#but it was always intended to work as a novel

[librarycomic]

The Employees: a workplace novel of the 22nd century by Olga Ravn. Translated by Martin Aitken. New Directions, 2023. 9780811234825. 144pp.

I love short novels by poets, and I saw this one on many Staff Picks shelves in independent bookstores before finally picking it up. The cover is striking, the book is unapologetically full of white space, and every statement in it made me feel like I was working to solve a well-thought-out puzzle.

The book is a series of numbered statements, most a page or shorter, that are not always presented in order. Some are missing. Each is one side of an interview with unnamed human and humanoid (manufactured human) crew members of a spacecraft named Six Thousand Ship, which has arrived at another planet, New Discovery. The crew brought aboard several objects that have strange properties, which have become the center of attention of many of the crew. Tensions rise between the humans and non-humans, and it feels like conflict is coming. It's hard to accept that all of the statements are factual, or that they're intended to be taken as such; as a whole, they create a sense of what's happening on the ship and to the crew.

It's a brilliant way to put together the story. I found I wasn't able to read more than six pages a night because I had to sit with them and think about their implications; the book took much longer to read than it otherwise would have based on its relatively short page count.

[kukuandkookie]

Sorry I know you worked hard on this analysis and yes it’s a very lovely and moving read and as others have said, it’s really strong and I can feel the passion—

But also…

BERYL AND SAPPHIRE MENTION??? 🥺🤧🥹

As much as I love Link Click, Beryl and Sapphire will truly always have a special space in my heart.

Especially since Link Click already has a huge fandom internationally too, but Beryl and Sapphire is more underrated globally and I tend to gravitate to loving underrated things even more loudly. But also for Link Click, it’s an objectively really strong donghua almost anyone would recommend to anyone else in a near heartbeat, while for Beryl and Sapphire, maybe it’s more flawed objectively in animation etc, but subjectively I always want to recommend it.

Anyway sorry for the Beryl and Sapphire freak out ahaha. I was just reading this and got hit in the face with them and ahhh I love them (they are actually very Shiguang energy in some arcs if people are into that!). 🥺

Also to touch briefly on why the nature of Shiguang’s relationship may be up to interpretation, I think of it as there being three layers to Chinese media in terms of queerness, mostly because censorship in China is a spectrum so it causes some discrepancies:

1) Uncensored (as much as they can be), explicit, canon BL: usually found in novels and audio dramas and manhua—examples include most popular danmei like Mo Dao Zu Shi or Erha

2) Censored but still intended to be BL and is thus canon through queer-coding (could be in the background or in the foreground): most often seen in donghua and cdramas (which unfortunately gets many BL cdramas labelled “bromance” even though they’re trying to go against censors as best as they can)—examples include the Mo Dao Zu Shi donghua adaptation or Wang Qi and Cui Bei in the background of Dalisi Rizhi or The Spirealm, a cdrama adaptation of danmei novel Kaleidoscope of Death

3) Homoerotic media that isn’t technically intended to be BL because we can’t assume the creative crews’ intentions but can be interpreted as such due to what can also be seen as queer-coding but is also still vague (not queer-baiting, because Chinese creators can’t even afford to queer-bait): most often seen in donghua and cdramas; these are what often get called “sworn brothers” in Chinese fandom, referencing a real historical tradition that’s similar to becoming “blood brothers,” and would be actually fair to call a bromance (personally, I like to call it “BL if you squint”)—for example, Link Click or the cdrama adaptation of Hikaru no Go

Censorship is horrible, but in the way humans adapt, it’s caused a unique situation for Chinese media where besides BL stories evolving to focus on genre and plot beyond just romance, relationships can be very very flexible. It’s really interesting to see, and it does make for lots of analysis potential! I think the recent cdrama The Way Home is a great example of this, as it obviously got past censors by being a story about brotherhood and family, yet everyone who watches it has raised an eyebrow at the potential gayness of it all.

That being said, sorry for derailing SLFNSKSH. I love media analyses but I don’t have anything more worthwhile than the insight you’ve already provided to share about Shiguang.

I do have some ideas about queer-coding in Chinese media in general and why real life bodies can’t portray it as much as animated or non-bodies (via audio dramas) can, which is the subject of an academic thing I’ve been trying to work on, but that’s no longer about Shiguang and Link Click itself. 😅

But it’s truly such an interesting thing to talk about it from so many possible angles!

Vortex We Took Every Breath to Follow : Shiguang and Their Companionship Through Life and Beyond

@justfrolikin I hope this will be a suitable reply to the question you asked; what I think about the nature of the bond Shiguang share.

First, a few words from me :

Even though I love engaging in fandom spaces and enjoy ship fanarts, fanfictions etc, till today my heart truly belongs to a very few ships. Shiguang is one of them. As long as one is not blinded by homophobic delusions, I enjoy discussing any kind of interpretation of my OTPs, be it 'Platonic', just friends™, romantic or whatever. But I have a fixed category (which very ironically is not quite fixed if you read the whole discussion) that fulfills my idea of true love.

for me, Love is a dialogic discourse with your existential other.

The terms I used are very loaded terms; 'dialogue' and 'other' come from the Bakhtinian philosophy of ethics, 'discourse' is a Foucauldian term and existentialism has a long postmodern and post-structuralist philosophical tradition. The reason I LOVE Link Click is because of their postmodern lens and the narratives of the characters, not only the protagonists fundamentally question what is the real purpose of life? Why do human bondings matter? The answers reside in the simplest vignette of everyday life. Grief, trauma, hope, memory, reconciliation, remembrance, love, family - these are the central themes of Link Click. Lu Guang and Cheng Xiaoshi's separate existence and their interpersonal dialogue thematically and structurally complements the main ethos of Link Click.

When asked about the nature of Shiguang relationship Director Li Haoling answered : 是生死之交咯! (Shì shēngsǐ zhī jiāo gē! - It's a life and death relationship!)

source :

Fate, mortality, death, remembrance are the building blocks of their relationship as we perceive it.

Now let me talk about something. When I first watched Link Click on September 17th, 2024, the first Intertexual connection I drew was with another text called Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett. Funnily enough, early in this year I wrote a crossover Hamlet adaptation (and won the second prize in a competition hehe) interweaving a few elements from Godot. Time loop, fragmentation of time and space, panopticon with no exit - all these elements featured in that. I recommend Waiting for Godot to you all, you'll understand why it resonates so much with Link Click.

Now,

Lu Guang is a person who is shown to be a character who has some mysterious powers to manipulate time and space. Even from the very beginning, he has this dominant (and sometimes seemingly monologic that feels problematic to new viewers) voice with which he guides Cheng Xiaoshi through the dives. He is apparently headstrong and has acquired all kinds of praises ™ like hypocrite, selfish (lol) and what not. Again quoting Li Haoling "Lu Guang is a complex and delicate character." But after the release of 'The Eye' and 'The Lull', I think we are pretty sure that Lu Guang has been trapped in a rewind, like a Sisyphus figure. A friend of mine told me the other day, "Superficially, Lu Guang is presented as an archetypal strategist, the one who guides, the one who keeps things in control, but in reality, he has no agency whatsoever." Lu Guang lacks the fundamental agency in life (we all do but we have to accept it one day or other) and that mortifying realisation comes to him with the death of Cheng Xiaoshi. What is unacceptable to him is the most obvious outcome of a mortal life : death. Lu Guang's tragic flaw stems from this unacceptability of Cheng Xiaoshi's death and him attempting to manipulate time, very Sisyphus of him. Till now, we are yet to see Lu Guang's character traits without any reference to Cheng Xiaoshi but this does not reduce his character depth. His denial is actually very delicious ( I almost wrote a paper on this, taking the popular sci-fi trope of time travel as an allegorical and symbolic means of resistance and subversion but anyway, it's not relevant here)

Lu Guang's character makes me fall in love with the song Flash by Gorilla Attack. It is from Lu Guang's character, no one can convince me otherwise.

Just a loop A bored 'n loop Should I do this now 'til the end? Into the story As just an extra You are the reason I live But you don't remember me? Oh, can I be with you?

And

The only thing that I got, just like a little lamp I gotta go in one-way smoke Resist the lifeless scenario Become the person The person I wished for that day The room like a coffin, too bright A groove that I lost faraway Blanket, I need a blanket Not a synthetic one Notice the regret engraved so hard

And the line that keeps coming back as a haunting refrain :

Flash me, flash me Gotta get the power to rewrite I just wanna deny, I just wanna rewrite, yeah

Every time I listen to this song, these lines send a chill down my spine. But Lu Guang's obsession with 'rewrite' echoes with what my professor said to be Hamlet's constant meta-theatrical discomfort with the script, role, play he has been provided with. He does not comply with the playwright's words. Apart from time and death, I think Lu Guang's most wretched enemy is Li Haoling himself. That's why he constantly wants to 'rewrite', but all he has got till now is 'rewind'. Now whether his 'urge to rewrite' will turn into a successful 'write back' is the central play of the plot we are looking up to. What is my personal opinion on the ending?

The ending which is so dryly plausible in our real world is Lu Guang accepting his defeat and carries within him the remembrance of Cheng Xiaoshi.

But my question is, my brother in Buddhism Li Haoling, why the fuck would I watch your Link Click to know that death is the node that can't be changed? Is it not the given fact? It's a cultural text, however modern or postmodern a text might be, it ultimately uses the plot to defamiliarise and convey well known concepts and emotions with a critical engagement. A plot is just a vehicle, a crucial one, to help us have a greater and more nuanced vision of life. Due to non-linear narrative and active subversion of chronotope, complex plot will have plot twists and cliffhangers BUT it still has to perform a crucial, non negotiable role - the arc. If the beginning point and the ending point have the same temperaments, what kind of significance will it even achieve?

If Lu Guang can't write back at the end of Link Click, the structure of the plot will be like this :

1. Exposition, rising action : Cheng Xiaoshi died at the very beginning, Lu Guang is fucked.

2. Climactic stage : shit and shit and complex quantum physics, hallelujah hot villains, 'I am a great writer I can kill any character TeeeHeeeeHeeee', backstories, parallel narratives, foil characters have no relevance and rendered completely meaningless,

3. Falling action and resolution : Cheng Xiaoshi is still dead to the very ending, Lu Guang is still fucked.

No catharsis, not a milimeter of displacement from the beginning point.

What is the fucking point?! From the perspective of a writer and a critical reader, I can say it will be a sheer waste of money, time and potential. I would rather watch... whatever.

The friend I mentioned before told me, " You know why Emma or Chen Bin die? They had to die. Emma had a loving family, she got the job she wanted, she had her hardships but she didn't begin with tragedy. And when tragedy came, she was so not ready to negotiate the problem and considered self-annihilation as her first choice. She actively erased the possibility of dialogue with herself. If Emma were an orphan, struggling with unemployment and other hardships from the very beginning, I don't think Emma would die that easily. Emma was denied the conflict of life which very ironically tests human agency itself."

And for Chen Bin...during my first watch, the moment I saw him my instincts told me he was going to die. He had a loving wife, a daughter, he loved her, she accepted the proposal and they married soon. Conflict where? To bring his story to a full circle, he had to die.

I can say every parallel story in Link Click can be judged from this lens. People who had a point of conflict (the noodle lesbians, the couple who lost their child, Xu Shanshan, that old man) engaged in dialogue with themselves, others and social forces ultimately got a happy ending. Even in the earthquake episode, it's a story of reconciliation with the past, the man got his mother's photos and it's plausible and satisfying (and bittersweet resolution). He got his (absent) father back.

Another thing, we as a fandom have a collective amnesia about....*drumrolls* Cheng Xiaoshi's character! Congratulations! The man, the freaking protagonist just dies at the beginning, accepts his death, and remains dead. Doomed yaoi allegations are just nonsense. Link Click is doomed if Shiguang doesn't get a happy ending. Link Click is NOT a dramatic monologue told from Lu Guang's perspective, engaging with his perpetual trance of melancholy and him holding onto Cheng Xiaoshi's memento mori.

If Lu Guang is attempting to write back to Li Haoling and the doomed yaoi allegations, Cheng is attempting to write back to Lu Guang himself, not in confirming his own death, but saving Lu Guang from the loop of eternity and by being together. Cheng Xiaoshi is always seen to be guided by Lu Guang, he has to witness repercussions of his actions. Even with all this knowledge I will say, Cheng Xiaoshi has way more agency than Lu Guang has. During my first watch, I could feel Lu Guang has this barrier of guilt and unsettled emotions wrapped around him which denies Cheng Xiaoshi access into the deepest core of his subjectivity. Even though he achingly wishes to be together with Cheng Xiaoshi, the burden of his past actions and PTSD holds him back from being together with him, as if his existence is antithetical to Cheng Xiaoshi's existence. Cheng Xiaoshi is that glitch in the matrix that messes up Lu Guang's plans of withdrawing himself from Cheng Xiaoshi. Cheng Xiaoshi should not listen to everything Lu Guang orders. In season 1, he mostly conforms to Lu Guang's ideals, but in season 2, when Lu Guang was hospitalised, Cheng Xiaoshi became more active and you could tell a layer of barrier melted away. He was less of a stone statue, showed more emotions (the S2ep1 lmao when he said "would you prefer if I die?" abhimaan we call it), then the unique high five that feels like Lu Guang accepting Cheng Xiaoshi's proposal or something :

(LMAO ignore my comments, but what I said is true)

My point is, Cheng Xiaoshi is Lu Guang's existential other and vice versa. They cannot live without each other. They cannot exist without each other. If one dies, the other will die and I want them living happily ever after in heaven. Cause 'Break' clearly depicts them as soulmates. I personally take Break as the ultimate canonical ending

Do you see? each of them has one wing missing, meaning that it's their cumulative effort that will make them fly successfully. FYI, there is another Haoling directed, Haoliners Animation League animated canonical queer donghua called 'Beryl and Sapphire'. A separate episode, episode 13 just explores this 'one wing soulmate trope'.

Now take them as friends, platonic friends with no erotic feelings, pure familial feelings or whatever, they are like Yin and Yang, like Shiv and Shakti, and Yin changes to Yang and Yang changes to Yin actively as they interact. You will have a hard time pointing out who is who. I have watched TGCF and Beryl and Sapphire and a tiny bit of Spiritpact - all three directed by Li Haoling and I am well aware of his narrative strategy to represent soulmates and Link Click seems to be the one of the greatest (and my favourite) product of that genius mind.

I began with team Lu Guang cause he is a scorpio, I understand him, his birthday almost coincides with mine, we share some identical issues. But the fandom's often yeeting Cheng Xiaoshi out of the narrative phenomenon brought back my due attention to him. Is Cheng Xiaoshi so willing to be doomed? Does he not yearn to be with Lu Guang? Let me whisper to your ear...he yearns for him too.

so he

does understand that the person who dies...dies, death affects them the least who dies, it's the people, the family and loved ones who actually suffer. This man will leave his Lu Guang on his own volition? eh.

Also I wanna talk about Link Click's strategy of deliberate misdirection. The first and second seasons are so deliberately crafted (manipulation of narrative you can say) to actively erase Lu Guang's subjectivity and nuance. We are just denied access his perspective. He is mysterious but not that aligns itself with a viewer's emotions. In fact, during my recent re-watch, I felt "wtf Lu Guang, why are you interacting with Cheng Xiaoshi like a straight dudebro?" He is a menace, the kind I usually don't like. But there also seemed to be a critical undercurrent which I couldn't really grasp, but it was surely there. It was adding up to my increasing discomfort and made me question - "was it just my wishful projection? they do not share that bond at all." I was so pissed at that thought that I almost decided I am not gonna abandon Link Click. BUT BRO, BRO

'The Eye' and 'Lull' just blew my mind. I was not that affected by Cheng Xiaoshi's corpse advertisement agenda (that corpse is drawing people's attention who is suddenly aware of Yingdu release, great tactic, Haoling) what pleasantly brought me out of despair is Lu Guang's love for Cheng Xiaoshi was acknowledged in these songs. You will read between the lines on your own in season 1 and season 2 if you have that critical method to engage with a cultural text, but the silencing narrative was also very prominent. I very much felt that the Shiguang story is actually the central action, and not the creative sci-fi archtexual exercise of genres, which again, is just the vehicle. But The Eye and Lull focus upon them, them and them. Their emotions are acknowledged, they are no longer behind the veils of symbolism, parallel narratives, intense defamiliarisation; their emotional dialogue now not only demands a voice of their own but also has the potential to reclaim the central part of the stage as they struggle and negotiate power and agency. And I am here for it.

@guangshi-091305 I present to you my rubbish.

[not-poignant]

The King Albion comment in the latest excerpt made me wonder: when is Tradewinds set in the Fae Tales canon? Obviously after Gwyn's demotion but before Albion ascended, but like, during COFT or sometime in the 10 year gap between COFT and TIP? Or maybe even early TIP, as Albion ascended at the end of TIP2

Hi anon!

So I actually wrote all of Tradewinds in 2014. It's since had several major edits (one in 2015, and one in 2017).

As a result of that, The Court of Five Thrones didn't exist/wasn't finished when I started Tradewinds, and it was pretty much done long before I started The Ice Plague.

So Tradewinds is set during Albion's reign as Seelie King, post Game Theory. I'd need to double check the exact timeline, because honestly the core canon cast aren't really mentioned often.

I know Gulvi is because Gulvi trained with the Council of Lammergeiers (the world's best assassins) and Udir is a Lammergeier shifter, so he's very familiar with that world. And I believe Gwyn and Albion are. But none of them are in the story, and it's very 'separate.'

But yeah definitely not any time near The Ice Plague. :D

(ETA - Falllover helped me realise it's definitely during The Court of Five Thrones!)

[chibishortdeath]

Some attempts at a design for Selena :3. The second image is inspired by the wedding in Haunted Castle, but I changed Simon’s outfit cause idk I just can’t picture him being comfortable in a suit.

The last two of these are way more headcanon-y lol. They’re under a cut mostly in case my headcanons and story ideas change d(^^ ). One of them was inspired by a Kikuo song I was listening to while drawing lol, the song “Let’s Go to Heaven”.

[lovieku]

OBVIOUS ⋆ 정국

𐙚 baby, could i be more obvious?

you lose your virginity to jeongguk, the only boy you’d ever trust with such weight. and what you both feel for each other couldn’t be more obvious.

based on this ask

from the grande series ୨ৎ

pairings: bookstore employee!jk x virgin!fem reader

genre: smut, strangers to friends to lovers

ratings: +18 / mdi

warnings: lower case intended, porn with some plot, mutual pining, age gap (21 n 25), first time, dry humping, tit play (small boobs lover jk!!!), oral (f receiving), fingering, hand job, size kink, protected sex, missionary, cowgirl, multiple orgasms, dirty talk, sooo much praise, and pet names, jeongguk is so so loving and caring, sm fluff hehe, bit of angst maybe? but lovey dovey confession <33

word count: 12.9k

a/n: aaaa this is so silly and rushed but theyre so cute and i had to do something about it. ps: this is my first time writing smut, hope it’s not embarassing Help ..any feedback is appreciated 👩🏻‍💻

────୨ৎ────

you met jeon jeongguk at your favorite bookstore. the one tucked away in the quieter part of town, hidden in the shadow, squeezed between a small café and a vintage shop with an unassuming facade. it’s not the kind of place that draws crowds, most people passed it without a second glance, without paying it the attention it deserved.

but you always did, too attentive for your own liking, too curious for your own sake. you had always been the type to notice the quiet places where stories seem to breathe.

there was nothing not to love about the store. it felt like a refuge in tones of deep brown wood and soft amber light. it wasn’t flashy, but that’s why you loved it. stepping inside always brought a sense of calm, brought you closer to feel the whisper of worn leather bindings, the smell of old pages. it was being understood, accepted, seen.

meeting jeongguk wasn’t fate. it wasn’t some serendipitous moment ripped from a movie script. you didn’t bump into him while too immersed in your favorite novel. you didn’t reach simultaneously for the same book and argued over it, only to end up in the café next door.

jeon jeongguk was simply working there. he was an employee at the bookshop, stocking shelves, checking inventory. he just so happened to be charming, and the only one who came up to you after you’d been standing in front of a high shelf for what felt like an eternity.

“looking for anything in particular?”

when you turned to follow the source of the honey voice, not too low but still smooth, you had to fight hard to keep the gasp that was threatening to escape locked in your throat. he was tall. way taller than you. his dark hair fell in soft curls, brushing the nape of his neck, framing his face with carefully crafted, but effortlessly beautiful curtains. and when you managed to escape his wide eyes, seemingly storing all the warmth the shop could offer, you found it even harder to contain the surprise as you spotted a trail of intricate ink designs starting from his hand and running up his muscled arm, only to disappear beneath the short sleeve of his black polo.

he was still staring, expectantly. and you just kept standing there, mute. observing like a maniac. you stumbled over your words, trying to steady your voice, “oh— um. i was looking for the japanese author, kawamura?”

the way his eyes lit up at your request was unmistakable. and after that, the same spark would flicker in his gaze every time you stepped foot in the shop.

you later found out that he was new, which explained why you hadn’t noticed him before, all the times you’d gone and searched for books. which weren’t a lot, but enough for the other staff to know your face through the years. and now, certainly enough for jeongguk to become acquainted with your presence.

you started finding excuses to go more often, week after week, convincing yourself that you needed new books to accompany your tea as the colder months approached. truth be told, it wasn’t just the books pulling you in. your friends kept teasing you about the real reason why you’d always hurry there after your lectures ended, and deep down you knew you just had to accept it. you were developing a silly, little crush.

jeongguk didn’t seem to mind the growing frequency of your visits. if you had to guess, you’d say he was just as eager to see you. or maybe he was just exceptionally good at his job. if that were the case, you hoped he was crowned employee of the month every single time.

there was always a line he never crossed. his professionalism remained intact. he greeted you like any other customer, offering his help when you needed it. and you always seemed to need it, didn’t you? yet, there was something in the way his eyes crinkled at the corners when you smiled, the way his lips curved in that subtle, almost hidden way when you left with a new book in hand. you’d walk out of the store, clutching your latest literary find, grinning like a fool, and jeongguk would watch, his own smile lingering long after you were gone.

deep down, you knew this couldn’t last forever. you were just a student, miserably scraping by in the tiniest flat imaginable, your waitressing part-time job barely paying enough to make it through the month. but you’d feel bad, wasting hours of jeongguk’s shift, monopolizing his time with your indecision over paperbacks, keeping him off his tasks, just for it to be a waste. you needed to show him your gratitude, in a way. contribute to the income of the bookshop. so, you kept buying books. you weren’t sure you even had more space to fit them in your own shelf.

yet no matter how much you tried to convince yourself to stay away, you couldn’t help it. books were your escape, your joy, and the fact that they were sold to you by jeongguk was just an added bonus. the problem wasn’t him— it was your wallet. your poor, overworked wallet that kept reminding you of the price of each novel and how your little crush was becoming financially unsustainable.

it was one of those afternoons after your morning lectures, where the crisp autumn air made you even more eager to slip into the bookstore, feeling that familiar rush of warmth as jeongguk greeted you with his usual smile. this time, he surprised you with a book he had found just for you, claiming “you’d enjoy it. feels light and genuine, just like you.”

when it came time to pay, cheeks still flushed after the sickly, sweet grin he flashed your way, you sighed as you rummaged through your bag for your card.

he scanned it, only to glance up at you with a hesitant expression, “huh… it declined.”

