It's the longest os I've wrote so far, took me a lot of time but it's enventually here so I really hope you'll enjoy it! If it's the case, don't hesitate to let me know by interacting with the post :)

It is at the back of that popular night club that everything is happening, where no one can see your distress except the one that enjoys it, where everyone is too busy having fun to pay attention to the veritable purpose of this building. On a dark corner that light never reaches, a man is guarding the most important secret of that place, and very few are the people he lets through; only rich and influential men and women get their ticket for this special spectacle that takes place here every night.

Down there, the loud music is replaced by the shouts of excited men that makes her sigh; why do they have to scream like animals? If she gets a few glances, no one dares to say anything as the infamous Black Widow is walking through the crowd to get to her place. She has blood on her back, people are whispering, some from admiration, others from fear, but no one stays indifferent - how could they? One of the most important mafia bosses of the city, but also one of the most discreet, is here. She has her reputation and, even if she is rarely seen, she is well-known, so none of the men dares to protest when she decides to take place in their lodge, chasing them out of the room. 

From here, she has a perfect view of the cage and, most importantly, of the Dog.

It is obvious that there is no way out of the ring, that you are trapped in that cage until one of these men’s victory - or your last breath - but, somehow, you still believe that defeating them will lead you out of that basement. So, not caring about how many of them are daring to step in your cage, you beat them, one by one. You watch the man you just defeated being escorted out of the cage so the next one could take his place - it gives you a few seconds to catch your breath. 

The world is spinning, you can’t even see the faces of your opponents, but you don’t give up. Even if the only thing you want is to curl up in the corner, crying for your mom, you can’t. You can’t because it will mean giving them your life. No, you need to be stronger than them, to pretend that you don’t feel the pain inflicted by their blows, to pretend that you are not bothered by the metallic taste of the blood in your mouth, they need to believe you could do that all night. But you are not foolish and you know damn well that you won’t last long. 

It is hard to focus on anything, even on breathing, because you are overwhelmed by a crew you can't even see, blinded by the lights; you are the spectacle. They all came to see the Dog fighting, hoping to witness its fall. They are shouting, mostly insults in Russian, whistling and clapping everytime something exciting is happening during a fight, but it won’t be enough to save you from that place. 

Oh, at first, they were cheering for you, but it slowly changed, people getting tired of seeing your pretty face every night. They thought you would be easy to break and hated to be proven wrong, and you perfectly know that the stakes have changed. It is no longer about giving them what they want, entertainment, it is purely about surviving and you noticed how the attitude of your opponents changed over the weeks, becoming more aggressive.

You were a champion, now you are just a little bitch they need to get rid of. 

The organization that threw you in that rat hole understood that as much as you did and, tonight, they changed the rules. Tonight, it'll be only you against the world, until they are tired of it. No break, no help, everytime one leaves, the next one is already stepping in the ring, as an endless torture. 

Tonight, she will be one of them. She has been looking at you hungrily since the first time she came here, and she knows that you will be hers by the end of the night, after all she came just for that, to take you home.

Even if she is here every night, you never had a chance to notice the woman. She was always sitting in the last row, observing you from her balcony, where she is hidden by the shadow, but she noticed you for sure. The time she came, it was only because of one of her associates that wanted to meet here specifically, she never left since. From the moment her eyes landed on you, she was unable to think about anything else, the way you were looking so innocent but so feroce at the same time got her heart. 

She sent a few of her best men, knowing they would lose, as a test, waiting for the moment it would be her turn to enter the cage. She never expected them to win and she would have killed them if they had the audacity to: she is the one that is supposed to defeat you, the only one that has the right to own you. The urge to possess you only grew stronger over the weeks, being deeper every time she came here, she wants to see you as you are breaking under her effect, to control every aspect of your life. 

So she patiently waited for the right time to come, she always liked a bit of challenge anyway, having a soft spot for things that are hard to get. She worked hard to get you, spending weeks observing every of your movements: she learned how you are fighting and your habits, she learned to read your body and face as if she was on your mind, and that’s the difference with the others: if you are a game for them, for her, you are a goal she must reach at all costs. 

