#but if anyone wants to see it let me know

[rafesangelita]

♡ deciding to take a ride on the ‘tunnel of love’ roller coaster at the annual valentine’s day fair, rafe happens to catch you before it starts, conveniently locking himself in next to you. annoyed, you tell yourself you’ll be out and away from the man once the ride is over but (un)luckily for you, it just so happens to break down, leaving you two stuck together until it’s fixed..

warnings: one sided enemies to lovers (reader is the one who can’t stand rafe lol), forced proximity, teasing, flirty banter, slight angst (just a teeny tiny bit, it’s literally almost nonexistent), light fluff

a/n: now presenting… ‘TUNNEL OF LOVE’ 🤍 my town just so happens to be having a valentine’s day fair.. maybe (hopefully) i’ll go!

link: VALENTINE’S DAY CELEBRATION ໒꒰ྀི｡- ˕ -｡꒱ྀི১

wc: 1.4k

[7:57 PM] bestie ♡: it looks like kelce is going to take me out for v-day after all!! don’t wait for me, i’ll catch up soon, promise!

you had just bought an extra large funnel cake for you and your best friend to share when you read her text, your sugary sweet smile faltering as you took a seat at a nearby bench. “more for me, i guess..” you sighed, feeling a little bit silly at the fact that you sat here by yourself when everyone who passed you by was either in a group setting or hand in hand with someone who was most likely their significant other.

you picked at the fried goodness, not really feeling as festive as you were just two minutes ago. “yo, y/n!” you recognized the voice before you even looked up, your eyes immediately rolling as none other than rafe ‘insufferable daddy’s money’ cameron made his way over to you. ‘please let this be quick..’ you whispered under your breath, not sparing the man a single glance as he plopped down ridiculously close to you.

“what do you want, rafe?” he smiled when he heard his name roll off of your tongue, his muscular arm draping across your shoulders as his mouth dropped next to your ear. “can you at least act like you could tolerate me?” you scoffed, shrugging him off. “no, i can’t,” you finally looked at him, “because even that is too difficult to do.” he swallowed thickly, feeling slightly defeated before he went for the funnel cake that sat in your lap.

“i’m really not that bad, i’ll make you realize that soon.” rafe was also too confident and cocky for your liking— more reasons you could add to your seemingly never ending list as to why you think you two would never work out.

“i highly doubt that.” rafe was licking powdered sugar off of his fingers when you met his gaze again, your eyes flickering down to his tongue. the one thing that you couldn’t put on your list was that he wasn’t hot. anyone with eyes can tell you that rafe was insanely attractive, but of course, you’d never admit that to him out loud.. or so you thought. “you’re staring.” he smiled when he saw that your eyes stayed trained on his mouth, a smug expression taking over his features.

you blinked away, deciding you had enough chit-chat for one night. “in your dreams, ‘cameron.” rafe watched you get up from your seat, gladly taking the funnel cake you basically shoved into his hands. “why, thank you.” he took another piece, popping it into his mouth. you flashed him a fake smile before adjusting the strap of your crossbody purse. “i’ll see you around!” he called out, waving obnoxiously in your direction. “no you won’t!” you whispered to yourself, deciding to explore the fair a bit more.

little did you know conversation between you and rafe was far from over.

you walked around the fair grounds for almost fifteen more minutes before you had decided you were better off at home eating some greasy takeout and having a rom-com movie marathon in nothing but your comfy pj’s.

just as you were on your way to the exit, a flashing heart with the words ‘TUNNEL OF LOVE.. find your lover inside!’ caught your attention. deciding you’d at least inquire about it, you walked up to the ride operator and asked away. “excuse me! hi, i was just wondering what does the whole ‘find your lover inside!’ thing mean?” the woman lit up as if she had been dying to answer this question.

“so basically there’s another roller coaster coming from the other side, and once you two meet inside, the ride will stop for two minutes before coming back out to the respective entrances.” she explained. “so it’s like speed dating?” you smiled, the idea enthralling you. “yeah, that’s exactly it!” she nodded. you weighed out your options and decided a little excitement wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

“i’m suprised you don’t have a line, how much is it to get on?” you took your wallet out of your purse as she replied. “if you have a full-access wristband it’s free, but if not then it’ll be five dollars exactly.” you handed over the small bill, smiling to yourself as she let you through the metal gate. “it looks like two people can fit in here—” just as you stepped in, rafe came running from the opposite direction.

“stop the ride!” he shouted, his chest rising and falling as he bent over to catch his breath. you blinked. “it’s not even on, you drama queen.” taking a seat, you were about to pull the metal bar over your lap before he shouted again. “i’ll give you fifty bucks if you let me get on with her!” you crossed your arms over your chest, not expecting the ride operator to actually let him in. “seriously?!” you gasped when he walked through, flashing you a wink.

“sorry!” she pushed the guardrail over you and rafe until it locked in place before starting the ride. “this will all be over in two minutes.” you glared at him, trying to scoot as many centimeters away from him as you could. “that’s fine with me.” he shrugged. he leaned back in the cart, red and pink flashing lights illuminating the space in which you two rolled into slowly.

rafe kept his eyes on you, watching as you avoided his gaze. “why don’t you like me? serious question..” you sighed, finally giving him your full undivided attention. you opened your mouth to speak but no words came out. “what?” you acted like you didn’t hear him the first time, wracking your brain for any kind of answer. he smiled teasingly, pointing a finger at you. “i asked you why you don’t like me and you can’t even answer me!” you waved him off, facing the other way to hide the smile on your lips.

truthfully, you didn’t really know who rafe was. like just by himself as an individual. you knew that his friends were all assholes though, including the one who your best friend was willing to drop everything for. “i hate your friends,” you started, “and you are who you keep company with, sooo..” rafe cleared his throat as the roller coaster came to a stop. the inside of the ‘love tunnel’ was lit up with baby cherubs along the walls, red hearts and fairy lights adorning the interior.

“me and my friends are very different from each other.. i think you’d be surprised.” you hummed, adjusting the pendant on your necklace. “maybe..” the other roller coaster cart strolled in from the other side, the seats empty. “i guess it’s a good thing that i tagged along, since you would’ve been all by yourself if i didn’t.”

you glanced over at him, his blue eyes standing out in the pinkish lighting. “..yeah, i guess.” rafe’s head shot up as soon as the words left your mouth. “you really think so?” he scooted closer, the action making you laugh. “don’t push it.” you warned him, in which he held his hands up defensively. “okay, okay!” rafe had this smitten look on his face as if making you smile was his life’s greatest achievement.

“so you told me why you didn’t like me, which is fair, but i want a real chance at proving you wrong. can you at least give me that?” rafe hesitantly rested a hand on your knee, the hopeful look in his eyes making your heart melt into a soft puddle of mush. “hmm..” you pretended to think, the anticipation making rafe’s leg bounce. “okay. only under one condition though..” rafe nodded frantically.

“anything.”

“tell me why you like me so much when i avoid you like the plague, and never seemingly look in your direction.. like ever.” the man next to you snorted. “you want me to go down my full list? ‘cause we’ll be sitting here all night—” just then, the ride operator’s voice boomed through the intercom speakers from inside the tunnel. “hi, i’m so sorry for the inconvenience, but we’re having some technical difficulties and my electrician guy says it’ll be at least an hour or two before you could leave. i promise to issue a full refund once you two are off.”

you and rafe looked at each other half concerned and half amused. “..so, you were saying?”

[tangerineastronaut]

bibliophile ⟡ j. yunho

you're stressed...your study buddy has an idea.

Pairing: Yunho x Fem!Student!Reader Genre: Smut - dark twist Requested: Yes/No w.c. 5.8k Warnings: heavy on the smut, semi public sex (ish), mutual pining, food? - THE SUCKER - he does...things with it. Yunho is a FREAK. Reader is desperate for yunho dick (yes YOU, reader) Spoiler warnings are in comments if you need them. A/N: So, this is sort of two requests in one, however I don't want to disappoint anyone so I'll post it solo. I hope it's okay! <3 god deleted my ticket to heaven with this one. Requests: Open (link below)

Requests | WIPs Masterlists: BTS | ATEEZ | GOT7 | Stray Kids

Taglist: @baby-stay92 If you'd like to be added to my taglist, please DM me or click here.

You release a tired sigh and rub your eyes, throwing your pen down. It bounces off of your ridiculously thick textbook and lands on the papers scattered around your study partner. 

“Ah ah. No crashing yet, we’ve got three more chapters,” Yunho says with a laugh, tapping you on the end of the nose with his own pen. You pout, making a face at him before dramatically collapsing on the table. 

“I give up. You can become a lawyer, I’ll go back to making sandwiches,” you groan, muffled against pages of your future. 

“I thought you liked working at the sandwich shop?”

“I did,” you reply, tilting your head to look at him. “But sandwich shops don’t pay me six figures.”

“Then stop whining,” Yunho shrugs. You grumble words unintelligible even to yourself and sit up, fixing your hair. You stretched, yawned, checked your phone for the thousandth time that evening. Finals were next week. Then there was the Bar exam. You were so close to being y/n l/n, attorney at law…but you were beginning to feel nauseous at the mere sight of words on a page. 

“Wanna take a break?” Yunho suggests, leaning back to stretch. You avoid looking at the way his sweater rides up, revealing inches of what appears to be a toned belly. 

“No,” you mumble, forcing yourself to look away. “If I leave this library…I think I may never return.”

Yunho chuckles and nods, rubbing his eyes with his thumb and index fingers. For a few minutes, you both just sit there, enjoying a rare moment of peace. Usually the library is filled with students, exactly like you—stressed, depressed, drowning in student debt and reading assignments. 

“Yunho?” you mumble. He hums a response, looking over at you. You swallow. “If I start to cry, will you judge me?”

“Not at all,” he responds. You nod once, feeling tears burning in your eyes. 

For the next hour or so, you take turns reading passages and summarizing them, going through various laws and statutes that you could barely comprehend. Your brain felt as if it might explode, and you considered calling it a night, but it was only 10 p.m. and you’d be damned if you gave out before midnight. 

“What the hell are these ‘title 16 provisions?’” you scoff, crinkling your nose. “Were these even part of our assignment?”

“Let me see,” Yunho says. He scoots his chair over to your side of the table rather than just moving seats, and you feel your heart leap into your throat. And god, his arm slides over the back of your chair as he leans in to look at the tiny words on your page. 

He smells like coffee and the peanut butter granola bar you shared earlier, and this close you can see that he has very light freckles on his cheeks. You kind of want him to never move. 

“Ah, no this isn’t part of this assignment but we will have to know it for finals,” he says, words going in one of your ears and out the other. He begins talking about these provisions, but you must be numb to all forms of communication other than Jeong Yunho’s body heat. 

“Y/n?”

“Huh?” you mumble, shaking your head. Yunho has a funny look on his face, one brow raised. Oh god. Oh god. He caught you staring like a fucking creep. 

“...You good?” he chuckles. You swallow and quickly nod, brushing your hair back so fast you nearly hit him in the face. 

“Yep, uh huh,” you mumble. “I’m fine. Just tired.”

“Oh,” he says as though relieved. “Good. Well, if you need to take a break, let me know.”

He begins to move; you panic and grab his wrist. 

“Wait! You didn’t explain this part to me,” you say, pointing at a random section on the page. Yunho sits down again and tilts his head. 

“You need me to explain…marital property to you?” he asks, sounding both amused and disbelieving. 

Well, if you’re gonna be a bad liar, at least you’ll be persistent.

“Yes,” you nod. “Just like a refresher, you know? My brain is cooked.”

Yunho stares at you for a few seconds, and you feel your cheeks heat up. It feels like he knows something you don’t know, and you don’t like that. So you yank him back into his seat and let go of his wrist, pretending to be very interested in one of the most basic aspects of your degree. 

Marital property is boring, even when the hottest guy in your class is explaining it to you. And what’s worse—he knows. You know he knows. He’s explaining basic concepts to you, and then explaining the basics of those basic concepts, all the while keeping a little smirk on his handsome face. You consider caving, thinking of any possible excuse for your behavior. You’re delirious from lack of sleep, that’s actually true. But you were too deep in this to give up now. 

“That’s most of it,” Yunho finally says, long fingers splayed over the textbook. They nearly reach from one end of the open book to the other. You shiver. “I guess we should move into parental rights—”

“Yunho,” you begin with a sigh, ready to admit defeat. He smiles innocently, resting his chin in his hand.

“Yeah?”

“I—”

You freeze, having forgotten how to form sentences. Yunho’s still smiling at you, but his free hand is now resting on your thigh. You thanked the gods you’d decided to wear a skirt today. 

His palm is large, warm, spanning much of the plush skin there. He’s not gripping it, but it’s still very obviously intentional. You feel your cheeks burn hot; you’re determined to remain unaffected.

“Nevermind,” you mumble. He chuckles and turns back to the page, though he doesn’t move his hand. 

You don’t ask him to. 

You go back to your respective chapters, thankfully far beyond the basics, but his hand stays right where it is. He even reaches over his other arm to sip his coffee, refusing to move it. Your skin burns in the shape of his fingers; you almost want to push him away simply because your body is reacting to his touch in a way that’s making you feel crazy. You’re practically feverish, just because he’s near you. Pathetic, honestly. 

When you sigh and rub your eyes, those long fingers twitch, making you jump. You try to play it off, though you know he’s aware of your reaction, because he does it again. When you don’t react as dramatically, he squeezes gently.

Your knee jerks up so fast it hits the table, causing your belongings to rattle, and your heart feels like it’s going to explode. Yunho chuckles, though doesn’t move his hand. You clear your throat as though everything is normal. As though he’s not currently squeezing your upper thigh. 

“Yunho,” you say quietly. 

“Hm?” He doesn't bother looking up from his textbook.

“What are we doing?”

He does look up this time.

“Studying,” he says, giving you a sweet smile. You narrow your eyes. 

If he was going to do this, then so were you. You were sleep deprived, numb to the world, and horny as hell. So you parted your knees. 

Not much, just an inch or so, but very obvious. You didn’t miss the way Yunho’s throat worked as he swallowed, clearly not expecting the reciprocation. You go back to your textbook, but your victory is short lived, however, as his large hand slides further inward.

You’re flustered. But you’re also stubborn. So you drop your pen and look him in the eyes as you open your knees. Yunho’s gaze is steady as he slowly moves his hand, as though expecting you to stop him. You don’t. 

Yunho went back to reading and you did the same, just as his pinky brushed the crease of your inner thigh. You knew you were wet, knew he could probably feel the moist heat radiating from your body behind your pink panties, but you chose to be nonchalant. Until he rubbed the back of his knuckle against your panties, over your clit. 

The soft moan that escapes you is mortifying.

Yunho quickly clamps a hand over your mouth, laughing breathily as your brows pull together and you shudder. He looks as shocked as you are, though now you’re hazy, focused only on how good it felt, and wanting more. 

“Shh,” he chuckles nervously, glancing around despite the fact that you’re the only ones here. “No wonder you act like you’re walking around on thin ice. You’re frustrated as hell, huh?”

“P-Please,” you whimper pitifully against his palm, though it’s muffled. He moves his hand and you grip his wrist, looking up at him. You silently communicate your needs, praying he has mercy and doesn’t force you to say it out loud. Yunho glances around one more time, licking his lips before looking down at you like a fucking steak on a platter. 

“If we’re gonna do this, you gotta be quiet for me,” he murmurs. You nod quickly, gasping when he effortlessly yanks your chair closer to him. He adjusts his glasses before lowering his hand to your thighs, gently stroking them. 

“Can I touch you?” he asks quietly. You open your mouth, but he presses a finger to your lips. “Quietly.”

“Yes, yes,” you whine. “T-Touch me.”

Yunho bites his lower lip, as though imagining doing much, much more than that. When he rubs your thighs again, your knees fall open and you stifle a moan behind your sleeves. Yunho smiles at the sight of you, slipping his hand between your legs again. 

This time, he’s more careful, though it’s much more frustrating for you. You squirm when he strokes either side of your cunt, making a ‘v’ and squeezing your plush pussy lips between them. You moan again, loudly, and Yunho scrambles to cover your mouth. 

“Baby, you’ve gotta be—”

“Quiet, I know,” you pout, gripping his wrist. “C-can’t help it…feels good.”

Yunho swallows, letting his fingers brush against you again. You manage to stay quiet this time, but your mouth opens in a silent scream.

“So fucking sensitive,” he murmurs, drawing his hand back. You nearly protest, but he presses his index finger to your clit like a button and you jolt, covering your mouth just in time. Yunho smirks. 

“H-Haven’t had sex,” you say, fisting the sleeve of his sweater as he pushes again. “In m-months.”

“Why?” he asks, beginning to rub slow circles against your panties. You feel your wetness spreading beneath them, but you don’t care. You grip the edge of the table and swallow. 

“Busy,” you breathe, licking your lips. Yunho’s eyes follow your tongue. You don’t notice. 

“Can I kiss you?”

“Y-yeah, yes,” you nod frantically. 

Yunho uses the hand between your legs to turn your entire body toward him. You want to mention how attractive that is, but he’s leaning forward and pressing his lips to yours.

His kiss is nothing like his touch; there’s nothing dirty or hurried about it. His nose brushes the crease of yours as he tilts your heads to the side, his free hand moving up to cup your cheek. It’s a sweet kiss that makes no sense when his fingers are currently resting against your panties beneath your skirt. 

He seems to have forgotten what he was doing amidst your soft kisses, as you break away from his lips to impatiently bounce and whine. Yunho smirks and begins rubbing his middle finger directly over your clit, applying very little pressure. He kisses you again, and you throw your arms around his neck, trying to push your body into his. His knee prevents you from doing so. 

“Nng…what are you doing?” you whine, fisting his sweater. “Wanna…wanna be in your lap.”

Your own admission makes your cheeks flush red, but you don’t care. You’re horny and your crush’s hand is between your thighs. 

“Not yet, baby,” he mumbles, stealing another lazy kiss. “Wanna keep you like this. I like how desperate you are.”

“I…I’m not desperate,” you mumble. Yunho bites his lower lip and applies more pressure to your clit, you buck your hips and grip his sleeve. He’s laughing, but you don’t care, aching for more of him. 

“Desperate,” he hums, pulling you in for another kiss. You don’t understand his obsession with kissing you; wasn’t he as horny as you were? But you kissed him back anyway, because you’ve had a crush on this guy since your freshman year and even the slut hormones clouding your brain couldn’t block that much out. He was a damn good kisser too, taking the lead and hardly giving you time to breathe.

In contrast to his soft mouth, Yunho’s index finger hooks your soaked panties, tugging them to the side. His finger brushes your bare cunt, though he knowingly silences your moans with a kiss. 

“What can I do?” he asks once you finally break apart. You’re unwilling to let him go, however, pulling his lips back to yours.. 

“Don’t care,” you mumble between kisses, body buzzing with need. “Whatever you want.”

“Can I go in here?” 

He prods at the needy hole between your folds and you fucking purr, clutching his sweater and pulling him close with a whine. 

“I’ll take that as a yes,” he laughs. He waits for you to eagerly nod, then brings his fingers to your mouth and taps your lips. “Open.”

You do as he says and he slips his fingers inside. You nearly moan around them as you instinctively suck and lick his digits; they’re long and thick, two of them practically as big as a few hookups you’ve had in the past. Yunho watches, pupils wide as you act like an obedient doll a little too eager to be fingered in a library at midnight. 

When he pulls his fingers out, they’re slick and shiny with your drool, and you see him suck in air. You blush, a little embarrassed at how thorough of a job you’ve done. You expect Yunho to go beneath your skirt, but he slides his wet fingers in his mouth, eyes never leaving yours. 

It’s the filthiest thing you’ve ever seen, next to the look of pure bliss in his eyes as he sucks your saliva off of his fingers and replaces it with his own. You decide then that you do not want him to finger you. 

“Fuck me,” you blurt out. 

You barely register what you’ve said, but you’re damn near ready to jump his bones. Yunho blinks in surprise, obviously not having expected that. He pulls his fingers out of his mouth.

“Really?” he asks. He sounds surprised for reasons you don’t understand, but you nod. 

“Yeah,” you say, pulling him in for another kiss. “Want you inside me. All of you.”

“Fuck,” Yunho groans. He grabs your face in his hands and kisses you back, harder. Your hands are shaky as they go for his jeans, but then he freezes like you’ve just slapped him. 

“What?” you ask, breaking the kiss. Yunho curses and rubs his face with both hands, tilting back in his chair. “What is it, yu?”

“I don’t…fuck. I don’t have a condom.”

He runs a hand through his hair like this is the biggest mistake of the century. You bite your lower lip—the idea of leaving tonight and not getting fucked by him makes you genuinely want to cry. 

“We could…you know?” you mumble, face hot. “I mean, I-I’m clean. Obviously, haven’t had sex in god knows when—”

“No,” Yunho says, shaking his head. “I don’t trust myself.”

“Don’t trust yourself to what?” you frown. Yunho looks at you, 

“There’s no way I’m gonna be able to make myself pull out once I’m in you,” he murmurs. “We need a condom.”

You swallow. You really shouldn’t push; but you need to hear more. 

“How do you know?” you breathe, licking your lips. 

“C’mere.”

“What?”

Yunho reaches over, grabbing your wrist. He pulls you into his lap and you gasp, able to feel the rigid line of his cock beneath you. But he grabs your face and pulls you in for a kiss again. 

“I’ve been thinking about you for so long,” he hums, and you mewl in response, grinding down against him. He kisses you again to stifle what was no doubt a moan. 

“Y-Yeah?” you manage to squeak out. Yunho nods. 

“Yeah. Not gonna be able to pull out if I’m balls deep in that little cunt with you fucking crying for it like this.”

Fuck. You needed him. To be honest, with or without the condom, but if he felt it was necessary.

“Let’s go get one,” you mumble dizzily. “A c-condom. There’s a convenience store down the street.”

Yunho frowns, looking at the clock on the wall.

“The library will be locked, won’t it? Don’t we have to lock up?”

You lean back in his lap, smiling. 

“Yes. But I’ve got a key,” you chime.

The moment you stepped into the store, you immediately regretted it and felt all the horny escape you. Not really, but it was embarrassing as hell, and painfully obvious as to what you were doing here. Yunho didn’t seem to mind, his hand tightly clasping yours as he guided you toward the back. 