“what?” you laughed, though it was shaky, disbelief lacing your words, “no, that can’t be right. try again.”

he did, but the outcome remained unchanged. he met your eyes with a worried frown, and you felt your face flame in embarrassment, not the one that made your insides swarm with butterflies minutes before this.

you groaned, pressing your palm to your forehead in mortification, “fuck, this is so humiliating.”

jeongguk chuckled softly, his voice soothing, “hey, it’s really not. it’s okay. i’ll pay for it.”

your jaw dropped, and you looked at him like he had lost his mind, “no, what? are you crazy? don’t— don’t do that. you don’t need to. i’ll just come back another day.”

what followed was a ridiculous, playful back-and-forth. you refused, he insisted, and soon enough, the two of you were locked in a silly tug-of-war over the book itself, laughing despite the situation. he finally threw his hands up in surrender, his smile impossibly wide, the kind of grin that made your heart skip a beat.

“alright, alright,” he relented, shaking his head, “but i’m still not happy about this. if i can’t pay for your book, at least let me buy you a coffee. i’m clocking off in 15. will you wait for me?”

you couldn’t contain your eyes from widening, your smile to dumbly paint your features as you eagerly nodded. you didn’t trust yourself to speak, afraid that if you did, some ridiculous teenage squeal would escape. he was grinning just as hard, though.

and so, you began seeing jeongguk outside the confined space of the bookstore, in a world beyond the shelves and spines of novels. his attire was always simple, dark tones that exuded comfort and warmth. his sweaters seemed soft enough to curl into, and his presence felt just as inviting.

but you pushed those thoughts away, trying to remind yourself that he was becoming a friend. one of your closest, even. you tried. you did! but you just couldn’t help the way your mind wandered, imagining what it would be like to lean just a little closer, to feel the warmth of his embrace. god, get a grip.

still, it was impossible to ignore the flutter in your chest each time his eyes lingered a little longer than necessary. outside the bookstore, jeongguk was different. not in a bad way. he was just more relaxed, more himself. his touch came naturally, a hand at the small of your back guiding you through a crowded street, his arm slung casually over your shoulders like it belonged there. he was playful in a way that hinted at something deeper, his jokes sometimes drifting into uncharted territory, leaving your stomach in knots, your thoughts spiraling down paths you hadn’t dared explore.

and then there was the way he looked after you. he was older, just by a few years, 25 to your 21, but it felt like a gulf of experience separated the two of you. he’d seen more, lived more. experienced more. knew more. about all that stuff you’d been scared to explore, the stuff that happened in the intimacy of one’s bedroom. you knew he had his fair share of girlfriends, he told you about it. just how you’d told him you never got close to a relationship. you just flirted around with a boy in high school, messily making out in the corners where no one could see you. but it never went over that.

jeongguk’s protectiveness over you came naturally. you didn’t mind. it was reassuring, the way his hand tightened around your wrist in a crowded space or how his gaze followed you across a room, always making sure you were safe.

you found yourself spending more and more time together. walking through the city, staying up late at cafés, or just wandering aimlessly in his car, talking about everything. you told him about your classes, the stress of exams, your dreams of becoming a teacher, and the uncertainties that weighed you down. he listened, really listened, in a way that made you feel seen, like every word you said mattered.

jeongguk shared his own story too. he’d dropped out of college a year ago, deciding that the path everyone else had planned for him wasn’t for him at all. now, he was drifting, trying to figure out where he belonged. he took inspiration in the way your eyes sparkled at the prospect of your future. little did he know, your eyes just reflected the galaxies in his that you loved getting lost into.

it terrified you. because with each passing day, your feelings for him grew stronger, more undeniable. it wasn’t just a crush anymore. it was something that had its own weight, pulling you closer to him. the lines were blurring, but you let them.

one night, after a long week of classes and stress, you went out with a few friends. jeongguk hadn’t been able to join, caught up with work, but when your tipsy self had dialed his number later that night, he picked up right away. your voice was soft, your words slurred. they echoed through the bar’s bathroom, followed by your uncontainable giggles as jeongguk playfully scolded you on the other line. the same softness was painting his face, and he only hung up when he started his car, showing up within minutes.

by the time he arrived, you were well past tipsy and leaning dangerously toward drunk. you didn’t notice him sheepishly greeting your group of friends, their eyes lighting up with interest at the image of the renowned jeon jeongguk, until his low voice called your name, slipping his arm around your waist and helping you up from the bar stool, “come on, let’s get you home. say bye-bye.”

you glared at him, face slightly reddening at his tease. he just loved treating you like a little kid. loved poking fun at you. still, you leaned into him, the scent of his body wash wrapping around you like a comforting blanket, banter ready on your tongue, “i’m fine, grandpa,” you slurred amusedly, but your legs wobbled as you tried to walk.

he chuckled under his breath, guiding you out of the bar, “yeah, sure you are. you’re barely standing.”

the night air was cold against your skin, but jeongguk was warm, his body solid and steady as you clung to him.

you didn’t mean to say it, didn’t mean to let the words slip, but in your hazy, alcohol-fueled state, you genuinely wondered, “why are you so good to me?”

he paused for a moment, glancing down at you with a small smile, “because you deserve it.”

the car ride was silent, in a comfortable way. you got lost in the way the city flashed past you, and jeongguk stole sneaky glances at you from the corner of his eye, his hand gripping the steering wheel a little tighter each time he let his eyes linger.

when he reached your place, he helped you inside, gently guiding you to the couch. you were too dazed to fight him when he insisted on getting you some water and a blanket. he moved around your cramped flat with ease, having memorized where every single thing belonged after his countless stays at your place, watching movie after movie or simply keeping you company while you revised.

he sat beside you for a while as you rambled on about your night, how the music was slightly disappointing even with the drinks being overpriced.

jeongguk listened attentively, even with your words stumbling out in messy fragments, jumping from one topic to another. his eyes traced the way your hands moved in wild gestures, the way your lips fumbled for the right words, the glaze in your eyes reflecting the soft glow of the room. he didn’t realize it at first, but his body instinctively followed your movements, leaning closer with every excited wave of your arms, his knees brushing against yours, his head nodding in time with your words.

only when you stopped talking, turning to face him and catching his gaze in the dim light, he was made aware of the little distance between you. it wasn’t unusual for the two of you to be this close. always sneakily seeking for one another in booth seats of the pubs you’d visit every so often, his hand lingering on your knee for longer than needed when calling for your attention, your arms locking together when walking through the city.

but this moment was different. it was heavy with something unspoken. and so tender, fragile.

your cheek rested on the back of the couch, your body slouched, your eyes half-lidded. he sat straight, his torso turned towards you, his head bending down to study your face better.

you didn’t think when you blurted his name out, your gaze falling on his lips, “jeongguk.”

he hummed softly.

“i want you to kiss me.”

the words tumbled out before you could stop them, but you didn’t take them back. you couldn’t.

jeongguk didn’t seem startled by your unfiltered words. he didn’t flinch, didn’t pull back. he only tilted his head slightly, the corner of his lip inching up sweetly, “you want me to kiss you?”

you hummed, with the same softness, only tinted with uncertainty. fear of rejection. you were suddenly aware of what you asked him now that he repeated it back to you. and you realized how much you meant it, just now.

but his tone wasn’t condemning. it was seeking for confirmation that he heard right, that it wasn’t just your drunk thoughts talking. still, he didn’t lean closer, nor let his eyes fall to the lower part of your face.

he spoke, his voice barely above a whisper, “i’ll kiss you. just not now.”

”what? why not?”

your eyebrows were cutely furrowed, the blush the alcohol painted you with only making the pout on your lips even more irresistible.

jeongguk hissed amusedly, ”because you’re drunk. and when i’ll kiss you, i want you to be sure about it. want you to remember it.”

”but i am sure about it. i want you.”

once again, your blunt confession didn’t seem to faze him. he smiled, kept his tone low, ”i know. i want you too.”

your breath hitched at the unexpected sincerity of his words, your eyes roaming all over his face. you subtly shifted closer, your lips parted slightly with desire. the flame that lit up your body burned all the alcohol from your system, and suddenly you were more awake than ever. you were alert. your heart pounding, your core pulsing. he looked so inviting, so pretty in that light.

he wet his lips, darting his tongue out to play with his piercing. you could feel your head spin. you didn’t just want him. you needed him. and it wasn’t the alcohol. you were sure of it.

you could only dumbly lean closer and hope for the best, but he chuckled softly, his large hand framing the side of your face and forcing you to stop your path towards him, look at him, swim in the intensity of his gaze.

his tone was gentle, delicate, understanding, “if you don’t change your mind, we’ll talk about this tomorrow, okay? when you’re sober. hm?”

his eyes searched yours, waiting patiently for your response. you only managed a small nod, your eyes glossy with frustration and a bit of shame. you bit your lip, muttering a small okay and letting him fix your hair with the fondest look in his orbs.

he left your flat only after tucking you in your bed, because you begged him to, and after much more pleading, you even convinced him to stay beside you until you fell asleep. you didn’t feel him slip out of your hold on his hand, the weight of his body leaving your bed, and with it, the warmth of his presence going as well.

but the following day, after downing the glass of water you assumed he left by your nightstand, you bore through your headache and searched for his contact in your phone first thing as you woke up. you were instantly hit with flashes of the night before, and you remembered exactly what you told him, what he promised. that if you still wanted it, you would talk about it. and you just needed to hear his voice, as soon as possible.

you’re not sure what there was to talk about. you asked him for a kiss. his lips on yours. it’s not like there would be much space for talking.

with your phone to your ear, the ringback tone was the only sound filling the space between your thoughts. you felt a twinge of anxiety in your stomach. you should have probably called later, let yourself adjust to consciousness. maybe rationalize yesterday’s events and find a better way to move around them. give yourself more time to think it over. the wait stretched on, and it only gave your doubts more space to spiral, turn into little monsters whispering evil things in your ear.

he probably wanted to talk to you about it because he thought it was a stupid idea. he didn’t really want it, was just lying to get you to shut up. he thought you were foolish, childish, not his type at all. or maybe, he was seeing someone and didn’t know how to tell you. wow, that would be humbling. you wanted him so bad and he was just—

“hello?”

his voice sounded muffled through the line. you clumsily adjusted your device to your ear, sitting up, still in your bed, last night’s makeup smudged under your eyes, “jeongguk?”

”that would be me, ma’am.”

“hi,” your voice was low, thick with sleep and the remnants of your hangover, and it sounded weaker than you’d intended to reveal.

”hey. feeling better, miss?”

his playful tone was laced with affection, and it instantly put a smile on your face. you didn’t realize it, but your mind was clearing, your body unconsciously easing back into the covers, “i am.”

jeongguk hummed, and you heard the faint sound of movement on his end. he was probably getting ready for the bookstore, but still found time to pick up your call. it made you alert, awkwardly aware of what both of you were probably expecting out of this conversation.

you cleared your throat, smoothing some of the morning grogginess and sounding lighter, softer, “come over after your shift? i miss the office. and your ramyeon.”

when he chuckled in your ear and teased you for that one time you said his cooking was average, you felt your shoulders relax. even more when he agreed and shot you a quick see you later, followed by the exaggerated sound of smacking lips.

it was his signature goodbye, always ending your calls with that. it would usually make you roll your eyes, a grin tugging at your lips. but this time, it made you blush like a pubescent teenager. get. a. grip.

jeongguk noticed the slight shift in your demeanor right away. he could taste the tension, smell it in the air, feel it in the way you’d become stiff, even when his fingers barely grazed your skin. it was a stark contrast to how things had been between you two.

you still moaned around the first bite of his ramyeon, still giggled with your mouth full as he mockingly mimicked your voice, playfully downgrading his cooking skills from months ago. but you blushed a little harder at the smirk that followed his usual tease. subtly ran away from his hand seeking your contact.

with time, both of you had grown comfortable with the casual touches, playful proximity— tickling at each other’s sides, poking jokingly, or simply brushing hands when no one was looking. it had become a natural part of your dynamic.

but after your earlier slurred confessions, he could tell that it was affecting you more deeply now, your body reacting differently to his touch. the way you startled at his closeness, the small breath catching in your throat. it all made his head spin, his fist tighten in restraint. you weren’t the only one affected.

on your couch, you found it hard to relax in his familiar embrace, an arm around your shoulders, your head resting on his chest. the steady rhythm of his breathing usually soothed you, but tonight, your heart was fighting its way up, dangerously close to spilling all over his neat clothes. you exhaled shakily, the office playing quietly on the tv doing a weak job at distracting you.

and jeongguk couldn’t take it anymore. lust wasn’t the only feeling simmering under the surface. he was scared. that he may have read it all wrong, that you only blurted it out because you were drunk and not in control of your thoughts. he was terrified of stepping the wrong way, doing something that would determinately scare you away, end whatever you two had for good. and he didn’t want to lose you. wanted to keep you. and that went over the need to taste your lips.

through the corner of your eye, you could feel him stare down at you intently. his other hand reached to move your hair out of the way, and you let him. you turned to meet his gaze, and relaxed slightly at the fond look on his features.

“what’s going on in that pretty, little head of yours? will you tell me?”

you blinked. gulped down loudly. the reassuring smile on his face grew bigger. you shifted slightly in his hold, moving your body to face him, and the arm that was around you naturally fell down your waist.

you tried to word it differently, tried to suppress it just a bit longer, find another way around it, but his blown out pupils lowered all your inhibitions, “do you— do you still want to kiss me?”

“i do. very badly.”

his response was immediate, and it came through a whisper. it caressed your face sweetly, and it made you aware of the natural gravity that pulled you even closer, to the point of your noses almost touching.

you were unable to move, to initiate anything, to be truthful to your desires. your orbs jumped on every corner of his face, widening. he let his palm close around your hip, then he spoke low, “will you let me do that?”

jeon jeongguk kissed you slowly. his lips lingered on yours, tasting, moving with intent. his hands framed your face, traveling down your neck and holding you gently by the nape.

it was sweet, and delicate. he took his time becoming acquainted with your pace, letting you control the movement of his doings. when he darted his tongue out to trace your lower lip, you granted him permission to explore the insides of your mouth.

with tongues intertwined, the kiss gradually became sloppier, more desperate. your fingers found home in his long curls, tugging at the base of it, and supporting yourself while arching your body into his, pressing yourself against his chest, seeking for confirmation that he wanted this just as badly as you did.

he welcomed your proximity by letting his palms fall to your waist, keeping you close, and tracing his touch dangerously close to the curve of your ass.

you whined lowly, but the sounds became ingloriously louder the more he pressed your body against his hard one, his touch wandering, squeezing, feeling.

you messily straddled his lap and sat with your knees on both sides of him, your desire deepening with your kiss, devouring his lips harder, twisting his hair in a confused tangle the more you got lost in them.

his hands went to hold your hips, and you soon felt a stronger weight on them, gently pulling you away and giving you a minute to catch your breath. though it was taken out of you the moment you took in the man in front of you, his lips swollen, his eyes half-lidded, his curls all over the place.

he let out an amused chuckle, combing through your own mess on your head, “hey, pretty. it’s okay. there’s no rush. we can take it slow, hm?”

in that small moment, you were made aware of your own eagerness slipping out of your control and rushing your actions, insatiable with wanting more, but not even being sure if jeongguk wanted that more just as much.

instead, you were sure your whole face was a crimson shade with the way the boy under you fondly grinned, his hand guiding you by the nape and letting your lips meet again in a small peck, before he focused on your face again.

jeongguk never left your eyes, and you were too hypnotized to even think of looking elsewhere. his gaze was steady, magnetic, thirsty to drink in your reaction as he guided your hips against him, letting them drag over his clothed bulge. you moaned, unshameful, your eyes rolling back.

”yeah? you like that?”

you could only nod dumbly, repeatedly, using your hands on his shoulders as support while you kept grinding on him. slowly at first, just how he had suggested. but the stimulation was too good, your clit deliciously meeting his hardness, spreading the embarrassing amount of wetness you had already collected all over your panties. you tentatively picked up your pace, his hands immediately stopping you.

”you need to be patient, doll.” his scold was only playful, the smirk spreading on his features letting you know he enjoyed the effect he had on you, the way he bit his lip communicating he was just as affected. but you liked the feeling of him guiding you through this.

you didn’t know what to do, weren’t sure how to please him, too shy under his adoring look. you sheepishly smiled, falling onto him and hiding yourself in the crook of his neck.

he laughed, his chest moving with it, and you could feel his heart pumping, his warmth meeting the side of your face. he took the hand on your waist and dragged it up your back, soothingly, “you’re doing so good, baby. okay?”

it was sweet, and the praise made you pulse around nothing. you nodded, your nose brushing against his neck as you timidly let your lips leave a trace of wet kisses along his adam’s apple, going up his jaw. he hummed, the sound reverberating in his throat and against your mouth.

you left small pecks on his cheek, to his nose, retreating after laying a quiet one on his mouth. you looked back at him, jumping between his eyes, confession tumbling out your tongue, “sorry. i just want you so bad.”

he chuckled, moving your bangs out of your face, “i want you just as much. but i don’t want this moment to be fast. want to make it special for you.”

his whispered words tugged at the strings of your poor heart. you felt it begging to be ripped out of your chest, banging on your rib cage, maybe trying to find another way up your throat. but its repeated, quick pumping also matched the need pooling down your lower belly, staining your panties.

you nodded, finding his lips again and deepening the kiss, adapting to a slower rhythm as your tongues fervently explored each other. he grabbed your sides and grinded you closer to him, moaning in your mouth as you matched his gentle guiding, meeting the involuntary buck of his hips.

the almost too tender drag of your clothed pussy against his clothed, hard cock soon became torturous for the both of you, reduced to panting, eager messes. you felt unashamedly close just from the repeated action, and if he hadn’t decided to lay you on your back just then, you were sure you would have cummed already.

he was gentle as he positioned you on the couch, your body sprawled while he was mindful not to put too much of his weight on you. when he left your lips, you instinctively whined. your head subtly lifted off the sofa to try and follow his mouth, bring it back on yours, but he only smirked and darted his tongue out to lick off your taste.

he didn’t give you time to protest, to miss his touch, to be left unattended. because he quickly moved to work on your neck, his tattooed hand tentatively seeking its way under your t-shirt.

you let him wander. let him leave wet traces from your jaw down your collarbones while his fingers left goosebumps along their path, and rose up to your chest. he hummed at the feeling of your bare breasts, smirking at the absence of a bra.

he felt the skin under it, only for his palm to cup your boob and knead at it. it was a perfect fit in his large hand, his thumb teasingly slicing over your nipple and making you mewl, arching your back and pushing your front into him.

he moved himself from your neck and hesitantly lifted up your shirt, searching your eyes for permission. you put your hands on his and led them to take it off you, discarding it on the ground.

he sat back on his heels, admiring your figure laying between his legs. in his eyes, you found something you were never met with until that moment.

he looked starved, his pupils blown and following every curve of your body, his hands hovering only to end up caressing your sides delicately.

you blushed, hard, using your hand to cover your face and throwing an arm over your chest. his palms squeezed your hips twice, his thumbs stroking the skin under your ribs, “don’t hide from me, pretty. let me see you.”

you shook your head stubbornly, a small whine escaping your throat. but he could tell you weren’t starting any fight, he could make out your smile, barely concealed under your fingers.

jeongguk moved your wrists and laid them on top of your head, his face nearing again to leave an adoring kiss on your lips. when he found your eyes again, the fondest smile was painting his features, “you’re beautiful.”

“my boobs are small,” your voice was muffled, shy, hidden behind your childish pout.

“i fucking love them,” with one hand still keeping your wrists together, he used the other one to play with your breasts once more, his gaze hypnotized by the way he could make them fit in his large palm, squeezing them together and kneading at the softness.

you moaned, loud and unashamed, when he guided his smooth lips to your nipple, his gaze never leaving yours while he attempted small, kitten licks at it.

when he saw how your eyes lustfully rolled back as his fingers went to play with your other boob, rolling it and letting his thumb slide over the sensitive center, he took it as his go-ahead to wholly engulf your wet nipple in his mouth and suck on it, lick around it, kiss it.

jeongguk was hastily making out with your tits, giving both of them the attention they needed, reducing your nipples to soaked, hard messes.

you felt your soul ascend high and leave your body when, as you unconsciously thrusted your hips up in desperate need of friction, you found that in his knee, the one that was positioned between your legs, the one you now grinded into with no control over your pace, bringing yourself closer to the edge.