As soon as your eyes laid on her, you knew she wouldn’t back up, somehing in the way she stepped in the cage already made all the difference. It is her confidence. It is the smirk on her face, a cocky one. It is the way her hands are stuck in her pockets while she is observing you. It is the slight sigh as she gets rid of her leather jacket. It is all these details that give the impression that she is just here to settle a formality, already certain of her victory.

Even the way she is moving has something unrealist. Every step, every look, is calculated and almost imperceptible. Usually, you would step forward, ready to fight even before they entered the cage to show them you are not afraid, but this time? You can’t help but instinctively step back when she enters. The movement was slight, as you were already leaning the grid but she noticed it, the way her aura is pressuring you, and she loves it.

As soon as the door was closed, your fate was sealed.

It all happened really fast because she knew exactly what to do, she prepared for that moment. You quickly realized that you were right: the woman had nothing in common with the men you were fighting against earlier, you never stood a chance to win that fight. The realization is more painful than the blows she is currently throwing at you. Every punch you try to land, she knows exactly how to dodge it. As if she was on your mind, she knows exactly where to hit to get you weak, stealing your breath and your strenght, having you on your knees then laying on the floor in less than a few minutes. 

At first, you tried to get up, to fight, but she is faster than you are, and wiser, and stronger, and more trained. She is being pretty much better in everything. Soon your vision is so blurry that you can’t see anything, you are feeling so weak that even moving your fingers or keeping your eyes open is just too much. 

"Stay still,” she quietly ordered when she noticed you were struggling against her grip - she had you pinned down on the ground by pressing her foot on your back and grabbed your hair to lift a bit your head. "You're going to be mine no matter what, so don't make things harder for yourself, honey." 

One. 

Two. 

Three. 

You hear the countdown but, this time, it is not your victory that is announced, it is hers. As soon as her name is shouted by the crew, her grip releases your hair but you simply don't have the strength to move, the news leaves a void in your chest. The pain, but mostly this feeling of emptiness, is keeping you frozen in place. She owns you, and this simple idea is sending shivers through your whole body. You don't realize yet what is happening, thinking that, maybe, it is just a cruel joke on you, and it explains the lack of reaction when she asks you to get up; she needs to grab your arm and lift to get you on your feet. 

You stumble, fighting the urge to vomit. Your brain can barely process what is happening, especially when you realize that your feet are not touching the ground anymore. In her arms, you are nothing more than a rag doll, silent and motionless, barely having the energy to keep your eyes open. 

"She is not for sale,” she coldly said, her voice bringing you back to reality. As she was on her way to get out of the night club, some men were offering the woman outrageous amounts of money in the hope of getting you, they all backed up once she coldly glanced at them. "No one will ever take you away from me, do you hear that, love? You are safe as long as you’re with me," she then whispered in your ears. 

You drift into unconsciousness as soon as the car starts, despite the woman that kept begging you to keep your eyes open, the way she was cadling you not helping. You just had enough time to notice the men sitting at the front of the black van, both armed and intimidating, before falling into darkness. 

You opened your eyes again when the car stopped in an alley. It is late, the sun gave its throne to the moon a long time ago and, even if you can't tell what time it is, you know it is the middle of the night. How many hours did you spend down there, fighting for your life? The question makes you sick because the only answer is too many. All these hours for nothing because, no matter how hard you triee, you loose. You were never supposed to win their twisted game, you never got a chance and you slowly realize that the promised freedom was just a lure. For weeks you believed them, you played along their rules, thinking it was the only way to get your life back.

And here you are, in the arms of your new owner, a woman you know nothing about but that now has every rights on you, even if you will live depends exclusively on the redhead's choices. The fear twists your stomach, the humiliation clenches your throat and the exhaustion makes your eyes burning, tears threatening to roll down your cheeks.

Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry, you repeat in your head, but you don't know for how long you will be able to keep your tears for yourself.  

The woman is not looking at you at all, she is concentrating on not falling as she is walking to the house, barely seeing where her feet are landing. You, however, can't help but observe every detail of her face, noticing how serious her expression is. You are trying to guess how your life is going to be by her side, but you can't, she is a complete mystery and you hate that.

A part of you wants to go back in that basement. It may have been a living hell, but you had your habits, you knew how to survive, now you will have to learn everything again. 

You notice that two armed persons are guarding the front door and, when you pass by them, they exchange a few words in Russian. You can't understand a word of what they are saying, but you guess they are greeting the woman, beside some insults, you don't know a lot and only because that's how they used to call you.