You had a little trouble finding the condoms—it made you inexplicably happy when Yunho suggested asking the clerk as he didn’t know either, even though your answer was a firm NO—but eventually found the rack next to the sex pills and cold sore cream. 

Hot. 

Yunho squints, and you cross your arms impatiently. You grab a box and shake it. 

“It’s not a shoe store, here,” you mumble, pushing the box into his hand. Yunho glances over the label and smirks, tossing it back on the shelf. You want to ask what the hell is so funny when you’re so fucking wet your panties are sticking to your thighs, but then he finally makes a choice and puts the box in your hands. Oh.

Oh. 

XXL. Makes sense.

You make him grab a few more things as though that makes the purchase less shameful. When you go to check out, you look everywhere but at the clerk—until he has the audacity to speak to the man holding your hand, very obviously purchasing condoms so the two of you can go fuck in a library. 

“Finals week?” the guy says. Yunho slides his card across the counter and squeezes your hand.

“Finals week,” he nods.

“I just realized we could’ve gone to my apartment,” you say, unlocking the library door. Yunho leaned against the wall, unwrapping the candy he’d apparently decided on last minute. A red round sucker. “It’s only a few minutes away.”

You’d been given a key to the library your second year here, as you were a trusted student who often pulled all nighters—and you lived in the shitty part of campus where the power often went out. You were aware this was a total abuse of that power, but you figured if you showed Yunho to Ms. Lin, she’d understand. 

“Yeah, well, my fantasies during puberty weren’t at apartments,” Yunho shrugs, holding the door for you. You head inside and find your table, where you drop the bag of your purchased items. Yunho grabs it, immediately fishing out the box. 

“Very boy of you,” you scoff, rolling your eyes. “Let me guess, the hot librarian offers to help you find your dick? Is that part of the dewey decimal system?”

Yunho smiles. “Can we get back to you whining for me to fuck you? I liked that.”

“I was not—”

Your freakishly tall study partner grabs your wrist, tugging you against him. You swallow and look up, lips parted at the sudden contact. 

“Not what?” he asks. You blink, but something is suddenly pushing at your lips. You open dumbly, feeling too obedient as you take whatever he’s putting in your mouth apparently. The taste of artificial cherry makes you grimace. 

Yunho backs you up to the table, crowding you against it. He cups your face in his hands and kisses your cheek, thumbs brushing below your ears. You realize you’ve been staring at him wordlessly, sucker in your mouth. 

“How’s it taste?” he asks.

“Good,” you mumble. It doesn’t taste good, you hate cherry, but if Jeong Yunho puts something in your mouth, you love it, you decide. Cherry is your new favorite flavor. 

“I doubted if they sold gags, so,” he chuckles. “This’ll do.”

You frown, but he takes the stick of the sucker before you can respond. 

“Open,” he says. You open. 

You see his eyes twinkle, almost like he can’t believe how well you’re listening to him. If only he knew you’d do anything he asked. 

Rather than pull it out, Yunho rubs the sucker around your mouth. He coats your tongue with the sticky flavor, then the inside of your cheek. By the time he pulls it out, you don’t realize you’re drooling, mouth open for him.

He pops the sucker in his own mouth, just like his fingers, and you shudder. Then he’s slipping his hands beneath your skirt, pushing your panties down your thighs. 

“What are you doing?” you ask softly, more curious than concerned. Yunho takes the sucker out and kisses your cheek, then your lips. You can taste it on his tongue, just like yours. 

Something sticky and wet prods at your clit and you gasp, but Yunho wraps an arm around your waist and keeps you from pulling away. You squeak helplessly in shock, caught between mind numbing bliss and disbelief. He’s rubbing the bulbous head of the sucker against your clit. 

“Shh…figure it’s too risky to eat you out properly,” he hums in your ear, crushing you to his chest. You squirm, though not out of discomfort. 

You have no idea how to react, hands gripping his sweater as he holds you in place. The candy feels warm and sticky, sliding through your cunt juices as he teases you with it. 

“I wasn’t going to,” he says, voice strained as though he’s doing all he can to hold back. “But I saw it and…well fuck, baby, if I’m honest, I just wanted to see if you were desperate enough to try and fuck yourself on a piece of candy.”

You whine and bury your head against his shoulder, because you fucking are. You are desperate enough to try, because he slides the candy between your lips and you jolt when it brushes your hole.

“F-Fuck, Yunho,” you gasp, nails digging into fabric. You hear him laugh, and it sounds so fucking cocky, like he knew you’d end up like this, but you can’t bring yourself to care as you work yourself to ruin on a piece of candy. 

He slides it beneath the hood of your clit, twisting the stick in his fingers. Your knees buckle, but he’s gripping you tight. He works it like a toy, rubbing up and down, focusing on your clit until you’re nearly there before he moves it again. It didn’t feel this big when it was in your mouth, but you’ve never wanted something inside you so bad. 

“Oh my god,” you moan, thighs clamping together. It doesn’t stop his hand, or the candy, the rounded tip pushing against your hole. He starts rolling it again, and you gasp as you feel yourself snapping inside, the hot neediness spilling over the edges. You try to warn him, but only manage to squeak.

“Are you…are you cumming on a fucking lollipop?” Yunho asks, voice filled with awe. You nod. 

Your ears ring, your vision blurs, and you feel something pushing against your mouth. It’s Yunho’s hand you realize, but you can’t stop, can’t stop shaking and screaming and there’s something wet on your cheeks. 

You haven’t had a proper orgasm in months, maybe even a year, and were it not for Yunho holding you up, you’re pretty damn sure you would’ve fainted. 

When you open your eyes, Yunho is laughing quietly and hugging you tight, rubbing your back. 

“Fuck, are you okay?” he asks, sounding concerned and impressed. You sniff and nod, using the back of your hand to wipe your cheeks. Yunho cups your face and uses his thumbs to clean you up. You were crying. 

“I’m sorry, jesus, I didn’t think it was that bad,” he says sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. You realize then that the damn sucker is in his mouth.

You whine, yanking him forward until you’re kissing him. It’s clumsy, but he takes the sucker out and tosses it on the table behind you. You begin working desperately at his jeans, and hear him release a cherry flavored groan. 

“Still gonna let me fuck you?” he asks, keeping his lips against yours. 

“God yes,” you say in a shaky voice. “P-Please.”

“I can do that,” Yunho breathes. He places a large hand on the softness of your belly, gently pushing you back. 

Yunho towers over you, one hand moving to cup your thigh and open you up so he can stand between them. The other goes to his jeans, and you find yourself biting your lip and digging your nails into your palms. 

XXL?

“Since you look like you’re about to fucking eat me,” Yunho says with a laugh, “why don’t you do it? Hm? When’s the last time you put a condom on?”

You feel yourself blush at having been caught, but sit up to snatch the box near you. 

“Asshole,” you mutter, refusing to give him a proper answer.

Your hands are too shaky to open the box, so you end up ripping it down the side, condoms spilling out. You sigh anyway and grab one, slipping the foil packet between your teeth. You move your hands to his jeans, and realize that for the first time…you’re nervous. 

Until now your brain had been sex focused; it still was, but your post orgasm clarity made you realize how fucking desperate you looked. You roughly popped open the button of his jeans. 

Yunho was so damn tall that his hips were practically level with your face whilst you were on the short table. This meant that, as soon as you’d tugged his boxers down, you suddenly found yourself face to face with the biggest cock you’ve ever seen. 

XXL.

For a moment you were too dumbstruck—why did they bother sculpting the soft dicks when the hard ones could look like…this? All veins and smooth skin and a pink mushroom head that looked perfectly designed for…use. You wanted it in your mouth. But he hadn’t technically put his mouth on you, and you were both in a library, and right now you were starting to get a little shaky at the idea of this thing going anywhere near your neglected pussy, so you swallowed your resolve and took the condom from between your teeth. 

Yunho watched as you struggled to tear open the packet, biting your lower lip in frustration. You finally got it open, sighing as you placed the rubber at the tip. He grabbed your hands then, and you paused. Shit. Were you doing this wrong? 

“We don’t have to do anything,” he mumbles softly, cupping your chin. “You wanna stop right now? We stop. Not trying to ruin the mood, just want you to know it’s okay.”

You shake your head.

“I’m okay, thanks,” you say quietly. “It’s just…fuck, Yunho.”

He laughs, his little ego having returned just a bit, you wanted to roll your eyes and kiss him at the same time. He bites his lower lip and strokes his thumb over yours. 

“I’ll be gentle,” he hums. “You can take it for me.”

Fuck. Yes, you absolutely can. 

Yunho guides you onto your back, though you settle on your elbows, propped up for him. You watch as he squeezes the rest of the lube from the packet onto his cock, giving a few tugs before nodding at you. You weren’t sure if you were excited or scared, but there were two heartbeats and one was between your legs. 

He pushes your legs apart and guides his cock forward. You lick your lips and let your knees fall open, bunching your skirt around your waist, offering yourself to him. Yunho sucks in air through his teeth and curses. 

“So fucking pretty,” he hums, supporting his weight on one palm as he brushes his cock against you. You shiver as the cold lube is smeared around your sensitive cunt. “Knew it from the day I saw you freshman year in a skirt just like this one. Thought I was gonna die when you smiled at me.”

“I didn’t know you remembered,” you mumbled. You were so nervous your first day, which wasn’t helped by the hot guy who approached you and asked if you were lost. Apparently you could stop feeling ashamed for having mind fucked him back then. 

“Of course I do,” Yunho chuckles, teasing the head of his cock up and down your slit. “So cute, how you blushed when I talked to you. You still do that, you know.”

“Shut up,” you mutter. Yunho laughs, then licks his lips. 

“Gonna put it in now. Tell me if it’s too much,” he says. You nod.

The swollen head of his cock catches on your hole, and Yunho uses his weight to lean forward and urge himself inside. It aches a bit, not just from the size but fuck it’s been so long since you’ve had something more than your own fingers in you. Your thoughts go from not so bad to okay damn to holy fuck there’s more? Because he keeps pushing and you keep taking, and you feel every inch of him filling your insides while his body offers more. 

“Fuck, baby. Fuck,” Yunho whines, still gripping the base of his cock as he guides it into you. Your head falls back and you curse at nothing; his cock is somehow too big but perfectly sized at the same time and you’ve never felt so god damn full. “Look at you, that needy little cunt is swallowing me babygirl. Keep fucking taking it.”

His words make you dizzy, and you whine when he’s finally fully seated. You feel heavy, pinned to the table, as though you can’t move. You reach down and feel the rigid sides of his cock, shocked to feel just how much is inside you. 

“How’s that, beautiful?” Yunho asks. He places both palms on the table, either side of your body, and you tense. If he started thrusting, it would fuck you up. 

“Good,” you say, nodding. “Big, but good.”

“Knew you could take it. 'm gonna fuck you now. Stop me if you need to," he murmurs. You can take it.

"I can take it," you nod. He smiles, kissing you once, then twice.

You squeak as Yunho begins fucking you properly, ploughing into you hard and fast, moving with need and instinct rather than reason. 

The table shakes with his heavy thrusts, pistoning into you so hard it makes you dizzy. You’re surprised you can take him like this, able to feel every inch of him when he’s seated inside, pressing deliciously on your walls. 

Yunho ruts into you like an animal, unfortunately one with a very big cock as he struggles to keep every inch buried inside you. He wasn’t lying about not pulling out, as he refused to do so even when thrusting. You had no room to breathe, no chance for air, as he fucked into you repeatedly while trying to go deeper. 

You’re at a loss for words, lips parted, eyes following his expression and movements. He’s desperate in his own way, obviously holding back, though you don’t know from what. You consider encouraging him to let go—until he groans loudly and snaps his hips, stealing the breath from your lungs. 

“Fuck, I’m gonna cum, baby. So fucking…need you to hold still for me and take it,” he breathes. "Hold still. A-Almost done, fuck, keep taking it so good for me."

You do as he asks without question, clinging to his shoulders, nose to nose with Jeong Yunho as he forces his cock as far as it can go in your body and begins to pump a thin condom full of cum that should be you. 

Yunho takes a few moments to breathe, arms shaking where he holds himself up on the table. You run a hand through his damp hair, watching as he moans softly and leans into your touch. 

“You okay?” you giggle. He nods, tilting his head to kiss your palm. 

“Just…You’re so fucking perfect. Want more of you if you’ll let me, wanna make you feel good every day," he says.

You blink at the surprising tenderness of his words, feeling they were more than sex related. You wanted to ask questions, but right now, you were both sticky with sweat and fucked out on a library table that would need to be wiped down with holy water. 

You separated, which left you shuddering from the sudden cold emptiness inside of you. Yunho exhaled sharply, waiting a few moments before removing the condom and tying it off. 

You both cleaned up and fixed your clothes as best you could—though you stuffed your panties in your bag because the sticky wetness was a little much. 

“Do you want to come over?” you ask, making sure your skirt is covering your ass. “You know. To clean up.”

Yunho smiles, which makes you smile, and then you’re blushing and cursing at yourself. He nods and brushes your cheek with his knuckle. 

“Sounds good,” he hums. You beam and gesture for him to follow you. Yunho watches as you collect your things with shaky legs, smiling to himself. 

You were so damn pretty. Intelligent. He’d noticed right away that you were someone he was going to want. 

He grabbed his own bag and walked past the table, pausing as he stepped on something. 

The sucker. 

You crinkle your nose when you notice it, too. 

“Guess we need to throw that away,” you mumble. He nods, bending down and picking it up. He holds it in his hand for a few seconds. 

What a good idea it had been. 

He slips it into his pocket, for the memories. 

Memories like, your name. Your favorite color. That skirt you wore on your first day. Apartment 2B, where you lived. You like the right side of the bed, don’t you? Yunho likes the left side. 

The last man you slept with—11 months, 1 week, and 4 days ago.

Yunho hated that one.

You had waffles for breakfast this morning. You usually have oatmeal. You sleep with a nightlight on.

You’re afraid of the dark.

“You coming?” you ask with a shy smile, pausing at the door. Yunho looks up. You didn’t see him slip the sucker in his pocket. You never notice things like that. 

“Yeah,” he says. He follows you out the door and waits for you to lock up. Then, without thinking too much of it, he takes your hand. You don’t pull away. Your hand is small compared to his, and he squeezes it. You squeeze back. 

You like hot showers.

You sound so pretty when you moan, especially when you think you’re alone. 

Your bathroom window is never locked.

You're never alone.

Yunho has a good memory when it comes to you.

[copper-16]

Reminds Me That There's A Room To Grow Part 2

A love unraveled and yet incomparable. Where are two people to go from here?

(a/n: Here is part 2! I am so glad everyone is enjoying this so far, I've had a lot of fun writing it and getting to be creative! I’ll see everyone next Monday for installment 3 - can’t wait to hear everyone’s thoughts!)

Alexia wasn’t sure exactly what she had expected when she barged into her Mami's house the morning after seeing you at the event, dragging Alba behind her.  

But it definitely wasn’t this. 

She had explained everything to the two of them, with a carefully constructed amount of excitement. The footballer didn’t want to seem overeager, but she also found elation building within herself the more she thought about what had occurred. 

She had never expected to see you again, but there you were. Not only that, you weren’t with anyone. You still had the capacity to love her. There was a chance that Alexia hadn’t lost you, and she held onto that hope like a fire lit deep within her chest. She was almost delirious with relief at the realization that maybe the last nine years hadn’t been a total waste, that maybe she had just been waiting for you to return. It threatened to consume her, and she felt as though nothing could break the jouissance that filled her. 

At least, that was what she thought, until Eli and Alba brought her back to reality with their contradicting opinions. 

“She’s here you guys, she’s here in Barcelona. After all these years, Flori is still here and she wants to see me,” Alexia told her family, a brightness in her eyes that hadn’t been present in years. Despite this, Eli and Alba both had a frown on their face as they glanced at each other with skepticism. There was an awkward pause before Alba finally turned toward her sister with a charged look. 

“Ale,” Alba started lightly, trying not to sound too negative. “It has been nine years. Is it possible that Flori has moved on? She was the one who stayed behind, after all.” 

Her younger sister's words were pointed if not entirely incorrect. 

“Do you even know what happened? You never got an answer from her, and now she has shown up at this event with absolutely no warning,” Eli continued, a point that Alba quickly found herself agreeing with. 

When they had all left Madrid, Eli and Alba never expected to lose you so suddenly. 

Where Alexia was upset, they were angry. Angry that you had hurt Alexia for no logical reason, angry that you had done it when Alexia was at her most vulnerable, angry that you were no longer there. They had trusted you with Alexia’s heart, and you had betrayed them. Forgiveness was not possible in their eyes, not after what had occurred. 

Eli missed your mother, who had grown to become a dear friend. Alba had lost your younger brothers, Adan and Leo, who she had been close with. The breakup had been a clean break in the literal sense, but emotionally it had been so much more complex than that. There was nothing but frustrating feelings and a wretched sense of loss for all of them. Where Alexia had softened over time, becoming more sympathetic, the rest of her family had hardened in their negative feelings toward you. 

It was valiant if not feeble that the footballer tried to argue on your behalf. 

“She is here now, and time has passed. Why would I not at least give her the chance to atone or explain herself?” Alexia argued as she furrowed her brows. She looked between her sister and Mami, feeling disheartened by their reaction. 

“She gave up that right years ago Ale, when she let you leave in the midst of Papi dying and you moving to go to your dream club. She let you go, she never reached out, she never explained herself. Does that not bother you?” Alba pressed, unyielding in her temperament. 

“It has been a decade practically, and she never tried. She let you go, ripped up your heart into pieces, and walked out of that door with no remorse. We were all hurt by it, but you should be the most betrayed! She was supposed to love you, and she left you instead. Don’t tell me that hasn’t been the thing that stuck out to you the most in the past nine years?” Alba continued as her words lashed out like a whip, threatening to send Alexia’s sense of stability and hope crashing to the ground. 

“I have a chance to be happy, and you want me to give it away! Does that not bother you?” Alexia spat back as her defensiveness mounted. She stared her sister down with an intensity that usually was only found when she was playing football, not speaking to a member of her family. 

“No, what you have is a chance to be hurt again, and based on past events, that is exactly what is going to happen Alexia. Don’t be stupid,” Alba shot back, and Eli quickly placed a hand on her younger daughter's arm to stop her. 

The room came to a hard stop, but the brunette’s heart beat too fast in her chest to notice. 

Had she made a mistake in trying to be forgiving toward you? 

What if her family had a point? 

“Alba is critical but what she says is in your best interest Alexia. Regardless of how you felt about your relationship, Flori hurt you irreparably. Are you sure you want to let her in again? Is that a risk you want to take?” Eli inquired gently, her voice much softer than the loud argument of her daughters. Alexia took a deep breath, forcing herself to be calm outwardly even if she felt anything but on the inside. 

You had hurt her a lot. And they said it was irreparable, but the brunette was beginning to wonder if only you could be the one to soothe the ache. It had been nine years, and she had never once come close to feeling the same way about anyone else as you. 

But you had hurt her. 

Her mother and sister were not wrong in their basis of judgment. Alexia was beginning to wonder if she had been too naive, too focused on not looking a gift horse in the mouth to see the points her family had laid out. 

The Catalan wondered if you would explain yourself fully to her if asked. She hoped dearly that the answer would be yes, but maybe she didn’t know you as well as she thought she did. 

Maybe it was stupid to trust you after all these years. As much as Alexia had wanted to be mad about everything, she could never bring herself to fault you for what happened when you were both eighteen years old. She had always just assumed that the reason had to be big for you to make the choice you had. 

But maybe it wasn’t like that at all. Maybe she had just been too trusting, too loving.

“I…I’ve spent the last nine years thinking about her, loving her, whether I wanted to or not. I know you aren’t as trusting as I am, and maybe I shouldn’t be so hopeful. But I at least want to know what happened to us that led to her making the decision she did. I need that, at the very least,” Alexia decided as her mother and sister nodded wearily. 

Alexia had always taken the blame for what had happened, even if it had been a subconscious realization. She had simply assumed that whatever it was had been her fault. The brunette must have done something for you to make such a drastic choice not to be with her after so long together. 

Eli and Alba’s arguments rang in her head, creating a commotion in her mind of conflicting information. Perhaps it wasn’t her fault, but rather something on your end. 

She wasn’t sure now. 

All that the footballer knew was that by the time she left her Mami’s house, she felt a lot more lost than she had last night. Lost, confused, and drained of any excitement that had been present just an hour previously. 

—

You had woken up the morning after the event in a trance, unable to place your own feelings. 

Had last night really happened? 

Your dress was still on the hanger, just as you had placed it last night. The ghosting of mascara under your eyes left proof of your makeup, proof of the tears you had shed on the walk home. 

All of these years later, and there she was. Somehow just as perfect and illustrious as you had remembered her to be. Nine years on and she remained unchanged, unyielding despite her newfound fame. 

You had changed a lot in those nine years. And truth be told, you thought often of the footballer, though you tried impossibly hard not to. After all, it had been you who had left. It had been your own choice to sever everything the two of you had. 

You had your reasons, sure, but it had still been you. The choice for you to make decisions in your relationship with Alexia had been revoked in that instance, and you forced yourself to try and forget all that you had lost. 

To try and forget the feeling of being held in her arms. To forget the way she curled around you as you slept, or crawled into your lap to take a nap after a long day of training. To forget how much you two laughed together, how exceedingly happy she had made you. 

You had lost all of that, and there was nothing that changed that fact. 

It was ostensibly clear why you had moved to Barcelona five years ago, even if you vehemently denied that the move was because of the Catalan you once called home. But her dream had been yours as well, and even if you were later, you still had to come. 

You found yourself in the stands of her games often, tucked in the back with a hat pulled over your head, avoiding her gaze and that of her family as well. You probably shouldn’t have been there, but you had turned into quite the masochist in the wake of losing her. 

She looked free on the field, exactly as you remembered her. Focused, ardent, driven, mirthful, intelligent, protective. 

Everything you had loved and lost. 

It’s not that there hadn’t been opportunities to see her again, especially when you had first moved and you both were young. But you never took them, knowing that it wasn’t your right. Alexia was happy, and you would never interrupt her peace for your own yearning. 

After last night though…you weren’t sure if the word you would describe her as was peaceful. It was possible you were reading too much into things, but there was an air of longing present in the brunette that confused you more than you expected. 

You wondered if she would call you, but you had no way of knowing. 