“fuck, jeongguk,” you didn’t have time to feel ashamed over how delirious you sounded, or looked, the lewd noises of his sucking taking you even higher, his hands massaging your boobs with intent.

you only got louder the more you let your cunt rub against his leg, a motion you were unable to slow down, too eager to get to the finish line. and this time, jeongguk let you, even spurring you on, “let go, angel. cum on my thigh.”

it was all the encouragement you needed to fully loosen, his own whines resounding against your chest and blending with your high-pitched moans, eyes rolled back, head thrown to the side, fingers clutching around jeongguk’s locks and guiding him further into you as you lost control on his thigh, “gonna cum!”

your orgasm took over your whole body, shaking with overwhelment at the stimulation. all the sensations you were feeling were new to you, but nonetheless welcomed in the way your eyelids drooped with relaxed pleasure and you worked to catch your breath, your muscles untightening, your arms falling by your sides.

jeongguk left one last kiss around your nipple before lifting himself up to admire your fucked out state, your cheeks flushed and sweat adorning you with an angel-like glow, the lazy smile on your face as you stared at him making his heart skip a few beats.

he let his eyes wander, his own expression incredulous at what had just happened, “that was so fucking sexy, baby.”

the way you sheepishly chuckled was contagious, his giggles filling your ears as he lifted you up and pulled you against his chest, your still weak body falling onto him with ease. he smiled fondly, looking down at your face, “if you want to stop here, it’s totally okay. i won’t—“

“no!” your energy came back to you as quickly as it left your body minutes before, sitting up straight in his embrace with your eyes wide and worried. you fumbled with your words, “no— no. i want to keep going. please.”

the grin that took over his features adorably caused his nose to scrunch, and he had to put his lips on yours and let them blend together in a sickly sweet kiss to keep himself from saying the words that were so dangerously close from spilling, on the tip of his tongue. he hoped, as he slid it against yours, that you could still feel them, and accept them.

he retreated to cup your cheek in his palm, your eyebrows still unconsciously drawn up in agitation, but easing as he reassured you, “you don’t have to beg, angel. i’ll give you anything you ask for.”

”okay. couch is uncomfortable. take me to the bedroom,” your arms stretched out, teasingly expecting him to pick you up.

you squealed when he did, taking your legs, wrapping them around his tiny waist and getting up the sofa, leading both of you to your room. he didn’t have to watch where he was going, his feet automatically guiding him, having adjusted to your flat long ago. but even if that weren’t the case, he would still not look, too caught up in your glossy orbs.

he pinched your sides before laying you on the soft surface of your bed, legs still tight around him, “bossy much, hm?”

you shrugged, a naughty grin accompanying the playful glint in your eyes, “you’re following my orders flawlessly.”

he scoffed amusedly, kissing his teeth, “ah, is that right?”

you hummed, eager with taking the back and forth further, see where it takes you, “such a good boy.”

the giggle that tumbled out of you as he narrowed his eyes betrayed you, breaking into a full fit of laughter as he tickled your sides, your legs leaving his waist. he tauntingly bit your neck, not enough to hurt you, grinning mischievously, “i’m letting you get away with too much. need to teach you a lesson.”

the laugh died in your throat the second he lifted his shirt up, showing his body to you for the first time. michelangelo would have loved to sculpt him, that’s the first thought your slowed down brain could come up with as you let your eyes wander all over his upper body.

he was toned, his eight pack abs glowing effortlessly for your mouth to water, his nipples a brownish color and so inviting, making you lean on your forearms for a better view.

the arm that wrapped around one of your legs and pushed it on the side was the one inked with those intricate designs you spent boring, lazy afternoons analyzing, and now they were the reason why you could feel a familiar buzz down your core again, coating your panties with even more of your sticky juice.

“cat got your tongue?” there was no way you could even think of a witty come-back with the way he lowered his pretty face between your thighs, his cocky smirk never leaving his expression as his eyes fixated on your own, challenging you.

but you were long gone, willing to let him do whatever he wanted to your body. you stared intently as his fingers hooked under the hem of your shorts, pulling them down in a sensual motion, until they fell on the floor.

your head fell backwards as he let his nose trace your soaked slit, still hidden underneath the layer of cotton panties, “is this okay?”

he only needed your eager nod to leave a subtle kiss on your clit, then lap at your slick through the thin material, “taste so good, doll.”

jeongguk repeated the motion, licking at you through your undies and letting his big nose brush against your clit torturously, his saliva and your wetness causing the fabric to dig between your lips uncomfortably, showing yourself to him.

you unconsciously bucked your hips up, eagerly demanding to set you free, but he held you down by your waist, “patience, baby.”

you whined loudly, and you couldn’t believe how delirious you sounded already, only moments after your earlier climax. he seemed to enjoy your reactions, the tip of his tongue teasing your entrance and ripping a desperate moan out of you, trying to push yourself into him further but being held down by his strong palms.

you fell on your back, your hair sprawled over your pillows, suddenly too weak to fight against him. he chuckled darkly, speaking against your core, “you’re so cute. so eager for me, angel.”

when he lifted himself up, his mouth glistened with your juice, and you couldn’t help but blush at the image. you were so wet, the liquid stained him even through the layer of clothing still keeping you from fully feeling him.

the silent plead in your eyes was listened to. jeongguk slid off your panties in one swift motion, his eyes hungry at the sight revealed to him, “fuck. so perfect. the prettiest.”

he didn’t show mercy at your weakened state, returning his starved mouth on your cunt, slurping at your lips and sucking on your clit, the stimulation making you see stars under your eyelids.

your eyes snapped open the moment you felt something tentatively poking at your entrance, and as you lowered your head you saw his finger playing with your virgin hole, going up to collect your slick from your slit, then returning on where you were starting to need him.

but you were anxious. he immediately saw it in the way you got up on your forearms again, instinctively closing your legs around his hand. his eyes found yours, reassuringly, “baby. you alright?”

you nodded sheepishly, “yeah. i’m just— scared. don’t want it to hurt.”

the hand that was playing with you now laid on your lower stomach, rubbing it in a sweet manner while he sought for your mouth with his, leaving a honeyed peck on it, “it will hurt a bit, pretty. but i’ll try and make it feel good, hm? if you’re not sure, we can always stop.”

you could only bite your lip as the both of you searched for security in each other’s eyes. he tilted his head, waiting for your approval, the grin spreading and making his long dimples visible infectious, and you stumbled on your words, “can you— kiss me while you do it?”

he hummed fondly, his lips immediately finding yours as he positioned himself between your legs, spreading again and granting him access to the spot you were anxiously eager to feel him.

his tongue slowly moved with yours and lightly lulled your racing heartbeat, instilling some needed tranquility in your system as you felt him close to your core again. his middle finger repeated a circular motion around it, spreading your stickiness, only to bring it on your hole before delicately pushing his digit inside.

a choked out moan escaped you, captured promptly by his lips, keeping you somewhat distracted from the slight burn you felt. it grew the more he slipped himself inside you, and you bit his lip to conceal the pain.

he growled at the action, retreating his finger only to push it in again, this time tentatively deeper. he went over the movement a few times, enough to get you adjusted to the foreign presence, and the more he did it, the more the sharpness turned into pleasure.

”feel good, princess?” the pet name was whispered against your swollen lips, and you kept your eyes closed as you nodded, basking in the newly welcomed feeling.

when he started curling the finger inside you, you involuntarily bucked yourself up against him, your body spasming with your hole and he groaned at the feeling of your tightness, unconsciously grinding on the sheets.

he couldn’t help himself from breaking your kiss to look down, getting lost in the way his digit got sucked inside you, only to come out soaked in your juice. without warning, he slowly added another finger, and you arched your back, searching for support in his shoulder.

jeongguk’s eyes kept jumping between your wet cunt, where his fingers worked in and out, and your pleasure-contorted expression, your mouth agape and unleashing your every moan as your eyes squeezed shut.

he felt deliriously close only from the image, his hard dick desperate for friction and insatiable with the way he was still constricted in his jeans. but this moment was about you and you only. once he felt the way you gripped his shoulder tighter at one particular curl of his digits, he kept hitting that spot repeatedly, faster.

you didn’t notice his face retreating at first, too lost in the bliss of his purposed touch, but you gasped harshly, your eyes tearing open the moment you felt his lips enveloping your clit again and sucking at it, lapping all around it, tasting it as if it was his first meal after ages.

when you looked down, you found him already staring at you through half-lidded eyes. you wailed, feverish, “oh, shit. gguk, don’t— don’t do that.”

he hummed questioningly, and the sound reverberated against your sensitive nub.

you rolled your eyes back, ”gonna cum again if you— fuck.”

“cum around my fingers, baby. cum on my tongue,” the words came out slurred, his mouth full of you, the drenched sounds of your pussy making his encouragement even more erotic as he added a third finger.

his digits kept digging relentlessly inside you, that spot that made your legs weakly squish jeongguk between them being hit repeatedly and bringing you close to your second climax.

what completely undid you were his eager cries against your cunt, and when you managed to lift your head to look down at the boy working so desperately to make you cum on his lips, you saw his hips rutting frantically against your sheets.

you didn’t even have time to announce it, the way your hole spasmed around his fingers and your high-pitched moans doing it for you as you fully let go for the second time because of jeongguk. it was more intense, your body moving with it and unconsciously running away from the touch once it became too intense.

jeongguk cleaned you as best as he could, slurping your juices and licking you off his fingers, climbing up to find your lips and share your own taste with you, his chin coated with your slick.

your pleasured sounds mixed together, the both of you panting and soon laying in silence, one beside the other, staring at the ceiling. you laughed breathlessly, “fuck, gguk. i almost died.”

he only chuckled along with you, the sound strained and dying soon in his throat. with your heartbeat and your breathing settling down, you turned to the side to find jeongguk with his eyes squeezed shut and his jaw clenching. his fists were clutching the fabric beside him, and his knuckles were white from the effort.

it wasn’t complicated to understand why, the next thing you spotted being the hard outline of his cock looking completely suffocated by his pants. you gulped, “gguk. you seem hard.”

he let out a delirious scoff, his eyes finding yours with an intensity you were only then noticing, ”i am hard, baby. so hard for you.”

you tentatively guided your hand to the button of his jeans, undoing it along with the zip. your words were hesitant, but so sincere, ”let me touch you. wanna make you feel good, too.”

jeongguk watched with his mouth agape as you straddled his lap, sitting on his legs only after sliding his pants down to his ankles. you looked so innocent, timidly playing with the hem of his boxers, and he tried to be patient, but he couldn’t.

he groaned, his head thrown back. “___. please, do something.”

his eyes were glossy with frustration, and you had to fight the urge to kiss him stupid, focusing on the task ahead. a big one, indeed. you weren’t going to lie, you were already intimidated by the outline of it.

now that your naked body sat on top of him, being faced with his almost totally bare skin, you realized how much bigger he was compared to you. of course, he was taller, always towering over you, teasing you for your height and pretending he didn’t see you, bumping into you purposefully or asking how’s the weather down there?

but with his large palm resting at your side and almost covering your entire tummy, you realized the implications of such difference. he could totally wreck you, if he wanted to.

ogling at his dick didn’t make it better. it looked huge. a wet patch stained his underwear near the tip, and you salivated at the sight of it.

you tentatively let your finger run along the covered length, and he hissed, slightly thrusting his hips, making you slide closer, “baby. don’t tease.”

the apology was ready and fast on your lips, genuine concern written in your eyes. you didn’t want to keep his suffering going, but you were also hesitant with how exactly you were going to please him. you’ve never seen a real-life dick, and you’ve certainly never touched one.

it was like jeongguk could read your every thought, your wide orbs like an open book to him, reassurance slipping out of him naturally, “doll. you see this?” he took your wrists and laid your hand on his hardness, gulping at the contact, “you feel this? this is what you did to me. there’s no reason why you should doubt yourself, okay?”

you nodded, still unsure, but surely smiling at his sweet tone. he grinned himself, “you’re so hot, and i literally almost came just by looking at you.”

the giggle that escaped you was lively and it eased your nerves with the way it mirrored in his eyes, fondly jumping all over your face. you bit your lip as you escaped his attentive gaze, finally freeing his cock from his confines and making him release a shaky sigh.

it was perfect. pretty. it touched just under his belly button, the tip angry and wet with precum, the pulsing veins running along its length making it throb.

you took it in your hand delicately, jeongguk hissing, and you gasped under your breath. it felt thick in your hold, your fist barely closing around it.

you weren’t sure what to do. your only examples were pornos, and you knew not to fully trust them. but as you started letting your wrist tentatively flick up and down, slowly, you eagerly drank in his reaction.

jeongguk moaned lowly, his eyelids fluttering shut, focusing on the feeling of your smooth hands taking care of his boner. he got louder when you unexpectedly played with his tip, your thumb swirling around it and spreading his wetness down.

your movements were messy, stutteringly uncoordinated, but the concentrated look in your eyes as you stared at his member intently made his head spin, wishing he could fill your slightly agape, watering mouth with it.

in your own mind, you wished his length could be stuffing up your cunt, instead. you slowed down your doings, ending up haltering them as he found your face again, a protesting whine ready to escape him, but you were quicker to surprise him, your voice shy, ”wanna feel you inside me.”

jeongguk groaned deliriously, eyes rolling back at the simple request, ”fuck. you sure?”

you whispered, ”please.”

”of course, angel. been waiting for so long.”

your mouths found each other quickly, starving, both your heartbeats picking up at the prospect of what was going to happen. he combed through your hair to move them behind your ears, rolling the two of you and making you the one laying under his weight.

in between kisses, you asked, impatient, “do you have a condom?”

”yeah, got one in my wallet,” he was panting with effort just as you were, moving from you only to fully free himself from his clothes and then search in his jeans pockets.

as he took the condom out, ripping it open, he stumbled on his words, suddenly awkwardly self-conscious, “it’s not like i have it because i was— expecting us to, huh—“

”jeongguk. it’s okay,” your sweet voice interrupted his overthinking, pulling him to be on top of you again by his arm, “i’m glad you have it, ‘cause i need to feel you. right now.”

he didn’t need to be told twice. you watched, eyes glossy with want, need, as he rolled the condom along his length, huffing out at the sensitivity.

jeongguk brought you closer to him by your thighs, wrapping them around him. he lowered himself on his forearms, his forehead touching yours, eyes swimming together, the proximity making the both of you smile sheepishly.

he exhaled, “are you still sure about this, doll?”

you nodded, the subtle but growing anxiety making your words get stuck in your throat. jeongguk was gentle, patient, his large palm cupping your cheek, “need to hear you say it.”

”yes. i’m sure. want you so bad,” the confession was slurred, shy under his adoring gaze. he kissed along your jaw, slow, intentional.

“okay. just know we can stop whenever you want. let me know if it hurts. i wanna hear you, hm?” his eyes searched yours, frantically, making sure you were good.

as you nodded again, he grasped your hand to hold it, letting your fingers intertwine and lay by your head. with the other hand, he took his length and positioned it where you needed him the most.

jeongguk made it all feel so intimate, special, and safe, that you sensed your eyes water with a feeling stronger than the words you could allow yourself to say. you felt eternally grateful to him for turning a moment you used to dread into something so delicate and precious.

you felt adored. you felt seen, and heard. you felt protected, understood. you saw your reflection in his eyes, in a way that made you want to hide in there forever, maybe travel a bit further down and find home in his heart.

as he started easing himself inside you, both of you gasping at the feeling, his hand gripping yours harder, a tear ran down your cheek. it was a mixture of emotions, sensations. the fullness of his cock entering you, the burn that came with it, his eyes widening alarmingly as he noticed the tears welling along your bottom lashes.

he stilled inside you, his tip now nuzzled in your warmth, his breath hitching, “does it hurt? baby, what’s wrong?”

”no, it’s just—“ it was on the tip of your tongue, but you couldn’t say it. not now. maybe never? you swallowed it down your throat, “it hurts a bit but it feels so good, gguk.”

”yeah? fuck. you’re so tight, princess. taking me in so good,” his praises replaced the hurt, both emotional and physical, with a familiar fuzzy pleasure, pooling in your lower stomach and releasing more of your wetness on his dick, making it easier for him to slip inside you.

he groaned as he bottomed out, your moan higher than intended. you felt him throb inside you, just how he could feel you pulse around him. a string of curses followed as he repeated the slow action, pulling back to his tip only to push back in, making sure you grew accustomed to the feeling.

”gguk. i feel so full,” you cried, wrapping your legs tighter around his waist, forcing him to stay still inside you. he growled, kissing along your neck and leaving small bites to contain himself from snapping his hips against you.

it was complicated, with the sounds escaping your lips resounding sweetly in his ears and your hole tightening around him in a torturous manner making him release precum inside the condom.

”baby, can i please move? i’m gonna go crazy,” his voice was strained, whiny, muffled in the crook of your neck as your fingers combed through his hair, unconsciously searching for comfort.

your granting hum was more of a high-pitched whine, but he took it positively as he attempted one first thrust inside you, followed shortly by another. your moans got stuck, the air cut from your throat the more he picked up his pace, lifting his face from your neck and straightening up to admire the scene.

it was better than anything he’d ever witnessed, his thickness stuffed in your tight, virgin hole and taking him in so perfectly. he took his free hand to hold you still by your hip as he pushed himself deeper.

you were a mess underneath him. legs squeezing around him, you barely gave jeongguk space to move. you wailed, his name tumbling out your tongue repeatedly as he fucked into you faster. he’d been so gentle with you until that moment, but now his roughness made you impossibly wetter.

when you let your eyes flutter open, you could feel yourself spasm around him at the sight in front of you. his abs contracted with the effort of his pushes, his cock slammed into you relentlessly, his nipples hardened and called for your touch.

you threw one hand to his pec and felt his firmness under you, gripping it for support as he pounded you with intent, your nails scratching his skin, the sounds of your bodies slapping together overtaking your pleasured moans.

he panted, rambling, “fuck, love this pussy. love fucking this pussy. wanna fuck it forever.”

“made just for me. such a perfect fit.”

“that’s how you’ve been waiting to be fucked, huh? nice and deep, you fucking love that.”

his praises and dirty comments made your head spin, your eyes rolling to the back of your head, letting your mouth hang open and release your cries into the stuffy room.

the sight of your fucked out state underneath his control was going to torture him for the following weeks, he was sure of that. he’d see you, sprawled out on your bed for him, your tits moving up and down with each thrust, your pleasured tears staining your face as his name left your pillowy lips like a mantra, every time he’d close his eyelids.

he had to physically hold himself back from releasing already, his length too sensitive and eager, but he wanted to make this moment last for as long as he could possibly handle. he closed his eyes, but he couldn’t escape you. you were loud, and the hottest thing he’s ever heard.

and then, the challenge became harder when you stuttered, unexpectedly, “wanna ride you.”

he threw his head back, a feverish groan rising up his throat, “fuck. you do, pretty?”

you hummed, just as unhinged, your legs untightening around him and weakly pulling at his arm to try and bring him to lay on the bed. he pulled himself out of you slowly, making you cringe at the emptiness, and as he let his back fall on the soft surface, he lifted your figure effortlessly and led you to straddle him.

now on top of him, you weren’t so confident with your earlier claim anymore. underneath you, jeongguk was panting, his pupils blown out, lips agape, cock laying unattended on his stomach. he stroked your sides comfortingly, subtly pulling you closer, and the action caused your slicked pussy to grind against his balls.

the two of you moaned at the contact, and he immediately took his length to pump it a couple of times, gently tapping it against your tummy. you lifted your hips up, positioning yourself on his tip, looking down at jeongguk for support.

the lazy smile you were met with made your heart stutter in your chest, and you put your hand on top of his, still tightly gripping your hip, as you sank down his dick.

your head was thrown back in pleasure, your back arching into him, and jeongguk had to fight with himself to keep his eyes from fluttering shut, wanting to bask in the image of you.

as you fully took him in, you leaned your weight on the palm that fell on his chest, his hands steadying you promptly by your waist, praise ready on his tongue, “doing so amazing, princess. making me feel so good.”

you attempted moving subtly, trying to adjust to the more intense stretch, and the hand that was still holding his led it to cup your boob, instructing him to knead at it.

he moaned shakily, playing with your tit while you lifted your hips only to sink them down again, tentatively repeating the action and gaining confidence the more his whines got louder.

soon, you lost control. the way your clit would brush against his skin every time you bounced down made you pulse relentlessly around him, grinding into the sensation and rotating your hips on him with intent.

you tried to prevent it, to hold yourself back, but all your resolution dissolved in a second the moment you felt jeongguk’s thumb teasing your nub. you jolted forward, still balancing yourself on his chest, his hand on your breast working to keep you straight.

”gguk, i think— i think i’m close again,” you admitted ashamedly, your cheeks flushing but your desire unable to make you stop rutting your hips against his touch, his cock throbbing around your walls.

”yeah? then cum around it, make me feel it,” his low voice spurred you on, the thumb that was teasing you now slicing on your nipple, spreading your slick on your boob.

and that made you let go, for a third time, convulsing on top of him, your cries louder as you spasmed around his thick length, your cunt hugging him impossibly tighter, and for a moment you genuinely feared he’d get stuck.

the strength taken out of you was enough to make you fall onto him, your face in his neck as you panted frantically, his heartbeat matching the speed of yours under your palm laying on his chest.

jeongguk’s voice was weak as he spoke in your ear, his fingers stroking your back comfortingly, “that was amazing, baby. so good.”

you appreciated his constant praises, a lazy grin spreading on your lips, but you couldn't ignore the way he kept thudding inside you, quiet whines stuck in his throat as he tried to conceal them by clutching your sides tighter, stilling himself.

jeongguk wailed feverishly when you lifted yourself up again, resuming your earlier actions, the ones that were bringing him to the point he badly wanted to reach. he was breathless as he took in the determined glint in your eyes, “fu— fuck. doll, what are you—“

”wanna make you cum, gguk.”

he physically couldn’t hold himself from rolling his eyes far deep, bucking up to meet your hips, and the force of his thrusts threw your weak body back on him again, your hard nipples brushing against his equally stiff ones.