The inside of the penthouse is exactly as you imagined it: expensive, tidy and minimalist. You never felt comfortable in that kind of environment, it always reminded you that you will never have a place in that sphere, you are nothing more than their animal, a dog that does everything they want. 

Once inside, you almost expected her to drop you on the floor but she didn't. Her grip is strong, as if she doesn't want to let you go, that's because she is scared too. She exchanged a few words in Russian with a woman before heading upstairs. 

Your eyes closed because of the light, you don't see much more of the house, nor of where you are going. You can feel that she climbs the stairs, takes a few turns and walks through a door before she eventually lets you go. It is with care that she sits you on the floor of the bathroom. 

"Here we are," she whispered, "you can open your eyes, love," she added when she noticed they were still closed. If you can't see her smile, you can feel her hand brushing your cheek. 

For weeks you didn't see anything else than pitch darkness and the dimmed light of the basement where you were fighting, it is great to eventually be able to see something else. She even made sure to not turn the big light on, only a small one in the corner that diffuses a subdued light. Somehow, she knows exactly what to do to make you feel comfortable. 

"Let me help you," she said, coming closer to kneel in front of you when she realized you couldn't take your bath alone.

On the way home, she sent a message for one of her maids to run a bath for you to enjoy when you arrived. The mirrors fog up and a scent of jasmine fills the room, but even if the idea of taking a bath sounds good, you don't move. You are curled at the exact place she left you in, your knees against your chest.

You are like a dog, but nothing like a fighting one, she thought when she saw how you tried to back up when she reached for your shirt.

"I am not going to do anything," she quietly said, trying to sooth you by using a gentle tone and caressing your cheek with her thumb. "I am going to help you to get rid of those rags so you can get a bath, okay? Then, we can clean your wounds and have a good meal, does this sound good?" she asked and you slowly nodded. 

She helps you to get rid of your clothes that are closer to rags honestly as they have holes in them, the fabric being soaked in dirt, blood and sweat, sticking to your skin. You never felt so vulnerable than right now, under her serious gaze, what is she thinking about? It is impossible to guess but you can feel her eyes on your body as she looks you up and down. A quick glance which allows her to take a mental note about all your injuries.

"What are you doing?" she chuckled, when her eyes didn’t land on your chest but on your crossed arms - you were trying to hide, how cute. "How silly you are,” she whispered when noticing you didn't seem to understand what she was talking about, "thinking you can hide like that."

Her tone sounded too sweet for it to genuinely be and there is something behind her gentle tone that is rigging alarms in your head. You can't tell what it is exactly, but there is that weird feeling, your instinct screaming at you to be careful when your body just wants to give up and be in her arms, ‘cause what could go wrong?

She takes your hands to pull them away from your chest so you can’t hide from her anymore. Her grip is firm, just a little too strong so you understand that, despite her sweet smile, she won't hesitate to be harsh with you if you don’t behave. However, she still seems to be extra careful while moving you, as if you were a porcelain doll, because for nothing in the world she would hurt her fragile princess. She  slowly takes your arms away so she can give a glance at all your injuries. What she sees makes her sigh, she seems about to say something but keeps her words for herself ; you should have been more careful. 

She helped you to get in the bath and it was a nice moment, a few minutes you got for yourself because, surprisingly, she let you bathe yourself alone. Oh, she wasn’t far away, just at the other end of the room, keeping a close eye on you at every time, but dealing with something on her phone. She would occasionally comment on the way you were doing things, talking you throught it so you can shower the proper way, her way. Once you are done, she wraps you on a soft towel, bandages your wounds and gives you clothes that are hers, a hoodie and a short, and you can’t help but notice how good they are smelling, how comfortable you are feeling in these.

"Did you say something?" she genuinely asked, turning to you because she was sure she heard you mumbling a few words. 

She was talking about your life here, talking almost alone as you weren’t really talkative, but thinking she would miss the words you whisepered was a mistake because she never misses anything.

"Nothing important," you replied, but this answer doesn't seem to please the woman, something twitching in her eyes, coming from soft to sharp.