It needed to be that way. This needed to be her choice, her decision. You had been the one to take it away, and you gave it back to her almost a decade later. 

There was hope in your body, a nascent festering that took root no matter how hard you attempted to stop it in its tracks. But at the end of the day, you would gladly give back to her the right to choose in favor of everything you dreamed and desired. 

You would make peace with whatever decision that was, no matter the cost to your own happiness. 

—

“You–I’m sorry, you what?” Jenni blurted out as she glimpsed over at Mariona, who found herself just as confused and taken aback by what the brunette had just described. 

Alexia leaned back in her chair as she let out a forced breath. Her participation in this lunch was more compulsory than anything else after an entire practice of her “acting weird,” according to the striker. 

Mariona had been dragged along for a second opinion, though the midfielder had found herself growing more and more curious as Jenni’s pestering turned into real answers from the brunette. The raven-haired woman, while annoying at times, had been friends with Alexia for long enough to know when she needed a bit of a push to talk. 

For Alexia to admit that the reason she was bothered was because she had a long lost childhood lover was not exactly what Jenni was expecting. But the striker was nothing if not able to work with what she was given. 

“Let me get this straight,” the older woman began as she leaned forward against the table. “You met when you guys were like five, grew up together, started dating when you were teenagers, then were supposed to move here together, but she broke things off suddenly right before you left and you haven’t seen her since?” 

“That is correct,” Alexia conceded warily, well aware of how slightly ridiculous it seemed as a story. 

“And all of these years, you haven’t stopped thinking about her? A decade later and you’re still hung up on her?” Jenni asked incredulously, her voice nearly an octave higher than it usually was. She seemed to be out of her mind at the thought, and the brunette slunk down further into her chair, feeling overly barren. 

“You hook up with women like there is a prize for who gets the highest body count,” Alexia shot back, trying to come off as more annoyed than exposed. 

Mariona looked miffed at the vulgarity of the statement while Jenni shrugged, acquiescence in her expression. 

“Low blow Alexia,” the midfielder noted briefly, but the striker waved her off easily. 

“The woman isn’t entirely wrong, but more importantly she’s deflecting. Okay, so you’re still in love with the woman. And it just so happens that she’s randomly at the Spotify event they sent you to, and she’s still in love with you as well?” 

“Well not quite but…” Alexia started to disagree before she trailed off, her friends eyeing her with unconvinced expressions. 

“Yes, fine, sure,” she amended crossly. 

“She just happened to be at the same event? What does she do for work?” Mariona raised her eyebrow, suspicious of a coincidence that large. Alexia paused for a moment as she struggled to think of an answer. All she was drawing was a big blank, and the realization that maybe she should have been more suspicious about this whole thing. 

“I…I have no idea. I didn’t ask! She was just right in front of me, and I panicked, I didn’t know what to do!” Alexia said restlessly, the amount of fidgeting in her seat a clear indication of her nervousness. 

“Wow…she made the great Alexia Putellas panic? I’ve seen you send away more girls than a persnickety Playboy photographer.” 

“Jennifer!”

“Sorry, sorry! Anywho, you panicked, and then what happened?” Jenni amended, a saccharine smile plastered on her face. The raven-haired woman was absolutely devouring this, fighting valiantly not to smile like the cheshire cat. 

“And then we went on a walk and talked for a few minutes, she gave me her number and told me to call her, and she left,” Alexia finished lamely, sinking back into her seat. She surveyed her two friends, who only looked at her with interested expressions. 

“Okay…and what are you going to do?” Mariona inquired once she realized that Alexia wasn’t going to say anything more. 

“I don’t know what to do! My family thinks that I shouldn’t call her, that she has hurt me too much. That maybe she doesn’t deserve to be in my life anymore. What do you guys think I should do?” Alexia. 

“Listen, it seems to be a weird coincidence to me personally. All of the sudden you start to get famous and she just happens to pop up? That is a little weird to me. It sounds like this person hurt you deeply Ale, and it has stuck with you. Are you sure you want to rehash everything?” Mariona pressed, her words strict and condemning.

“I’m not sure if I do. I’ve spent the last decade thinking of her, and then suddenly she was there and I just…I didn’t know what to do with myself. I never imagined her being in my life again, and there she was! I spent my whole childhood loving her. I never saw myself with anyone else,” Alexia admitted quietly as she wrung her hands together for a moment before setting them down in her lap, unable to make her own mind up. 

The vast majority of Alexia’s teammates had never heard of you at all. Jenni was a little too old, Mariona a little too young. Those who had known of you had forgotten, easily deterred by Alexia telling them you had broken up, unrealizing of how much it meant for the midfielder to lose you. 

Mariona had begun to speak again, but the striker had tuned the two of them out, thinking quietly to herself for once. 

As much as she teased, Jenni watched her friend with a keen, knowing eye. There had to be a damn good reason for Alexia to turn away all of those girls. It wasn’t just their looks, some of them were lovely and intelligent and hilarious, and still the star midfielder had absolutely no interest in them whatsoever. 

Almost as if she was waiting for something else. 

Someone else. 

All these years there had been something missing in her, as though she looked for someone who never came through the door. Jenni had never known what was wrong enough to ask, but now she was beginning to piece together the importance of you to Alexia. Where everyone else saw reasons to criticize and judge, the striker was stuck on Alexia’s words. 

How the desire and longing seemed unable to be contained and reasoned with, despite all of the evidence to the contrary. 

“What do you want?” Jenni cut both of them off suddenly, eliciting a frustrated noise from Mariona and a surprised look from the brunette. 

“I don’t know what I want!” Alexia huffed out with frustration, but the raven-haired didn’t accept that quite so easily. There were too many hands in the pot here. Alexia had always known what she wanted to do, she was simply being deterred. 

“No, you do. You’re convoluted with everyone else’s opinions, but I think you know exactly what you want. What is it that you want Alexia?” Jenni’s eyes never wavered from Alexias, as if daring her to look away. 

She knew that the Catalan wouldn’t, and she was right. 

Alexia stared right at her friend, knowing exactly what choice she needed to make for herself. Not for anyone else, but for herself. 

At the very least, she needed to know what had happened to lose you the first time.

—

Alexia told herself she would call you in a few days, giving herself some time to cool off and think things through. 

She couldn’t even make it through a few hours before she was digging up the card you had given her and typing the number into her phone. The phone rang once, twice, three times before you picked up, and despite herself the Catalan let out a sigh of relief that you had picked up at all. 

“Hello?” You said dutifully as you held your ear to the phone, unaware of who was on the end of the line. There was silence for a long moment, long enough that you questioned if anyone was even there, before sound finally came through.

“Hi,” Alexia choked out, failing to keep her voice as calm and unbothered as she had told herself she would be. 

“Hi Alexia,” you replied, fighting to seem as unphased as possible. You were shocked she had called you, and your heart beat so rapidly in your chest it felt as though it was fluttering. 

“I know it’s sudden…but can you talk tonight?” The footballer blurted out after a few seconds. Your heart constricted with panic, but you swallowed it down and forced yourself to remain agreeable and steady. 

“Absolutely. What time and where should I meet you?” You questioned as you took a deep, bracing breath. You listened as Alexia rattled off an address and the two of you agreed to meet in an hour before she hung up. 

This might be your last chance to tell her the truth. Would it be worth it though? Was the possibility of creating an ache in her chest worth revealing what had really occurred? 

You knew her, and you knew that her guilt would be immense even if the situation was completely out of her control. You made the choice for her, knowing that it was the right one. But you were unsure if she would see it that way. Perhaps she would only see the hurt you had caused her unnecessarily, and that would be the end of it. Maybe that should just be the end of it, allowing her some answers while allowing her to move forward with her life. 

It had been nearly a decade. You had been without her nearly as long as you had been with her, and a piece of you knew that the ache would never disappear. You would always yearn for her, even if she decided to move on. 

But that was a right she had earned, and you had lost. 

It had been your own fault after all, that turned you two into this unsure, bumbling mess of emotions and challenges and strife. You would have done anything to change that if you could have. 

It was your fault but not your doing, at the end of the day. 

You arrived at the beach where Alexia told you to meet her a little early, which allowed you to sit down at a bench and look out at the ocean waves that poured in and out. You granted yourself that small moment of grace on the nearly empty beach as you slipped your sandals off and felt the lingering warmth of the sand under your feet as the sun slid behind the ocean. 

You didn’t notice Alexia’s approach until she was in front of you, and though you offered her the seat next to you silently, she didn’t take it. 

It should have been this that informed you that it would go downhill from there, but you clung to the hope that maybe this would be a productive conversation. You still didn’t know what to say exactly, but you knew you were not going to be dishonest. 

Alexia’s eyes examined you critically, as if she didn’t believe that it was really you. 

“How did you end up at the event the other day in the first place?” She inquired after a moment, and you can’t help but furrow your brows in confusion, lost as to why this was the first question she asked. Lost as to where all of this hostility came from, when you had yet to say a single thing. 

You had expected her to become angered as the conversation went on, but she already seemed cross and you had yet to say a word. 

“I work for Morgan Stanley doing investment consulting and management specifically with Spotify. I’ve become close with the people at the company as I work with them most days, and they invited me to the event. There were investors and important stakeholders that I was able to meet in person. I’ve come to the same event every year for the last three years,” you disclosed to the brunette, but the skepticism and hostility in her eyes never wavered despite your clarity. 

“Did you see me before we ran into each other?” She interrogated, and you settled into your seat uneasily. This felt less like a conversation and more like she was drilling you, waiting for you to slip up and say the wrong thing. 

“At the event, or in general?” You replied, wanting nothing but honesty in your responses. You could give her that, even if the air between you two was charged with more tension than you expected. 

“Both.” Alexia crossed her arms, everything in her posture defensive and frustrated. 

“At the event, no. I didn’t know until I was standing right in front of you,” you clarified, tucking a piece of hair behind your ear to avoid fidgeting nervously. “In general, yes I had seen you. Only from afar though, at your games over the years. I never would have approached you.” 

I never would have approached you. 

Alexia felt every defense in her mind light up at that statement. When had you decided you were so utterly done with having her in your life? All the Catalan could think of was her mother and sister warning her that this was going to be a mistake. All she could think of was Mariona who talked about how strange the coincidence was that the two of you had run into her, as though it was so suspicious. 

You had left and hurt her. 

It had been your fault, that is what all the evidence seemed to tell her. 

Something pulled at the brunette’s mind though, something that begged her not to be so bellicose. Something that screamed at her that there was more to the story, and that handling everything this way was a horrible idea. 

Fear seemed to rule her though, rearing an ugly head that the midfielder was not proud of. 

“How many years,” she beseeched, fighting the wave of tears she could feel stinging at the back of her eyes. Her voice was low, wavering in a way that betrayed her emotions more than she cared to admit. You had let out a low sigh as you hung your head. 

“Five years. I’ve been in Barcelona for five years, and I’ve been coming to your games on and off for five years” you finally confessed as you shook your head. You looked up at the Catalan, who seemed caught between devastation and outrage. 

“You moved here five years ago and didn’t even think to come and talk to me? You never thought to check on me, to try and reach out?” Alexia seethed, burying her hurt behind a mask of fury. More than anything, the footballer felt like her whole chest had caved in. 

“No I didn’t. I had broken up with you Alexia, that was the choice I made. I wasn’t going to come barging back in four years later and demand that you take me back,” You tried gallantly to remain calm, even in the face of Alexia’s vexation. The brunette hated your answer, throwing her hands up in acute frustration. 

“You never even bothered to ask! You might have taken away my choice once, but you’ve spent five more years taking that choice away. You are a coward,” Alexia accused, pointing a finger at you even as everything in her screamed not to. She would regret what she said in the light of day, but all she felt right now was wounded. There was an intense urge to protect what little pride still remained inside her, and apparently in order to accomplish that she needed to lash out. 

You met her toe for toe though, not giving her the anger she wanted exactly but rather a sense of indignation. 

“I am a coward Alexia, you’re right. I wanted you to live your life, to move on, and I made the choice I thought was best for everyone at the time, including you. Don’t stand here and act like I made the choice without consideration for your feelings, because I have,” you fought, because even if you were at fault, you had tried so hard not to be selfish. If the Catalan got a single thing out of this conversation, you wanted it to be that. 

“No you haven’t, you’ve been selfish for the last decade! I lost my father, my community, and then you all in the span of one month. You disappeared, just like that. You were like a ghost, and I was on my own, and right when I needed you, you weren’t there!” She practically yelled, and it looked almost like her entire body vibrated with resentment. 

The footballer took a deep breath as she both tried and failed to remain calm. But every time she had more than a second to think, anger and vitriol seemed to flow out of her. 

“I hate myself for how much I needed you all these years, how much I longed for you. I can’t believe I didn’t see what was going on right in front of me. And now you’re back here…for what? A celebrity status? To be a WAG? I don’t have time for that, and I don’t want you anymore if you see me as such a transactional person. I don’t even recognize you anymore,” Alexia explained with an air of indignance. 

Though you had tried to remain calm, something finally snapped inside of you at that. You simply couldn’t allow for the brunette to say such things about you, and finally you allowed yourself the candor you’d held in all these years. 

“Oh for God's sake Alexia, really? I haven’t come here to be your WAG, or for your fucking money! I’m in investment banking for Christ's sake, I am fine financially! I don’t like football, but I spent my childhood going to games because you loved it and I loved you! You think it didn’t kill me to let you leave like that?” 

“You were my forever. We were young but you were the love of my life, and even now I can’t find myself ever connecting with anyone the way I did with you. I know I am older now, but I still have the same heart as I did when I was eighteen. You loved that person, and I’m not saying you need to love me anymore, but do not stand here and act like I have changed into someone unrecognizable when I have not!” You articulated, unwilling to allow yourself to be trodden over with disrespect. 

You were not the same person as you were at eighteen, but you were also not the person Alexia had made you out to be. 

The fight seemed to drain out of your body in an instance. Any hope that had been clung to was lost entirely as you decided just to be honest. You knew the brunette didn’t want anything to do with you, and in that moment you made peace with that. 

You would give her the truth, and nothing else but the truth. When you looked up at the Catalan, there were tears shining in your eyes. 

“I was sick, Alexia. I found out two days before I broke up with you that I had breast cancer, and I needed to stay in Madrid for treatment. You had just lost your father, you were moving to a whole new area of the country. You didn’t need to be worried about your sick girlfriend, trying to travel back and forth to Madrid, to have even more on your plate,” you revealed slowly as you aggressively wiped away the tears that flowed down your cheeks. 

Oh. 

Oh. 

“So yes, I made a decision for you. In all honesty, it was a decision I would happily make again and again if it came down to it. I wanted to preserve what little peace and happiness you had left before the move. I ached for you afterward, but I knew that this was the right choice. I wanted you to live your dreams, with or without me. And by the time I finished treatment and came to Barcelona, I felt that it was too late. I had broken us, it was my fault entirely that we had broken up, and I didn’t feel like I had the right to come to you and explain.”

“So no, I haven't approached you for the last five years. I come to your games and I see you play with joy and happiness, and I see you with your family, and I want to leave you with that. So don’t look at me and call me a coward or a gold digger or whatever the hell you think I am, because at the end of the day I tried to make the best choices for you and me, and I can’t take them back anymore,” you released, and suddenly you felt much older than your twenty-seven years. You head hung, and you shrugged before you spoke again, your tone bitter and defeated. 

“If you’re so intent to see all of the reasons I fucked up, fine. If you need to tell yourself that I am a selfish whore to sleep at night, fine. But I sincerely hope that when you go to sleep at night you at least remember for a second that the decisions I made were for you, not because of you. Maybe it was the wrong choice to control that for you, but I can’t go back and change it now. So please, just leave me alone if this is all you want from me. I don’t have anything more to give you, not anymore,” You stated with exhaustion, spinning around to walk away. You disappeared into the night before the brunette even had a chance to say anything, left far too shell shocked to even begin to process your words. 

You were gone without a glance backward, and Alexia sunk down onto the bench you had once occupied as remorse purged every other feeling in her body.

[gold-onthe-inside]

debriefing

v. def. the systematic questioning of individuals to procure information to answer specific collection requirements by direct and indirect questioning techniques.

who? spencer reid (s7) x analyst!reader summary: the one where you finally confront the thing between you and spencer content warnings: none word count: 2.5k

You couldn’t sleep, restlessly turning in bed as flashes of Spencer torment you - vaguely remembering his hand on your ankle as he slid your heels off, kneeling in front of you with his hands grasping yours, his firm grip on your arm, his hand on your lower back, guiding you downstairs. “The team knows that my priority is you.”

You feel like a teenager trying to decipher whether a boy likes you. More importantly, you have to go back to work in 5 hours, and if he doesn’t like you the way you think he does, then there’s no point losing sleep over it. A wave of frustration washes over you, stuffing a pillow in your face as if that could remove the imprint Spencer’s made on your brain.

The pillow falls to the side, leaving you staring at the ceiling with a desire to kill or kiss Spencer, and since neither of those were options to you, you did the next best thing. You knocked on the partition between Penelope’s room and the living room. She had dragged you through Lord knew how many thrift stores and flea markets to put together this magical room that was a cross between Turkish royalty and California in the 60s. The woman, your best friend, bless her heart, woke up with a slight grumble, pushing the unicorn kitty eye mask up (apparently it reduced dark circles, and seeing as she didn’t have any while you were left to suffer, it must work) to attend to your distress.

“Honey, it’s 2 in the morning, can we talk about this in daylight?” Penelope asked, her saccharine voice a soft rumble in her sleep.

“It’s about Reid,” you said, hearing how pathetic you sounded, standing on the step to the raised platform that led to her bedroom. But it seemed to perk her up, and she got up faster than you’ve ever seen her wake in the 10 years you’ve known her.

“I’ll put on a pot of tea,” she announced, moving to the kitchen.

“I-I don’t need tea,” you said uselessly to the whirlwind you called your roommate, trudging across the floor to the kitchen.

“Do you even remember the last time you came to me with boy problems?” Penelope asked you, grabbing her teapot and dropping bags of masala chai in it before setting it to boil on the stove while you parse through your memory, coming up empty. “That’s right. Never. Not once in the entire history of our friendship have you ever come to me about a boy,” Penelope continued and you sink into a seat on the bar stool.

“Because there’s never been anyone worth talking about,” you replied, rubbing your face. “God, how did I let this happen?”

“Let what happen?” Penelope asked, sitting next to you.

“This,” you said, gesturing vaguely. “I don’t lose sleep over guys, and it’s like Spencer just… snuck up on me and now he just lives in my brain or something.”

“Is that such a bad thing?”

“Yes, it’s horrible and embarrassing and—”

“You really like him,” Penelope finished for you, watching your hands fall to the kitchen island.

“I really like him,” you admitted, letting out a disgruntled sigh as you dropped your head into your hands.

“Sweetie, it’s okay,” Penelope assured you, trying not to laugh as she rubbed your back. “And for what it’s worth, he’s a really good guy. A little nuts, but a really good guy.”

“He’s not nuts,” you muttered and Penelope really wants to laugh. The idea of you defending a boy from Penelope’s words was such a far stretch from who you were as a person…

“He also really likes you,” Penelope told you, tilting her head to try and find your eyes. “Seriously, he was hounding me the other day asking if you were into that Jack Ryan-esque new guy or not.”

“He was hounding you?” you asked, looking up with a skeptical brow.

“As in took up residence in my office until I gave it up,” Penelope clarified and you sighed, rubbing the back of your neck as the teapot whistled. You watched as Penelope poured you a cup of tea with a little milk, just the way you like it.

“What if it doesn’t work out?” you asked, taking the cup and slowly spinning it as you waited for it to cool. “I don’t want to have to avoid him forever. Or put you in a weird position with me and him.”

“What if it does work out and you fall in love and have adorable genius babies?” Penelope countered, making you furrow your brow.

“That sounds so much scarier,” you muttered and she sighed.

“Look, sweetie, as much as it pains me to admit it, he makes you the happiest I’ve ever seen you,” Penelope told you. “Seriously, I have video footage.”

“Delete it,” you tell her immediately, putting on your most serious face, but after 10 years, she’s grown immune.

“You’ll never find it,” she sings, sipping her tea. You suck your cheek in, staring at your tea.

“So… what, I just… tell him?” you asked and you looked so clueless that Penelope had to giggle just a little. “Don’t laugh.”

“I swear to God, you two are so meant for each other, it’s written in the stars,” Penelope said, laughing. “Yes, baby doll, you tell him. Because Lord knows he’s not gonna tell you. He’s been dancing around his feelings so long, he could be Kevin Bacon in Footloose.”

“But I don’t want to,” you protested childishly. “Can’t I just ignore it?”

“Not if you want to sleep at night,” Penelope said, tucking a stray hair behind your ear and you pursed your lips.

“I hate this.”

“Yeah, that’s what being in love is,” she replied. “Welcome, it sucks.” You hummed, disgruntled, and sipped your tea.

You’re close to clocking out for the day when Penelope’s heels clack against linoleum, rapidly approaching your cubicle. “The time is now,” she hissed and you frowned immediately, pressing the back of your hand to her temple.

“Are you okay?” you asked and Penelope shook her head.

“Morgan’s setting Reid up on a double date, I couldn’t talk him out of it,” Penelope said rapidly.

“Wait, what?” you asked and Penelope growled in frustration, pulling you out of your desk and towards the elevators.

“You remember the blonde girl who worked with us last year, her father was a serial killer, she transferred to Swann’s unit? Ashley?”

“Yeah,” you said hesitantly. You’d helped Penelope bake cupcakes for Ashley’s graduation from the Academy — and swatted Kevin when he tried to swipe more than he was given.

“Yeah, well, Morgan’s got a date to this Hitchcock Festival, and he wanted to make it a double date—”

“Why? Double dates suck,” you interrupted, completely missing the point and Penelope shook your shoulder.

“Do you hear the words coming out of my mouth? Spencer is going on a date and it’s not with you.”

Passers-by look at the two of you strangely before walking off and you pressed the button to the lift in an attempt to look normal.

“So what?” you asked half-heartedly. “I’m sure Ashley’s a great person.”

Penelope looked like she wanted to pry open the lift doors and throw you down the shaft. “Her father is the Redmond Ripper, is that what you want for Spencer? For his future father-in-law to be a serial killer?” she demanded, the last few words coming out as a hiss and your lips part. Words, you remind yourself.