”i’ll fuck you, baby, hm? you already did so good for me,” his words were hushed, whispered, delirious, the sound of them overtaken by the sharp pounding.

but he made sure you could feel every syllable, his lips close to your lobe as you held yourself tightly on his shoulders, “so perfect. letting me fuck you good and deep. gonna make me cum so hard, doll.”

your brain couldn’t process any other kind of response other than loud cries, your cunt being relentlessly abused. the waves of your last orgasm still flowed inside you, the buzz coming back to life as the new position gave him perfect access to your sweet, needy spot, hitting it at an inhumane force.

his effort was translated into deep, raspy growls only pushing you closer to the edge, and you swore you could pass out from the overstimulation. but you basked in it, the tears in your eyes blurring your vision.

”you wanna cum again? i know you can, c’mon. i know you got it in you, pretty. just another one. cum with me.”

his pleading, delirious tone undid you. the way you both released with harsh moans was perfectly synced, his hips jolting you forward as you chased your high against his lower stomach. with a few more pushes, he let go fully inside the condom, all the energy being ripped from him at that moment, his hands freeing your waist from the sharp grip while his head fell weakly on the side.

the two of you were almost wheezing, your exhales shaking in your panting chests as you lifelessly rested on him, slowly being lulled by his breathing.

you didn’t even notice yourself slipping so easily into slumber, and if it weren’t for his delicate touch tracing your closed eyelids and moving your hair behind your ear, his sweet voice preventing you from fully falling unconscious, you would have enjoyed just staying in that position forever.

“sweetheart. you sleepy?”

you only hummed, the sound rough and thick.

he removed himself from you slowly, both of you still gasping at the overstimulation, and he gently laid you on your back before tying the condom and throwing it in the bin next to your nightstand.

as soon as your head hit the pillow, your eyes fluttered shut again. the room spun faintly, and your body, exhausted, ignored every request your mind was screaming at you. you were cold, goosebumps rising on your naked skin; your thighs still trembled, a mess of wetness and slick. but you were too tired to move. you could only lay there, sprawled on the sheets.

luckily, jeongguk thought of everything. his mind was full of you, his only thought being taking care of your figure and making sure you were safe, comforted.

he had taken your virginity. it wasn’t just a physical act— it was a gift you had entrusted him with, something you had kept close to your heart, even through all the fears and anxieties you’d shared with him. you had always been afraid to let go, to give such an intimate part of yourself to someone.

but you trusted him, fully and deeply, in a way that you hadn’t trusted anyone before. that knowledge bloomed in his chest like warmth spreading to every corner of his body. he felt a deep sense of responsibility and gratitude. he wanted to honor that trust.

with care, jeongguk slipped away from your side to retrieve a warm, damp towel. the cool air hit your skin as he left, and you stirred slightly, though not fully awake. when he returned and began gently wiping you down, you startled at the sensation, your eyes slowly fluttering open. you were met with his grinning face, his eyes crinkling at the sides, that same boyish smile that always made your heart skip a beat.

“we should clean up, baby,” he said soft, his voice warm and coaxing as he continued to gently clean the slickness between your legs.

“tired,” you murmured in response, your voice thick with exhaustion. “tomorrow.” the word came out as more of a sigh than anything else. you stretched your arms out toward him, your lips forming a small pout. “cuddle. now.”

jeongguk laughed fondly at your sleepy demands, shaking his head as he tossed the towel to the floor. without a second thought, he slid back into bed beside you, pulling the covers over your naked bodies. the warmth of the blanket and the weight of him beside you immediately soothed the lingering shivers in your body, and you sighed in relief.

instinctively, you reached for him, your leg curling around his, your hands seeking the familiar comfort of his waist. your head rested on his chest, where you could feel the steady thump of his heart beneath your cheek. his arm wrapped around you naturally, his fingers tracing gentle circles along your spine.

it wasn’t unusual for you to cuddle, especially during movie nights, or simply when the other needed comfort.

but this was different. there was a new weight to the way your bodies pressed together, your brain grasping around the reality of what had just happened.

your first instinct faced with that thought was to chuckle lightly, your sleepy brain struggling to come up with any more reasonable reaction. when he hummed and moved to look down at your face, you hid yourself further in his chest, your voice muffled, “i can’t believe you fucked me.”

he sounded tauntingly cocky as he moved your hair from your forehead, “now that you put it like that, well, i did.”

your drowsy state lowered all your inhibitions, your eyes fluttering close as you spilled your honesty, “i’ve been fantasizing about this moment for so long.”

“yeah? what a naughty girl,” his playful tone made you blush, the low voice and the hand grazing at the small of your back making you clench around nothing, still sensitive.

you lightly pushed at his chest with a weak smile, “you literally said you were waiting for it to happen, too.”

jeongguk’s eyes gleamed with amusement, his tone dripping in mock shame, “did i, pretty? did i do that? oh god, how indecent of me.”

the taunting banter went on for a while, your fond grins almost breaking your faces in two halves as you started a quick tickle war. it was almost surreal how easily the two of you slipped back into the habituality of your dynamic, as if nothing had changed at all. and in a way, nothing had. you were still you, and he was still jeongguk— the boy who teased you relentlessly and made you laugh until your stomach hurt.

as the laughter faded, your body began to relax completely, your muscles loosening as you sank further into his embrace. your head rested against his toned pecs, and you could feel the steady rise and fall of his breathing beneath your cheek. his fingers continued their gentle caresses along your back, and for the first time in a long while, you felt completely at peace.

but jeongguk, even in the quiet comfort of the moment, couldn’t let it end just yet. his mind was still racing, still full of thoughts of you.

he wanted to hear your voice. wanted to be soothed by its melody. he spoke quietly, almost hesitant, his breath warm against your hair, “don’t fall asleep so soon. i’ll miss you.”

your voice was rough with weariness, but you were quick with your answer, “i’m literally lying on top of you.”

“i know,” he whispered, his thumb brushing softly against your waist. “but i wanna talk to you.”

with great effort, you blinked your eyes open, lifting your head just enough to look at him through half-lidded eyes, “it’s your fault if i can’t talk right now.”

“damn, i got a magic stick,” his voice sounded oddly proud of it and you groaned, hitting him weakly on his stomach and causing him to giggle.

“you’re so gross.”

“you hurt me!” he whined dramatically and it made you roll your eyes amusedly.

chuckling softly, you took his face in your hands and pressed your fingers gently against his lips, “shut up.” your voice was playfully fond as you nestled back against him, your eyelids growing heavier by the second, dozing off again.

at least trying to, because only a minute later his soft voice resounded again.

it was barely audible in the stillness, “___.”

“hmm?”

“i’m so happy.”

his whispered voice tickled your ear and you giggled, brushing it on your shoulder with a sheepish grin on your lips.

you looked up at him through droopy eyelids, both your orbs swimming in a deep feeling you couldn’t name, “i am too. i don’t think i can feel my pussy anymore, but i’m very happy nonetheless.”

your wittiness even after being completely drained of all your energy surprised him, the laugh escaping him moving in his chest and reflecting in your own fond smile.

he left a peck on your forehead, bringing you to lay down on him again, “you’re so silly. i love you.”

the words left his lips so naturally, as if he had always known them to be true, and they sounded so right that it took both of you another moment to realize their implications.

your heart stopped, and both of you froze. your breath hitched and your eyes widened, but you stayed still, too startled to look up at him.

you felt his heart beat impossibly faster in your ear, and you perfectly pictured the shock that was painting his expression right now.

his hands clutched your sides tighter, trying to find a way to keep his running mind from spiraling, your silence not helping whatsoever. he stuttered, “i— i mean. i— oh god, i’m so sorry.”

the hurt in his tone immediately made your chest clench, panic flushing in your veins. you met his eyes alarmedly, jumping between them, “jeongguk. don’t be sorry. you love me?”

he wasn’t sure what to do, couldn’t figure out if the feeling was mirrored as intensely in you as it was in him. it had been building inside him for weeks, lingering beneath the surface, making his heart race and his thoughts blur every time you were near.

the realization hadn’t come to him in a grand, sweeping moment but in the quiet of the bookstore one random afternoon. he had been stacking shelves, mindlessly organizing the rows of novels, when he caught sight of you. you were tucked into a corner, absorbed in a murakami novel, your fingers brushing the edges of the pages with care.

he hadn’t expected you to show up that day. he was sure you’d mentioned having lectures and that you couldn’t meet up with him, so seeing you there, completely unannounced, had startled him.

he remembered standing there for a moment, frozen in place, just staring at you walk through the door. and then you had lifted your head, and your eyes met his across the quiet, sunlit room.

the smile you gave him was sheepish as you tucked a strand of hair behind your ear, your confession tumbling out softly, “i skipped my classes. i wanted to be here. needed to see you.”

it was shy, and said with a feeling in your gaze that he was scared to decipher.

but he couldn’t help the way it settled in his heart. stubborn, unmoving. the truth was clearly in front of him, and it took the semblance of your face.

you were the truth. he was in love.

so, he could only be truthful to you, “i— yes. i love you.”

the words sank into your skin, filling you with warmth and a sense of completeness that made your chest swell. you exhaled deeply through your nose, trying to steady the burst of emotion building inside you, but your eyes softened, and a tear slipped down your cheek as you smiled, wide and genuine.

“i love you too, gguk.”

it was a simple reply, but the weight behind it carried everything. you didn’t need to say anything more. you couldn’t even if you wanted to, your lips immediately eating at each other, gulping down your furious flow of thoughts and accepting. hearing. feeling. seeing.

all the times you forced to keep shut and convince yourself that what you saw in him and all his care towards you was just coming from a place that would forever see you two as friends. all the secret touches, the shared meals, the warm nights on your couch. all the books you read for him, all the lines he highlighted for you.

it was love. all along. and you felt its power against him, your heartbeats syncing.

when you finally pulled away, you rested your forehead against his, both of you breathing softly in the quiet aftermath of the confession. jeongguk’s arms tightened around you, pulling you even closer as if he couldn’t bear to let go.

the silence that followed wasn’t awkward or uncertain. it was peaceful. comfortable.

and lulled by the quiet, jeongguk ended up being the first to fall asleep, his nervous energy fading away, replaced by a deep sense of contentment. his breathing became slow and steady, his face nuzzled into the crook of your neck, his muscles relaxing.

despite your earlier exhaustion, you were too wired to sleep. you were still flowing with excitement. the night’s events hit you with great force, and kept you wide awake.

quietly, you reached for your phone on the nightstand, careful not to disturb jeongguk. the screen lit up, showing the time. 3:47 am.

even though it was late, you couldn’t resist. you pulled up jimin’s contact and pressed the call button. waiting. he was always awake at this hour.

jimin had been your best friend for years. your loyal confidant, the one you could splutter all your feelings to and never be judged. he had been by your side all along this particular ride, going from a silly, little crush to feeling raging love for the boy in your arms.

you smiled wide at the prospect of jimin’s reaction at the news you were about to share with him. he was the first person you wanted to inform, he deserved to know.

“bitch, don’t tell me you’re crying over jeongguk, ‘cause—“

those are the first words that came through the line, and they made you silently chuckle at the irony, immediately engaging in his banter, “well, sorta kinda. he said he loves me.”

there was a beat of silence on the other end, followed by jimin’s amused scoff, “wow. crazy news. would have never guessed.”

you were stunned, to say the least. your mouth hung open as you whisper-yelled, “bitch! is this seriously all you have to say?”

you were mindful not to wake jeongguk with your conversation, looking down at him with care. his cheek was squished on your small breast, his mouth pouting and releasing heavy puffs. one of his hands rested protectively over your side, and his thumb brushed your under boob.

he was cozily nestled between your legs, his wavy hair brushing your chin, and he looked so peaceful it was like he was made to be held by you.

you couldn’t help the tears from welling in your eyes as jimin’s next words accompanied the view of the boy you loved, now finally yours.

“babe, c’mon, it was obvious.”

[slytherinslut0]

SLYTHERINSLUT0’S RIDDLEMAS

dec 10th. tom riddle — oral sex, experienced!tom.

RIDDLEMAS MASTERLIST. I 2024

summary: your ex couldn’t make you orgasm, so you were certain you were broken. tom shows you just how wrong you are.

warnings: 18+, SMUTTT MDNI, tom riddle can eat me aliv—sorry who tf said that?, tom riddle is such a realist; he sees a problem and he finds a solution, tom is a munch, praise kink, oral f!receiving, experienced tom, hufflepuff!reader.

Months pass, and your project remains the only thing Tom ever prioritizes when it's you asking.

Progress is slow—slow because you're usually far too busy talking to actually focus—yet, he always stays. He listens, even when the things you say should bore him, even when they mean nothing at all. He sits there—giving you hardly the barest scraps of himself in return as you fill the space between you with everything that crosses your mind.

Things he'd never waste a second hearing from anyone else.

And tonight, to no-one's surprise, you're doing it again—rambling on about nothing and everything all at once. You've got this way of talking—weaving tangents into something almost poetic, and usually, he lets it fade into the background as he works. You're saying something about the differences between the seasons, or maybe it's just some other kind of sentimental nonsense—at this point, he's not entirely sure.

It's easy to tune out. He tells himself he's not really listening.

Until—

"Actually, I guess I should clarify that—it's all hypothetical. I don't date," he doesn't know what you said before this, but he's certainly intrigued by it now. "And really, it has nothing to do with like, self esteem or anything, I'm just broken. Best to save someone the trouble."

That stops him cold. It's not so much the declaration that you don't date—he could have guessed that himself—but more so the way you've just called yourself broken.

It's not a word he's ever heard you use before.

"What do you mean, broken?" He asks, the question coming out far more blunt than he probably intended.

It just seems so out of character for you—you've always been an optimist, far too annoyingly positive to speak of anything this way. He blinks when you freeze, and blinks again when a moment of self consciousness seems to pass over your face—and he notes how that's a first for you, too.

"Broken...as in, uh, not normal," your eyes flit down to your lap, tracing the wood beneath where you're seated on the floor in his dorm. "My ex made that very clear in his assessment of me."

The mention of an ex is something he'd been anticipating—you're in your twenties, after all—but it's the idea that your ex is the source of you calling yourself broken, that he can't quite swallow.

"You're 'broken' because of one ex?" He says, and he can't stop how derisive and skeptical his voice sounds. He doesn't care to try. "I'm not following."

"I'm what you'd call, damaged goods, I think," you murmur, and there's an almost self-deprecating smirk on your face. He can't help but think how he's never seen that look on you, either. "I've got a slew of unhealthy baggage that comes along with me. You know, childhood traumas, abandonment issues, daddy issues—"

He snorts at that—daddy issues—and your head snaps up, smirk deepening despite yourself.

"Don't snort at my daddy issues," you huff, and there's a familiar annoyance in your voice that puts him at ease. "They're valid and real."

"I'm not denying their validity," he counters, his own smirk beginning to surface. "But daddy issues? Come on. You're not some tired cliché ripped out of a teenage romance novel. I refuse to accept your declaration of brokenness until you give me factual reasoning."

You laugh at that—alive and genuine—and for a moment, he's reminded of why he even tolerates you in his space at all.

"Fine," you cross your arms over your chest. "What do you want to know then?"

He makes a low, contemplative sound at that—because there's a million questions that come to mind with the words damaged goods—and after a moment, he settles on the one that falls out first.

"What is it, precisely, that makes you broken?"

You sigh, a bit theatrically—he knows you're just putting on a show and he wants to laugh at you for it—but he reigns that in, for now, while you figure out how you're going to respond to that.

The truth is, you don't know how to tell him the real reason you're broken—the part that has nothing to do with the laundry list of emotional baggage you could rattle off with ease. It's something...different.

Something more physical.

"I don't know, okay?" You're getting defensive. You're not sure why but you are. "Just—forget I said anything. We have this assignment to—"

"You dodging the question tells me it's more than just psychological," he cuts you off, leaning back into the couch. The way he's looking at you makes it clear—there's no way he's letting this go. "You getting defensive tells me you're embarrassed by it."

You sigh again, leaning back on your palms to mirror his body language, though it doesn't feel half as natural on you as it does on him.

"And you, being an insufferable arse, is telling me I never should have mentioned it in the first place."

His smirk at that makes you want to glare at him.

"Stop dodging," he says. "You brought it up. You don't get to take it back."

It's a challenge—the gleam in his eyes is practically screaming so. You're not sure why the sight of it makes something low in your stomach clench, and you're even less sure of why you want to tell him something like this—something you haven't told anyone else—not friends, certainly not family.

Whatever the reasoning, you can feel yourself relent.

"Maybe," you pause, the look on his face makes you second guess yourself. "...maybe I don't want to tell you because I'm afraid you'll look at me differently." You glance down at your lap, fingers twitching against the yellow pleats of your skirt before finally meeting his eyes again. "And I kind of like the way you look at me now."

Something like curiosity passes over his expression at that—but it's quickly hidden by the type of skepticism that tells you he still doesn't believe you're being serious.

"You're overthinking it," he replies, unmoving. "Whatever it is you think you're going to tell me, I'm not going to look at you differently. You're still you—no filter, unabashedly verbal—"

"Too verbal. Too positive, too loud," you finish his sentence for him—because you know that's how he thinks of you. "Too annoyingly optimistic. Far too hufflepuff for your cold snake skin. I know."

"Exactly," he says, tongue running over his bottom lip in attempt to quell his smirk. "So I reiterate. There's nothing you could tell me that would change that."

"Fine," you relent, giving in begrudgingly because you know there's no other option. "But don't say I didn't warn you."

He just lifts a hand at that, as if to say; whatever you think it is, I can handle it. The action makes you suck a breath into your lungs, trapping it there.

"You're right," you say after a long exhale. "I have a slew of psychological bullshit that would take the span of a year for me to fully go over in one sitting—but, I'm fine with it. That's...that's not the thing that made me call myself broken."

He says nothing, just makes a motion with his eyes for you to keep going.

"It's, uhm...physical." You whisper, and your brain is moving too much and too fast and you're not even completely sure how to say it without sounding insane. "And...I don't know, I just...I can't orgasm. No matter what. I just can't—it's frustrating and embarrassing and it's the reason my ex ended things."

There's a silence that follows, and he knows if it were anyone else, they'd probably find a way to comfort you. Reassure you. Tom, however, isn't anyone else—

"You're joking," he says, and his tone is incredulous again.

A self-depreciating laugh leaves your lips involuntarily, the sound of it making you almost want to cringe.

"Would it be less embarrassing if I was?"

He's still just watching you, dissecting your words as if waiting for you to crack a smile and confess this was all some stupid joke—and the vulnerability of it aches like a stab to the gut.

"This is the reason you think you're broken?" Is what he goes with when he finally realizes you're being serious. "Because you haven’t orgasmed?"

The bluntness of it makes you flush, makes you wish you could sink into the floor. "I know it's not normal, okay—"

"It's not an abnormality, either," he asserts, with casualty. "You might just have a disconnect."

You blink, caught off guard—not just by his choice of words, but by how matter-of-fact he sounds, like this isn't the mortifying confession it feels like.

"A disconnect?"

"A disconnect," he repeats, looking you over, something clinical slipping into his eyes. "Between mind and body. And considering how loud your thoughts are—"

"Hey—" you snap, suddenly feeling a bit indignant, but he just continues on.

"—it's not surprising that you can't get out of your own head."

You open your mouth to argue, to tell him he's not a therapist, so what the hell does he know? But the certainty in his expression makes you pause. He doesn't look patronizing or condescending, just...assured. Like he knows exactly what he's talking about.

You hesitate, lips parting, a protest forming on your tongue. Before you can say anything, though, he raises a hand to stop you.

"Come here," he says, standing up from the couch.

You blink, trying to decipher what the hell he's implying—because if anything, the last thing that's going to make you less paranoid about intimacy is proximity.

"What?"

He just looks at you, making a motion with two fingers, beckoning you to stand.

"Don't ask questions. Just come here."

It's an order, and it makes your spine tingle in a way that's definitely not comfortable—but you get up from the floor, and move closer to him anyway, closing the distance between you with only a few steps until you're close enough to him that you can practically feel the heat that seems to come off him in waves.

It's weird—he's suddenly too much all at once—you're so much more aware of him being in front of you than you think you've ever been before and it does not help that he's just looking at you—as if studying you—blinking only once as he raises those same two fingers to your neck, resting them against the pulse point at your throat.

Your entire body tenses. His touch is far more gentle than you ever imagined it being, something disarming that makes your pulse beat faster against his fingers as a result—and because this is Tom, with all his smug and certainty—he gives you a look that tells you he can feel it before he slides his fingers up to rest on your forehead.

You scowl at the motion, but he clicks his tongue, the sound as condescending as it is amused.

"I told you, you're an overthinker." He murmurs, eyes dipping to your lips. "Too much noise."

You want to refute that—mostly because you're not overthinking, you can't be—he's just so unequivocally overwhelming—

"I'm not—"

You start, but he moves his fingers from your forehead and places them against your lips—

"Quiet." He scolds, and that makes something low in your stomach clench. "Your body knows what to do. You're just letting your thoughts get in the way."

You long to protest again, just for the sake of defiance—but then his fingers are against your collarbone, and that motion in your stomach becomes a bit more of a squirm—

"Your body is trying to tell you something," he whispers, watching each little hitch in your breath. "But you're too busy talking over it to hear what it's saying."

You realize—with a sort of horror that's laced with something a little more uncomfortable—that he's right. Your body is trying to say something. It's communicating through the unsteady force of your breaths, through the clench of your fists against your skirt—

Of course, he notices. He's noticing far too much.

"Relax," he murmurs, and now he's trailing those same two fingers in an unhurried path down your shoulder. You suddenly regret every decision that led to you wearing a T-shirt. "I'm not going to bite you."

Something about the way he says it makes you wish he wasn't quite so convincing—the familiar banter you long for gone with the sharp exhale that comes out of your mouth as his fingers encircle your wrist—

"Your pulse is racing," he says casually, far too casually for how much effort it's taking you not to scream. "Does that seem broken to you?"