"When I ask you a question, you reply to it, am I clear?” she said, immediately leaving what she was doing to come close to you and grab your chin.  “You are not the one that gets to decide what’s important, your small brain can't handle big decisions and that's why I am here. I mean, see how it got you to be by yourself …" she continued, looking at you with disdain, as if she was thinking that it is only your fault if you ended up in that rat hole, caught in human trafficking. “I am here to give you a second chance and you better take it ‘cause it may be the last… so don't talk to me like that ever again, did I make myself clear enough?"

The only answer you are able to give her is a whining accompanied by a sniffle and she obviously doesn’t like that. Even if you tried your hardest to not let those tears rolling down your cheeks, you can’t help it, her harsh words only making things worse because you are already hating to disapoint the woman. 

"If I knew you would cry, I would've sold you ..", she sighed in annoyance, her nails digging into your skin, "I hate cry-babies, understand?" she asked, but it wasn’t not a question: it was a warning. "The fighter I saw in that ring must be here when I am back," she coldly added before releasing the pressure she was exerting on your face.

She leaves, slamming the door shut so you easily understand that she is upset with you reacting that way. She has done everything she could in order to help you to be comfortable here : she gave you a bath and clothes, cleaned your wounds, promised you a meal and a bed, even gave you comfort but it still doesn't seem to be enough because you were crying as if she was some sort of monster, and she can't bear that vision. She tried to repeat to herself that you are just tired, that things are going to get better with time but it doesn’t calm her down. Whether you want it or not, she will make sure that, one way or another, you will accept her and she won't hesitate to use the hard way if she has to. 

When she comes back, she notices that didn't move an inch, scared by what the woman could say and impressed by the bedroom. But it didn’t prevent your eyes from wandering around the room. It is really minimalist, there is nothing that could give you a hint about the person she is, everything is exactly where it should be, not a speck of dust and no personal objects. It feels like a hotel room more than hers.

When you hear the door, your gaze settles on the woman. Your knees are bent against your chest as if it could protect you from all the dangers of the world. She probably left you for only five minutes, but they felt like hours. Your thoughts had time to run while waiting for her : what about trying to escape? But it never worked, it’s always a dead end, a path to regrets because they always find you, making sure you won’t even think about doing it again and, if they do not find you, it's someone else. You learned that there is no escape and gave up on going back to your old life a long time ago. It is not even the fear of the armed men that is keeping you here, it's the void in you when you think about what you would do if you were free again, nothing. Nothing because you forgot how to live on your own. So you didn't move, not even a finger because she didn't ask you to do it, only being a dog that lives for its masters' will.

But what piques your curiosity is more the tray in her hands than anything else. As soon as she enters the room, closing the door behind her with her foot, a pleasant smell spreads through the room. You can see many things on the tray she brought back : a glass of water, some pills, a bowl of steaming soup with bread and a plate with rice, vegetables and chicken. When was the last time you ate a real meal? Long enough for you to not remember what it was.

"Eat." she said as she put the tray on your knees.

It smells good. That's the first thought that crossed your mind when you saw the plate. For a moment, you forget about the past hours; when was the last time you got a real meal? You can't remember, not even a fragment of a memory. 

You would eat what your owners give you, eat quickly before they come back, never knowing what you are eating nor when the next meal would be; you learned to not ask too many questions. At first, it was difficult to accept such a fate: you would refuse to even taste the food they were giving to you, but it didn't last long. Eventually, you started to eat - inhale - anything you were given without thinking twice about it.

Tonight, for the first time in years, you are going to eat something else than the leftovers of someone you don't even know. Tonight, you won't have to be scared about your food being stolen. Tonight, you can even see the smoke, a sign that your meal is still hot, freshly cooked and maybe homemade.

"I-," you started, but she didn't let you finish your sentence, your lips barely had time to move that she already cut you, leaving no place for an argument.

I am not hungry, you were about to say, and she somehow knew it. She also knew it was a lie, your stomach has been painfully twisted because of that sick feeling for days, but the knot is also caused by your fears. 

It all feels a bit too perfect. It feels like a trap, a way to encourage you to let your guard down only to break you after, making the fall harder. Some did that in the past, why not her? She doesn't look less cruel than the others. Yet, when she is talking, she seems more genuine, you could believe her when she says she only wants what's best for you, that she cares, she just has a twisted way to show it. 