“It wouldn’t go that far,” you said, sounding weak even to yourself as you both step inside the lift.

“You don’t know that,” Penelope retorted. “Maybe they go on one date, maybe two. Next thing you know, he’s asking Charles Beauchamp for his daughter’s hand in marriage.”

You’ve just been following Penelope’s lead, and it doesn’t strike you that you’re headed to the BAU until the lift opens again and you’re standing face to face with half the team. Spencer’s brow furrowed as he recognised you, JJ glancing at Penelope curiously and Derek grinning at the both of you.

“Hey, what are you doing up here?” Derek asked, with a lot more charm and casualness than Spencer could have mustered.

There’s a shove from behind you, Penelope pushing you out as she chirped. “She wants to talk to you,” she said, ambivalent to your horrified expression as she pointed at Spencer.

“Me?” he asked, meek and slightly alarmed, going through every interaction of the past 7 years to check if he’d done something wrong. Derek and JJ shared a glance, with every intention to stay and listen, until Penelope pulled them both inside the lift.

“Bye!” she chirped, immune to your glare, waving as the lift closed. You stared at the lift, your escape route disappearing before your eyes, Spencer’s glued to you. His fingers drummed on the belt of his satchel, lips pursed in anticipation, heart hammering in his chest as you take a breath and look at him. Of course he had to wear purple today.

“Um… Penelope said you were going on a date,” you started slowly, hands sliding into your pockets despite your sweaty palms.

“Yeah, Morgan kind of roped me into it,” Spencer said, his expression turning pained. “We had this practical joke war and the truce agreement means I have to go on a double date with him. It’s a… whole thing, what did you want to talk about?”

You sucked your cheek in, a telltale sign that something was making you anxious. “So… you don’t want to go on the date?” you asked, tentative and Spencer furrowed his brow.

“Not… enthusiastically, but Seaver’s- I mean, Ashley’s nice, so…”

“But you don’t like her,” you reasoned slowly, gauging his responses so analytically that you could have your own desk here.

“I don’t not like her?” he asked, his forehead wrinkling more and more as the conversation went on.

“Right,” you said quietly, having run out of questions. “Cool, so… I’m gonna go. Have fun on your… date?”

He’s never seen you this unsettled, this flustered, especially around him, and cute as it is, it worried him, his hand reaching out to nudge your elbow before you could run off. “Are you okay?” he asked, deeply concerned.

“Yeah, no, Penelope’s just… um…” You closed your eyes, took a breath, and internally went, Fuck it. “If you don’t like her, don’t go,” you said, looking at him again. Bad decision. You really want to kiss him.

“Okay… But I kind of already agreed to go,” Spencer said, shifting where he stood nervously.

“I… I don’t want you to go,” you said, hoping he would extrapolate the meaning, but of course he doesn’t. He just narrows his eyes in confusion.

“You don’t—”

“I’m asking you not to go,” you insisted, your heart in your throat. You might actually cry if he goes anyway. A beat passed, Spencer just looking into your pleading eyes.

“Okay,” he said eventually, moving to press the lift button, and it’s your turn to frown.

“Okay? That’s it? I asked you not to go and you’re not going?”

“Pretty much,” he replied casually, moving to call up the lift. “Besides, Hitchcock movies don’t really have the same appeal after you know who the murderer is. I mean, it’s nice to appreciate the cinematography of the whole thing, but once you know who the killer in Psycho is, there’s only so many times you can rewatch it before it becomes predictable. Now, if it was something like a novel, that’s a different story, because literature can be interpreted so many ways, and Arthur Conan Doyle still appeals after the third or fourth time you read—”

“You’re not going?” you repeated, standing there, completely struck by him and he looked at you, as though puzzled that you were still stuck on it.

“You told me not to,” he said, concerned again. “Are you sure you’re okay?” His hand flitted up to press against your temple and you freezed, his hand drifting down to your neck to check your pulse, which fluttered when he touched it.

“Why would you just… I mean, how can you just listen to me like that?” you managed to ask and he dropped his hand, slightly amused.

“You’re impossible, you know that,” he said, the lift opening and he waited for you to get in first, his arm keeping it open. “I mean, I don’t listen to you, you argue with me. I listen to you, and you’re still arguing with me. Is there any way to win with you?”

You ignored the easy avenue into a catfight, still looking at him. “She could be the love of your life and you’re just not gonna go because I—”

“She’s not,” he said, his voice plain and firm. “Will you get in so I don’t have to hold this forever?”

“You don’t know that she’s not,” you continued, frowning at him. “She could be the woman you spend your life with—”

“She’s not,” he said again, just as firmly as before. Fact. Not opinion. Not doubt. He looked at you intently, your throat moving as you swallow, not that there’s anything there with your mouth completely dried out.

She’s not the love of his life.

The team knows that my priority is you.

Whatever happens next, I am here. I won’t leave, not unless you ask me to.

You have people. Even if you can’t see them.

How many times had he told you how he felt without saying it? “I’m such an idiot,” you murmured, shaking your head. “I have no business calling myself an intelligence analyst when you…” He frowned at you as you trailed off, still holding the stupid lift open. Penelope was right. All along, she was right. You crossed the foot between the two of you. “Spencer Reid, will you go out with me?” you asked, your voice calm, finally finding yourself on even footing with him. “Properly, I mean. On a date.” No more cryptic codes to decipher, no more dancing around each other. Everything had been decoded, deciphered, plain to see.

“I…” He blinked at you in surprise. “Really?” he asked, almost in disbelief, then checked down the hall like someone was watching him.

“Not a practical joke, I promise,” you said, your heart settling back in your chest. “We could get a drink, see a movie, I couldn’t care less what we do, I just… Spencer, I like you. A lot. And if you don’t want to, which, I mean, fair enough, your call, but—”

He crosses whatever gap is left between the two of you, pressing his lips to yours and grasping your jaw and your hands emerge from your pockets, holding his waist as he takes your breath away. His fingers threaded into your hair, holding you like you were the most precious thing in the world, and you kissed him back, pulling away only when your lungs ached for air. His eyes are bright and dilated when he looked down at you, lights glittering in his clear gaze. “I want to,” he murmured, a slight rasp. “Very much.”

[writingforstraykids]

Step by Step

Pairing: Minho x 9th member gn!Reader

Word Count: 2181

Summary: Minho's whole purpose is based on his dancing ability. When an injury slows him down he draws back from everyone until Chan sends you his way to get him back.

Warnings/Tags: 9th member fic, angst, fluff, self doubt

do not repost, translate, or plagiarize my works in any way here or on other platforms. ©️writingforstraykids 2024 -

Minho was born to dance.

From the moment he first stepped into a studio, it became his second home, the rhythm of music entwined with the rhythm of his heartbeat. Every movement was precise, every routine a masterpiece, crafted with the kind of dedication that only came from true love for the art. And for as long as you had known him, that fire had burned unshakable.

Until the accident.

It happened in an instant, a moment so brief yet devastatingly permanent. One mistimed landing, one sharp cry of pain, and suddenly, the invincible Lee Minho was reduced to someone broken. The doctors assured him he would recover, but the damage had already been done-not just to his body, but to something far more fragile: his confidence.

Days turned into weeks, weeks into months, and though his body healed, his soul remained fractured. He refused to return to the studio, refused to do so much as talk about dancing, leaving Hyunjin and Felix to figure out your newest moves by themselves. He stayed away from the studio, not really seeing the use in recording new songs when he wouldn't be able to perform them on stage - which drove first Changbin and then Jisung crazy, whilst Chan worried too much for his own good. And what was even worse - he pushed everyone away. Even you. You, his fellow dancer who had always admired him the most.

But you weren’t about to let him go so easily. Not when your maknae had asked you to check on Min, not when Chan had told you, you were their last hope.

-

Knocking on Minho’s door has become part of your routine. Every day you found yourself in front of that wooden door, knocking firmly against it.

It always ended the same way. A muffled "go away," sometimes accompanied by the sound of his cats padding across the room, as if they alone were allowed to witness his pain. But today, you didn’t walk away. You could tell the others were beyond worried and you've had enough.

“I know you’re in there,” you said, arms crossed as you leaned against the frame. “You can’t ignore me forever, you know.”

Silence.

You exhaled sharply. "Lee Minho, I swear—"

The door finally cracked open. Just a sliver, enough for his sharp brown eyes to glare at you. His hair was a little messy, and there was an exhaustion about him that had nothing to do with sleep.“What do you want?” he muttered.

You ignored the irritation in his voice. “To see you. To talk to you.”

His grip on the door tightened. “There’s nothing to talk about. You've seen me now.”

“Minho, you—”

“I said there’s nothing to talk about.” His voice was hard now, like stone, cold and unyielding. “Just leave me alone.”

He started closing the door, but you pushed against it before he could. “No.”

That made him pause. “No?”

“No,” you repeated stubbornly. “I’m not going to leave you alone just because you decided to shut yourself off from the world.”

His jaw clenched. “I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not.” Your voice softened, the anger ebbing away into something closer to sadness. “Minho, I know you. You’re not okay. And pretending you don’t care doesn’t make it any less true.”

His gaze flickered. For the briefest moment, something in his expression cracked - but just as quickly, he rebuilt his walls. “I don’t need your pity,” he muttered.

“I’m not here because I pity you,” you shot back. “I’m here because I care.” The words hung in the air between you, heavy and unspoken for far too long.

Minho looked away first. “I don’t need anyone.”

You sighed. “You can keep saying that, but it won’t make it true.”

Silence stretched again. He was staring at the floor now, his fingers curling into fists. When he finally spoke, his voice was quieter. “I can’t dance anymore.”

Your heart clenched at the defeat in his voice and you shook your head. “Yes, you can.”

“No,” he said, sharper this time. “I can’t. I’ve tried, and it’s not the same. My body - it doesn’t move the way it used to. I’m slower, weaker. I mess up things that were second nature before. It’s gone.”

Your chest tightened. You had seen him try - alone in the practice room when he thought no one was watching. The frustration, the way he’d stumble and curse under his breath, the way he’d leave without looking back. You took a step closer. “Minho-”

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” He turned away, gripping the door as if he wanted to slam it shut again.

But you weren’t done. “Minho.” Something in your voice must have made him pause. “You don’t have to be perfect right now,” you said softly. “You just have to try.”

For a long moment, he didn’t move. Then, with a sigh, he muttered, “You’re exhausting.”

A small smile tugged at your lips, knowing you won. “I know.” And this time, when he closed the door, it wasn’t all the way.

-

The next day, you found Minho sitting in the practice room. Not dancing. Just sitting - back against the mirrors, legs stretched out, watching his reflection like he didn’t recognize the person staring back.

You sat down next to him without a word. For a while, neither of you spoke. The silence wasn’t uncomfortable, just heavy. Finally, you broke it.

“You know,” you said, hugging your knees, “when I first joined the group, I thought you hated me.”

Minho blinked, caught off guard. “…What?”

You smiled faintly. “You were so intimidating. Always so serious, so good at everything. I was scared to mess up in front of you.”

Minho scoffed. “You? Scared? Yeah, right.”

“I mean it,” you admitted. “But then I realized something - you weren’t actually scary. You were just focused. Because you cared that much.”

He exhaled, looking away. “Doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Yes, it does.” You turned to him fully. “Minho, dancing is you. It’s in your blood, in your bones. An injury doesn’t change that.”

His jaw clenched and he shook his head firmly. “You don’t get it.”

“Then make me get it,” you pleaded with him. “Make me understand what's keeping you from your passion.”

His hands curled into fists. “What if I’m never as good as before?” The raw honesty in his voice nearly broke you.

“What if you’re better?” you countered and Minho froze. You reached out, your fingers brushing his lightly. “You’re not starting over, Minho. You’re growing. And yeah, it’s going to be hard, and it’s going to hurt. But you’re still you.”

For a long moment, he just looked at you. And then, almost imperceptibly, he nodded. It wasn’t a promise but it was a start.

-

The next time you found Minho in the studio, he was standing. Not dancing. Not stretching. Just standing like a soldier preparing for battle, shoulders stiff, fists clenched.

You watched from the doorway, waiting. If you pushed too hard, he’d shut down again.

Slowly, he raised a foot, testing his balance. Then he tried a step - hesitant, uncertain. Another. And another. But the moment he attempted a turn, his body faltered. He caught himself before he could fall, but you saw it. The frustration. The fear.

Before he could storm out, you stepped forward. “It’s okay.”

Minho flinched, shoulders tensing. “Go away.”

“No, Min,” you told him firmly and gently cupped his face.

Minho's eyes grew wide as he swallowed softly, the warmth of your hands oddly calming. He exhaled sharply. “Why do you keep-”

“Because you’re worth it,” you said firmly, thumbs drawing a small pattern against his skin. “Because I know you. And because I refuse to watch you give up on yourself.”

He stared at you, something in his gaze unreadable. Then, finally - finally- he lowered his gaze to the floor and whispered, “I don’t know how to do this.”

Your chest tightened. “You don’t have to do it alone, Min. We can work on this together.”

For a moment, he hesitated. And then, without another word, he let you wrap him into a firm hug, enjoying your soothing presence for a moment.

-

The days passed in a rhythm of their own. Some were good. On those days, Minho moved with a shadow of his old self, the precision of his steps slowly returning. You saw glimpses of the dancer he had once been - the fire, the grace, the intensity.

But some days were bad.

On those days, he couldn’t even make it through a routine without stopping, his frustration boiling over. He lashed out - not at you, but at himself. And then one day, everything snapped.

It was late, the studio dimly lit. You had been practicing together for hours, working through a routine, when Minho’s footwork slipped on a turn. It wasn’t a bad fall, but it was enough. Enough for his patience to shatter.

“Damn it!” The sound of his voice - raw, broken - echoed through the room. Before you could react, he slammed his fist against the mirror. Not hard enough to break it, but enough to send a painful thud through the air. “I can’t do this,” he growled out, voice shaking. “It’s not working. I’m-” His breath hitched. “I’m not me anymore, I'm fucking broken.”

Your heart clenched as you hesitantly took a step forward. “Minho-”

But he wasn’t listening. He pressed a hand to his forehead, eyes squeezed shut, chest heaving with the weight of something far deeper than just dance. And then, so quietly you almost didn’t hear - “I don’t deserve this.”

Your breath caught. “Deserve what?” you whispered.

He let out a bitter laugh, shaking his head. “Anything. The group. The stage. You. I was already expendable before,” he said, voice hollow. “Now? I don’t even belong here.”

Something in you snapped, eyes burning fiercely. “Don’t you dare say that.” Minho looked up, startled. “You think you don’t belong?” you demanded. “You think we wouldn’t be less without you? Minho, you’re the main dancer of this team. You always have been. You're our friend..And nothing can change that.” His lips parted slightly, but he didn’t speak. You swallowed hard. “You don’t have to be perfect. You just have to be you. And that’s enough.”

Minho exhaled, something crumbling in his expression. “I don’t know if I can do this,” he admitted, so quiet it was almost a plea.

You reached for his hand. “Then let me believe for you until you can.”

For a long moment, he didn’t move. But then - slowly - his fingers curled around yours. And for the first time, he truly didn’t push you away.

-

Things changed after that night. Minho still struggled, but he let you see it now. He let himself lean on you, even if only a little. And somewhere along the way, between long hours in the studio and late-night conversations, you realized.

The pain he carried wasn’t just from the injury. It was older. Deeper.

One evening, as you sat side by side in the practice room, Minho finally spoke the words you never expected. “I was ten the first time someone told me I wasn’t good enough.” You turned to him, heart pounding. “My teacher,” he continued, voice eerily calm. “She said I had talent but not drive. That I’d never make it unless I proved I deserve it.” He let out a breath. “She wasn’t wrong.”

You stared at him in disbelief. “Minho, you can't be serious.”

“I’ve spent my whole life proving I belong here,” he murmured. “And now? Now, I don’t even know who I am without dance.”

Your chest ached. “You’re our Minnie,” you whispered. “That’s enough.”

He looked at you then - really looked at you. And for the first time, you saw something fragile beneath the confidence he always wore like armor. Something scared. Something hopeful. And that was when you knew he was healing. Maybe not all at once. Maybe not even soon.

But he would.

-

The day of the showcase arrived faster than either of you expected. Minho hadn’t performed in months. This wasn’t an official stage - just a small even for fans. But it was the first step. And he was terrified.

You found him backstage, pacing. “You okay?” you asked gently.

He exhaled sharply, his hands trembling slightly as he looked at you. “No.”

You smiled fondly and nodded gently. “Good. That means it matters.”

He scoffed. “You and your stupid optimism.”

You took his hands, feeling the soft tremor in them and squeezed them. “Minho, you can do this.” He hesitated. “You don’t have to be perfect,” you reminded him. “Just dance. I'll be right there with you.”

Minho swallowed harshly. Then, slowly, he nodded. When you two stepped onto the stage, the music began.

And when he moved - hesitant at first, then stronger - something changed. The fire returned. Not the same as before, but something new.

And as you caught the beaming faces of the others at the side of your stage, you realized that Minho was back on track.

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[can-i-make-image-descriptions]

[Image IDs: Tweets from hors d'oeuvres (horse divorce) (@/ corviiid).

On Sep 4: anyway the real dichotomy in ace attorney is narumitsu who dance around being effectively married on the soulmate plane for 30 years before having a tearful revelation in the middle of a murder-conspiracy vs klapollo who are like wanna go on a date after work yeah okay sure

phoenix is alike apollo. take it from me, a married man. ur love life Will be torrid for 2 decades. 3 if u count the years when u were 8 and working out the connecting b/w homosexuality and court but it Will be worth it. apollo is like klavier is bringing thai food to my apartment

On May 12, 2019: judge: well then, mr wright? what is this decisive evidence? phoenix: (this is it... i can't afford to get this wong!) phoenix: Take That! everyone: ... ... ... judge: this is your wedding ring phoenix: yeah. miles please help edgeworth, standing at the opposite bench:

On Nov 5, 2021: kay: you gotta put yourself out there mr edgeworth i mean you never know! mr right could be just around the corner edgeworth: ? no, it's a work day. he'll be in his office downtown. kay: what? edgeworth: what?

On Sep 7: klapollo. is so good and so funny. diva rock-star prosecutor who is like human form of the concept of vtubers. net worth of a small nation state. has his own barbie doll. dating: man who has invented a category called "most normal person on earth" and is trying so hard to win it

apollo is like klavier i cant date you i would feel guilty if we were dating but i didnt support you by watching you new reality/lifestyle show but i cant because it's on at the same time as the local news and i have to write the forecast in my pocket notebook every night

klavier is like ach i understand boyfriend forehead. you are too insecure to join me on the red carpet. i assure you that everyone will find your suit that you bought from target as charming as i do and apollo is like no i know that

On Aug 30: thinking about phoenix wright getting his badge back after eight long years and immediately taking on a case without checking who his client is and then when he finds out his client is an actual fucking orca he's like Aw brother. Golly gee. Well this might as well happen

On Oct 12: trucy, mouth full of pocky: so you'd think klavier is the cool one in the relationship but actually he get excited about well drafted contracts. it's not him phoenix letting trucy give him a pedicure: so it's apollo? trucy: no phoenix: well, that's all the options trucy: yeah

On Jan 21, 2020: naming one child kristoph and one child klavier is really like going these are my two cats this one is named geoffrey and this one is named placemat

On Sep 5: does anyone remember that one tumblr post about what if there was an anime where every episode is the protagonist dodging the first episode of another anime because she wants to be just some guy. realising that that's apollo justice

orphaned when his father died in a fire and mother disappeared and lost her memory? that's just how it is, won't look into that. raised in a foreign country by a guy who becomes an infamous insurgent? don't want to talk about it. will never bring it up. i want to be a solicitor

On May 3, 2021: phoenix becoming an attorney to see miles again proving he's been thinking about miles for 15+ years and never stops and then in investigations miles proving that he thinks about phoenix like eight times a day every time anything happens but never by name that's too intimate

just a whole ass relationship of miles microwaving a lasagne and thinking This microwave lasagne, once so cold, is now warm to the touch. Much like my heart, which was changed by... that attorney

maya voice That's why you bought out the grocery store's entire supply of bratwurst? To meet Edgeworth?! and then edgeworth doesn't even like bratwurst

halfhearted bratworth joke

(miles edgeworth tripping over a crack in the sidewalk) That's right... I could have fallen so much farther if I had not been caught by a certain /End ID]

in honour of twitter violently lowering itself into a pit of lava, i’ve started saving some of my favourite tweets from my twitter account in case it all goes down. i guess i’ll start posting them here on tumblr in chunks - the ace attorney ones go here, though i know i haven’t been all that active lately!

this is also a heads up that i’ve made a new general blog @corviiids for all the yammering that’s been on twitter up until now. if you’re INTERESTED in yammering, you’re very welcome to come over and follow me there too.

[kawhh]

I apologise in advance. I'm on a Jack binge. A Jack being manipulative towards his innocent friend binge. Enjoy.

1.9k words.

Warnings: Jack being manipulative, 'forcing' you into situations. Abusing your emotions. Non-con in a way. You aren't aware of what's going on.

He'd taken a hard knock into the boards at the end of a long roadie. Brushed off the medical staff even though his whole side is painted black and blue. Every step makes him hiss, biting his jersey and lip to not alert anyone to how bad he is.

Struggling through the pain to dress after the game, shoving the loosest clothing he owns on his body, not having the strength to squeeze into something.

Side throbbing so much that it feels like a burn, every accidental touch against the bruises feeling like it's being prodded with an branding stick.

He's just missed you. Needs to visit you. He can't have the medical staff holding him back, wanting to assess him. He'll be fine. He can cope, he's had worse. Just needs to get to your place. You'll take care of him. He'll get to see you adorably worried about him, playing nurse.

You'll be all over him, touching his bare skin, innocently feeling him up.. he's taking that over the medical staff all day.

Texting you on the way out of the locker room, giving you plenty of warm up time to panic. Not answering your follow up texts, wanting to see the pure panic on your face when he gets there.

Resting his head on the steering wheel in the parking lot, trying to breathe through the pain. Getting to you is gonna be horrific. Every single time he moves his leg it's going to strain his side. Every arm movement that makes him stretch is going to sting.

He just has to keep reminding himself that it's worth it. Every second of suffering.

He's staggering up to your door, feeling a little dizzy and disorientated, resting on the door before he knocks. He barely has to wait.