Gods—you want to respond—you really, really do— but your thoughts flatline when you realize his touch has shifted. He's no longer just holding your wrist; he's guiding your hands to rest against his chest, and—

"There you go," he whispers, and the tone of it tells you he knows exactly what it is he's doing to you. "See? Your body's doing exactly what it's meant to do. You—" his fingers trail up your arms, and his voice gets lower. "—are not broken."

You swallow hard, acutely aware of your hands on his chest and the way your palms are clammy against the fabric of his shirt. He's shifting you now, deliberately crowding you, and it's only when you feel the edge of the couch press against the back of your calves that you realize—perhaps a second too late—exactly what it is he's doing.

You stumble back onto the leather, and he follows—crushing his lips to yours.

You gasp, startled, because despite everything you truly hadn't seen this coming. The kiss is messy, clumsy, and his hand finds the nape of your neck, tugging at your hair with just enough force to make it sting. And inevitably, when you gasp again, he takes it as an invitation to work his tongue into your mouth, other hand slipping under your shirt—trailing up your stomach.

You're trembling now, and he makes a low sound at the realization. Your brain is racing to catch up, and the irony of this isn't lost on you—he'd just claimed you weren't broken, but he might as well be destroying you himself.

He parts from your lips only to trail his own across your jaw—

"You're shaking," he murmurs with a smirk against your throat—as if he's taking immense pleasure in the fact—you hate how smug it makes him sound. "Do you want me to stop?"

You want to tell him he's being a bastard, but then his lips press to that spot on your neck—the one that makes your breath hitch and your pulse stutter—and you find yourself whimpering at the sensation.

"No," you breathe, and you'd be embarrassed by the pleading tone in your voice if you weren't so lost in the moment. "Don't stop."

He makes another low, satisfied noise at that.

"Good," he whispers. "No thinking. Just feel."

You swallow—throat dry. It's unfair how easily he's dismantling you with nothing but his mouth and hands. Unfair how he's leaving you breathless and unraveling while somehow making you feel seen in a way you can't explain, even with your eyes shut.

"Tom," you find yourself whimpering, and you aren't even sure what you're asking for—you just know you want more as his lips trail lower—as his fingers work to tug down your skirt. "Gods."

"Shh. Feel me," he murmurs, almost possessively, his lips brushing lower, grazing over your stomach, then your pelvis. "Let your body do the talking."

You've got your hands tangled in his hair before you even know what you're doing, and you hate the fact that you're pretty sure you'd melt into a puddle if he weren't holding you together.

"I feel you," you whimper as he kisses lower. "You're all I feel."

He makes another low sound at that, and you just know it's the response of ‘yeah, that’s right’—but then he's between your legs, panties shifted out of the way, and the first sweep of his tongue against your clit makes all coherent thought shift to static.

"Oh! God," you gasp, the word barely escaping before dissolving into a whimper when he does something with his tongue that makes your vision blur. "Tom—oh, fuck."

He just makes that smug, satisfied noise against you again before his tongue swirls over your clit and you find yourself almost cursing whatever deity made him so good at this, because it's not fair how quickly he reduced you to a whimpering, shaking mess beneath him and—

"Don't stop," you find yourself babbling, digging your nails into his scalp and knowing you look like a goddamn wreck as he makes a meal out of you—tongue lapping up your slick and swirling your clit before sealing his lips around it and forcing your back off the leather beneath it. "Please, don't stop, please—"

It's all you can manage to say. Your thighs are shaking now, and you're sure he's got you dripping all over his face with how soaked you are. He knows you're falling apart and he just keeps going— your brain ceasing function in favour of just focusing on how fucking close you are—how close you are to something you've never felt before in your life—and you're not even sure what you're begging for anymore but it's incoherent and loud—

"I need—" you whimper, your hands tightening in his hair, pulling just enough to make him groan against you. You don't know what you're asking for, but you know he has it. "I need—I need—“

"Let go," he murmurs against you, the roughness in it vibrating up into your belly. "I dare you."

There's still a little bit of you functioning on autopilot, just enough to tell you that when he murmurs those words—vibrations rattling up your cunt and into your chest—you're completely done for.

It’s merely a few seconds later that your high reaches its peak and he just keeps lapping as you shake apart beneath him with an intensity you've never felt before in your life—orgasm shredding you apart at the seams. Your thighs clamp around his face, your eyes squeezed shut, ears ringing so loud you barely register his low, muttered praises: "good girl," "so good," "there you go."

You’re fairly positive your legs will never be able to support you again when you finally come back down, feeling entirely like jelly as he pulls back, tongue flicking over his lips to clean off whatever's left of you.

And without thinking, you grab him and pull him up, crashing your lips against his in a messy, desperate kiss. He tastes like you, like him, like something you can't quite describe—and it makes everything feel intense and unbearably real all at once.

He gives you a moment, as if letting you recover, just languidly kissing you back—and you have to be honest with yourself and admit that this kind of makes you want to scream.

"A disconnect," he smirks against your mouth, the tone still smug. You manage a weak smack to his shoulder, though it does nothing to wipe the satisfaction off his face. "Still sure you're broken?"

You hate that he's right. Hate that he's managed to pull a reaction from you that you didn't think was possible. But as you sit there, shaky and spent, you know you can't deny the truth: no, you're not broken.

"Not broken." You whisper back. "You will be though, if you don't stop smirking at me like that."

[mariocki]

A very young Kenneth Haigh stars as intrepid reporter Tony Johnson in The Vise: Week-End Guest (1.26, ABC, 1955); this episode eventually aired in the UK in 1962 as part of ITV's Tension anthology

[gremlingottoosilly]

Monster!König whose first course of action after the monster uprising was to find his missing bunny wife!Reader who has no idea he even considered them married in the first place. König who is clueless when it comes to societal norms or concepts and learns about marriage through picking up conversations from scientists back when he was locked up. (Still doesn’t have the greatest grasp on it even after getting his hands on human books and media) Reader is just happy to be free from being used as a breeding machine and had no idea her cell?mate thought their relationship ran that deep and wants to get legally married now. :/

Some of the scientists laughed, calling you Konig's little bunny wife. A packmate, someone to get his stress dumped in so their captive monster could be less of a killing machine and more of someone who can actually be controlled and sated. Throw him a bitch with a leaky hole and whiny voice, and he'd be satisfied until the end of time. Konig doesn't like the sound of laughter that comes from the scientists, but he likes the word "wife" forced on you. Wife. Pretty, cute, adorable, small, and fragile thing that needs him to survive - it's basic biology. Needy bunnies like you can't survive in a world filled with humans and certainly can't do it in the new reality, where the strongest are getting all the cards. When Konig eventually gets out, he reads - to his surprise, really, and to the surprise of all of his comrades who would much rather burn everything the old rulers of their world have left. But Konig reads - romance novels, human courting rituals, the true meaning of the word wife and the word husband. He thinks of ways he can put together a wedding worthy of his precious little bunny - when he would finally get her with him, of course. He finds you, of course - it's not that hard to find a bunny in this shrunken world when he has almost all of the power he could have. A colonel in the monster forces, somewhat of a hero waiting for his mate to arrive - you're given to him as a gift from his comrades, a pack of soldiers eager to please their commander. Yes, the little bunny was crying and squirming in his grasp when she was delivered, but it's hardly his fault, is it? Konig just isn't quite sure on how to go about this whole marriage thing and what to do when your pretty wifey is desperately trying to get out of his grasp. He squeezes your throat a bit until you stop trashing in his hold and then spends the rest of the evening exploring your precious needy holes with his tentacles and his hands. God, he missed the feeling of your pussy clenching on his cock, desperate for him to release his seed. You're a bad little thing for denying him, but it's okay, he can work with that. He doesn't care if you're dumb or ungrateful - he will just press further, push his cock as deep into you as possible, squeezing your soft breasts until he swears the milk will come. He will have to breed you for this, of course - as thoroughly as possible until you can't help but cry and moan in his hold. Scientists never allowed him to actually dump his eggs in you, always afraid that he would get too possessive and territorial protecting his clutch and the pregnant mate - but oh, no one is there to stop him now. You would forget all about resisting in a bit - it would be much easier to push you around once you're getting the role of his pretty little wife, just like you were intended to.

[cleo-fox]

Overtime

Summary: Sometimes, working overtime isn’t all that bad.

Pairings: Loki x Female Reader

Warnings: Smut, 18+ minors DNI, sex, cunnilingus, teasing, light bondage, office romance.

Series: Overtime (I don't have a masterlist for this, but if you enjoy these idiots, check out Daylight, a sort of sequel).

A/N: This was largely written prior to season 2 and posted right before episode 4, so it’s not entirely canon compliant and the parts that are may be compliant by accident.

Also, @give-me-a-moose and I were on a similar wavelength about Loki angrily reading romance novels and I would strongly recommend checking out her fic The Imagine Nation if you too are enthralled by this idea.

You don’t think that Mobius intended to keep Loki’s desk behind yours.

“It’s temporary,” he tells you apologetically. “He just needs somewhere to go for now, until I figure out what to do with him.”

“You’re talking about him like he’s a stray cat that you found,” you say.

“You won’t even know he’s there, I promise.”

“You’re still doing it.”

Mobius sighs and puts on his most sincere, earnest expression—the one that he always uses when he’s about to ask you for a stupidly massive favor.

And it’s only because you almost never, ever see this look from him that you back down.

“Okay, fine,” you say. “But he’d better be on his best behavior.”

Mobius puts his palms together and tips them toward you. “Thank you. You will not regret this, I promise.”

You sigh and shake your head. “Just remember this next time you’re budgeting for raises.”

But then—in a move that you certainly don’t expect—Loki ends up sticking around. And, in the subtle way that the stray you’ve been feeding slowly turns into your cat, Loki’s temporary desk becomes his permanent desk. And strangely enough, Mobius’ assurances turn out to be more correct than not: Loki does a lot of fieldwork and is often away; when he is at his desk, it tends to be because he is working on more complicated missions, the ones that require poring over mountains of files looking for patterns and trying to untangle the slippery mess of time itself.

Your work is decidedly less glamorous than Loki’s—almost no fieldwork, lots of files. Endless files. Some days you feel as though you must have seen every file in the TVA’s extensive library and then you’re immediately proven wrong by another wing of filing cabinets that you swear wasn’t even there before.

Although he is generally well-behaved as your desk neighbor, Loki’s presence has a way of distracting you. Even if you didn’t know who he was, your gaze would still naturally drift his way, lingering on those regal cheekbones, that ink black hair, that cunning smirk. The way that the fabric of his dress pants clings to his thighs certainly doesn’t help, to say nothing of how his forearms look with his shirtsleeves rolled up. He can make your heart start to race with no more than a casual glance in your direction and god help you if he gives you one of those devastating smiles. Luckily, you don’t think he takes that much notice of you. You have the sort of pleasantly dull exchanges of coworkers who don’t really know each other and he is almost painfully polite to you. It’s a strong departure from the way he interacts with others—with others, he is bold, charming, sarcastic, talkative, a far cry from the more subdued, almost courtly tone he strikes with you. It’s a difference that is so stark that you can’t help but attribute it to some sort of negative feeling on his end.

“How’s it going with Loki?” Mobius asks you during a one-on-one meeting a couple of months after Loki’s temporary desk becomes his permanent desk. “He’s behaving himself, right?”

“It’s been fine,” you say, “though truthfully, I don’t think he likes me all that much.”

“What? Of course he likes you,” Mobius says. “Why wouldn’t he like you? You’re lovely.”

You shrug. “I dunno, he’s just different with me than he is with everyone else. Like…overly polite. It’s like he thinks I’m going to send him to the principal’s office or something.”

“Let me get this straight,” says Mobius. “First you were worried that he wouldn’t behave himself and now you’re worried that he’s too well-behaved?”

Privately, you realize he has a point. Outwardly, though, you’re not going to admit it. The sardonic tilt of Mobius’ mouth suggests that he knows this.

“No, I just…I don’t think he likes me all that much,” you say. “And he’s entitled to that. People don’t like each other all the time, it’s not a big deal.”

This is also a little bit of a lie—you do wish he liked you. Loki is so magnetic it’s hard not to want his attention. And with the matter of your silly little crush, well…that doesn’t help either.

Mobius sighs. “I think you’re overthinking this. He likes you, sometimes it just takes him a little time to warm up. He’s a bit of a prickly guy.”

You bite down the urge to point out that you’ve seen him warm to other people almost immediately. This conversation has already gone on longer than you want and you are edging dangerously close to having to admit that you care so much because you have a big stupid crush on him, which is obviously unacceptable.

“Well, the point is that it’s fine,” you say quickly, trying to project an aura of cool confidence. “I don’t have any complaints, he seems like he’s settling in, so let’s move on. Did you have any feedback on my recent report?”

The furrow between Mobius’ eyebrows deepens just slightly, the only indication that he doesn’t fully believe you. But for whatever reason, he decides to let it go and follows your change in topic without further comment.

This is one of the reasons you like Mobius as much as you do: he always seems to know the right moment to push and the right moment to bend.

You’re not sure if your relationship with Loki would have changed had it not been for the problem of Charles Berlitz.

The joke around the office is that after Mobius convinced Loki to work for the TVA, he needed something new to obsess over and Charles Berlitz was the next best option. It’s hard to say exactly who Berlitz is, as he has a tendency of showing up, well…everywhere. He is quite literally in every timeline, at least as far as anyone can tell. Sometimes he is an author, penning serious, scholarly essays on outlandish theories like the Bermuda Triangle and the Philadelphia Experiment. He seems to have a fondness for all manner of schemes—he was responsible for introducing both homeopathy and multi-level marketing to no fewer than sixty different timelines. His ability to peddle bullshit naturally led him to politics—pick any rebellion, coup, or campaign on any given timeline and there’s a good chance you’ll also find Charles Berlitz.

Scammers and con artists are not atypical in your line of work, but what makes Charles Berlitz an enduring mystery is that he has never been found. You can have reputable documentary evidence that Berlitz was present at a certain time and location, but if you show up to investigate, he is never there. There have been some glimpses over the years—a shadowy face in the back of a crowd, the hem of a cloak disappearing behind a corner—but nothing concrete or substantive.

“Our ghost in the timeline,” Mobius had said in one of his more poetic moments at an all staff meeting, his voice overly hushed and dramatic. You had seen Loki roll his eyes and you had to fake a coughing fit to hide your laugh.

Time moves differently at the TVA, so it’s hard to say how long Mobius has been working on this case when he makes a breakthrough, but it’s not terribly long after your conversation about Loki. A campaign button had been found in an apartment that Berlitz rented for two years in the French Quarter. That particular campaign button could only have existed in one specific timeline and its distribution was limited. You aren’t entirely clear on all of the details, but Mobius seems to have a plan.

And unfortunately, that plan involves you giving up most of your weekend to work.

It’s near quitting time on what passes for a Friday at the TVA. Loki has been in today and you can hear him starting to pack up. Technically, he’s got twenty minutes of work left, but you’re not about to tell him that.

You doodle absently on your notepad. Technically, you’ve also got twenty minutes of work left, but realistically: nothing is happening.

“Oh, great, you’re both still here.”

In general, this phrase has never meant good news for you and when you look up, you see Mobius with a sizable armful of files.

Also not a great sign.

Mobius plunks the stack of files directly on your desk. “There’s been a development with Berlitz. I need you both to review these now.”

“It’s Friday,” says Loki, affronted. “Surely it can wait until Monday.”

“No can do. I need this done by Sunday at the latest,” says Mobius. “This is an all hands on deck situation.”

Loki glances pointedly at the office around you, which has already started emptying out for the weekend.

“All hands on deck, but most hands are already in the field,” Mobius concedes. “Which is why I need the two of you—” He points to you. “You because you’re good—” He gestures to Loki. “And you because you’ve got desk duty.”

“I beg your pardon—” begins Loki.

“He’s grounded,” Mobius says to you in an exaggerated stage whisper.

This is not surprising to you: you had heard a rumor last week about an incident that had occurred on a mission to the inauguration of Richard Nixon and you suspect that these two events are likely connected.

You look at the pile of paperwork on your desk. You could probably get through it on your own in a couple of hours, but if Loki’s helping, maybe you still have a shot at having Saturday to yourself. You bite back a sigh. “What do you need me to find?”

“Anything that mentions anyone from the Lucchese crime family or Nero Variant N2815,” says Mobius. “I’ll go get the rest.”

Your heart sinks. Farewell, Saturday. “There’s more?” you say.

“It’ll be triple overtime, I already got it approved!” he calls over his shoulder

You sigh and glance at Loki who is scowling at the pile of files as though they’d wronged him personally.

There’s a long moment of silence before you speak. “Is there any truth to the rumor I’ve been hearing about the Nixon inauguration?” you ask.

“If it involved a hot air balloon, then yes,” he says rather tonelessly.

“Well.” You pause as you stare at the pile of papers. “At least it was worth it.”

That at least earns you a hint of a smile.

*

Several hours later, your stomach is growling and you’ve developed a rather impressive crick in your neck.

You lean back in your chair, stretching your neck to the side and rubbing the knot that is pulsing in your upper trapezius. Office work has done nothing positive for your posture in general, but tonight’s work has you hunched over more than usual and your neck is aching.

You and Loki have made good progress, but your pile of finished and sorted files is scarcely comparable to the full cart that Mobius had brought in. Back when the evening was new and you weren’t quite so tired, you’d been optimistic about possibly having half a Saturday free from work; that hope has slipped away the longer the evening has dragged on. Now you’re hoping that you’ll still have a bit of Sunday to yourself and even that feels unlikely.

Your stomach growls again. You should probably eat something—you’d worked through your regular dinner hour in a fit of misplaced optimism. The cafeteria is closed this time of night, but there’s a vending machine not far from your office that has shitty coffee and mostly edible sandwiches.

You stand and stretch, stifling a yawn as you turn around. “I’m gonna grab a coffee and some dinner,” you say. “Do you want anything?”

Loki looks up at you from the file in front of him, blinking somewhat dazedly and running a hand through his messy curls. “I’d like to stretch my legs a bit, if you don’t mind the company.”

You honestly didn’t expect him to want to join you. It’s a pleasant surprise, certainly, but also a little nerve wracking in the way that interacting with Loki always is. He’s so handsome and aloof and you’re not quite sure how to talk to him without acting like a total fool.

But you’re also not about to say no, either.

“Of course,” you say, “I don’t mind at all.”

The TVA is unusually quiet at this time of night—the steady hum of fluorescent lights and the murmur of distant voices is all that accompanies the tap of your shoes on the linoleum. It only heightens the jittery, nervous feeling you get from Loki—like your stomach is filled with drunk, lightning struck butterflies.

“Are you finding much?” asks Loki as you enter the hallway together.

You shrug. “A bit. Mostly on the Nero variant. I’m not having as much luck with the Luccheses.”

“I’ve got all of their property transfers, I think,” he says. “Renato Lucchese never met a vineyard he didn’t like.”

“Or racehorses, from what I understand,” you say. “I think that’s how he lost most of his money.”

You arrive at the vending machines. Loki looks at the vending machines and then back at you, a somewhat puzzled and troubled expression on his face.

“This is what you meant when you said you were going to get coffee and dinner?”  he says.

You shrug. “Yeah, what’s wrong with this?”

He points at the coffee machine. “Mobius calls that machine Satan’s coffeemaker, does he not?”

“Yes, but I know how to trick it into giving me something that’s almost palatable,” you say.

Loki gives you a rather dry look. “Something that’s almost palatable?”

“I mean, I’m just trying to manage your expectations. It’s still pretty shitty coffee, it just tastes less burned.”

He looks at you for a long moment before tilting his head toward the hallway. “Come on, let’s go.”

It’s your turn to look skeptical. “What are we doing?”

“We’re going out for dinner.”

*

He takes you to a twenty-four hour diner called Frank’s that’s maybe a five minute walk from the TVA. It’s one of those places with yellowing Formica tables and big booths covered in red faux leather patched with the occasional square of duct tape. It smells like coffee and grease with a faint odor of cigarette smoke despite the prominent no smoking signs.

“I wouldn’t have thought this kind of place was your style,” you say as you sit down in a booth next to the window.

“I’ve expanded my horizons,” he says, sliding into the seat across from you.

An older woman with greying blonde hair approaches your booth. She wears a nametag reading “Connie” in big capital letters, a sticker of a pink cat stuck on the space next to her name.

“How y’all doin’ tonight?” she says as she hands you each a laminated menu. She looks at Loki. “You want your usual?”

“Please,” he says.

“You got it.” She turns to you. “How ‘bout you, hon, can I get ya started with something to drink?”

“Coffee would be great.”

“All right, I’ll be right back with your drinks.”

You raise your eyebrows at Loki as she walks away. “You eat at diners and you have a usual order. My expectations are being completely upended.”

He returns your pleasantly amused expression. “And you have vending machine coffee for dinner. It’s a revealing night.”

“I mean, I don’t actively seek it out,” you say. “It’s a convenient option that I exercise only when I have no other choice.”

“No other choice?” A sly smile curls at his lips. “Do you not have the entire array of space and time at your fingertips?”

“Well, first of all, we aren’t supposed to use TemPads for personal errands without a supervisor’s approval.”

“Technically.”

“No, actually. It’s in the personnel manual. Like verbatim.”

He raises an eyebrow. “You would put yourself through the egregious physical suffering of vending machine coffee simply to appease the capricious whims of our cruel overseer Miss Minutes?”

You bite back a laugh. “You know she’s not actually our boss, right?”

“I can’t discount that possibility. She wields a concerning amount of power within the organization.”

Connie is back with your drinks—coffee for you and tea for Loki. “Sunday Special?” she asks Loki as she sets a metal teapot and empty mug in front of him.

“Please,” he says.

“You got it.” She looks at you. “Didya get a chance to look at the menu or do you need a minute?”

You’re feeling a little daring. “I’ll try the Sunday Special as well.”

“All right, two Sunday Specials comin’ right up,” she says, collecting your menus.