"Yes, you are, so eat, now," she ordered you with such a cold tone that you don't dare to argue. There are all these warnings she doesn't say out loud but you can read in her eyes: just do whatever I tell you, pretty girl, they say. 

And, for sure, you don't want to face the consequences of your insubordination. So you slowly take the fork, not glancing away for one second, your eyes into hers. You are looking at every detail of her expression as if it would change, telling you that it is a trap, except it doesn't and her expression stays stern. It is impossible to read anything on her face, not even a hint of how she is feeling.

You take the first bit, carefully swallowing and… nothing happens. You don't feel weird, it doesn't taste bad and she doesn't snap at you for a small imaginary mistake you would have made. It is the complete opposite. The food is really good, melting on your tongue, and you start to eat quickly, not because you have to, but because you want to. For the first time in years, eating is a pleasure. 

She sighed when she noticed that you were inhaling your food, but she didn't say anything; she will have all the time later to change that habit of you. So she just stood there for a few seconds, observing you in silence, with her arms crossed, before sitting next to you - that's when you broke eye contact, once she was sure you would eat everything. 

As you are eating, she is barely paying attention to you, at least that's the impression she is giving. One of her arms wrapped around your shoulder, her hand is absently drawing circles on your skin while she is on her phone, dealing with something serious - you can hear her frustrated sighs from time to time.

Except she sees everything and your mistake was to not be careful enough around the woman. A little because of your clumsiness, mainly because of how fast you were eating, you dropped a bit of your food on the floor. You didn't think it was a big deal, picking it up to put it back on the plate. Three seconds rules, dropped on a clean floor, you don't have very high standards anyway - but she does. She turned to you the moment she felt you were moving, a curious, but disgusted, look on her face.

"What are you doing?" She asked, her hand grabbing your wrist before you could drop the bit of food on your plate. She moves your hand on the side of the tray, far from your plate, before you even get a chance to reply. "Drop it," she ordered to you, "that's gross, hope you weren't going to eat that." 

You shake your head, too scared to do anything else, but she knows you are lying; of course you were about to eat it. You spent the past years living like a fighting dog, you would eat anything she would give you, you might even eat directly from the dirty floor if she asked you to. She winces in disgust, not letting your hand go.

"Give me that," she snarled and you can feel how her grip tightened on your wrist to force you to give the fork away.

She then takes the tray that was in front of you to put it on her side of the bed, you are looking at her, scared she would definitely take your meal away. You are about to protest when she notices it and glances at you, daring you to say a word, you don't. 

"Come here," she said, gesturing you to come closer, she even grabbed your arm to guide you when she noticed you were hesitant to move.

She sits you between her legs and you are clearly uncomfortable, wiggling, but if she notices it, she doesn't seem to care. She is so close to you that you can feel her breath tickling your skin, but she keeps acting like nothing is weird here. When she leans to cut your food, you can feel her chest pressing against your back, the contact making your heart races. Too focused on how close you are to the woman, you barely noticed when she approached the fork from your mouth, waiting for you to open. It takes one more second for you to understand what she is waiting for and, when you do, you blush in embarrassment. She takes advantage of you opening your mouth to say something to feed you, and you don't dare to push her away. 

"Can't even eat alone, hm?" she whispered in your ear while you were chewing the bit of food she just gave you, "but that's fine, I am here now," she added, and there is something in her tone that makes you shiver.

Once she made sure you ate everything, she wrapped her arms around you, laying a kiss on your temple. It is strange how safe you are feeling in her embrace: for a few seconds you forget she is the one that beat you earlier. Right now, she is just someone that cares for you, with whom you feel at peace. You can't remember the last time someone made you feel that way, you can barely remember your life before entering the human trafficking circuit.

You don’t really know when you fell asleep, but your eyes were quick to close under the effects of her fingers running on your hair and of her voice whispering sweet words in your ears. At some point, a maid came to take the empty tray away and the woman layed the both of you in the bed, under the covers, trying her best to not wake you up. This night, you slept in a comfy bed, feeling protected in the arms of the woman despite the things she did, not even thinking one second about pushing away her hands that found their way under your sweatshirt, resting on your stomach. 

The Dog fell right into the Black Widow’s web.