You're so cute.. the tears streaming down your face for him when you see how banged up and exhausted he is. He's playing it up a bit, hanging his head, moaning in pain. You're so delicate when you try and lead him to the couch, hesitating to even touch you.

Letting himself fall back when he's close enough, using it as a reason to lightly drag his hand down your body. He's just trying to find his balance, obviously.

Lifting the edge of his shirt, hiding his smirk as he sees your face light up red, your hands trembling. A glimpse of his abs and you're already like this? You don't even know what's coming.. he almost feels bad. Almost.

"Angel, need you to help.. can't reach that far down. You'll help me, yeah? You got any of those ice packs I left here last time?"

You're rushing off in a panic, almost tripping as you run to grab a pack, blushing deeper at the thought of having to touch him, having to be that close to his.. thing.

Stripping his shirt off fully when you're gone, not wanting you to realise that he's already feeling better than when he left the arena. You need to think he's a wreck.

He's pulling you closer, staring up at you, eyes half-lidded as you stress about touching him, just letting it happen. You're cute enough to eat. The flush is slowly advancing down your chest. Stammering before you hold the ice pack against his skin. That gets a real hiss out of him.

He can't resist reaching up to lightly tug the strand of hair falling down your face.

"That.. that wasn't so bad, was it? Am I really that awful to touch?"

He can barely hide his smirk as you rush to apologise, resting your hand on more of his skin as a way of apologising.

"Hey.. d'me a favour? It's kind of personal.. so if you're really against touching me, I won't be mad."

He can't help it. You're so easy to tease. You almost look like you're gonna cry, he's pretty sure those are tears forming in your eyes. You really do think you're being cruel to him while he's banged up.. so innocent, so gullible. You're nodding like a bobblehead. Wanting to do anything for him.

"Can you.. can you help me in the shower? Didn't get the chance to have one before I left.. it'll help with the soreness."

He's slinging his arm around your neck before you can even fully agree. Tightening his grip a little just to see you panic and react. Putting more weight on you than he needs, wanting to force you closer to him. You're having to wrap an arm around his waist. Your touch feels like a brand on his skin, it's addicting.

Stumbling together towards the shower, you're resting him up against the shower wall. He can't let you go that easy. Can't just let you leave now. You'll have too much time to think. Too much time to startle.

"Angel.. I'm feeling dizzy, can you.. can you stay in here? The shower's massive.. can you come sit in here? You won't get wet. If you don't, I might fall..."

He can see how hesitant you are, but the threat of him injuring himself is enough for you to be fighting against your embarrassment. He knows you wouldn't be able to live with yourself if he was hurt. He'll even stumble a little bit against the wall, holding his head like he's in distress.

You look like a little bunny, the way you slowly walk over, sitting as far away from him as you can get in the shower. How small you look on the floor.. the way you can barely look at him.

"Can you.. can you help me strip? Hurts too much when I try and pull my pants off..?"

The way you squeak in panic is intoxicating. The way your hand shakes as you reach out, terrified that you'll accidentally expose him. The way your cheeks puff out in concentration.

"Don't worry.. I'll keep my boxers on. Wouldn't want to traumatize my best friend now would I?"

Resting against the shower wall, hair covering his face as he watches you. Observes. You're trying so hard to not look at his dick. Have you even seen one before? Ever been like this with someone? Is he the first to share this with you? He's getting hard just thinking about it.

Turning on the water to try and calm himself down, hoping he can calm down what's surely a clear tent in his boxers. Even the sound of the water makes you startle, you're so on edge.

"Angel... can you.. can you come closer? The wall isn't enough.. I'm gonna fall."

You're slowly creeping towards him like he's a predator. Every inch you move makes it harder for you to avoid looking at him. Harder for you to ignore his cock. The way you're flushing only confirms his theories. The feel of you against his legs, the way you rest against them.. head filling with dangerous thoughts as you look at up at him, all wide eyed.

Would you look up at him like that if he just.. forced you to suck him off? If he just.. locked the bathroom door and caged you in. Told you that it'd make him feel better. Would you cry if he slapped your face with his cock? Would you even be able to look at him? Would you choke? Fuck.. you'd look so cute.

"Here.. you're getting wet. Why don't you sit more between my legs? Can't have you getting sick while you're being such a good friend, taking care of me."

He's forcing you in with his hand, feeling your head rest against his thigh. Struggling to hold back a laugh at how his cock is basically resting on your head at this point. He can't see your face now but he bets it's priceless. You aren't even trying to squirm away. Too afraid that he'll fall.. thinking he's not doing it on purpose.

He'll let you calm down for now.. as much as you can. Taking his time washing his hair, enjoying the feel of you. Washing his body in your usual scent, making sure that you're directly under the suds that wash off. He needs you soaked for later..

"Close your eyes f'me a sec? Need to wash under my boxers.."

He's reaching past his waistband before your eyes are even fully closed, half resting his hand against your head as he grips himself tightly.

Slowly dragging his hand up and down his cock, feeling his hand drag against your head at the same time. Slow enough to not raise too many flags in your innocent little mind. You're too nervous to open your eyes, to question why he's taking so long. Scared to ask what the occasional noise is..

What if he.. with how innocent you are.. could he pretend that it's shower gel? Could he..?

He's lowering his boxers to give him more room before he can fully think it through. It'll be fine. You won't open your eyes. He's basically fucking his fist now. His head throbbing. Pre-cum drenching his hand. Fuck. Even that's falling on your hair.. look so pretty already. Mixing with the water falling on you, watching it follow the curves of your body.. he can't hold back.

He's cumming in his fist, watching it drip through his fingers, watching it land on you. His. His fucking girl. His girl being soaked by him. You don't even make a noise. You're clearly his. Fuck, what'd he give you fully cum on your face. To make you watch. To fuck it into your mouth with his fingers.. baby steps.

Tipping his head back against the cold shower walls, needing the chill to help keep his head straight. You're so pure. Friends.. he can't help the smirk that forms on his face. You really think friends do this.. so adorable.

He's dragging his boxers back up, needing to look at your face again. Needing to see if there's any cum on your face. Needing to try something new with you.

"Angel.. you can open your eyes now. I feel a little better, just needed the hot water to relax."

The way you're looking up at him almost sets him off again. Most of it's washed off.. but there's enough still on your body to make him feel feral. Dragging his tongue across his lip as he watches it wash off into the drain.

"You got a little dirty... can I.. wash you off? I don't want your skin getting dry from the suds."

The cum's made him more impatient, forcing you up from your knees. His half-lidded gaze returning, fully focus on you, grabbing your chin to make you look at him.

"Such a good friend to me.."

Grabbing your leg, forcing it up against his non-injured side, making you squeak as you wrap your hands around his waist, trying to keep your balance. Edging his hands up your thigh.. resting his fingers where your thighs end.. rubbing against the lace trim of your underwear.

"Shhh, shhh, I'm just.. cleaning you up. You've got suds here. Stay very, very still."

Sliding his fingers past the line, stretching them out, an inch away from touching your cute pussy.. slowly stroking. Hovering his finger over your hole, pushing in slightly before withdrawing, snapping your underwear back in place. Giving your ass the littlest slap.

"There's my good girl.. all cleaned up. So lucky to have a friend like you.."

[strawbearyxx]

⊹˚⋆ જ ꒰ in-ho as your bf ꒱ જ ⋆˚⊹

warning, he’s toxic asf i can’t imagine him being a good bf

⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡

~ stares at you all the time, everyone else thinks it creepy but you lowk love it

~ obsessive over you and insanely possessive

~ will try to control you whether you like it or not, you’re too scared to disobey him

~ his kisses are always filled with desire, seeking to claim you as his own

~ would kill anyone who he thinks is a threat

~ makes you cry so he can be the one to comfort you and wipe away your tears

~ “i’m sorry baby, i’m here okay? shh, we’re alright, don’t cry now you know i love you”

~ spoils you and gives you every material thing you’ve ever wanted

~ controls who you can see, when you can see them, what you can wear, etc.

~ has moments where he seems like he’s going to stay sweet to you, but it never lasts long

~ loves leaving marks on you and doesn’t let you hide them

~ makes you tell him you belong to him after an argument

~ has you wear showy outfits just for him to see, buys you a tonnn of clothes you’re never allowed to wear outside

~ loves punishing you for doing something wrong, he makes up new rules all the time to get more chances to

~ the second you cry to someone about him, they disappear

~ sends the salesman to follow you when you’re out

~ his touch is possessive and he's always holding your waist when you're around other people

~ you can't help but give in to his desires because he's so tempting

~ "you're mine, you know that? no one, and i mean no one, is allowed to touch you like i do. say it now, tell me you're mine"

~ acts like he worships you sometimes to give you a false sense of security

⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

Hi, I hope this is an okay question to ask. I am s l o w l y exploring and learning what kinds of kinks I like. I’m drawn to taboo kinks and I’m really curious about ageplay, but I’m worried that if I open the door to letting that be hot, I’m going to start seeing actual kids as hot. Obviously that doesn’t mean I would do anything about it, but I’m still not sure I want that in my head. Is there any truth in this fear? Could that happen?

well much in the same way that the majority of pup players aren't trying to hump real labradors on the street, D&D players generally aren't running around pulling swords on random shopkeepers, and my years doing Warriors Cats rp online never made me want to live in the woods pissing in the dirt and eating mice, I suspect that what you're attracted to is the safety of fantasy and play rather than the actual, literal thing. pretty big line between those two things, actually, and most people are pretty clear on the difference between stuff that's made up and harmless and stuff that's really really bad. I use this example often, but I assure you that my abiding love of Batman using his billions of dollars to dick around doing lawless bullshit has not softened my feelings on Elon Musk in the slightest.

I assume that, like most well-adjusted adults, you aren't attracted to children. what you're into is, presumably, adults acting in ways that are characterized as immature, carefree, cutesy, helpless, bratty, etc, and the dynamic of those playacting adults might have with others who take the role of their caregivers. that is... so, so, so far removed from being attracted to an actual human child. I don't know if you've ever actually, like, hung out with kids, but they're pretty different than adults. I mean obviously they're little humans who have their own opinions and ideas and personalities and have a right to autonomy and making their own decisions as much as is safely possible, but they are REALLY different from age appropriate, sexually compatible adults. someone doing ageplay is, like, a million miles from an actual kid.

it's kind of like how when Riverdale was on I'd see gifs of that insane redheaded lesbian and go "yeah, she's hot." like, sure, the character's a teenager, but that actress is an adult woman who's only two years younger than me and we all know that. the idea of fucking an actual teenager is vile. even if I were to see someone and have an initial aesthetic appreciation, the second they open their mouth and start saying 17 year old things the attraction is gone because I've realized that's a child.

(no offense to the teens in the room! you're great and I'm sure your 17 year old stuff is really important to you! but adults should not want to fuck you, is the point.)

so what I'm saying is: seems unlikely!

also, okay. let's assume the absolute worst case scenario happens and you experience a twinge of sexual interest towards a child. that's understandably alarming; that's not an urge most people want to harbor within themselves. that may require some dialing back from ageplay, or a chat with a kink-friendly mental health professional, or seeking out some community and advice from others in your kink scene who may have struggled with something similar. but please, give yourself some credit: you have some shred of impulse control within your body, yes? you're not going to make the leap from having a thought to being an active child predator in one fell swoop. the choice to harm a child, or to seek out pornographic material of child sexual abuse, are still choices that you would have to actually make. and it's making those choices to do harm that actually make child abusers a danger, not just having thoughts. having a thought all by itself doesn't hurt anyone; it's the way you act on it that has the potential to cause harm.

but again, I want to emphasize, sexual behavior is by and large a pretty easy wire not to get crossed with other things. please note the brave billions of people who manage to get through every day without groping their colleagues and random strangers because they understand it's not the appropriate time, place, or partner!

[jenloveshertoes]

Adding some sources to back these claims up. I found most of them to be either entirely true or mostly true, but there were a couple I could not find sources for or could only find dubious sources for. I also expanded the details a bit.

Violent coup: the "Beer Hall Putsch" in 1923, the sympathetic judge, the light sentence and only 9 months served: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_Hall_Putsch?wprov=sfla1

Calling his trial political prosecution: I cannot find this, however every source I look at claims that Hitler spoke for MANY hours about his agenda and what is going wrong in Germany during the trial, so I don't doubt it's authenticity. I did find an excerpt from mein Kampf which claims Marxist jews control the courts, but it does not specifically say anything about his own trial. https://www.yadvashem.org/docs/extracts-from-mein-kampf.html

Calling himself the common man/for the working class: https://exhibitions.ushmm.org/propaganda/1918-1933/creating-a-public-image-propaganda-technique

I can't find anything about him saying children were indoctrinated to hate Germany. If anyone can find a source for this let me know.

Do I even have to fact check this? I mean in the except from mein Kampf which I shared earlier it's obvious that he blames Jews for most issues, but he also rallies against communists and other minorities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Themes_in_Nazi_propaganda?wprov=sfla1

Yes, he became chancellor in 1933.

Hiring the man who funded him as his financial advisor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Keppler#%3A%7E%3Atext%3DWilhelm_Karl_Keppler_%2814_December%2Cone_of_Hitler%27s_economic_advisors.?wprov=sfla1

Yes, he privitized many many government run utilities. See heading "Privatization and business ties": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Nazi_Germany?wprov=sfla1

Yes, he ended unions, imprisoned the people involved, and.. a lot more. This was in 1933, shortly after being elected. This article is really worth reading https://apwu.org/news/magazine-labor-history/notorious-part-history-may-1933-dissolution-labor-unions-nazifascist

It's not clear how rich Hitler was after coming into office, but he was wealthy. Some estimates do put his net worth at $5 billion, while others are much lower at $150 million in today's money. Either way, he was doing very very well financially. https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/2014-06-22/ty-article/uncovered-hitlers-secret-5b-fortune/0000017f-db66-df9c-a17f-ff7e01c50000

I'm unsure exactly what "scam" is referred here, if they mean the outcome of his union abolishion (the outcome being frozen wages and increase of the work week by 20%) I cannot find him blaming anyone for this specifically. If they mean the general economic struggle, he certainly did tend to blame others for this. I found this excerpt of his speech in 1934 as an example, where he mentions Marxists: https://germanhistorydocs.org/en/nazi-germany-1933-1945/hitlers-speech-at-the-opening-of-the-german-international-automobile-exhibition-1934

I believe this is a reference to the Nuremburg laws of 1935, and yes it did everything it says here, though it had nothing to do with citizenship at birth, so that's not an accurate description, but yes it did explicitly revoke citizenship from jews. https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2010/winter/nuremberg.html

However, the deportation of Jews did not happen at the same time as the Nuremburg laws. It happened 6 years later in 1941. Hitler wanted to wait until the end of the war to enact this phase, but was pushed to do it sooner by fellow nazis. This quickly escalated to the murder of Jews when they realized deportation was not practical. https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/how-and-why/how/deportation-of-german-jews-september-1941/

Yes, the German newspapers focused on a Jewish teen who assassinated a diplomat, painting it as a Jewish conspiracy and the Jewish people as violent people who must be removed. This was in 1938 before the deportations. This culminated in the "Kristallnacht", a night of extreme violence against Jews. Approximately 400 Jews were murdered or pushed to commit suicide. https://www.jmberlin.de/en/topic-9-november-1938

Hitler dismantled democracy in 53 days, dismantling all checks and balances and allowing himself to create laws without approval. This was in 1933. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/01/hitler-germany-constitution-authoritarianism/681233/

Opponents were silenced, yes. The Nazi party was made the only legal party. 1933. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/law-against-the-founding-of-new-parties

The media was forced to comply. All journalists had to be "of Aryan descent" and spread Nazi ideology. 1934. https://arolsen-archives.org/en/news/nazi-germanys-schriftleitergesetz-the-end-of-freedom-of-the-press/

Yes, class consciousness was a target of book burnings. Learn more about which books were targeted here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_book_burnings?wprov=sfla1

Germany, especially Berlin, WAS a haven for queer folks in the 1920's. Yes, the Nazis burned down the first trans clinic to the ground, and queer folks were swept up in the Holocaust. https://www.visitberlin.de/en/history-homosexuality-berlin

Yes, Nazis felt threatened by strong women's rights in Germany. They pushed strong gender norms ("children, kitchen, church") and reduced the rights of women. Regarding reproductive rights, these were not strong to begin with, but under Hitler hospitals were required to report stillborns so they could be investigated. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_Nazi_Germany?wprov=sfla1

When I say that Trump has no original play in his playbook this is what I fucking mean. This where America is back sliding into Nazi Germany.

With that said to the people who voted 3rd party fuck you, fuck maga, fuck republicans and fuck you to the people who didn’t vote.

Everyone who knows a tiny bit of history saw this coming.

[tsukii0002]

I liked your mc calling the brothers their husband post. Would you do something similar with the undatables? Absolutely fine if not!

Hello!!, Thank you for you message 🥺. Apart from the dateable ones I include the non dateable ones because they deserve it. This time the situations are longer and more elavorate, a little bit of love for the side characters. Although it took me a little while, I hope you enjoy it.

Part of the brothers

Warning: I wasn't sure how to write these situations so the formatting may be a bit messy, and in this case Mc is the same person as the reader.

Diavolo

Diavolo had to go to the human world to close some deals with the Corvo company and you decided to accompany him. But it was a matter of minutes before people approached him to ask if he was a star or a celebrity. Following his friendly nature, he talked to everyone and even took pictures, a small group of people approached you, seeing that you knew him.

Woman: How handsome, is he a model?

Man: Who is he?

Mc: He is my husband *smile* and he is not a model.

Diavolo didn't dissimulate, he didn't wait, he turned quickly and walked briskly beside you. His eyes were shining, crystalline, he didn't know what to do, that was unknown ground for him. He was trying to tell you a hundred things so fast that you didn't understand him. You took him by the arm and pulled him away from the crowd. Despite his excitement, he put his hand on yours with extreme gentleness, as if he was afraid that his touch would make you suddenly disappear.

Mc: Did I say something I shouldn't have?

Diavolo: What? No, no, you haven't said anything you shouldn't….

He looked away totally blushing.

Diavolo: Are you sure… that despite of everything, of who I am… you would want me as your husband?

Mc: *moved* I couldn't think of anyone else Dia.

Diavolo: *shining like the sun* I couldn't be anyone else but you either, spouse.

Barbatos

You had agreed to help Barbatos tidy up a room full of relics, the demon was very grateful to you.

Little D: It's very sweet of you to help Mr. Barbatos.

Mc: Well, it's only natural to help my husband.

The little demons put their little hands to their mouths while laughing excitedly. You laughed too, but you stopped when you felt a whisper in your ear, when you turned around there was Barbatos, with a kind smile and his cheeks a little colored, he was looking at you with immense affection. He put his hand to his chin and began to watch you curiously, now you were the nervous one. The Little d's laughed mischievously.

Barbatos: It is, without a doubt, the greatest treasure I could find in this room.

Mc: Th- the what?

Barbatos: Ju, ju, the time I spend with you, my spouse.

Barbatos held you by the waist and hand, as if to dance, you grabbed his shoulder and let him guide you around the room. He hugged you as he caressed your face with his cheek. It was hard to read, but his eyes exuded an endearment rare to see in him.

Barbatos: I never considered having a spouse before.

Mc: *laughing* No?

Barbatos: No, but now that I've found myself having the best spouse in the three realms, I've realized how much I wanted to have them.

Mc: Damn *totally blushing*

Little D's: Kyaaa!!!

Solomon

Solomon had gotten into an argument with a demon, the sorcerer seemed to be having fun, but you knew you had to stop him from getting into more serious trouble (with Barbatos). The demon was throwing in his face certain problems with his artifacts and conflicts of the past while your master just laughed, you jumped in the middle without hesitating, the demon looked at you.

Mc: Stop it, you are not going to achieve anything arguing with him….

Demon: Do you even know who this shameless guy is?

Mc: Of course I do, he is MY husband.

The scene was hilarious, Solomon with his hands up grabbed by the collar of his shirt by a demon, the chaos stopped, the second one looked with a face of disbelief and the first one at first had his usual smile, but then he suddenly turned red and seemed to emanate heat. He began to gesticulate, the demon let go and the crowd dissipated. Solomon stood looking at you, very still, his face had no trace of his usual amused expression, he looked unusually shy.

Solomon: *taking his hand* Really… would you want a husband like me?

Mc: *squeezing his hand* I can't think of a better one.

Solomon laughed, that cute laugh, shy he was also charming.

Solomon: The two most powerful wizards in history, as husband and spouse… no one will stop us Mc.

Simeon

You and Simeon were going to run some errands in Devildom, you used to go together, because you were not intimidated to go out alone and Simeon felt better if he accompanied you. Some demons still had problems with the angels, (you are already mimicked), and some were not afraid to approach to provoke.

Demon: Oh? Who could this little angel be?

Mc: My husband.

Simeon dropped all the fruits as he looked at you, surprised, very surprised. The angel then started looking around and picking up the fruit with a nervous smile. With a look from you the demon left, embarrassed. You crouched down beside Simeon and could see that he was avoiding your gaze with a rosy face. You both stood up and laughed, though Simeon still avoided your gaze. You set off again and after a while Simeon spoke.

Simeon: I thought it was just me… *brings his hands to his face* I thought I was the only one who wanted to be your husband.

Mc: Well *acting surprised*, I'm pretty sure I've had an angel husband for a while.

Simeon: If so, *grinning nervously again* then I've had a human spouse for a long time.

The angel carries all the bags in one hand and holds out the other to you. Determined, you take it.

Raphael

Raphael had convinced you to go to a knitting club in the human world (how ????), the grannies loved it and when they saw you enter they began to whisper excitedly. You sat down in the ladies' circle next to Raphael and started knitting (or trying to), as conversation began to arise. One of the ladies asked you kindly.

Granny: Tell me, my child, what is your relationship with Raphael?

Mc: Raphael is my husband

Raphael blinked, then looked up with a look of confusion and looked at you even more confused, cocking his head like a puppy. The ladies began to whisper even more excitedly. Raphael looked around as his colors rose, pulled his chair closer to yours and looked you in the eye. The grannies left you alone.

Raphael: You…. *pause for reflection* are you serious?

You didn't really know what he meant, but you nodded, he seemed to reflect, with that serious face of his. The angel was an indecipherable person most of the time, it was part of his charm.