“So, what’s in a Sunday Special?” you ask Loki as you take a sip of your coffee.

“Boiled fish eggs, mainly,” he says, pouring the hot water into his tea mug.

“Liar,” you say promptly.

He raises an eyebrow. “You didn’t even look at the menu, how could you know?”

“Places like this don’t serve fish eggs,” you say. “Way too unusual and definitely the wrong price point.”

“I suppose you’ll just have to see,” he says with a playful glint in his eyes. The easy charm that you’ve seen him use with the others is on full display and it’s enough to make you giddy. Maybe he doesn’t dislike you after all.

“Well, if it’s fish eggs, you’re picking up the bill,” you say, “and I’ll be getting something else instead.”

“You’d really hold me responsible for your impulsive dinner selections?”

“Yep. And I don’t even feel bad about it.”

He raises an eyebrow. “I didn’t realize you could be so unforgiving.”

“Well, you don’t know me all that well.”

“To be fair, you keep to yourself quite a bit.”

“A little bit,” you say. “But also to be fair, you haven’t really asked.”

“On work time?” he says, widening his eyes in mock horror. “That would mean write ups for both of us, I couldn’t let that happen.”

“I think I know enough about you to know that getting in trouble is not one of your primary concerns.”

He gives you a sly smile, like you’ve caught him out and he likes it. “That’s a diplomatic way to put it.” He takes a sugar packet from the dispenser on the table and tears it open before pouring it into his mug. “Well, we’re on break now, so you can safely tell me something about yourself.”

You drum your fingers on your coffee mug. “What do you want to know?”

“Well, this can’t be the only part of your life. Who are you outside the TVA? What did you do before this?”

That giddy feeling comes to a screeching halt and you take in a long, slow breath. It’s a simple question, one that most people can answer to some degree. For you, though, it’s a bit more complicated.

“Well,” you say. You take a sip of your coffee, mostly to give your hands something to do. “I don’t actually know—I chose not to remember when they gave me the option.”

You’re surprised by how gentle his eyes are when you look up. “My apologies,” he says, “I didn’t realize.”

“It’s okay,” you say and you really do mean it. “You couldn’t have known.”

Usually, you say something like this and then gently redirect the conversation, but something about the way he’s looking at you makes you want to continue. Like maybe he understands difficult things and doesn’t mind hearing about something that others would shy away from.

“When they told us everything and said they could fix our memories…” You clear your throat and focus your gaze just above his shoulder. “It’s weird, but I just had a feeling that it wouldn’t be good for me to know…that something really bad had happened. So I asked Mobius to check for me, just to be sure…” You swallow, blinking hard.

You remember how sad Mobius’ eyes were, how he’d gently placed a hand on your shoulder and said, “I think you’re making the right call, kid.”

“It’s not really okay, is it?” Loki says softly.

You shrug. “I mean, it’s…it is what it is.”

“You’re a terrible liar, you know.”

“It’s not a lie—”

He raises a skeptical eyebrow and you remember that he is, in fact, the god of lies.

“It’s more like…I can’t really miss what I don’t know, but at the same time, the reality of that absence hurts a little. So maybe not exactly okay, but not exactly not okay, either.”

There’s a lot of kindness in his gaze and you have to look away because it makes your head spin and your breath catch in your throat. “I’m not really sure if that makes sense,” you say.

“It does.”

There’s a silence between you, but it’s not uncomfortable.

“Do you…do you think you’d want to forget if you had that option?” You’re not entirely sure what prompts the question and you regret it almost as soon as it leaves your mouth. “I’m sorry, that’s probably too personal.”

He shakes his head and there’s a warmth in his eyes that you don’t expect. “I rather think I owe you one.” He pauses, running a finger around the rim of his mug. “Sometimes I do,” he says finally. “It can be quite painful remembering.” He worries his lip between his teeth. “But I’m not sure who I would be without the knowledge of my past, either.” His gaze flicks back to you. “What’s it like for you? Do you feel like you know who you are without those memories?”

It’s a good question—one you’ve never been asked. “I mean, it’s hard to say for sure. I think I do,” you say. “Sometimes I wonder if I was different in my timeline. Maybe I was kinder because I had different experiences that made me more empathetic. Maybe I wasn’t—maybe I was worse. Maybe I had a villain arc.”

He chuckles. “That doesn’t seem likely.”

“I dunno, maybe it explains the vending machine coffee and my fish egg related threats,” you say and you feel almost giddy when he returns your smile. “Or maybe I’m the same and all those experiences that shaped me are just scars I can’t see.” You shrug and take a sip of your coffee. “At the end of the day, though, that timeline is gone. I’m all that’s left. It’s sad, but it’s also freeing, in a way.”

He nods. “Mobius has said much the same.”

You smile slightly. “Our philosophies are similar, I suppose, though I think there are probably more bits of his past self in his present self than he realizes.”

Loki grins. “It’s the jet skis, isn’t it?”

“I mean, I just don’t think most normal people spend that much time expounding on the reliability of the Yamaha engine versus the pure, raw power of the Kawasaki.”

Loki holds up a finger. “But have you gotten the lecture about Yamaha’s braking system?”

“I think I have that memorized at this point.”

“‘The perfect choice for families.’”

“‘You just tap the brakes. Just tap them. Perfectly smooth stop every time.’”

“‘Reliability meets affordability.’”

“‘You can’t say no to that.’”

You think you probably could have riffed on this for a bit, but you’re interrupted by the arrival of Connie with your dinner.

The Sunday Special turns out to be a fairly traditional breakfast—eggs, hash browns, two fluffy pancakes, sausage, toast, a little bowl of strawberries.

“Definitely lots of fish eggs in this meal,” you say to Loki after Connie leaves.

His smile is small, but genuine. “You haven’t looked under the pancakes yet.”

You feel it then, but you don’t fully understand until later that this dinner has unlocked something important between the two of you. After months of awkward, stilted conversation, it’s like you finally understand how to talk to each other. And you’re surprised to find that even outside of your big stupid crush, you actually like Loki. You like his sly smiles and his dry humor and how easily the two of you fall into a routine of playful banter. You click in a way that surprises you, in a way that makes you mourn the lost potential of all those awkward, stilted months and feel giddy about the possibilities ahead.

Dinner is over too soon and you walk back to the TVA feeling revived from the coffee and the conversation. 

Disaster awaits you back at the office, though: you’d left a stack of the Nero variant files on your desk and evidently the construction was too precarious, as the entire pile had tipped off your desk and spilled to the floor, contents scattered everywhere.

“Fucking hell,” you sigh, running a hand through your hair. You’re not sure whether you want to laugh, cry, or scream. Possibly, it’s all three.

“Here.” Loki is bending down on the floor to gather the files. You studiously try to not ogle his ass or thighs. Or at least not obviously. “Clear off some space on your desk—I’ll help.”

Twenty minutes later, you’ve set up an entirely new system—Loki has dragged his chair over to your desk and the cart of unsorted files sits between you, like a surly metallic chaperone. And even later when you’ve sorted out all of the files from the floor, he remains parked at the end of your desk, a stack of new, unsorted files in front of him. Admittedly, it’s a lot more efficient for you to work like this: privately, though, it gives you a warm glow that has nothing to do with workplace efficiency.

“I’ve invented a new game,” he says some time later. 

“What’s that?”

“Every time either one of us finds documentation showing Renato Lucchese losing money on a racehorse he was told was not a good investment, I get to have a drink.”

You look up at him. “Look, I know you’re a god and everything, but I am pretty sure that will kill you.”

He sighs and tosses the file into the Lucchese pile. “I think it would add a little excitement to the evening, don’t you?”

You raise your eyebrows and look back at the file in front of you. “You mean this isn’t your idea of a fun Friday night?”

“My idea of a fun Friday night includes far fewer files and a lot more debauchery,” he says, taking a new file from the cart.

You glance at the clock. “Well, it’s only eleven. I don’t usually start body shots until after midnight.”

“What are body shots?”

For one horrifying moment, you think that you’re going to actually have to explain this to him, but then you get a good look at his expression.

He’s teasing you.

“You’re an ass,” you say, swatting him on the shoulder with the file you’re holding.

He wags a finger at you. “That’s workplace violence. I’m going to have to report that.”

You lean back in your chair and return to your file. “I’m pretty confident that you’ll be put off by the amount of paperwork that process requires.”

He shakes his head as he returns to his own file. “Uncontrolled bureaucracy is how bad actors escape accountability.” There’s a brief pause. “And…there’s another racehorse.”

You continue on like this for the rest of the evening, occasionally chatting and Loki proving definitively that the Renato Lucchese racehorse drinking game could not be played without resulting in a fatality. It’s nice, though. Yes, it’s sorting files and yes, it’s not the most intellectually riveting task you’ve ever done, but spending time with Loki is nice. It’s because of this that you find yourself trying to stay awake, pushing past your looming exhaustion.

But around two, you can’t quite fight the heaviness of your eyelids any longer and you doze off in the middle of a report on the sinking of the Lusitania.

“Hey.” Loki is gently shaking your shoulder. The way he says your name in that deliciously deep voice makes you want to swoon and you’re glad that you have the ready made excuse of sleepiness to explain any embarrassing behavior on your end.

“I think you’d better call it a night,” he says gently. “Get some sleep and come back with fresh eyes.”

“What about you?” you say. “Are you going to do the same, or are you just all talk?”

He smiles at you and it warms you to the very tips of your toes. You could bask in that smile like a cat in a sunbeam.

“I’m starting to fade a bit myself,” he says

“Very convenient,” you say and he grins at you.

“Come on, I’ll see you back home.”

Part of you wants to protest—there’s really no need for him to walk you home—but a larger, louder part of you wants to let it be, prolong the magic of tonight for just a little longer.

There’s a comfortable silence between the two of you as you walk out of the office together. 

“What time do you think you’re going to come in tomorrow?” he asks as you approach the residential wing. “It’s probably sensible to coordinate our efforts a bit.”

“Yeah, that’s a good point,” you say. “I was thinking nine, but that will be dependent on how much coffee I have.”

“Yes, about that,” he says. “I cannot stand idly by and watch you torture yourself with vending machine coffee.”

“Well, the cafeteria will be open, so I was going to torture myself with cafeteria coffee, which is at least thirty percent less over brewed.”

He clicks his tongue. “You’re not making a compelling case for yourself.”

“To be fair, it’s quite late and I’ve been staring at files for hours.”

“All the more reason to get decent coffee,” he says. “We’re going out for breakfast.”

You raise an eyebrow. “Oh, we are?”

“Consider it an intervention,” he says. “I’ll come collect you at eight.”

You’re not quite sure if this is just his natural confidence and swagger coming through or if he’s flirting with you and this counts as a date.

“Where are we going?”

“I know a place.”

*

The place in question turns out to be a food cart in Central Park in 1998.

“Should I even bother asking if you have supervisor approval for this?” you say, looking skeptically at the time door glimmering before you.

Loki scoffs. “I don’t have a supervisor.”

“You do. It’s Mobius.”

“That can’t be right, we’re peers.”

“You’re absolutely not. Did you read any of the onboarding materials?”

He ignores your question. “I don’t see why I’d even need a supervisor, honestly.”

You snort. “Need I remind you of what happened at the Nixon inauguration?”

He spreads his hands in front of him. “It’s not my fault that I’m the only one with a sense of humor.”

“I’m not entirely sure that was the problem,” you say. “Gerald Ford is never going to be the same, from what I understand.”

Loki waves a dismissive hand. “He’ll be fine, the tail isn’t permanent. Now, are you coming or not?”

You roll your eyes at him and make a halfhearted complaint about proper protocol, but you know that you’re walking through that time door and not looking back. You knew that before he even posed the question.

The food cart is owned by a man named Samir who has a wide smile and booming laugh. He talks to Loki like he’s a friend and he tells you that you have the prettiest eyes he’s ever seen. You are fairly certain he’s exaggerating, but you stuff a few extra bills into the tip jar anyway.

“I can’t believe you fell for that,” says Loki as you walk away, each carrying a coffee and a brown paper bag with a breakfast sandwich.

“Fell for what?” you say, batting your eyes at him. “I do have beautiful eyes.”

“I’ve heard him say that on at least thirty separate occasions.”

“Yeah, but this time he really meant it. I could tell.”

He rolls his eyes and leads you to a park bench overlooking a wide, grassy field. The leaves are just starting to change and the air has a little bit of a bite to it. 

You sit down on the bench and take a sip of your coffee.

“It is good coffee, I’ll give you that,” you say.

“See,” says Loki, “you can’t go back to that vending machine sludge after this.”

“I mean, if it’s eleven o’clock at night and I’m on a deadline, I can.”

“Darling. You have a TemPad.”

“Loki. Read the personnel manual.”

He wrinkles his nose. “It’s not really my genre.”

You roll your eyes and take out your breakfast sandwich. “What is your genre?”

He raises an eyebrow. “Is that a serious question?”

“Of course it is,” you say. “I love talking about books.”

He gives you a slight smile and takes a sip of his coffee. “A little bit of everything, honestly,” he says. “Philosophy. Magical theory. History. Politics. Anything from Asgard, really, though it can be a bit more challenging getting some of those titles.”

“I’ve had pretty good luck with the Library of the Sacred Timeline—have you checked there yet?”

He frowns. “I’m not familiar.”

“Oh, you’d like it—it’s on the eighteenth floor. It’s intended to be a collection of the greatest works of literature from as many branches of the timeline as possible,” you say. “It started as a research project, but people liked it and it just kind of evolved into this huge collection. They’ve actually got a pretty sizeable collection of books from Asgard.”

It’s like you’ve told him that his personal paradise had been located on the eighteenth floor this entire time. “Will you show me?”

He is practically vibrating with the sort of anticipatory, manic energy that you typically would associate with Christmas morning right before you tear into presents. It’s sweetly endearing.

“Of course.”

Ten minutes later, you’re leading him through the winding hallways on the eighteenth floor. You’re not surprised he hasn’t heard about the library—it’s a bit out of the way and the eighteenth floor is so poorly designed that it’s not terribly easy to find.

The design of the library is a sharp departure from the rest of the TVA. The shelves and floors are made of the kind of dark mahogany that you typically see in the kind of estates that look like something directly out of a Jane Austen novel. Worn oriental rugs muffle your footsteps on the creaky wood floors and the air smells faintly of dust and paper.

There’s a subtle change in Loki when you walk through the doors—almost like a muscle in his shoulders finally relaxes and he seems truly at home for the first time since he arrived.

You touch his hand. “This way.”

You lead him into the stacks, back to the far corner, right after the books from Alfheim.

“You can borrow whichever ones you like,” you say softly. “There’s a sign out sheet at the front desk.”

He nods, though you don’t think he really hears you—he only has eyes for the shelves, his gaze sweeping across the spines like they’re old friends. You’re about to excuse yourself to give him a little privacy when his brow furrows and he exhales sharply. “Oh, you can’t be serious.”

“What is it?”

They have the entirety of the finest Asgardian literature at their disposal. Untold centuries of the writings of our greatest minds—” he plucks a book off the shelf, “—and they choose to include this?”

The title looks fairly innocuous—a red, leather bound book with the title The Cloistered Heart embossed in gold script on the front. You take the book from him and open it. “What’s the problem with this?”

“It’s inconsequential fluff, literary pablum of the highest order.”

This is the Loki that you’re more familiar with and a smile curls at your lips. Almost on cue, you flip the book open to a chapter titled “The Wedding and Bedding of Aloisa.”

You bite back a laugh and look up at him. “It’s a romance novel.”

“Precisely my point,” he says. “To think that this is on the same shelf as Nielsen and Auber.”

“That’s kind of how libraries work,” you say, flipping further into the book. The phrases “throbbing length” and “eager moans” draw your eye and you have to tamp down another laugh. “Oh, and it’s a sexy romance novel.”

“It appeals to the lowest common denominator, yes.”

“What, so you’re too good for a bodice ripper?”

He scoffs. “I prefer to do the bodice ripping myself, not read some overwrought description of it.”

You are glad you’re looking at the book because you’re pretty sure you’d disintegrate if you had to make eye contact with him while he delivered that line. “Oh spare me,” you say lightly, snapping the book shut and drawing it to your chest. “I’m gonna read this.”

He blows out a puff of air. “It’s a waste of your time.”

“I’ve got lots of time, I can afford to waste it,” you say cheekily. “Besides, I’m curious to see what kind of book turns the god of mischief into a pearl clutching prude.”

Loki sputters. “Prude? Darling, let me assure you, I’m no prude—”

“I’ll leave you to browse,” you say with a grin as you turn away from him. “Come find me at the front when you’re ready to go.”

You’re a few chapters into the book when Loki rejoins you at the front of the library, a small stack of books tucked under his arm.

You close your book with a snap. “This book is a delight. I think your real issue is just that you’re no fun.”

He scoffs. “I’m very fun.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

You bicker playfully back and forth as you check out your books and leave the library. A quick glance at your watch tells you that you spent much more time there than you’d planned. You can’t quite bring yourself to worry about that, though, not with the memory of Loki’s wonderstruck expression burning so bright in your mind.

There’s a bit of a lull in the conversation as you wait for the elevator.

“Thank you,” he says softly.

“For what?”

“For showing me that.”

“Of course. I’m sorry you didn’t know about it sooner.”

He looks at you, lips parting slightly like he’s about to say something. His tongue swipes briefly over his bottom lip and you would swear that his gaze drops to your mouth for just a second.

For just a second—one heady, slightly irrational second—you think he might be about to kiss you.

The ding of the elevator arriving breaks the spell, startling you just a little. You run a hand through your hair, trying to give off the impression of composure even as your heart beats wildly in your chest.

Loki gestures to the elevator doors. “After you.”

There is a group of analysts in the elevator already, chatting animatedly and completely obliterating any chance you may have had at recapturing that moment.

You try not to dwell too much in contemplating what ifs or timeline branches—often, it feels too much like work, something Mobius might assign you.

But you know that the possibility of that moment—what if the elevator had been a hair slower, what if those analysts had taken a different route, what if you were braver—you know that’s something that’s going to haunt you for a while.

*

You wouldn’t give up that time in the library for anything—it’s one of those moments that feels formative, something that you’ll return to again and again for one reason or another.

But it’s also true that it’s time that you probably could have used for sorting files and as Saturday ticks on, you can’t help but wish you had a way to pull another hour out of somewhere.

“We’re not going to be able to make this deadline, are we?” you say with a sigh.

It’s getting late into the evening and the cart of files still to be sorted still remains depressingly full, despite the fact that you’d brought both lunch and dinner back to your desk so you could continue working.

Loki eyes the remaining files. “I think we might. We made good progress today.”

You rub your eyes. “My brain feels like it’s about to leak out my ears.”

Loki takes the file you are working on and sets it back in the stack of unsorted files. “I think that might be a sign it’s time to turn in,” he says.

“There’s still so much left.”

“There’s still tomorrow.”

You reach for the file. “Well, let me just—”

He pulls your hand away from the pile. “You can come back to it in the morning. Besides, if you’re this tired, you’re not going to do good work anyway.”

He squeezes your hand and drops it. It’s brief enough to still be friendly, but unusual enough to make you wonder and send your mind racing back to that moment by the elevator.

You shake the thought away. It’s late and you’re tired.

You heave a world weary sigh and slump back in your chair. “I hate it when you’re right.”

To his credit, he only smirks a little. “Come on. I’ll walk you back.”

Once again, there’s no reason for him to do this, but once again, you’re inclined to let him.

You pack up for the evening and walk out of the office side by side. You’re trying very hard not to think about the fact that this is likely the last night that you’ll do this, that tomorrow the assignment will be over.

As you near the residential wing, you start to hear distant shouts. If you inhale deeply, you catch a very faint whiff of explosives—you’re not sure what kind.

“I think someone brought work home,” you say with a sigh. 

This happens from time to time—things get out of hand in the field or something happens when retrieving an asset or a target and all hell breaks loose at the TVA. Mobius had once referred to it as “bringing work home” and the name had stuck.

“Wasn’t there an incident in this wing not long ago?” asks Loki.

“Yes.” You sigh, running a hand through your hair. “I had to call off the next day—I got no sleep that night.” You listen carefully, trying to determine the source of the noise and the status of the problem. “But maybe it’s almost over,” you say with an optimism you don’t fully feel. “Sometimes these things are resolved really quick.”

Your heart continues to sink the closer you come to your home. The acrid burn of explosives only increases and you think you catch the low, dull roar of something not quite human.

And indeed, when you turn the final corner, you are immediately stopped by an electric blue barrier being monitored by a hunter. G-21–you’ve worked with her on a couple of missions before.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” slips out of your mouth before you can stop yourself.

“There’s an ongoing incident in this area,” says G-21 and you almost want to laugh because no shit. 

“How long do you think it’s gonna be closed off?” you ask.

She shrugs. “We’re at a code 54 right now, but it’s probably gonna escalate.”

With pitch perfect timing and before you can even try to remember what a code 54 means, there’s an almighty crash and a low bellow.

“Go!” she yells before running toward the commotion amid frantic calls for backup.

Loki is grabbing your wrist and pulling you into a run.

Your standard issue work shoes are comfortable enough on a day to day basis, but you certainly want to have words with whoever decided that leather soled shoes with absolutely no grips were a good choice for a building floored almost entirely in linoleum. In a low stakes situation, it’s meant occasionally you wipe out in the cafeteria and hurt nothing but your pride. In this situation, it means that Loki’s firm grip on your hand is the only thing keeping you upright.

But there’s a small mercy in that while you can still hear distant crashes and shrieks, whatever is happening down that hallway doesn’t seem to be following you and eventually, you both slow to a brisk walk and Loki drops your hand.

You haven’t even had a chance to consider where you are going to sleep tonight. You could probably curl up on that terrible couch in the office and just plan on getting up early enough to run back to your place for a quick shower and a change of clothes…assuming the incident resolves by then—

“You can stay with me,” says Loki, as though he can hear you trying to sort this out.