[engie-ivy]

(I really thought this was gonna be a lot shorter than it is! I still couldn't resist the epilogue😅 Written for @wolfstarmicrofic 30th: Traitor, to add some Fluff to an angsty prompt!)

1651 words

Part Two: Label-Stuff

Remus and Sirius are in a strong, committed relationship.

They just don't know it yet.

Couple-Stuff

"Remus, it's just you and me now, there's no one else left." Mary clutches Remus' shoulders as she looks him in the eyes. "We're the last ones standing, the only ones who haven't succumbed. The others all have fallen. It's just you and me."

Lily rolls her eyes. "Dramatic much, Mary?"

Mary shakes her head disappointedly. "Alice was a lost cause ever since she laid eyes on Frank back in third grade. Then Marlene met Dorcas at the coffeeshop and we lost her pretty soon after that. Of course no one can forget the day Gideon took Emmeline away. And now the unthinkable has happened, and our very own Lily gave in to James Potter, of all people." Mary pats Remus' shoulder. "We're the last ones who are still living our best single lives, free and independent."

"Goodness, Mary," Alice sighs. "You talk like being in a relationship means your life is over. It's just the beginning of a whole new and exciting phase!"

Lily nods in agreement. "I must say, it's a lot better than I thought it would be. There are actually so many new experiences to enjoy in life as a couple!"

"Yeah," Marlene says. "Even that stupid lameass couple-stuff isn't so bad when you have someone whom you enjoy being in a stupid lameass couple with. Like going to the bloody Farmer's Market on Saturday morning and sharing one of those giant, ridiculous caramel syrup waffles."

Mary looks unimpressed. "I spend Saturday morning in my bed after partying on Friday night, because, oh yeah, I still have a life."

"I actually like the Farmer's Market," Remus disagrees. "I usually go with Sirius. He pretends he thinks it's all so lame, but who always wants to share the syrup waffle?" He chuckles fondly.

"It's not just outings either," Lily says. "Just the normal everyday stuff too, like cooking, having dinner, doing the dishes, you never have to do it alone anymore."

"Sitting on my couch in my pj's watching trash tv with a bowl of food in my lap is like the best moment of my day," Mary says. "Never eating alone anymore sounds like a literal nightmare," she shudders.

Remus shrugs. "With Sirius and I being roommates, I haven't really been doing those things alone for years."

Emmeline glances at him. "Well, yeah, I guess you can do those kinds of things with a roommate too, but as a couple, you can add sappy romance to that everyday life! Candlelit dinners, movie dates, walks on the beach, watching the sunset…"

"Why does that have to be exclusively for couples?" Remus protests. "I mean, Sirius and I both love dinner and a movie, or taking the dog to the beach and watching the sunset. We can just do those things together."

Mary gives Remus a strange look, but then focuses back on Emmeline. "I can do all those things with three different guys each week if I want to."

Emmeline shakes her head. "It's not the same as being with the one whom you know is your person."

Alice thinks for moment, trying to find the right words. "Think about it like this," she says slowly. "When you're all dolled up, in full makeup, wearing your best outfit, ready for a night of fun, yes, you can have a good time with anyone. But the best thing about being a couple is that when you feel like absolute crap and look like an absolute mess and just want to stay in bed all day, your person will also be there, taking care of you, bringing you comfort food, making you feel better."

"Sirius has a sixth sense for when I'm having a bad day," Remus says with a soft smile. "Whenever I feel down, Sirius will bring home my favourite chocolate cinnamon buns, which they only sell at a bakery on the other side of town. And he's probably the only one who can make my tea exactly as I like it. He will make sure there's always a mug with hot tea on my nightstand when I'm sick."

Alice tilts her head and studies Remus thoughtfully.

Mary arches an eyebrow looking at Remus. "I was gonna say isn't that what you've got a mum for, but apparently, you can also have a roommate for that." She shakes her head. "Anyways, I still don't think having someone to bring me tea when I'm cranky is a good enough reason to have to constantly take someone else into account, deal with jealousy and spend time with in-laws you don't like."

"But even that is suddenly not so bad anymore!" Lily argues. "I always thought that I would hate having to spend my Sundays having dinner with my in-laws, but James is taking me to his parents' house this Sunday for the first time, and I must say, I'm actually excited!"