Raphael: I… I promise to be a good husband, I will always take care of you and I will make sure that…

Mc: *being cautious* What?

Raphael: *smiling* That my spouse will always be happy.

Mephistopeles

Mephisto had invited you to a party at his family mansion, despite denying it he tried to be by your side the whole time, trying not to leave you alone, but being the host it was too complicated. He talked to all kinds of demons while you watched him, you could see how he constantly looked in your direction in a hurry. Several of the guests approached you.

Demon: Why are you here *smugly and* how would you know Mr. Mephistopheles?

Mc: He *looking him up and down* is my husband.

Mephisto's face was a picture, he had heard it. It didn't take him two seconds to approach you, striding towards you, totally flushed.

Demon: Are you serious? That's impossible.

Mephisto: *raising his voice* I am their husband! And they are my spouse!

You remained silent, he had embraced you in a protective way, interposing himself between you and the demons, it was your turn to blush, the guests left. Mephisto held out his arm to you, you took it, he was looking straight ahead with a pout on his face totally blushing, but he put his other hand on yours, firm. I didn't know what else to say, you laughed.

Mc: I won't be a problem, husband?

Mephhisto: Don't separate from me, there is no problem… *almost stuttering* spouse.

Thirteen

You had promised to take Thirteen to a punk band concert upon the recommendation of some class friends (because yes, you had a social life in hell outside of the brothers and the others). Thirteen was trying to make every possible plan with you, and seeing her face colored with excitement or thrill was totally worth it. There you recognized a friend.

Dyed hair demon: Mc! How nice to see you, who is your friend?

Mc: Oh, this is my wife.

Your friend's face colored, Thirteen seemed to have stopped working as her eyes opened wider and wider, while her face blushed more and more, but then she let out a big laugh and hugged you tightly, giving you kisses and kisses all over your face, leaving her lipstick marked. Without taking her eyes off you and with the sweetest smile in the world she laughed again.

Mc: It's our special night, just for the two of us.

You circled her waist, then she took off one of the earrings hanging from her ears and put it on your finger, to then link her hand with yours.

Thirteen: *with very flushed cheeks and a mischievous smile* I love making these plans with you, spouse.

.

.

Thanks for reading🌸

.

.

[heartsforjh]

reader having big crowd anxiety and qhughes picking up on it leading her through the crowd? 🥲

here you go nonnie! i hope you like! :)

main masterlist | 100 follower celly masterlist

As your boyfriend opens the door for you, a wave of loud talking and laughter hits you immediately. It always amazes you how many people come to these events for Quinn’s work. It’s easy to forget the amount of effort that goes into those fun little games on ice.

You step inside, glancing around as the herd of people closest to the door turns toward you. Naturally, their gaze lingers on Quinn—and then shift to you, standing right beside him. Quinn waves to a few people as the two of you move deeper into the room.

“We’ve gotta find the guys. They’re around here somewhere,” Quinn says, scanning the room.

You nod quickly. Surely being around familiar faces will help ease the nerves that are already starting to build up from all of the attention.

You squeeze his hand, trying to focus on the warmth and pressure of his grip as he holds yours. “Yeah, let’s find them.”

He leads you through the bustling crowd until he eventually spots Elias Pettersson and Conor Garland.

“Hey, you two,” Conor greets, pulling both you and Quinn in for hugs, with Petey following suit.

Quinn’s hand finds its place on your waist as he settles into conversation with his friends. You chime in here and there when something catches your interest, the comfort of their company gradually putting you at ease.

For a while, you feel better, laughing and chatting with the small group. But that changes the second your purse slips from your hand and falls to the ground with a thud. Instinctively, you look around to see if anyone notices, expecting a few fleeting glances.

Your stomach drops when you’re reminded just how many people are around, and they’re all staring. Not just glancing, but staring. Why are they staring? Their eyes linger, waiting—maybe for you to pick it up. The pit in your stomach grows as you start wondering what they might be thinking.

Your chest immediately tightens. The room feels louder and everyone seems closer. When did they get so close? Your chest moves up and down rapidly, desperately trying to get a full breath, but the air gets stuck in your throat.

“Babe, you okay?” Quinn’s voice cuts through the haze, grounding you.

You blink, and suddenly the world is back in focus. He’s holding your purse, having picked it up amidst your small panic.

“I’m- I’m fine,” you stammer, unconvincingly.

Quinn’s eyes search yours, concern etched across his face. “You’re shaking, sweetheart.” His tone is gentle, careful not to draw any more unwanted attention to you.

“I told you—I’m okay,” you insist, but your body betrays you with a slight sway.

Quinn sighs softly, placing his hands on your hips to steady you. “Well, this isn’t okay with me. Come on, let’s go talk.”

Taking your hand, he quietly leads you out of the crowded party room and into the hallway.

Once outside, you squeeze your eyes shut for a moment, trying to calm your racing heart. “Quinn, we don’t have to do this. We should go back in—this is for your job.”

“Y/n, baby, we can go if that’s what you need. It’s just a New Year’s party. We’ll do our own New Years at home,” he assures you, brushing a strand of hair from your face.

You sigh, guilt creeping in. “I just feel selfish. You’re the face of the Canucks—people are going to stare. You shouldn’t have to miss this just because I’m… freaking out.”

Quinn shakes his head, his thumbs brushing against your cheeks as he cups your face in his hands. “You don’t have to get used to anything. You’re dealing with something, and that’s okay. You’re not doing anything wrong. Besides, I can’t enjoy this if I know my girl’s struggling, can I?”

His words melt some of your worries, and a small smile breaks through. “No, I guess not.”

“Also,” he adds with a small grin, “between you and me, I didn’t want to come to this thing anyway.”

You raise an eyebrow, feigning offense. “Wow, so you’re just using me as an excuse to ditch?!”

“What? No! That’s not what I was trying to say! I meant—” his eyes widen, and he fumbles over his words, making you giggle.

“You know what I meant!” he huffs, shaking his head. “You’re a jerk.”

“It was just a joke!” you tease, still laughing as you walk towards the exit with him, hand-in-hand.

Quinn gives a small, dramatic pout. “Why are you so mean to me?”

“I’m not mean to you! I was kidding!” you repeat while laughing even more at his reaction.

Secretly, he’s overjoyed to hear you laughing, even if it is at his expense. He’d gladly let himself be the punchline to your jokes as long as he gets to hear that favorite sound of his.

tags: @beenucks @lukey-pookie-hughes43 @sweetestdesire @azure-dawn81 @emsdevs @puckmedude @joesnumerouno @alex-wotton @r0wdymaize86 @ccomandercody @macklin-celebrini-71 @randomcuboidshape @when-im-with-you @quillycrow @rainyvalentines @alwaysclassyeagle

join the taglist here! :)

[batsycline69]

Hell Knows It's Got A Home For Folks Like Me

Summary: After losing your childhood sweetheart, you sought a life of adventure. Years down the line, when your gang is gunned down by the notorious outlaw 'Two Guns,' you find the life you've built for yourself turning upside down

Pairing: Cowboy!Jason Todd x Outlaw!reader

Words: 7.2k

Content/warnings: kidnapping, brief descriptions of scars and wounds, grief, longing, hidden identity shenanigans, real threats turning to playful threats, jason likes when you're mean to him, p in v sex, reader is not described, 18+ MDNI

You always thought ‘Two Guns’ was a bad nickname. Plenty of people had two guns; what made him so special he got a moniker for them?

The speed, you understood, was what made him so special. The precision of his shots, even on the back of his galloping horse. Even as he took out most of your crew mates, some part of you was stunned by the way he moved.

Black Mask rode off and didn’t look back, leaving anyone still alive for dead. Two Guns was happy to oblige, scattering bodies all along the pasture.

His accuracy is an assurance that you were intentionally left alive. Prairie grass tickles your nose as he pins you to the ground. You struggle like a wild animal against the weight of his knee as it presses into your back.

“Get off me!” you snarl, trying to wrench your arm from his iron grip.

He lets out a scoff as he ties you up with a casualness that warns you he’s done this before.

If he ever thought the Black Mask gang posed as a threat, that threat didn’t include you. The thought prickles at your nerves, makes you want to spit if you could only crane your neck enough.

“Not a chance,” is his only reply. A terse muffle beneath his red bandanna. The leather of his gloves brushes against your wrists as he ropes them together before moving down to your ankles.

“Mask isn’t gonna pay for me,” you say. “You’re wasting your time. Just let me go!”

He doesn’t say anything as he hoists you up onto the back of his horse, chuckling at every threat you make against him on the way back to his camp. Given your current situation—reduced to some spoil of war—you thought your ride would be rockier, yet Two Guns takes the ride easily with you dangling over the back of his horse.

His people seem surprisingly pleased to see him. Certainly far from the reception Mask gets, but you know most of your late crew mates weren’t in the gang for love. Most of them are dead now, their lives abandoned all from the service of a man who only saw them as bodies to shield him from men like the one currently hauling you from his horse.

Two Guns shoves you towards a little tent set up at the edge of camp. Only when he plops you down on a stool inside that you get a somewhat decent look at him. He’s no longer a blur of endless action. The bandana makes it difficult to tell his age. All you can make out is the sea of his eyes, something playful glinting within them.

“What do you want?” you ask, eyes narrowed in on him.

His dark, scarred brow quirks up. The small narrowing of his eyes suggests he’s smirking at you. Right now, you feel more irritation than fear. “Black Mask usually doesn’t keep such nice company,” he says as if that answers your question. Before you can demand an answer, he pulls out the sack you’d been carrying. He must have grabbed it after he’d tied you up.

You struggle against your restraints to no avail. “Stay out of there!”

Everything clamors together as he rifles through the bag carelessly, tossing its contents onto the bedroll on the ground as he goes. He ignores your small sack of money, the small folio of maps, even the little journal of jotted notes, only to pause at a stack of yellowed envelopes.

“You’ve got a lotta junk in there,” he says nonchalantly as he turns the bundle over in his hand.

The sight of your name scrawled across those envelopes in that familiar boyish handwriting makes something snap inside of you. “Put those back!” you snarl, a new ferocity burning in your voice.

You finally catch Two Guns’ attention. “What, these your important plans with Mask or something?” He takes a step closer to you.

You’ve got plenty of choice opinions on Two Guns from everything you’ve seen of him so far, but you know he’s not stupid. If he wanted your plans with Black Mask, he could have them, but he’s already tossed them aside in favor of old letters.

“They’re nothing to you,” you reply.

“Nothing, huh?” he challenges. He undoes the tight knot binding the stack together. Your eyes follow the red ribbon as it drifts to the ground.

You remember the boy who gave you a handpicked bouquet of prairie flowers wrapped with that ribbon.

“Stop it.”

He doesn’t. Paper rustles as Two Guns pulls the letter from its envelope. You can’t make out the expression in his eyes as they scan the page.

The silence is agonizing. The sounds of Two Guns’ crew moving about camp are the only thing filling the void. You stare at the worn page in a stranger’s hand. Pages rumpled from being held to your heart as you cry and remember the boy you’d lost.

“Aw, a beau at home, huh?” he asks, glancing up from the paper.

“Put it back.”

“You carry these around with you everywhere?”

Another fruitless jerk against the ropes around your wrists. “What do you want?” you demand, your patience with his games growing thin.

Two Guns slips the letter back in the envelope, his eyes fixed on you as he does. “I want to know what a nice thing like you is doing running around with Black Mask.”

A nasty glower grows on your face. “Tough luck.” You don’t want to lose your indignation, but thinking of the words in those letters makes your heart twist in your chest.

In the schoolyard, your life seemed so perfectly laid out. You loved a boy who promised you forever. A boy whose heart seemed as wild as your own. Someday, you’d leave town, just you and him. Run away to a place just for the two of you.

Just after he turned seventeen, a falling out between Jason and his adopted father had him off to search for his birth mother. He’d promised you he’d come back for you once he found her. That you both could finally make the lives you wanted for yourselves.

In place of him, a letter found you in town. Jason’s mother had traveled with a bad crowd, and he’d gotten caught up in the middle of it.

Your mourning stretched out endlessly because moving on from him felt so unfair. Somewhere in these meadows, your heart laid buried. The walls of the life you were supposed to build together crumbled around you, and you were the only one left to clean it up. So you left. Getting married off to someone who wasn’t Jason was no life you could live. And if you could no loner find adventure with him, you would find it on your own. You never chose Black Mask out of any respect or adoration; he had money, and you needed some of it.

Two Guns gives an unimpressed hum at your resistance before pulling out another letter, eyes skimming the page again. “Let me guess. It didn’t work out too well for loverboy? Didn’t get your happy ending, sweetheart?”

Fury roars in your chest. “You don’t get to talk about him.”

Those blue eyes study you thoroughly for a moment before he puts the letter back in its envelope. The pile of letters scatter across his bedroll as he tosses them down. If you mouthed off to Black Mask like this, he’d probably kill you. For a moment, you think Two Guns might be the same.

“They feed you in Mask’s camp?” he asks instead with an evenness that makes you see red. You always knew how Black Mask was feeling from his incessant yelling. But Two Guns is giving you next to nothing to work off of.

You watch him carefully, trying to put together what he’s really asking.

“Yes.”

His eyes pass over you again like he doesn’t believe you. You brace for more questions, but none come. Wordlessly, he slips from the tent, leaving you alone with your mind cobbling together a plan.

Maybe you can slip out the back of the tent. Steal a horse. Black Mask’s gang was heading to a job; you could try to catch up? The strategy has enough gaps you know you’re better off trying to level with Two Guns, but you can’t get the image of his hands all over your letters out of your head. He’d touched Jason’s letters. Read Jason’s words that were only ever meant for your eyes. All you have left of him.

For that, you hate Two Guns. For that, you don’t care if he feeds you or offers you safety. You never found out where Jason was buried, so leafing through his letters felt the same as desecrating his grave. You want Two Guns dead for that.

The wish is enough to drive you through the burn of rope against your raw skin as you wrestle with it. But before you can make any progress, he returns, a bowl of something in his large hand. You freeze, looking at him with your eyes burning with resentment.

“You gonna run if I cut the rope?” he asks, looking down at your bound ankles.

“No,” you lie. Two Guns chuckles like he knows, but he pulls a knife from his pocket regardless. Slowly, he approaches, crouching down without moving his eyes from yours. Those damn eyes that give you nothing to work off of.

The muscles of your legs stay tight, prepared to kick if he tries anything. His blade dips between your ankles, beneath the thick rope before sawing your legs free. He keeps staring up at you like he’s waiting for you to make your move.

You don’t.

He towers above you as he rises back to his full height, gaze never shifting. You feel certain he’s trying to intimidate you as he stalks behind you. The smooth leather of his glove holds your wrist in place. You feel the rope tugging against your raw skin as he cuts, and finally you’re free.

As quickly as you can, you try to pull your arms back in front of you, but Two Guns catches your wrist just above where they’re red before you can hide the evidence from him.

“No use trying to loosen those knots. You’re not the first person I’ve tied up, sweetheart,” he says. “As long as you don’t bolt, I’ll get you something for those burns.” He turns away from you—cocky bastard—and picks the bowl back up. “In the meantime, eat.”

You stare down at the chunks of something in a thick broth and look up at him skeptically. “What is it?”

“Well, it’s stew. I’m sure it’s nothing compared to the five course meals you get over in Black Mask’s camp, but it’s food.” Sarcasm. No one ever said Two Guns was such a charmer.

After you hesitantly take your bowl of mystery stew, he disappears from the tent. Your back straightens once you’re alone, setting down the stew to carefully peer through the gap in the tent. Two Guns talks to one of his crew, the expanse of his back blocking most of your view.

They speak low. From where you are, you can’t make out a single word, and Two Guns walks away before you can try to put it together through context. When he turns to rummage through a small box, you move quick to collect all your belongings strewn about Two Guns’ bedroll.

Your fingers are steady as you take great care to bind Jason’s worn letters back together—can’t say working with Black Mask never taught you anything—before tucking the bundle gently into the pocket where they’re always kept.

Time isn’t on your side, but experience is. Black Mask always had you sneak around when furtiveness was required from a job. Usually, however, you were sneaking up on belligerent drunks and not a notorious outlaw in the confines of his own tent. But desperate times call for desperate measures.

Two Guns may have swiped your gun when you brought you to his camp, but he famously has two. He doesn’t strike you as the sharing type, but you don’t let it deter you. You aren’t really the asking type, anyway.

You poise yourself, waiting for the moment his hand slips through the opening of the tent. As he emerges, you reach out as fast as you can for one of the holstered guns on his hip. Fingers curl around the cool metal and tug, turning the weapon onto him as soon as you retrieve it.

Two Guns is facing you before you have time to celebrate, one hand gripping your shoulder firmly. The other holds his remaining gun just below your chin.

“Don’t tell me the stew was that bad,” he says as he crowds you. When you don’t lower your weapon, he nudges your chin with his gun. “I’d like that back,” he says with a self-assured cock of his head.

“Or what?”

He laughs. “Or you’ll have to go out there and explain to the rest of my gang why their boss has a hole in his head.” He knows you’re in no position to follow through with your threat, but the idea of admitting defeat and giving him the gun back makes you livid.

You step back as he shepherds you back to your seat. With one hand still occupied by his gun, he fishes a roll of linen out of his pocket. “Now, if you don’t give me that back, I won’t be able to wrap your wrists, and I’d hate for you to get an infection.”

“I can take care of myself,” you refute. Two Guns seizes the moment the second it occurs, disarming you and sliding the gun back to its holster as soon as you’re even marginally distracted.

“Oh, I know that,” he says. You hear the smirk in his voice. And he’s passing you your bowl of stew again. Ripping strips of linen with practiced ease.

He’s lucky he got the gun when he did. You would have pulled the trigger the second you heard that arrogance.

One of his large hands stretches out for yours expectantly, the bandage dangling in his grip.

Irritation prickles up your spine. You stare at his hand as if you don’t understand what he wants from you. Take a long, petty slurp of your stew to fill the time, your eyes never leave his.

Two Guns keeps his eyes locked onto you, hand still held out for you. He knows our game, and he doesn’t seem keen on giving you the satisfaction of his annoyance. “May I see your wrist?” he asks evenly.

You consider tossing your bowl of stew onto him, but the lukewarm meal would only serve as a minor inconvenience. So you surrender with a sneer on your face, giving him one of your rope-burnt wrists.

“Thank you,” Two Guns replies, still speaking in that same even tone that’s been steadily growing on your nerves. He sinks a knee down into the earth. The leather of his glove warms your arm as he begins to wrap it up. You know he could hold you harder than he does.

He doesn’t see you as a threat. Another reason to hate him. You’ll find Mask, make sure he takes care of Two Guns once and for all. He just lost half his gang to him, and while you certainly have no true loyalties to Black Mask or his gang, you know he’s going to be hellbent on getting back at Two Guns. You just want to be there when it happens.

When one wrist is wrapped, he holds his hand out for the other. You give it to him, still trying to work out his plan here. Why not kill you? If he thinks you’re going to tell him anything about Black Mask, he’s got another thing coming. It wasn’t like he ever told you anything anyway. You were nothing but another body for his means to an end.

“There,” he says, when your tender skin is safe behind bandages. He drops your hand and rises to his feet. “Now, stay here, and I’ll get you sorted once I’m back from killing your boss.”

“I won’t tell you where he’s going.” Two Guns must think you’re loyal to Mask, which is a laugh. Right now, your strongest loyalty is to making Two Guns’ life as impossible as possible.

“Don’t need you to,” he replies. He pulls a stack of envelopes out of his pocket, shoving them into your hands, but you don’t even spare them a glance. “Now, my guys are a lot less nice than I am, so if you’re wise, you’ll stay in here.”

He takes a step back towards the flaps of the tent. You wait for him to turn around, disappear from the tent, but he just stares back at you for a moment. Rage burns in your chest again. You want to throw whatever he passed you down into the dirt, show him how little you care about anything he has to say to you.

A gun emerges from one of his holsters, the barrel nudging up the brim of his hat like some kind of polite nod before slipping out. Without hesitation, you storm after him. What does he mean get you sorted? What’s he going to do after Black Mask is dead and gone? His step doesn’t falter even after you protest after him.

One of his men catches you by the shoulder the second the light of the sunset hits your skin. “Two Guns says you’re stayin’ here,” he says.

The outlaw mounts a hulking stallion as your stopped. In the dark corners of your mind, you understand he would need a large horse to accommodate for the sheer bulk of him. You try not to entertain the thought. Two Guns helps, making your mind go completely blank as his eyes meet yours one last time.

His gaze feels like a suckerpunch. Somehow, it’s worse when he looks away.

When he rides off and the rush of horse hooves grows faint, you’re pushed back into your captivity. Only then, do you process he handed you something.

You sit back down on the stool looking down at the envelopes in your hand for the first time.

The tent feels as if it could be at the bottom of the lake you and Jason would swim in during the sun-drenched days of youth with the way the air seems to disappear. The familiar writing makes your hand tremble like responding to a long-forgotten call. The slopes and curves of the way your name is written. You know them by heart because they’re the same ones you seek when you miss Jason so badly everything within your body aches.

These letters feel like a trick. Your optimism has long vanished. So you pull out your own savored letters to make sure Two Guns hadn’t just snatched some earlier just to pass them back. But the weight of your bundle is the same as always, all letters accounted for.

Your only next guess is that Two Guns knows something of Jason’s death. He was somehow privy to more details than you. You, who waited in town for him to come home, only to be met with a letter from one of the guys he’d been running with. The one letter you never kept.

When you realize these are letters you’ve never read—letters from Jason with your name scrawled out on the front—you immediately begin to tear through them.

The first letter is dated two months after you were told Jason died. But these are his words, his penmanship, assuring you he’s alive. A close call, but he survived the shootout that was claimed to have killed him. He had things to do before he could see you again, but he assured you soon he would.

He alludes to letters he’s never sent in the next few, and slowly, your heart drops as you make the realization that Jason chose never to mail these to you. He was alive, and he chose not to let you know.

There’s a few months gap between letters until Jason writes to you to say he’s a bad man. He does bad things because someone needs to. He’s a bad man because he never came home to you, and now he’s not sure if he’s good enough. You wonder if the things you’d done to survive would qualify you as bad too. You wonder what that changes between you, if anything.

His last letter was written yesterday.