“Oh, that’s okay, I’ll just—”

“If you say you’re going to sleep on that terrible couch in the office, I will personally take you to the most boring governmental proceeding I can find and leave you there until you come to your senses.”

“Sounds like a great place to fall asleep,” you say.

His eyes glint, but his tone brooks no arguments. “You’re staying with me tonight.”

You sigh, but you can’t think of a counterpoint. “When did you get so bossy?”

“Darling, I’m a prince,” he says with a bit of a wry smirk. “It’s my birthright.”

Loki lives on the opposite end of the residential wing and his place looks quite a bit like yours—he’s got an extra window in the kitchen but the floor plan is otherwise the same. A lot of his furniture is standard issue, but there are little details that make it seem more personal: an area rug with a bit of fraying on the edges, a painting of what you think is an Asgardian landscape, a vase filled with dried flowers so delicate they look like they might disintegrate if you were to touch them. And books—so many books. Books on shelves, stacked on the coffee table, tucked into the little rack that you know is meant to hold magazines. Hardbacks, paperbacks, leather bound, dog-eared, well-worn and brand new. It’s no wonder he was so excited about the library.

“Have a seat,” he says, gesturing to the couch. “I’ll get some things for you.”

You sit down and he disappears down the hall. You idly examine the books stacked on the end table next to you. Many are quite clearly from Asgard and it sparks a pang of sympathy—it’s like his homesickness is on full display in his living room and there’s something sweet and sad about seeing that vulnerability laid so bare.

He returns a few minutes later with a pair of pajamas, a toothbrush, and a hand towel.

“Here,” he says, handing you the pile. “Bathroom’s just down the hall. I’ll make up a bed for you.”

“Thanks.”

In the bathroom, you realize that the pajamas he’s given you aren’t the standard set you can order from the TVA. These are made of a dark emerald silk that ripples over your skin like water, and somehow, that makes it feel a thousand times more personal than if he’d loaned you a standard set. They don’t fit quite right on you, but they’ll work well enough for tonight.

You brush your teeth and attempt to get through as much of your evening routine as you can before collecting your clothes and exiting the bathroom.

When you return to the living room, you expect to find that he’s made up a bed for you on the couch. These living units only have one bedroom—it would be quite reasonable to have you sleep on the couch.

You do not expect to find a pajama clad Loki stretched out reading on the couch, a blanket over his lap and his head propped up on a pillow like he intends to sleep there.

You exhale slowly. “Please tell me you are not giving up your bed.”

“Don’t be absurd, of course I am,” he says without even looking up from his book. “The point of this was to prevent you from sleeping on a couch, not simply put you on a couch in a different location.”

You wish you had something to throw at him. “You don’t even fit on that couch.”

“Luckily, my knees bend. Besides, you’re a guest,” he says, as though that settles it.

You roll your eyes and plunk yourself down in the armchair across from the couch, setting your pile of clothes on the floor. “I’m not moving until you give up the couch.”

He finally looks up from his book. “You’re really going to do this?”

You examine your fingernails, flicking away an invisible speck of dust. “I’m not the one being unreasonable. I’m simply meeting you at your level.”

“If you think that I’m being unreasonable and you’re also saying you’re meeting me at my level, does that not mean you are admitting that you are being unreasonable?”

“It’s nearly one o’clock in the morning. I’m not arguing semantics with you.”

“Fine.” His eyes glimmer as he sets his book down and slowly rises to his feet. “But you’re still not sleeping on the couch.”

“Oh, you’re going to be so disappointed when you realize how wrong you are,” you say. You think you see your opening and you try to play it cool.

He’s walking toward you, leaving your path to the couch wide open. In your head, you can see exactly how this works: you’ll spring from your chair and dart around the coffee table before diving onto the couch like a baseball player sliding into home plate, soundly defeating Loki. Easy peasy.

Instead, what happens is that you spring to your feet and Loki moves with inhuman speed, grabbing you around your waist and pinning you to the front of his chest, stopping you in your tracks almost immediately.

“I suppose I should have expected that,” he says. Your back is facing him, but you can almost hear the dry, sardonic look he’s giving you.

“Probably,” you say. “God of mischief and all.” You struggle fruitlessly against his iron grip. “You can let me go now.”

He laughs. “I’m afraid I can’t. It was clearly a mistake to trust you. I won’t be making that error again.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you say, trying again to squirm away from him. “Let me go.”

“The interesting thing about all of this is that you’ve made a rather substantial tactical error,” he says, continuing as though he can’t hear you.

“You’re bluffing,” you say with more confidence than you feel.

“Fascinating theory,” he says, “but I don’t think it’s going to work out for you.”

With that same ridiculous speed, he’s suddenly spinning you around and lifting you, tossing you easily over his shoulder.

“Hey!” you shout in protest.

“I warned you,” he says, his voice full of mirth as he carries you toward the bedroom.

This is not exactly how you’ve imagined being carried off to bed by Loki.

Though, admittedly, you do have a nice view of his ass.

“This is ridiculous,” you say.

“You brought this upon yourself.” He’s walking into the bedroom and a moment later, he’s lifting you from his shoulder and tossing you unceremoniously onto his bed.

You scramble to your feet and try to lunge toward the door, but he’s clearly expecting that. Before your feet even hit the floor, he catches you around the waist and hauls you back to the bed. Your back hits the mattress and you try to leverage the momentum to propel yourself back onto your feet.

He catches you immediately and you find yourself back on the bed again.

“I don’t mean to be patronizing,” he says, failing to bite back a laugh, “but it’s adorable that you think you can outmaneuver me.”

That is deeply offensive and the only way you can earn my forgiveness is by letting me take my rightful place on the couch.” You can’t quite keep the laugh from your voice.

He grins. “Not a chance.”

You attempt to dive off the opposite side of the bed, only to have him grab you by the ankles and pull you back. You manage to dislodge him and lunge in the opposite direction, only to be immediately thwarted.

It becomes increasingly hilarious the longer it goes on and soon your sides are aching from laughter. Loki is laughing too, but it doesn’t seem to affect his strength or speed at all.

Eventually, he wrestles you back down onto the bed and you are fairly certain there’s no way out of this one—he’s got your wrists pinned above your head and his legs locked around yours. You’re both a little out of breath.

“Yield,” he says.

You shake your head. “Never.”

His gaze flicks to your lips and back to your eyes. “Yield.”

“No.”

Something has changed. There’s an electricity and intensity that crackles in the air between you, possibilities blooming in both of your gazes. It feels a little like that moment by the elevator, but you’re afraid to hope, afraid to even wish because the idea of him wanting you still feels as impossible as capturing smoke with a net. 

But the way he’s looking at you, the way his gaze keeps drifting between your eyes and your lips…that’s not nothing.

“Yield.”

You lick your lips, your heart beating wildly. “No.”

Is it just your imagination, or did his breath hitch when you licked your lips?

“Yield.”

God, he’s so close and you want him so badly. 

“No.”

He looks again at your lips and this time, he closes the distance between you.

They call him Silvertongue—you’ve heard the jokes, you’ve rolled your eyes at all of them. But as he kisses you, you realize that there’s an element of truth there because only seconds in and you’re ready to sign away your soul to live under the power of Loki’s tongue. The slow, warm slide of it against yours, the way he guides your mouth against his, the way he lets out a soft sigh as he tastes you—you would give up everything if it meant you could stay like this.

“Yield,” he breathes against your lips.

“No,” you say.

He deepens the kiss, catching your lower lip between his teeth and gently tugging until you whimper and arch against him.

He still has your hands pinned against the bed, his grip unyielding when you try to wrestle them away.

“Let me touch you,” you say when he draws back. You want to touch him everywhere—run your hands along every muscle you’ve admired from afar. 

“Then yield,” he says with a grin, his eyes flashing with devilish intent.

You consider this for a moment. You could give in—there aren’t really any stakes at this point and you’re pretty sure you’re both going to end up sleeping in his bed tonight anyway. But that glint of mischief in his eyes also promises some intriguing possibilities if you stand firm.

“No,” you say.

“Such a pity,” says Loki, though his expression is one of hungry delight.

His hands slip free of your wrists then, but they stay pinned to the bed by some invisible force.

“Cheater,” you say. 

“I think this is only fair,” he says, his hands sliding to your hips. “I’m clearly the victor, am I not entitled to my prize?”

You shiver. “Your prize?”

“Yes.” He kisses down the column of your throat. “My lovely, lovely prize.”

“How can I be your prize if I’m also your competitor?”

“You think too much,” he mumbles against your neck.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“Generally, it’s not.” He sits back on his heels between your legs, looking you over with satisfaction. “But in this case, it’s distracting you from more pressing matters.” His hands creep under the hem of your shirt, stroking the small of your back, thumbs tracing teasingly along the waistband of your pajama pants. 

“Have I mentioned how much I enjoy seeing you in my clothes?” he asks. There’s a husky depth to his voice and a hunger in his eyes that sends a flood of arousal to your cunt.

“You have not,” you say.

“A casualty of too much thinking,” he says solemnly, his thumbs gently grazing the skin at your hipbones. “You look utterly delectable. I almost want to leave them on.” His eyes glitter with mischief. “Almost.” His hand strays to the bottom button on your pajama top. “May I?”

You nod. “Yes.”

He slips the button free and slowly makes his way up until your shirt is open. He carefully pushes the fabric aside, baring your breasts to his sight and touch.

You’ve never felt more beautiful seeing Loki stare at you, lips slightly parted, eyes wide and hungry. He trails one hand up your stomach and rib cage and slowly brushes a thumb over your nipple. You gasp and the sensitive skin puckers and stiffens as he palms your breast, rolling your nipple between his thumb and forefinger.

“Gorgeous,” he murmurs as he lowers his mouth to your breast, his tongue and lips taking up the role of his hand, while his other hand moves to cup your other breast. You whimper, wishing you could run your hands through his hair. “That’s it,” he purrs, “I want to hear all the sounds you can make, my love.”

You rock your hips forward and arch your back as he lavishes attention on your breasts. It’s the most delicious kind of torture, having him so close, but not being able to touch him.

He’s taking his time, which you both love and hate. He feels so good, but you need him to touch you, you need to touch him, you need him inside of you. You wait until you can’t take it any more and breathe his name like it’s a prayer.

You wonder if this is what he was waiting for because with little more than a brief smirk and a wicked look, he starts kissing his way back up your chest and neck. You whimper when his lips meet yours and you can feel him grin as he kisses you. He fits his hips against yours, angling himself so that his cock rubs up against your clit just right and you moan into his mouth. You can tell that he’s big and part of you wants to savor the anticipation even though you feel like you might go mad if he doesn’t fuck you now. You rock your hips against him, trying to feel that friction.

His large hands frame your face, one hand sliding to cradle the back of your head so he can draw you deeper, the other trailing from your cheek to your throat.

Both hands soon stroke down your sides, lingering teasingly at the waistband of your pajama pants. He hooks his thumbs underneath the waistband and you lift your hips. He slides your pants down maybe an inch and you can feel him smiling as he kisses you. You lift your hips again and your waistband creeps down another inch.

“Loki.” His name falls from your lips with a sigh.

“What is it, my love?”

“Touch me,” you breathe. “Please.”

You lift your hips again and this time, he pulls the fabric fully down and off your legs. He guides your legs apart and stares appreciatively at your bare cunt, his teasing expression replaced by a rapt awe.

“Beautiful,” he murmurs. 

You believe him.

His hands stroke your thighs, seemingly in no hurry, despite your pleading whimpers and the way you arch against the mattress. He draws his thumb gently along your slit, barely grazing your clit.

“Do you know what an utter distraction it’s been sitting behind you?” he asks, tracing your clit in the slowest, lightest circle.

You arch upward, hands still bound by his magic. “Tell me,” you breathe, your hips rising to chase his hand.

“Every time you stood up, I could only think about bending you over the desk.”

You manage a sly smirk. “And here I thought you didn’t like me much at all.”

His thumb presses a little more against your clit and you moan.

“I’ve wanted you from the moment I saw you,” he says, rolling his thumb in a slow circle. “I kept you at arm’s length partly as a matter of protection.”

For who?”

“You,” he says. “I’m not fully redeemed in some eyes and you being involved with a dangerous variant—”

“You’re not,” you say.

“Some would disagree.”

“Well, they’re wrong,” you say. “You’re not a dangerous variant. You’re Loki Laufeyson and I want you just as you are.”

There’s something unreadable in his expression and it makes you wonder how many people have told him that he can just be himself.

“You should be careful saying such lovely things to me, you know,” he says solemnly.

You raise an eyebrow. “Oh really? And why is that?”

“Because it makes me want to do very wicked things to you.”

You’re surprised you’re not shaking, you want him so badly. “What kinds of wicked things?”

“Oh, all manner of wicked things.” He presses a kiss to the inside of your knee, his tongue swiping briefly against your skin. “Things with my mouth...” His thumb rolls over your clit again, his index finger teasing your entrance before retreating. “…my hands…” He drags his gaze over your naked form before locking eyes with you. “My cock.”

A shiver works its way up your spine. “So if I talk about how I think you’re really clever and funny and I find it unbelievably sexy, what sort of wicked thing would that merit?”

The intensity of his gaze makes you shiver again. He crouches down and presses another kiss against the inside of your knee, slowly moving upward. “If you keep talking like that, I’m not going to let you leave my bed for days.”

“You know that’s not a disincentive, right?” you say, sucking in a sharp breath as he nips at the soft skin of your inner thigh. “I’ve wanted you for such a long time, Loki.”

“I’ll make it weeks if you’re not careful.”

“Again, not a disincentive.” You gently tug at your bound wrists and find that they’re still firmly secured. It’s exhilarating, even though you really wish you could run your hands through his hair, especially if he ends up where you think he’s going.

“What else should I tell you?” you muse as he continues his agonizingly slow path along your thigh. “You know, half the reason I kept to myself was that I wanted you so much I was certain that I’d make a fool of myself.”

That earns you a few circles of your clit with his thumb, but his progress up your thigh remains slow. You have a theory about what might move the needle, though.

“I know you like to act like you’re this sort of barely reformed villain, but I think there’s more good in you than you’d like people to believe.”

This time, he moves up to the crease where your thigh joins your hip, close enough that you can feel the heat of his breath ghosting along your labia. His tongue traces a line along your skin and you briefly wonder if you’ll be able to hold it together enough to deliver the last part.

“And,” you say, trying to keep your voice steady, “yesterday and today made me want you even more because I feel like I finally saw who you really are and you’re even more wond—”

Your words abruptly give way to a breathy moan because his perfect, skilled tongue has finally found its way to your clit.

You had a plan from here, but whatever it was has dissolved into nothing under the skilled caress of Loki’s tongue. You suspected he would be good at this from the way that he’d kissed you earlier, but you could not have imagined that it would feel like this.

“Oh my god, Loki.” Your thighs are already quaking. You tug again at the invisible bonds on your wrists, but they hold fast. Something about the way the bonds are keeping you gently stretched along the bed combined with how his large hands have your thighs spread open seems to heighten every sensation. There’s no wiggling away from him or adjusting yourself so that you feel more or less of the onslaught of his tongue on your cunt. You are completely at his mercy and you’re not entirely surprised that you fucking love it.

He slides a finger into your aching channel and your cunt shudders around the thick intrusion. The warm, roiling center of your orgasm starts builds in your hips with every stroke of his tongue, spinning faster and faster, like ocean winds whipping up into a hurricane. Your back arches and his tongue presses flat against your clit, and suddenly you know that this is going to be what takes you over the edge.

Loki seems to know it too, at least from the way that he presses his tongue more firmly against you, one arm slung across your hips to hold you in place. His other hand slides two fingers inside you, rocking and curling against that aching, tender spot.

You whimper, your hips bucking wildly. It’s so good and so much and you are almost there.

You look down at him then, his hair wild, hollowed cheeks flushed pink as his tongue works you over, his eyes closed like he couldn’t imagine anything more blissful than being in between your legs while you come undone.

This is ultimately what tips you over the edge. The storm that has been forming inside you is finally let loose and you arch your back and cry out in a wordless scream as your climax crashes into you.

Only then do the bonds around your wrists release and your hands fly down to grab his hair as your body shakes with pleasure.

It takes a moment for you to get your breath back and reacquaint yourself with the concept of speech, but when you do, you find Loki looking up at you, his expression pure mischief.

“And to think you wanted to sleep on the couch.”

“It wasn’t that I wanted to sleep on the couch, it’s that—” Your voice cuts off as his tongue starts stroking your clit again.

“It’s what?” he asks in between strokes, his smirk obvious in his voice. The lingering ripples of your orgasm are coalescing around the path of his tongue, tightening that coil in your belly again.

“Fuck—you’re not playing fair, you can’t just—” You lose your sentence to a low moan that rises up from your chest. “You can’t just—fuck, yes—you can’t…oh god, yes, just like that.”

His laughter rumbles against you as your hips start rocking against his mouth. How are you already so close?

“You can’t just—fuck—win an argument by—”

You’re trying to say that he can’t expect to win an argument by making you come and you think he might understand this based on how determined he seems to be to prove you wrong. His fingers curl again until he finds that soft, tender spot that is so often the key to your unraveling.

You have stopped trying to complete that sentence—you moan, your hands tangling in his hair, urging him on as the swell of your climax rushes up, inevitable as a tidal wave looming over a seaside village.

You cry out as it crests and breaks, falling down over you in a rush of tingling pleasure that feels like champagne and fireworks all at once.

“Now, what was it you were saying, my love?” he asks as he releases your clit a moment later. “Something about how I can’t just win an argument by making you come? I couldn’t quite hear you over the sound of you coming completely undone on my tongue.”

“Oh, you think you’re so smart,” you say, giving him a stern look as he crawls up your body.

“You know what I think?” he says, settling himself on his side next to you. “I think you liked submitting to me.”

You shiver before you can even think about hiding it and his smile turns decidedly vulpine. 

“You did, didn’t you? You liked having your hands bound and being completely at my mercy while I licked your pretty cunt until you came undone in my mouth.”

“You are enjoying this far too much,” you say.

“I am enjoying it the correct amount.”

You realize your hands are now free to explore his body and you tug at his pajama shirt. “I think you’re wearing too many clothes,” you say.

He gives you a wicked grin as he lets you pull his shirt over his head. “Yes, perhaps it’s time we even things up.”

You pull the shirt away and rake your eyes over him greedily, your hands following the path of your gaze. He is as perfect as you imagined, unfairly beautiful in the dim light of the bedroom.

You hook your thumbs into the waistband of his pajama pants and lower them an inch, a cheeky parallel of how he teased you earlier. His lips curl into a sharp smile when he realizes what you’re doing.

“Interesting strategy.” There’s a bit of a growl in his voice, a rough desperation that makes your cunt clench. “But I think you forgot that I have the upper hand here.”

He raises his hand and with a twist of his wrist, his remaining clothes dissolve in a shimmer of green and he is bare before you.

Your breath catches in your throat. His cock commands your immediate attention, nudging up against your thigh—he’s big, as you suspected, but completely bare and rock hard, he somehow seems longer and thicker than he had when he was grinding against you.

He pulls you into a slow kiss as you reach for his cock. You wrap your hand around him, delighting in the silky hardness of him, the way he throbs in your hand and the low groan he makes as your hand moves from base to tip and back, the way his hips thrust along with you. Your cunt clenches in anticipation.

After a moment, though, he places his hand over yours, slowing your movements.

“I need to be inside you,” he rasps.

“Yes,” you breathe.

He rolls on top of you  and you’re not sure that you’ve ever felt anything quite as wonderful as the heat of his bare skin and yours pressed together. This feeling means intimacy, a closeness that you’d longed for but never expected even in your wildest daydreams.

He pulls you into a kiss, slow, soft, and languid, like you have all the time in the world and he intends to take it. It’s decadent and dreamy and perfect.

But the heavy weight of his bare cock resting against your stomach combined with the ache between your legs—an ache that would be so perfectly soothed by the hard column of flesh currently throbbing against you—proves to be a force too powerful to resist for very long.

You cant your hips against him, snaking one leg around his waist, hoping he’ll get the hint.

He does.

He braces himself on one hand, the other sliding between your bodies to rub his cock along your slick folds. He positions himself at your entrance, waiting for your breathy plea to begin to ease himself slowly into you.

He fills and stretches you in the most wonderful way, but even more than that, he feels like home. The thought strikes you quite suddenly and you’re not entirely sure about everything it means, but you know it’s good and right.

He pauses for just a moment, seeming to savor the feeling.

“You feel better than I ever imagined,” he says.

You quirk an eyebrow at him. “You imagined?”

He gives you a hungry smile as he leans in to kiss you. “Like I said: it has been an utter distraction sitting behind you.”

His rhythm is slow and easy, like he wants to take his time learning every inch of you and memorizing how you react to his touch. His mouth moves over yours in a slow kiss that’s somehow both languid and demanding, his tongue gliding in and out of your mouth in the same rhythm of his hips rocking into you. His cock bumps up against that sweet spot inside of you that his fingers had teased earlier, each stroke inching you closer to bliss.

He shifts the angle of his hips so that his pubic bone grinds against your clit and it feels so good you almost see stars. You can feel your orgasm building, your cunt growing slicker and tensing around his thrusting cock.

He draws back to look at you, eyes hazy with a loose, dreamy kind of pleasure.

“Do you have any idea how good you feel?” he breathes.

You are shaking. “Loki, I’m gonna come.”

“I know you are,” he purrs. “Let go for me, let me feel you, my love.”

With two more thrusts of his hips, you unravel.

He groans as you tremble around him, but mostly, he watches your face, rapt by the way you throw your head back against the bed and gasp his name like it’s the only thing that will save you.

“You’re beautiful when you come,” he breathes. “Absolutely stunning.”

He waits until you catch your breath before he kisses you again, slow and sensual. His hips are still rocking in that beautifully slow rhythm and you don’t know how it can still feel so good.