"Oh, you should be!" Remus says enthusiastically. "Sunday dinners at the Potters' are amazing! I'll tell you, Monty's Sunday roast is to die for!"

The girls all stare at him.

Remus scratches his head awkwardly. "Sirius started taking me with him years ago." He smiles sheepishly. "He says I'm Effie and Monty's favourite by now."

Lily keeps staring at Remus as she continues. "And I'm also going to spend Christmas Day with James' family…"

"Oh," Remus immediately chimes in. "Great! Effie pulls out all stops. Sirius and I always help with-"

"Bloody hell, Remus!" Mary breaks in. "You bloody traitor!"

Remus closes his mouth and blinks at Mary in confusion.

"Here I was, thinking that you were my last ally among the couples, but it turns out that you've been in a bloody relationship with Sirius Black this whole time!"

"I'm in a… With… What?" Remus sputters. "No! Sirius and I are friends, just friends!"

"Remus," Lily says calmly, crossing her arms over her chest. "The only way your relationship with Sirius differs from a couple's, is that you're not having sex with him."

Remus' cheeks turn red and he averts his eyes.

Lily's eyes widen. "Remus John Lupin!" She gasps. "You didn't!"

Remus' face turns bright red as he stares at his hands. "It… happened. Once or twice."

Lily shakes her head. "I can't bloody believe you!"

Remus lifts his head and looks at her defiantly. "Well, can you blame me?" He says defensively. "You know what he looks like! Besides, what's the harm?" He shrugs. "We're both single, but we still both have… urges, so to speak, and we find each other physically attractive, so why not?"

"And do either of you ever sleep with anyone else?" Marlene asks seemingly casually, studying her nails.

"I'm not," Remus says. "I mean, Sirius is just objectively incredibly attractive, no one can deny that, and we have great… uhm, chemistry in the bedroom, so it really wouldn't make sense for me to go out of my way to pick up some random guy. I don't really know about Sirius, but I don't think…" Remus trails off, pausing on the idea of Sirius with someone else and feeling inexplicably nauseous, and suddenly he wants nothing more than to change the subject. "Look, this is all very personal, and none of your business!"

"And do either of you ever date anyone else?" Marlene asks undeterred.

"We're not dating!"

"Fine." Marlene rolls her eyes. "Does either of you ever date anyone?"

Remus shakes his head. "Why would we? Sirius is my best friend for a reason, I can't imagine having a better time with anyone else, and I have zero desire to spend an evening making awkward small talk with a stranger. Besides, we both aren't looking for anything. Sirius does not want to give up on his freedom, and I don't want to deal with all the expectations and accompanying anxiety that come with a relationship."

"Oh, for god's sake, I can't bloody believe it!" Lily pressed the palm of her hand to her forehead. "You and Sirius are both so bloody afraid of commitment, but you completely failed to notice you've been in a bloody committed relationship to each other for years!"

"Sirius' and mine relationship is platonic!" Remus insists. "And, well, sometimes also physical, I guess. Platonic and physical, not romantic. I mean, not that I don't love him. Of course I love him, but more in a way that we complete each other. Sirius just feels like home, he's the only one who…" Remus trails off and runs a hand through his hair. "Wait, what was I saying again?"

Mary gives him a flat look. "I believe you were explaining how you love Sirius and are physically attracted to him, he's your other half and you're safe haven, but oh, all in a purely platonic way of course."

Remus groans and hides his face in his hands. "I'm screwed, aren't I?"

"Jamie?" Lily asks hesitantly.

James hums while he's laying with his head on Lily's lap, as she runs her fingers through his hair (like she has absolutely not been itching to do since fifth grade, no, absolutely not).

"Would you…" Lily is very careful to breach the topic. James isn't exactly good at dealing with change, and she doesn't want to upset him. Remus and Sirius are his best friends, and he might not be happy with the dynamic of their group potentially changing. Besides, those boys are both like brothers to him, so what if it makes him uncomfortable if the relationship between the two of them turns out to be not-so-brotherly?

Lily braces herself. "How would you feel about Remus and Sirius potentially one day being… more than friends?"

James stills, and a moment passes with him just laying motionless with his head under her hand, as Lily holds her breath.

Then James sits up and turns to her, his eyes wide and blinking at her. "Haven't they been a couple for the past three years?"

Read Part Two here!