‘Two Guns’ Todd rode to your childhood home in search of you, only to find you were no longer there waiting for him. The townsfolk told him you left town after your childhood sweetheart was killed.

Jason didn’t know where you were, but he promised he would find you.

You don’t realize you’re crying until a tear drops. The ink bleeds across the page, and you gasp like you’ve ruined something sacred. But those words are no longer the words of a dead man. They’re the words of the man who’d lived all these years without you.

You stare down at the letters long after it’s grown too dark to read them, your mind racing as you try to grapple with what this means. Everything you’ve thought for the past two years has been a lie. The boy you loved had gotten to grow into a man without you knowing.

You’d uprooted your life with the grief of losing Jason. Searching to fill the void, you decided to listen to the call of adventure. To do something unrecognizable from the life you and Jason had imagined in the field behind the schoolhouse.

Outside the tent, your guards have fallen into a drunken sleep. Their snores overpower the chirping of crickets and the whirring of cicadas. To hell what Jason wants, you decide.

You make a quick escape with one of the men’s guns, a horse, and a lantern, riding towards Black Mask’s hideout.

Jason may have most of his crew with him, but every part of you needs to be with him now, even if you are absolutely livid with him. But you can’t help but savor the thought of feeling something other than everlasting grief when you think of him. You can scream at him, shove him, tell him you hate him because he’s alive. That’s nothing you’re going to take lightly. Not when you’ve spent your days wishing to see him one last time.

You think of the way he held your wrist as he bandaged it as horse hooves thunder through the night. You think of sunlight filtering through the leaves of trees the first time you kissed him and ran away, face burning with embarrassment. You think of years later when he’d held your hand and promised you forever, eyes burning with a certainty that only comes with youth.

You find Mask’s hideout, the rest of Jason’s gang hooting and hollering of a job well done. Your eyes skim the darkness for Jason, not daring to get closer unless you know he’s there. You’re not about to risk an escort back to camp without seeing Jason first.

“I had a feeling those two wouldn’t be able to stop you.”

The voice startles you. You prepare to be bucked, but Jason is already soothing your stolen horse. And then you realize the horse was never as startled as you to begin with. Its rubbing against his outstretched hand like a friend.

“You—”

“I know,” Jason says.

“I thought you were dead.”

Jason looks at you like you’re history. Like the part of him that held you was still buried in the earth where you thought his body was. Those years feel so much longer ago than they once did now that you’re looking at him again.

“I know you did, sweetheart,” he says, a pinch in his voice.

You scoff. “Don’t sweetheart me.”

“Alright then. Darlin’?” There’s challenge in his tone. His amusement with himself gets under his skin. Nips at your nerves. All this time, and this is how he treats you now that you finally know?

You slide down from the horse. His sturdy body barely moves when you give him a shove. He waits a beat. Lets the silence settle between the two of you, the sounds of his crew seemingly drowned out amidst the tension. “I take that as a no.”

He encroaches on your space as he takes a step closer, his broad shoulders closing in on you. His eyes glimmer with the longing from your youth, only now clouded with the weight of years passed.

Memories linger like a tune stuck in your head. You’d promised him everything. You’d meant it, too. But those days have faded away, hardened by the realities of life. Jason’s boyish grin came to you only in dreams, the only real place you had left to cling to him. So you’d thought, at least, because here he is. A phantom of the time you spent mourning him. The ache you’d carried inside your chest because you couldn’t hold him.

You knew what you had. You’d known just as well what you’d lost. A boy with a wild heart. One with kindness in his bones. He stole kisses behind the school when the teacher wasn’t looking. When he was old enough, he pursued greater ambitions, promising you the life you deserved one day.

The years haven’t been kind to you, and you imagine the same can be said about the man in front of you. Jason Todd, your honeysweet boy, didn’t become ‘Two Guns’ Todd for no reason. Fear lingers in the back of your mind that you’ll never get back what you had. That this reunion will end in bitterness when you realize all your childhood dreams were bolstered by naive optimism.

Whoops and hollers of a job well done still linger behind you, though Two Guns no longer seems to be in the mood to celebrate.

“We should talk.” Nearby flames make shadows flicker across his face. Now that you know the truth, you can’t imagine how you didn’t know immediately this was Jason. How the truth has bent him back into a shape you recognize.

“You’re damn right.”

“There’s an inn in town,” he says, crossing over to his horse.

You grip the reins of the horse you stole a little tighter. “And?” you inquire, eyes narrowing.

He tugs down the worn red bandana covering the lower half of his face. That alone is enough to knock the air right out of your lungs. That’s your Jason. Yes, he looks different—a scar along his top lip, another through his cheek—but it’s him.

“And we can talk there,” he replies, turning back towards you.

“Sounds like you’re just buying time,” you reply curtly.

He gives you another look. Both of you know you’re right. He’s not happy you called him out on it. Not happy, after all this time, there are still some things you’ll always have a read on. The men following Two Guns know him as the mysterious figure none of them dare to push. But you know Jason Todd. The sweet boy from class who always got the answers right. Who got in trouble for punching another boy because he made fun of you. The one who has always—would always—have a soft spot for you no matter how hard he tried to outrun it.

As you stand before him for the first time in five years,it dawns on you he hadn’t gone after Black Mask expecting for you to be there. His last letter—his real last letter—told you he would find you. He promised, just like he’d promised he’d come home for you. But he’d made a big show of it, made sure you didn’t know who he was beneath the bandana, so the fear seemed real for his audience. His audience, of course, being the gang you ran to when you couldn’t run to him. But this is your Jason; he’d never had any malicious intent. You didn’t know who he was, but he certainly knew you.

“Then will you allow me a little time?” he asks with a terse air of formality.

You don’t want to, but you agree. The foreign look on his face haunts you enough to not want to kick up any dust. Jason doesn’t run; you’ve always known that. You read what the past five years have been like. It’s not something he can dole out in casual conversation.

Riding beside each other in the night offers you time to think, though you’re not sure you appreciate it. Your thoughts seem to go as far and wide as the prairie, racing as fast as your horses.What happens now? When you were kids, everything was so clear cut, but neither of you went in a conventional direction. When it comes to outlaws, what is the protocol for a future?

As if he knows you’re sinking too deep into your thoughts, Jason spares you a glance. His bandana is pulled back up, but you just barely see his eyebrow quirk up in the darkness. Before you can make his meaning, he begins to speed up. He’s testing you. He wants to see what you’ve picked up since he last saw you, curious by the unexpected turn your life had taken you on.

You give your horse a small kick, speeding up alongside him, shooting him a glare when he glances back your way. You’ll indulge him, but you aren’t going to play around with him.

Or so you think as he starts to speed up again.

The glow of town is so faint in the distance, and his gang is long behind you. It’s just you and him, and that has you feeling bold. So you speed up again, still looking stern as you race beside him. “You’re gonna wear these horses down,” you call over the rush of hooves.

Jason’s eyes are crinkled at the corners again. “Naw,” he replies. “Rochester loves to run.”

As you get closer to town, Jason starts to slow down and you follow his lead. You worry about being a known associate of Black Mask alongside ‘Two Guns’ Todd, an incredibly prominent outlaw, but if Jason is concerned, he doesn’t bat an eye. You’re not sure if it’s his confidence or his reputation that gets you a room in the inn, but it’s certainly not the scowl on your face plastered there to make sure no one thinks you’re there for sex.

He tosses his hat on the bed first. Slips the leather gloves off his long, thick fingers. Fingers you remember as much nimbler from childhood. Hands that had fewer scars when you knew them. Finally, he hurries with the knot of his bandana, freeing himself of the burdens of hiding who he really is.

And now, as he stands before you, and it fully registers for the first time that this is Jason. Not a ghost, nor a haunted nightmare of who he could have been had he gotten to grow up. He’s as real as you are, and your heart pounds with the ache of it.

“Why didn’t you send those letters?” The flame of your anger seems to have been snuffed, now leaving you with only the energy to breathe your question.

Jason looks at you, pinched between the brows. “You read ‘em. You think they make me look very favorable?”

���Favorable?” you scoff. “God dammit, Jason, I thought you were dead. Who gives a damn about favor?”

He laughs. “You sound like you’ve been riding with a gang all this time.”

The attempt to diffuse your mood only fans the flame. You shove him again, this time harder than before. He has to take a step back to catch himself. His eyebrow quirks up at you again, and you want to smack the expression off his face.

“You were alive, and you never told me.”

“Well, sounds like you didn’t stick around very long to wait for me.” He’s still trying to tease you.

You give him another shove. His eyes light up with something. “I would have gotten married off! I couldn’t stay there and wait for someone who wasn’t you.” You shake your head, taking a step back to try and calm yourself down. Jason is just so damn sturdy now. He’s gone against the worst of the worst out here and come out on top. He’s survived death. What are a few pushes for him after that?

Before you can step away, Jason catches your wrist, just above where he’d bandaged them earlier.

“You went to Black Mask of all people,” Jason replies. He smooths his thumb over the linen wrappings gently despite the accusation in his voice. He touches you like he’s reading the signs of what happened to you while he was gone.

“I must have missed the word that Two Guns was looking for crew,” you chide.

From downstairs, you can hear the lively chatter of the people at the bar. Next door, you hear a happy paying customer moaning through the paper thin walls. And between you and Jason is silence, your words hanging heavy in the air.

In a show of the boy you knew, Jason’s cheeks flush slightly as he stares down at the ground, no longer able to meet your eyes. Good, you think. Let him feel ashamed of himself.

And as you glance away as well, you realize his shame may be coming from not his actions but his reaction to your stern voice. A bulge grows in his pants, and for a moment, your brain seems to slip away from your anger. But you only allow yourself the moment.

You’re mad. You have every right to be. You’d mourned for him. You’d planned a life without him in it after the heartbreak of losing him. And he has the nerve to get hard while you’re trying to get an apology.

Except you realize how big he is now. No longer the small, underfed boy you’d shared apples with in the schoolyard. Now he’s all muscle and strength from all of his many activities these past few years. He’s a fierce outlaw, and yet he’s still pink on the ears because of you.

You’re still angry, you remind yourself as your desire seems to catch up with you. You knew what it was like to be held by those hands when they were smaller. But now you can’t help but imagine them smoothing down your skin. You think of running your fingertips over the skin lightened by scar tissue. While he still glances away from you, your eyes flicker over him, hungry to know the grown up Jason.

When you push him again, he falls back onto the bed behind him, eyes surprised up at you. All it takes is a glance, and he knows exactly where your mind is. The hard-on jerks in his pants.

“I wanted you dead for the way you touched those letters,” you say. Jason blushes, but his eyes drink you in as you push him back against the headboard. “When you started opening them, I was thinking of all of the ways I’d get back at you.”

A warm palm wraps around your hip, pulling you close to him, but moves it as soon as he has you on his lap. Like he needs to touch you but can only stomach it for so long at a time like touching a pot still too hot from a flame. The grief that ate you alive was the longing he carried to have you in his life yet again.

One of your hands runs up his firm chest before your fingers curl around his thick neck. You don’t squeeze, but you feel his cock jerk against your thigh nonetheless.

“Lotta people have tried to kill me over the years, sweetheart,” he says, staring up at you like you’ve said something romantic.

Warmth shoots up to your stomach as you drag yourself across his lap. Jason’s punched out air brushes against your collar as he stifles a groan. “Did you let all of them get this close to you?” you whisper.

Jason is far from vulnerable with his guns still strapped on, but you know your Jason; his eyes are always on the prize, always have been since you were kids. You can’t imagine he’d been climbing into many beds when there was work to be done.

There’s no suave answer. Just a quick shake of his head as you drag yourself across his bulge. You duck your head into his neck, pressing your lips against the warm skin of his neck. His hands land on your hips again, curling into the fabric of your clothes. His breath is hot against your cheek.

“I got your gun earlier, didn’t I?” you ask, grinding against him yet again.

This time, he lets out a blissed sigh before he speaks. “Didn’t get you very far.” It’s subtle, but you catch the slight pitch in his voice.

You kiss along the muscles of his neck, feeling him jerk against your seam. Your hips roll into his again, trying to ease the aching between your legs. “I’ve got you distracted,” you murmur, grinding against him to prove a point.

The sound Jason makes is a mixture of a laugh and a groan. He bats his dark eyelashes open, looking at you like a long lost love. Your stomach flips with it. “You wouldn’t kill me now, would you?” he breathes.

You feel drunk on the sounds he makes. For the first time in who knows how long, you feel good. Genuinely. Your mind isn’t on a job or running for your life. Right now, the only thing you care about is the fact that Jason’s heart is still beating.

No. Never.

Instead of a response, you tug at his jacket, the scent of earth and leather lingering once you toss it off the bed. A fear seizes in your chest that this could all be a dream. That you’ll wake back up at Mask’s camp, Jason’s letters hiding away in a bag, and the warmth of his body fleeting with your wakefulness. This moment won’t pass you by without you digging your nails in.

Your lips crash into Jason’s, your hand moving up from his neck to hold onto his jaw.

He kisses like a man starved. Long gone are the timid brushes of lips, and sweaty palms reaching out for your fingertips. His hand stretches out on the back of your skull to hold you against him like he can’t afford to be without.

You feel the growing wetness of your drawers as you grind against him yet again, letting out a breathless sigh against his lips.

Jason’s head falls back, a low groan slipping from his kiss-flushed lips. His lids grow heavy over his eyes, fingers clinging onto your clothes. The sound seems to wipe everything from your mind except for Jason. He’s here. You’re in his lap, kissing him as if your lives depend on it. While you kiss him, there’s no history, and yet there’s all the history in the world. The first time you kissed him. The way his cheeks turned beet red every time you looked at him for a week after.

You kiss furiously as you both shed clothes, until your skin presses up against his. Until you’re sinking down on him, pussy fluttering at the feeling of being filled so deeply. A breathless curse slips through your lips as your head falls against Jason’s chest.

His arms wrap around you, holding you flush against him, another low moan rumbling in his chest. Your breath catches when you feel his heart pounding against your chest. You’re wrapped in Jason Todd’s arms, and everything is right with the world again.

Slowly, you raise your hips just to sink back down again. Jason’s hand catches your head as it tips back, pulling you into his lips again. You rest your hands on his shoulders, using him as leverage as you start to build up your pace, acclimating to the stretch of him.

You ride him, and Jason goes the extra mile to push you down even deeper on his cock each time you lower down, feeling him nudging at something blindingly brilliant. With Jason’s hands back on your waist, no longer holding you to his mouth, his moans fill the room. You could listen to him all night. Jason, who’s been through so much in his life—more than you even know—deserves this, even if he caused you sleepless nights and endless tears.

Your fingers drag through his thick, dark curls, gripping onto the strands at their base. His nails dig into the flesh of your hips as he lets out a whine. The noise drives something in you, burrowing into your brain until all you can think is how badly you need to hear it again. So you tug, and Jason’s lips break from yours to breathe another needy whimper.

With their newfound freedom, your lips move down to Jason’s jaw, nibbling, your breath hot on his skin. You feel warmth growing in the pit of your stomach along with the burning in your thighs, but you can’t even consider stopping now.

He promised you he’d find you. Jason Todd has always been true to his word.

You’re so full of relief and so full of him, you feel tears prickling at your eyes. You’re not sure if it’s more from the pleasure or the fact that you’re together again. As you pull back to look at Jason’s face, you see his eyes watering too, staring up at you like you’re something heavenly.

Both of you crying. You almost laugh, but it gets caught in your throat as Jason’s cock hits something blinding as he holds you down even deeper than ever. Your cry breaks through the room, eyes pinched shut as warmth washes over you. Everything seems to slip out beneath you, and for the first time in a very long time, you feel absolutely weightless.

Jason catches you when you lean back too far, guiding you so you still rock on him through the comedown of your orgasm. Your head clears just in time to catch Jason’s eyes as they roll shut. Even as your legs shake, you go back to work, the meat of your ass slapping against his lap.

He groans out your name, holds your hips down against him, and you feel him spilling into you. Lips parted as he groans, cock twitching against the walls of your pussy.

As he comes down, Jason just holds you against him. You savor his rapidly beating heart, the rising and fall of his chest, the smell of sweat and sex in the air because it’s him. You’re collapsed against your Jason, hand lazily draped against his chest as you still clench around him in the aftershock of your orgasm.

When you feel as if you’ve come to your body more, you look back up at him, wiping away the fallen tears from his cheeks with the pad of your thumbs. He does the same in suit, holding onto your cheek after he does.

“I’m never letting you out of my sight again,” he says. And you believe him.

a/n: huge shoutout to @janybabyy for beta reading as always 💛 if you enjoyed this, please consider giving it a reblog or sharing your thoughts

[jinxvex]

omg haiii :3 #1 i just found your account and i love your works! the way you write is just… mwahmwahmwah. besides that! i’d love it if u could do a jinx x reader where reader is lowkey oblivious but jinx is super obvious with how much she wants to fuck… and when she finally gets to hit she degrades and dumbifies reader… orrrr am i just thirsty 🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️

♱ fantasy. ♱

oh girl this is sexy trust, WE IS THIRSTY TEW!! also thank you, you’re so sweet!! i’m glad you enjoy my works :))

syp. the first time jinx set her glowy shimmer-charged eyes on you, she knew she had to have you—and she always gets what she wants. no matter that you were friends and you were oblivious to her constantly undressing you with her eyes, fighting her urges to completely ruin, defile, and destroy you. you’d come to realize soon enough.

cw: nsfw content!!, dom!jinx plotting on that p***y (lol), sub!reader (i'm a switch!jinx truther but let me cook...), a lot of degrading + dumbification, cursing, dirty talk, some praise, teasing, mocking, she forces you to take it!!, mentions of oral/fingering/gun-play, strap-on sex, hair-pulling, pet names (toots, hon, babe, baby, bunny, etc?), possessiveness, nastiness galore (lord forgive me!), reader’s past sex life is purposefully written to be vague, + prob more

wc: 4.2k!!

jinx’s fantasies involving you started a month ago when she was off roaming the rowdy streets of the undercity for a market sale. well, before it. she had begrudgingly taken up silco’s orders to keep tabs on the shipment coming in and out before the market opened to the public. for what? ‘who freakin’ knows?!’ she thought.

in retrospect, jinx was never an overly sexual person. she understood what it was, why people participated in it, and her own sexual preferences but she’d never devoted much time to finding someone to fuck or to fuck her for that matter. she's fucked before, but that was it. plunging her long, slender fingers into her own cunt while reading a racy scene in a shitty romance novel was enough to get her rocks off. she figured something was missing but she brushed it off.

her mind was… elsewhere most of the time.

(a month ago...)

lost in her thoughts, per usual, jinx doesn’t see you standing in all your beautiful glory. she walks right past you, eyes darting along everything she can see to accurately take in the information silco wants her to report back to him. she's still preoccupied with the inner workings of her mind and not too much with the zaunite public.

well, that's bound to change one way or another.

suddenly, she's stopping dead in her tracks. something's changed. the air feels charged, full of opportunity and something else. curly lines, shapes, and colorful graphics fill her vision—overwhelming but she feels as though she can really see clearly for the first time.

her nostrils catch a whiff of something… sweet. inviting. like freshly baked cookies although it's almost incomparable to how truly delectable the scent is. she's taken by surprise at the smell of something so good, good enough to eat, to devour. she’s never smelt anything or anyone so delicious. it intrigued her beyond belief, she knew that whatever it was, she was going to have that thing.

that’s when in her own self-induced frenzy she'd caused by frantically turning and thrashing around to look for where the smell led her, she sees you for the first time. as radiant as ever.

everything's in slow motion.

you're leaning up against a metal post and speaking to a market vendor, your voice as sweet as ever chatting to them about ‘who the fuck cares’. your smile is the brightest she’d ever seen living in a place full of drug addicts, violence, and poverty like you’ve never been subjected to zaun in your entire life.

she watches as you flip your hair to one side, hips swaying and fingers twiddling against your satchel. she watches you so intently, that she can see your eyes blinking slowly, she can count your individual eyelashes and remember the number for the rest of her life.

to say the least, jinx is enamored by the sight of you, let alone your smell. images of how good you'd look naked, and what your skin would feel like against hers cloud her vision, creating the perfect first impression of you in her mind. she looks further at you, specifically your ass and the jeans hugging it perfectly as well as the curve of your hips. the veins in your neck travel further down beneath your shirt and she can't help but wonder what your chest would look like.

bare.

before this moment, she'd never thought of somebody in such a vulgar light; it put her in a state of shock. she let her mind wander even farther off into jinx-landia and she imagines what it would feel like to slide her fingers into your pussy and press the pads of them onto your g-spot. she wants to know what it feels like to feel you get wetter and wetter and what it feels like to make out with your pussy—to push your own juices into your mouth and kiss you dumb. she thinks about testing how deep your cunt could get—how pretty your ass would look riding a cock, tits bouncing in the air.

controlling herself was something jinx always had problems with, so she isn't surprised when she is unable to stop herself from approaching you. her feet seem to be dragging themselves towards you like some sort of magnetic force.

“hiya, toots,” spills from her lips before she can even stop and think about what she's doing.

you pause your conversation with whomever you're speaking to, looking over in her direction to find her staring intently at you. confused and a little petrified, you stand up straighter, as you aren't expecting silco’s adoptive daughter to be staring you down at the beginning of some random ass tuesday morning.

“uhm, hey,” you respond, sounding more like a question rather than a greeting in return.

‘this is gonna be so much fun,’ jinx’s eyes light up and she lets her lips curl up in a friendly smirk, running through ways in her mind how exactly she’d ruin your body, mark you up, and claim you for herself.

because no matter what, nobody else is ever getting a piece of you now that she's sought you out.

no fuckin’ way.

…

somewhere in the present, there’s an idea—a certain narrative established between you and jinx.

you’re friends. good ones.

you don't know what else would explain the obvious liking jinx has taken to you. what else would explain the way she’s always touching you, looking after you, and asking you personal questions? questions so personal they have your eyes widening and gripping the edges of your clothes.

"have you ever, y'know, done it before? had sex?"

"what sorta stuff you into? like, sex stuff."

"you ever touch yourself? what feels the best? just trying to see if i could learn somethin' interesting for myself."

you never answer, often opting to lower your head in silence. how could you? it was wildly inappropriate and quite frankly, jinx made you shy. maybe it's because she's so pretty, and bold, and has a waist so small and touchable that you just want to-

no! 'why does she care so much?' you ask yourself frequently. no friend has ever been so crass...

duh! she gives a shit because she wants to fuck your brains out 'n then maybe cuddle you a bit! but you don't know that...

jinx follows you around too, insisting you need protecting since "you're too pretty 'n perfect" to not have protection.

one day, she started walking you to your god-awful job and never stopped. her excuse was, "can't have anyone takin' advantage of ya so early in the morning, princess. janna knows they'd try with a face 'n a body like that...whew", she whistled to herself.

needless to say, she kept your life interesting. she always seems to find you, no matter where you are. like she can sense your presence anywhere. you figure she doesn't have many people to talk to, everyone's scared of her being silco's daughter and all. but, you don't have anyone either; no parents or friends. no girlfriend.

well that makes two of you. sort of.

you both are currently smushed together on her sofa in her hideout making bracelets—snacks, craft supplies, and sleepover galore surrounding you. earlier on in the day, jinx had swung by your apartment (how she found out where you lived, you had no clue) and invited you over for a sleepover for the first time. you were surprised she was trusting you enough to let you see where she retreats at night and where she spends most of her time eating, sleeping, plotting; scheming.

she has a knack for making you feel special; like it’s just you two in the world and nothing else matters.

she makes you feel alive.

you’re shaken out of your thoughts by a grinning jinx. yes, physically shaken. both of her palms are placed on your shoulders, gripping them tight and looking into your eyes almost as a way to silently ask if you’re having as much fun as her. heat transfers from her usually cold hands to your skin which has you internally reeling. you’re wearing a tank top, comfortable enough with her to show a little something extra, “whatcha thinkin’ about, hon?”

you smile back at her, “nothing.”

you swear you see her eyes flicker down to your chest for a split second but you ignore it. her eyes move quick due to the shimmer, ‘you’re seeing shit, girl’ claims the angel on your shoulder.

“hmm, you’re lying.”

“am not!” you counter.

“are too,” she doubles back.

“whatever.” you finalize, emphasizing the ‘ever’. you’re not interested in arguing with her any further or giving her the satisfaction of proving her right.

you focus on the friendship bracelet you’re creating for her, determined to make it as pretty as you can for her. you want her to wear it—like it. love it, even. it fills you with a sick satisfaction knowing that soon you’d be wearing each other's creations, way more than it would if you just saw her as a friend. you see her pause her movements out of the corner of your eye but you keep going.

the faint sound of her own bracelet dropping to the couch cushion causes your head to rise up, looking at her in slight confusion. you’re not shocked to realize that she’s already looking at you.

“’m bored,” jinx replies blankly, pouting cutely.

“and grass is green. what else is new? you’re always bored, girl,” you playfully nudge her arm.

“well… grass has more of a grey hue down here so-“

the funny but slightly depressing joke nearly flew over your head but the knowing smirk on her face clued you in on her shenanigans.

you gasp in disbelief and nudge her arm a little harder now, fighting to stifle your laugh under your breath, “ha ha. very funny.”

“yeah, toots. i’m extremely hilarious,” she holds her head up high and crosses her arms above her chest.

she pauses, “let’s play somethin’.

she faces you fully now, right knee switching from resting next to your left to mirroring both of your knees, parallel to you. she scoots closer, and by now you know her calculating personality. you know that whatever she’s up to, has to be mischievous.

“ever hear of truth or dare?”

you roll your eyes, “of course i have!”

“then, you know the rules… right?”

“yes, jinx. i know how to play,” you rebuttal.

maybe you should’ve known her attention span wouldn’t last long while bracelet making. even if the speaker blared her favorite music at her gadget station, filling the space with a comfortable ambiance.

she smiles widely, “then let’s fuckin’ play!

“it’ll be so. much. fun,” she gets closer to your face with each word to emphasize her point, biting her lip and giving you intense eye contact. sexually charged eye contact. but again, you don't realize.

“fine. fine! but you’re going first. you're better at this sorta thing.”

she leans back to give you more space, just enough space to where it's socially acceptable to still be incredibly close to your friend. she's clapping her manicured hands together as her smile grows bigger and her shoulders tense with excitement.

"truth or dare?!" she asks in a televised over-dramatic fashion.

"truth."

'too easy' she thought. although, 'this is good,' her thoughts linger further. she figures she should start you off easy.

jinx has now stopped her clapping to put a finger on her chin in a thinking motion, obviously pretending to conjure up an interesting question that she's probably already picked out in her head.

"hmm...have you ever had a boyfriend?" she asks confidently, putting emphasis on the 'boy' part of "boyfriend" in a mocking manner; like how a sibling or family member would tease you about a crush.

your eyes widen, already caught off-guard by her first question.

"uhm... no. i-i don't really like boys like that."

she licks her lower lip and smiles once again, unbeknownst to you because you've just confirmed that she actually has a chance to win you over. although, she had her suspicions when she first met you.

"ever had a girlfriend?" she questions further, a serious, eerie edge to her voice appearing at the thought of you ever even romantically touching another girl. hell, in any way, shape, or form.

blinking rapidly, you shut her down quickly, "what, no! never really got the… chance to."

initially, you were going to tease her by mentioning that she was only allowed to ask one question but, you couldn't help but shake the feeling that she wasn't going down without an answer from you.

"awesome, good to know! your turn."

"okay. truth or da-"

"dare," she cuts you off delightedly.

you file through your mind to give her something entertaining to do but you find absolutely nothing, your mind blank like always the very moment you get around her. jinx makes you feel like you don't have to live your life thinking so hard. it's peaceful.

"damn, you are bad at this game," she snorts.

"hey, i can't help it. you've gotta help me here."

she raises a brow, "i mean, you could ask me t'do basically anything. y'know i'd do it," she slowly cocks her head to the side, still gazing deep into your irises. her braids follow the movement of her head.

"make it nasty."

"what the hell am i supposed to do? tell you to take off your clothes?!"

she doesn't waver, "yeah. yeah, that's a good one. do it."

you gulp, throat now dryer than ever and your fingers hurt from tightly grasping the fabric of your sleep shorts, 'here goes nothing.'

"u-uh... i dare you to t-take off your shirt," you order weakly.

jinx doesn't even let you finish your sentence before she's crossing her arms in front of her to tug the tiny, thin tank top off of her body, you follow her hands and you watch her chuck it on the floor carelessly. you look back up at her only to realize that,

she isn’t fucking wearing a bra.

you gasp in shock and secret arousal, eyes darting to the spot below you as you avoid looking at her soft, perky chest any longer, not wanting to over-step or make her uncomfortable.

"hey, you're startin' to hurt my feelings, babe. gave you that idea for a reason. makes shit more... interesting."

you look up to meet her eyes and for the nth time, you see her staring right back at you, gaze charged with something more than usual. you may have been oblivious, but you weren't dumb, something was definitely going on here. something that friends shouldn't do alone.

but you can't stop. it's turning you on.

the game continues on for many rounds after that, you and jinx switching back and forth from truth and dare, learning more and more about each other as time passes by. you start to get the hang of her outlandish questions, answering them shyly but not as reluctant as before. something you'd never get used to was the hypnotizing way her tits bounced with each slight movement, entrancing you. you learn that she's had sex once before and that she likes rope play and getting her hair pulled.

she also mentions other personal traits of hers that make your head spin, "y'know when i get wet, i get reeeally wet. like water wet."

needless to say, you know more than you should. she seemed to not mind telling you these things either, almost excited to clue you in.

"truth or dare, baby?"

"truth," you choose once more, the pet name affecting your better judgment and the seductive tinge to her voice causing the wetness already present in your underwear to leak through to your shorts.

jinx doesn't attempt to pretend to think of a question, "tell me, toots. what turns you on? what gets ya goin'?"

"what do you mean? like some sort of a kink?"

"yeah, like a kink."

embarrassment falls over your face like a dam breaking. you have to lie. this was getting too up close and personal for your own good and the only thing that could save what's left of your dignity is a lie.

"i-i don't know..."

so much for a lie.

her unhappiness with your answer is expressed when you see her narrowing her eyes at you. she leans in close, nose brushing yours and you can feel her warm breath on your face, "i know you're lying," she says real sing-songy-like. she's teasing you, and enjoying it.

her slender finger points in your face, “no fair! showed you my tits, toots! play by the rules."

"okay! okay! god, this is so fucking embarrassing-"

"c'mon..," she urges you on, eager to learn more about your sexual side and what takes you cream. she desired to know what made your pussy wet before she stuffed you full. but again, you don't know that.

"i-um. i read something onc-,”

she cuts you off once again, “don’t got all day!”

you sigh, “okay! i like getting called names. mean ones,” you blurt out quickly—sick of her antics.

“and i think i like it…rougher?”

her seemingly continuous stare falters for a split second before a bubbly laugh escapes her throat, smiling bigger and better than she has all day.

“oh, yeah? you like it… rough? you like getting treated like you’re nothin’?” she laughs out incredulously and somehow she’s gotten closer to you, lips almost close enough to graze yours.

“jinx… i- what are you-“

“what if we… played somethin’ else? somethin’ a little more worth our while.”

she figures, ‘ay, i’ve waited long enough…i need her'.

“like what?” you inquire even though you're no longer oblivious, catching on to what she means by “somethin’ else.” you feign innocence.

you feel a calculating hand travel up your leg, they’re slightly sweaty and cold which makes a shiver crawl down your spine. your chest visibly quickens, eyebrows furrowing, and eyes glossy with desire. jinx, still maintaining eye contact with you, remains calm although internally jumping for joy as she's finally got you where she wanted you the moment she laid eyes on you.

"how wet are ya right now, toots? you look like you're 'bout to cream your fuckin' pants!"

you audibly gasp, and she continues,

"i bet you're just drippin' down there... this whole time i've been sittin' here thinkin' you're being tortured answering all my questions, but, the entire time you've been gettin' off to it, haven't ya?!"

a single tear gathers in your eye out of complete and utter embarrassment. despite that, you'd be lying to yourself if you said you didn't fucking love it.

her hand stops at the edge of your top, fiddling softly with it, "you can tell me to stop, baby! but, i have a feeling you don't want that," she whispers against your lips. you feel her tug the bottom of your tank top tighter, balling it in her clammy fist.

"dont! d-dont stop."

and just like that, a switch flips in her head. she's grabbing the back of your neck and smushing her lips against yours, capturing them in a searing kiss that has your lips aching. as soon as you feel her tongue attempt to break into your mouth, you let her in.

you initially jump in surprise but quickly sink into the kiss once you get used to the overwhelming contrast between her cold hands clutching your waist and her warm lips pressed on your lips. soon, she's basically drooling into your mouth, tongue trailing over every detail of the inside of your mouth as if she's trying to memorize the space. it's disgusting, really. but, it makes your cunt sloppy.

jinx breaks the kiss to pull your top over your head. she throws it on top of hers. the same one she abandoned long ago at the start of the game. it creates a small heap on the floor of her cozy abode.

"fuckin' whore," she laughs.

you moan, biting your lip softly as a seductive tactic to keep her kissing you.

"wooow!!" she drags out humorously, pressing her hand against your throat and tightening slowly with each word that comes out of her mouth, "you really are a slut. you like when i'm mean, slut?"

you nod, words seemingly impossible to form at this point.

she tightens her hold on you, bringing your neck closer so her mouth resides next to your ear, "if you don't speak up, i'm gonna make it hurt. 's gonna hurt so bad, bunny. gonna torture you. ‘n i know it’s our first time and all! don’t wanna have to scare ya just yet!"

unable to stop rambling, she continues, "hmm... maybe i'll shove the biggest fucking cock i have into your tight cunt... no prep! betcha you'd take it so well. hell, you'd probably like it! you're nasty like that."

"maybe i'll stuff my gun in there...with the bullets inside."

"please, jinx. fuck me.”

she just smiles, “i thought you’d never ask.”

…

you swear you see your life flash before your eyes because of how hard jinx is pounding your poor, abused cunt into the couch cushion. she has you face down—ass up with your hands held together behind your back by her own hands. your face rests on the couch arm, halfway visible to her so she can marvel at your eyes rolling to the back of your head and crossing achingly.

her own eyes roll at the sight of you in such a lewd state, “fuck, toots! you’re takin’ this cock so good. suckin’ me in your pussy like a good little cockslut. mmph. jus' swallowing it whole, fuck!!"

her pace is fast but calculated; and planned. as always. she’s roughly rolling her hips into yours to produce the addictive whore-ish moans to spill from your mouth. she’s also focused on watching her cock disappear in you, your cunt swallowing her cock like it was supposed to be there. the open space is filled with creamy cunt sounds and skin-slapping noises.

“holy fuckin’ shit, hear that? ya hear that pussy creaming ‘round my dick? she’s talkin’ to me, baby!”

you speak, remembering her resentment towards you not responding to her, “y-yes! i-i do, jinxie.”

“yeah?! you think she’s tryin’ to tell me how much she loves me? how much she loves when i split her open on my dick?” she reaches below your stomach to slap at your clit right where the balls on the faux cock meet your skin and you shudder in pleasure.

“fucking love your dick, ‘s so good, s-shit!”

it’s like her mouth won’t stop. she’s relentless—bullying you with her words as well as her cock. jinx pulls you up by your hair so your upper body mirrors hers. she slows her pace to thrust deeper and harder in you, damn near knocking the wind out of you. that causes to you choke on your breath, and your mouth is open as far as it can go.

“h-hah! aww… ‘s just sooo good, isn’t it?"

"see what happens when you’re good for me? good lil’ whores get good dick, ‘n i love givin’ it to ya, hon.”

you’re uncontrollably moaning, voice echoing loudly as you beg her for more—to wreck you.

“more! m-more please!”

“more?!“ she removes her hand from your head to dig her nails into your hips so she can get deeper, so she can open you up.

“you. want. fuckin’. more?!” she slams into your pussy with each word.

your pussy is drooling with your arousal and the shared sweat between you and jinx. you can feel it squelching down your legs with every thrust and throaty laugh she lets out at your pathetic form.

“god, you should see yourself. such’a perfect slut.”

with every word you feel your pussy quiver, getting closer and closer to cumming around her cock. when you curl your toes and inch off of her to prevent yourself from orgasming a whopping 3 minutes in she’s not having it, quickening her pace but keeping her almost-painful thrusts deep.

“nope! gonna take it all. ya asked for it, toots! you begged me to stick my dick in you. so take all of it.”

“b-but ‘m gonna cum! don't wanna yet! oh my god, p-please!!” you beg her for the slightest bit of mercy.

uncaring, she leans down next to the side of your head, lowering her voice, “you’re gonna fuckin’ cum, ‘n you’re gonna cum telling me whose pussy this is. who’s is it, babe?”

“who’s feedin’ this cunt good dick?!”

“you, you! only you.”

“yeah, ‘s me. cum, toots. soak me—get me wet.”

and that was it, “fuck! ‘m cumming!”

you release a soul-crushing moan and triggered by your sudden high, you grip the edges of the couch arm and fuck your ass back on her to deepen her thrusts if that’s even possible. wetness squirts from your cunt and everywhere around you, soaking the entire space below you including jinx’s lower half. the last thing you remember before you pass the fuck out is the hazy, content look on her face and incoherent mumbles that probably consisted of,

“that was way better than a fuckin’ fantasy.”

…

PLEASE TAKE THIS FOOD WHILE I WORK ON MY SEV REQS!!🙏🏽🫣...

[1296-very-good-year]

The thing that bugs me most about Caitlyn's arc is how obviously she was forced into the position Jayce had been set up to fill.

Jayce was the de facto head of the council that Sheriff Marcus (keep that in mind) reported directly to for city security.

He was the Golden Boy, Man of Progress, beloved by everyone in Piltover for the invention of Hextech! Charismatic! Handsome!

They didn't NEED martial law. After Jayce emerged unscathed from the terrorist attack, most of the council dead, Piltover would have been falling over itself to give him sole authority regardless of him wanting to quit the council right before the attack.

And Jayce should have been beside himself with rage! Jinx turned his invention, his dream, into a weapon that nearly killed him and the two people he loves most! Mel and Viktor, at the same time! She ruined his peace deal! (And killed Silco, but for some reason Cait and Vi never tell anyone about that)

But nope. He's just sad, and tries to talk Caitlyn down from wanting to kill Jinx.... Like wtf!! Where did his passion go?? His recklessness? Caitlyn got it all.

Let's say he's still reeling after killing the kid in his shimmer raid and fearing the consequences of violent intervention. Fine. But then there is the attack at the memorial. Now it's bigger than Jinx, and his entire city is threatened.

Picture the end of episode 1, with the council gathering in the basement after the memorial attack and it is JAYCE marching in to announce the strike team, with Caitlyn and Vi beside him, with their shiny Hextech weapons.

They didn't need to give Caitlyn political power. She could have become Sheriff under Jayce! She would have had nearly the EXACT same scenes. She doesn't get a single moment where she acts like a political leader in Act 2 anyway!

We never see her do anything the sheriff wouldn't do, which tells me this was a late change to cram all the remaining story into one season, to every character's detriment. If Caitlyn had just been following Jayce's orders until running into Vi, her flip would not have felt so jarring.

She loves Jayce as an older brother, she's grieving her mother, she and Jayce could have BOTH been manipulated by Ambessa. Let Caitlyn be at the forefront of all the awful shit she's ORDERED to do, instead of ordering it HERSELF.

By giving her ultimate authority instead, the few clipped scenes of her redemption, her "I know" and letting Jinx go free are nowhere near enough to get the audience back on her side. As evidenced by how many people hated her arc this season.

[nanavn]

[ID: Several photos, totaling a chapter from the book BUTCH is a NOUN.

FAGGOT BUTCH

“I hated that essay,” he says to me, “about femmes who care for you when you travel; I really hated it.” And when I ask why he tells me that he thinks it sounds like all butches should be soothed by femmes, and vice versa; he says, “Why would those femmes have assumed that you were a butch who liked femmes?” He says, “Maybe you’re a faggot butch, did they even consider that?” He says, “I know you’re not just for femmes.” That’s what he says, but I know what he’s thinking. And even though I know how dangerous it is to assume I know what someone is thinking, I know this butch maybe as well as I know myself, and he’s thinking, “Fuck you, for having it easy even in being queer. Fuck you for going along on your happy little way to San Francisco and finding a bunch of femmes who see you as a big stud-duck butch and just want to pour themselves through your fingers. It’s just as hard to be a faggot butch as it is to be any kind of fag.” There’s all that masculinity to consider when you want to rub up against someone, like that old joke about porcupines: How do porcupines mate? Very carefully. He’s saying, “I want to show up at brunch someplace and assume that anyone who I want to flirt with will want to flirt back, and will do it, will want to, without fear of recrimination from hir community. I want you to put something in that book of yours for me. I am a butch whose identity, sexual or otherwise, has nothing to do with femmes. They are not my natural partners in this gender crime the way they are yours. I wake and sleep in the arms of butches like me, butches who understand a whole host of things about my life, my world, the way I see things, the way things affect me that no one else could understand. Write about us. Write that we have sweet, hot sex in which no one has to put on a pair of panties, or take them off; write about how good it feels when ze fucks me hard, so hard. Write about how it feels to fall asleep with the weight of a butch on you, one tattooed arm and one furry leg pinning you down and grounding you in your sleep. “Write about all the ways in which butches care for each other, comfort each other. Write about how we understand all the shit that comes in the world for our partners and salve it as best we can, about how I have all the more respect for hir because of all I know it takes to survive as a butch.

“Write about how, as soon as butches were no longer the scourge of dykedom for aping masculinity, or whatever that baloney was, it became faggot butches who were scorned and derided. Everyone understands butch/femme because it seems familiar, like Ozzie and Harriet but with better hair and more pussy. Everyone understands femme on femme, even though you don’t see it all that often cause it doesn’t read queer, you know, but it’s in the first images of‘lesbian love’ most of us see, in porn or on television. Two longhaired pretty girls smooching in a daring fashion wherever they happen to be. No one’s threatened by that, not the dykes, not the men, nobody, but if I want to kiss my butch anywhere, I’d better be damn sure of my audience, or better yet, be sure we don’t have one. “I can be a butch without opening doors for girls,” he’s saying. “I can do it even if I follow while dancing, I can do it without spending my Saturday afternoons as a femme’s shopping bottom at the mall and I do. I am. I am honorable, I take good care of the people I love as well as I possibly can; I watch out for my community. I have a butch heart full of love that I can express when I feel safe enough; I walk in the world resisting gender norms and transgressing gender rules, transcending them. I am fixing whatever I can, whenever I can, and I laugh, and play, and let the spaces in my masculinity show, just like you, just like every butch. I get all slicked up for a date in a suit and tie and I pick up my date, also in a suit and tie, and we just open the door if we get to it first and we take turns paying, and it doesn’t make me less a butch. It doesn’t make me less of anything. It doesn’t mean that I don’t think femmes are swell, I surely do, but they are not my salvation when I travel, they are not the North of my heart’s compass. That’s butches for me, and I will always go a little weak when I see someone who looks scared and hardened and delighted and ashamed and proud — proud, just like me.

“You’re writing a book? Of course, I’m glad, but don’t chicken out. Don’t write a book that speaks so many volumes about your adoration for femmes that it leaves out the ways in which I know you cherish butches too. Yes, not the same way as you cherish femmes, entirely differently, butches and femmes are different creatures, sure, but I don’t just mean how glad you are and always will be to have butch brothers, abutch tribe. I mean, make sure you don’t forget to mention that you put butches on their knees in front of you and enjoy them, that you kneel down too, that you sit sometimes stunned by how much you want to lick a buzz cut or a hot tattoo, that you know what a great grace it is to fall asleep next to a butch’s heart and muscle and skin and ink and fur, that you understand how wonderful it can be to feel butch arms around you. Make sure you mention me, make sure you give me and my lovers and my life the same benefit of some of your words, make sure you don’t write another book that leaves us on the cutting-room floor. Give us a place on the landscape, help us become visible. Say this: Say that when butches love butches they hold lightning between them, but that as much as it burns it also illuminates. That it’s the sweetest burn I’ve ever known in my life of searing pain, that it keeps me from feeling the flames of the world’s hate licking the soles of my boots, that I hold it in my heart and it fuels me every day. Say that it shows me things I could never see any other way, that without it I would grow cold and die. Say that there is nothing else I would rather be.”

End ID]

Text from the link in OP

butch is a noun, s. bear bergman 2006