He keeps moving against you, his touch and his low murmurs of praise invoking a symphony of sensations. He presses deeper and your body sings with every thrust, your muscles tensing and tightening around him like you never want him to leave. Your climax swells again and you come with a whimper, your whole body shaking as he fucks you through it.

You want him to come, want to hear the sounds he makes and feel his sweet, hot release burning inside of you.

“I want you to come for me,” you breathe.

He grins at you. “Oh, I will, but not yet. You’re not done yet.”

You whimper. “Loki—”

“Two more, my love, two more and then I’ll come for you.”

Somehow, you give him three. By the second one, he’s panting and his words have become rough, his voice a growl as he utters some of the filthiest praise you’ve ever heard. The third builds quickly after that and you know instinctively that you’re going to take him over the edge with you this time.

You fight to keep your eyes open against the tidal wave of pleasure blooming again in your hips. You need to see him come undone.

As in everything else he does, he’s unfairly beautiful—he throws his head back, letting out a low groan that you can feel all the way to the tips of your toes. His cheeks are flushed, a few ink dark curls plastered to the light sheen of sweat on his forehead. You can feel him emptying himself inside you, his release hot and hard won.

It seems to last a long time and it’s another minute before his hips slow to a halt. He kisses you, so soft and sweet it would almost seem chaste were it not for the fact that his cock is still throbbing inside of you.

After a moment, he slowly eases out of you, rolling over onto his back, his arm snaking around your waist and pulling you to him like he can’t bear to be parted from you even for a moment.

You curl up against his side, your legs tangling with his. He takes your hand, lacing his fingers with yours before resting your clasped hands on his heart.

You could fall in love like this, you think sleepily to yourself.

You don’t know it then, but you’re right.

*

Time moves differently at the TVA, but a couple years later, there’s a ring in a box on your desk.

Loki likes a spectacle and you’d daydreamed about a traditional wedding, but when you talk it over, you both agree that you want to do something different, something quiet, something just for the two of you.

“I do think we should tell Mobius beforehand,” you say to Loki.

“Isn’t the point of eloping that no one knows until after it’s done?” says Loki.

“Yes, but I feel like we could make one exception,” you say. “If we’d done a full wedding, I would have asked him to give me away.”

Loki’s gaze softens a bit then and he pulls you close. “All right. But we only tell him right before we leave. The man can’t keep a secret.”

But Mobius doesn’t seem terribly surprised when you tell him—in fact, he seems far more concerned about your wedding gift.

“I didn’t have a chance to wrap it yet,” he says. He’s retrieved a large picture frame that had been propped against his desk, though he keeps it turned away from you. “So…this also requires a bit of an overdue confession for context.”

You raise your eyebrows. “A confession?”

“A confession,” says Mobius.

“Will I be angry about this?” asks Loki at the same time you say, “Is this like a go to jail confession or a misdemeanor confession?”

Mobius gives a good natured chuckle, shaking his head slightly. “God, the two of you. Always so dramatic. No wonder you ended up together.” He takes what feels like an unnecessarily long drink from the coffee mug on his desk. “It’s not bad, I promise.” Another sip of coffee. 

Loki sighs. “He always does this,” he says to you. “Have you noticed? Whenever he has something that you want to know, he stalls and drags it out just to torment you.”

“Okay,” you say, “but you jumping in to bicker with him probably doesn’t help.”

“I’m not bickering,” says Loki. “I’m simply pointing out that he’s stalling—”

“What was it you were saying, Mobius?” you say brightly, nudging Loki with your elbow.

Mobius’ eyes twinkle. “See,” he says to Loki, “I always liked her. It’s a good match.”

You don’t have to look at Loki to know he’s rolling his eyes, though he also makes a point of surreptitiously pinching your ass, a detail you hope Mobius doesn’t notice.

“Anyway,” says Mobius, taking a deep breath, “it was pretty clear to me from the start that you liked each other. And you also seemed absolutely determined to get in your own way.” He points to Loki. “Especially you with your whole stilted Asgardian prince thing.”

Loki frowns. “What are you talking about?”

Mobius sighs. “Anytime you like someone, it’s like your brain gets a factory reset and you get all overly polite and courtly.”

Loki scoffs. “I don’t do that at all.”

“You do. It’s deeply weird. You’re like a mannerly robot.”

Loki turns to you. “Darling, tell him he’s being absurd.”

You reach over and squeeze his hand. “You did call me ‘my lady’ a couple of times in the early days.”

Loki sighs and looks back at Mobius. “What was your point in mentioning this?”

“Well,” says Mobius, “you seemed pretty determined to get in your own way, so nothing was happening. And eventually I got sick of all of the pining, so I decided to take matters into my own hands.”

“What do you mean?”

Mobius pauses, a hint of a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. “There wasn’t a breakthrough with Berlitz that weekend. What there was was a surplus in the overtime budget and a high priority indexing project for Archives.”

Your lips part as your brain slowly puts the pieces together. Mobius’ eyes twinkle.

“Wait,” you say, “you lied to us?”

“I did not lie,” says Mobius, his demeanor suddenly becoming very serious. “That would have been wrong.” He nods at Loki. “Also, it would’ve tipped him off and that would have ruined the whole thing. I simply failed to mention that the cart of files that I gave you needed to be sorted for indexing for the Archives department and I peppered in a couple of unrelated things about Berlitz.”

“But the office was empty that weekend,” says Loki.

Mobius snaps his fingers. “Right. I did make some adjustments to the schedule that weekend.”

“And the disturbance that prevented her from returning home on Saturday night?”

Mobius spreads his hands wide and grins. “All me, buddy. Paid G-21 five hundred bucks for that one.”

Loki pauses for a moment and then looks at you. “I don’t think I can be mad about this. I’m genuinely impressed.”

“I mean, I can’t argue with the results, but Jesus, Mobius, you could’ve just set us up on a blind date,” you say.

“Ah, but that’s not as fun,” Mobius says. “Plus, it wouldn’t have made for as good a wedding gift.” He turns the frame around and hands it to you both.

It’s both your timecards from that pay period, neatly framed side by side. Your eyes well with tears and Mobius smiles.

“Honestly, I’m just relieved it’s not a jet ski,” says Loki.

“He's deflecting,” you say to Mobius in an exaggerated whisper.

“I know,” he whispers back.

But you can’t help but notice that Loki’s eyes are brighter than normal.

“Okay, now get out of here,” says Mobius. “You’ve got a wedding to get to.”

Twenty minutes later, you’re wearing a simple white dress and standing with Loki in front of a time door, your hand clasped in his.

“Technically, we don’t have a supervisor’s approval for this,” you say with a wry smile.

He looks at you, eyes dancing with mirth. “I had Mobius sign off on the paperwork while you were getting ready.”

Your heart swells and your smile is so wide that you feel like your face might split in two. “Then hurry up and marry me, Laufeyson.”

He grins and tugs you through the time door.

-------

But wait! There's more: I don't have a masterlist for this, but if you enjoy these idiots, check out Daylight, a sort of sequel.

[maniculum]

A post of mine from several months ago about the Perlesvaus self-rearranging forest just wandered across my dash again and made me think about it some more, so I wanted to talk about it a bit.

Perlesvaus, for those who don’t know, is a 13th-century French Arthurian romance. It’s intended to be a continuation of Chretien de Troyes’s Perceval, but it’s mostly known for being completely batshit when it’s known at all. (There’s an old book on Arthurian texts that dedicates a chapter to Perlesvaus and repeatedly speculates that the anonymous author had Something Wrong With Him. This is the longest scholarly treatment of Perlesvaus I’ve been able to find & read.)

Anyway, there’s an odd worldbuilding detail in the text. See, it’s a Thing in chivalric romances that the questing knights happen upon castles & lords & damsels & such that are unfamiliar to them and have to be explained. You know, “this is the Castle of Such-and-Such, where the local custom is as follows. It’s ruled by Lady So-and-So, whose character I shall now describe to you.”

This is a genre convention that largely goes unquestioned, but it’s a bit odd if you think about it. All these knights are at least minor nobility. They don’t know the other nobles in their region? They don’t know what castles are where? Don’t they have, like, diplomatic relations with these people or at least attend the same tournaments? Even if they’re all fully committed to the knight-errant lifestyle and don’t really engage in courtly diplomacy, you’d think they would share information with each other and get the lay of the land. But instead, to use TTRPG terminology, it’s like they’re all on a hexcrawl that was randomly generated just for them to have these adventures.

The author of Perlesvaus decides to address this. In what’s kind of a throwaway paragraph late in the text, he explains that God moves things around so knights always have new quests to do (and, presumably, is also making sure they always arrive at the right narratively-significant moment). So the reason they’re always encountering people & places they have no knowledge of is because those people & places really weren’t there yesterday. They didn’t know about the Castle of Such-and-Such because it’s normally a thousand miles away and the forest path they followed to get there used to lead somewhere else.

And I think that would be a really interesting thing to stick into a novel or a TTRPG or something. When a knight rides into the forest with the intent of Going On A Quest, at some point they go around a bend in the path, cross an invisible barrier, and wind up in the Forest of Narrative. This is a vast forest with no set geography, filled with winding paths and populated almost entirely with questing knights, damsels in search of questing knights, friendly hermits, strange creatures, and allegorical set-pieces. Then, at the narratively-appropriate time, they cross back over the invisible barrier back into the regular world, and find themselves wherever the Narrative has decided they need to be. This could be a different country, a different continent, or a different world entirely.

Whether anyone involved is actually aware that this is how it works is… optional, really. Though if it’s not a Known Phenomenon, the people whose jobs it is to handle trade & diplomacy & god forbid, maps, are going to end up tearing their hair out in frustration.

[mariasont]

Ideas From a Book - A.H

a/n: im writing what i want !!!!!!!!!!!!! i have a gun kink SUE ME !!! if you don't like it don't read it !!!!!!!

anyhow HAPPY READING

masterlist

₊˚ ✩°｡⋆♡ ⋆˙⟡♡ ⋆˙⟡♡⋆｡°✩˚₊‧

pairings: aaron hotchner x fem!reader

summary: in which hotch comes home to find you reading and finds out you have a gun kink

warnings: 18+ MDNI, a lot going on here yall idk, gun going in ur vag, reader loves smut she's just like me fr, gun kink!, dirty talk, established relationship, yada yada

wc: 2.3k

When Hotch returned home from work, the ritual he had was comforting in its predictability: shedding his coat and shoes, setting down his briefcase, and locking up his gun. Then, he'd find you, as he always did, nestled into the couch, book in hand. 

It was something he could count on, as reliable as the sun rising in the morning. Your bookshelf was a spectrum of genres--science fiction, poetry, mystery, historical, fantasy--name it, you've likely read it. Among these, he had noticed a trend--your favoritism for romance. It was fitting, as you've always been an ardent believer in fairytales and happy endings. It was a belief he intended to uphold, a fairytale ending he was set on creating for you. 

The book you held today had a cover he didn't recognize. He cleared his throat, announcing his arrival. Your eyes met his in an instant, and he was struck anew by just how pretty you are. Effortlessly so. He told you as much, though you seldom accepted the compliment. 

"Hi, handsome," you said, infusing your words with honey as you folded the corner of your page and laid the book aside. Spencer would scold you for that. "How was work?"

A shrug rolled off his shoulders, fingers working to loosen the tie that felt like a noose after a long day. Stepping further into the living room, he sighed, "Heavy with paperwork."

"That's no fun," you said, lips curving into a delicate pout. 

It was an invitation he couldn't ignore. Leaning in, his hands found your face, and as your lips met, you giggled, pulling back just enough to study his face, the harsh lines under his eyes, reading the fatigue on his features like a well-thumbed novel. 

"What are you reading?" he questioned, easing down next to you, the couch dipping to his weight. 

You dodged his eyes, fingers absently fidgeting with your earlobe as you gave him a half-smile, tilting the book just enough so he couldn't catch the title.  

"Just some romance book," you admitted, with a slight uptick in your voice. "Garcia recommended it."

He regarded you with a contemplative frown. Normally, a book you would have gone on for hours, detailing every character, plot twist, and subplot, dissecting its layers and intricacies in exhaustive detail. 

Aaron watched as you placed the book on the side table, movements deliberate. You positioned yourself across his lip, a seemingly innocent distraction. It almost worked. Your soft thighs sinking into his calloused hands, as if they were crafted just for him. He recognized your ploy, though, giving your leg a squeeze a little tighter than necessary. 

You leaned in, your breath tinged with the minty traces of your afternoon tea, a detail as intimate as any secret shared between lovers. He nipped at your lip, a gentle diversion, as his hand crept towards the book.

You wriggled in his hold, vying to get there first, but he was faster. Much faster at that, although you loved to challenge him on that. He secretly loved when you did. He loved you. 

"What are you doing?" Your voice was rising in a panicked pitch. You stretched your hand out, trying to reclaim it, but he kept it just beyond reach.

Aaron's arm formed a band around you, effectively pinning your arms to your torso while you writhed within his grasp. A groan was stifled in his throat. "Quit that."

You smiled, a hint of tease in the curve of your lips and stilled. You were acutely aware of the effect you had on him, and it was a feat achieved with little effort. 

"Why are you being so secretive about this?"

He nodded to the book. The cover was unassuming, black with a smattering of designs that sprawled across it. It looked like any other book you read.

"I'm not being secretive," you insisted, deliberately avoiding his probing gaze. "You're just being nosy."

"Oh, am I?" He couldn't help but laugh, nose crinkling as he dismissed the notion with a shake of his head.

You nodded, not saying anything in response. He thumbed through the book, opening it to a random page.

"Wait--," you pleaded, but his attention was already glued to the ink. You wrapped yourself around him, your face buried in the folds of his crisp dress shirt as you murmured into the fabric, "please don't."

His arm shifted from your waist to cradle the back of your neck. "Gasping at the cool metal of the gun running across my belly, I want him press it into my panties."

Your breath caught, warmth flooding your cheeks as you pressed your face deeper into his chest. "Aaron, stop."

But he didn't, of course, he was far too intrigued.

"Parting my legs, I roll into the metal. He runs it back and forth across my pussy, wetting it against the barrel to my entrance," He continued, wetting the pad of his thumb as he turned the page, eyes meeting yours. 

He cocked an eyebrow as if waiting for your response. You didn't give him one, huffing a sigh as you plucked the book from his hands and flung it onto the cushions of the couch.

"Are you...into this?" He articulated each word with deliberate slowness, as if navigating a minefield. "This is a little intense."

You groan, tucking your chin down to your chest as you fought against the tingling sensation clawing up your spine.

"I don't know." The words tumbled out in a murmur, a feeble shield against the embarrassment flooding your senses.

It was the truth. You didn't know. Ink on a page was a far cry from reality. Nonetheless, your recent daydreams were filled with images of Aaron with his gun. God, forbid you see him on duty.

He shifted you off his lap, and you felt the corners of your mouth turn downward involuntarily. You watched his retreating figure vanish down the hall, your thoughts racing at breakneck speed, gripped by the fear that you had scared him off, that this was his tipping point.

The welling tears were poised to fall, but they paused as he came back into view. Holding his gun.

Your breath halted, a knot forming in your throat as you clumsily rose to your knees on the couch, your eyes wide and transfixed on him.

You watched, more like ogled, as he methodically removed the magazine, opening the action and ejecting the cartridges of the gun, putting the safety into place. Your throat felt dry. His advance towards you was predatory, a slow march that rekindled a well-known flutter in your stomach.

"Aaron?"

He stepped in front of you, the firearm dangling loosely at his side. You gazed up at him, peering through the shelter of your lashes.

"Do you want me to fuck you with this?"

You knew you said you didn't know if this was something you were into, yet here you were, retracting every syllable. Suddenly so incredibly turned on it almost hurt.

You nodded vigorously, your enthusiasm outpacing your self-awareness.

The look he gave you was one you recognized instantly, eliciting yet another soft pout before you gave in. "Yes, please, Aaron."

"Good girl," he said, making your heart skip a beat as he pressed the nose of the gun into your chest, forcing you backward. "Always so good for me."

You nodded again, even though there was no need to, but you weren't really focused on his words. You were focused on the gun pressing into your body, imagining it pressed against your clit, up your pussy.

"You're sure, um," you managed, trying to catch your breath, pausing in the middle of your sentence to clear your throat, "that all the safety stuff is on?"

You sounded dumb, you were aware, but all intellectual thoughts were out the window.

He let out a deep chuckle, the sound sending another wave of desire straight to your core. "Yes, baby, all of the safety stuff is on."

"Okay, good."

He pressed his lips to yours, the gun still flush against your chest, now grazing your nipple as you arched into him.

He pulled back only enough to speak into your mouth. "What's your safe word?"

"Mercy."

He hummed in response, fingers threading through your hair as he pushed the barrel of the gun down your stomach. You froze, a subtle gap forming between your lips as your eyes remained locked on the motion.

He brought his mouth to your ear, nipping at the skin lightly as he pushed the metal further down your body, lifting the hem of your shirt with it. You gasped at the feeling, pulling your bottom lip through your teeth as you tried to hide just how affected you were.

"Do you trust me?"

"Yes." It was immediate. Without hesitation.

He kissed your lips, gentle and unhurried, as if he was savoring the sensation, like he thought I might crumble under too much pressure. He might be right.

"Take these off."

His gun pressed against the waistband of your shorts. You didn't waste a second, lifting your hips and shimmying out of the fabric. A sound of approval vibrated from his throat, his fingers entwining in your hair, gently drawing your face closer to his.

"Are you sure about this?"

A nod came naturally, followed by a yes breathed out like a prayer, as your eyes trailed down to in between your thighs where the gun was now sitting. 

"Aaron, I need it."

"Oh, you need it, huh?" He tsked his tongue, running the nose of the gun over your clothed heat. "I can tell."

You let out a sharp gasp, bucking your hips into the device as you met his eyes, willing him to keep going. You had never been more turned on in your life. His hand moved from your neck to the small of your waist, pinning you in place. With one hand. Fuck.

He laid the gun beside your hip on the couch in order to pull your panties off. You squirmed at the rush of cold air encompassing between your thighs. His eyes were glued to your pussy, tongue darting out to swipe across his lips.

"Christ sweetheart," he hissed, sliding one finger through your slit, showing you the moisture you had produced. "Needy girl."

"Aaron, please." You needed something inside of you.

He laughed, at your expense, but you didn't care, concentrated on his hand grabbing the Glock and repeating the action his finger just did.

You choked out a sound, stuttering against the touch. He in a merciful mood apparently, pushing the gun slowly into your sopping cunt. You were writhing against it, your mouth parted as you tried to get used to the foreign object.

"You okay?" He asked, pausing his motions, giving you a second to adjust.

You swallowed; gaze drawn down to where he was sliding the gun into you. You bit down on your lip hard enough to draw blood.

"Yes."

"You can take it," he said, but the way the firearm was stretching you made you unsure.

It wasn't the size necessarily, but the way the groves and magazine were cramming into you was making hold your breath, which him being him he noticed immediately.

His hand rested gently against the pouch of your stomach. "Breathe."

The pent-up breath escaped your lips, and he rewarded you by sinking the gun further into your pussy. You fingers wrapped around his biceps, the tips digging slightly into the constellation of freckled skin.

One final thrust and it was fully in you. You could feel every groove and contour of it, cunt clenching and unclenching at the sensation. 

"Look at you," he drawled, beginning to fuck you with it. It transcended the prose of any book, a sensation that no array of printed words could fully capture. "You like that?"

Nodding was your only recourse, mouth hanging pathetically open as you moaned and whined. You were in a daze-like state, every sound and motion involuntary.

"This is the Glock 17," he explained, thrusting the gun faster, causing you to tighten your hands around his neck, bringing him so close his words were melting into your skin. "It feeds from a staggered-column magazine that has a 17-round capacity. It sends 115 gr bullets downrange at about 1200 feet per second."

You could feel your arousal leaking to your thighs, coating his forearm in the process, but that would never stop him.

"This gun has taken the lives of nineteen unsubs."

You know this should make you coil away, that it should feel wrong somehow, but all you felt was that growing tightness in your core, your legs shaking, your chest rising and falling at a more rapid pace.

"You don't even care, do you? All you care about is getting yourself off." His chuckles wove through his words, and his motions didn't falter, intent of ushering you to your peak. "My dirty girl."

You were so close, the edges of the gun managing to hit every spot just right.

"Come on, honey."

Fuck. You let out another strangled gasp, way louder than intended as your back arched like a string of a bow, and then suddenly you released.

A prism of colors exploded behind your squeezed eyes. A collage of musical notes falling over your ears. Your whole body was being ignited as you gushed around the gun.

"Christ." His new favorite word as of late. He withdrew the weapon from you.

You let out a subdued hum, propping yourself on your elbows, your eyes lazily rising to meet his with a tender flutter.

"You're so pretty," he murmured, the compliment settling on you like dew on morning flowers. Your gaze caught the gun, now bathed in a liquid gloss, cradled in his hands.

"Oh my god," you said, hand covering your mouth.

He laughed softly, placing it on the coffee table before his lips brushed against yours, a soft and measured caress that belied his previous urgency.

"You might need a new one," you said sheepishly, heat creeping into your ears as he pressed another soft kiss to your cheek.

"Absolutely not," he murmured into your flushed skin. "It just became my gun of choice."

You were going to give him the best head of his life.

taglist: @hotchhner @khxna

[wholoveseggs]

Kinktober - {Day Twelve}

{<- kinktober masterlist}

18+ ---- {Masterlist} {Tag-List} {Kinktober}

{Kol Mikaelson x F!Reader} Request { @midoriiakina }: Idea is: She often goes to the library, far from others in a secluded little spot, listening to music while she works and thus, she's oblivious to the world around her while she's working. Secretly, she's already a published author writing romance novels as a side hustle to pay the bills, even writing steamy as hell sex scenes even though she's a virgin, too busy or too shy to have any actual experience herself ... he sneaks up on her while she's working and reads over her shoulder, seeing that she's writing some unexpectedly kinky sex scene. And of course, Kol being Kol, he can't help himself... Kinks list: Overstim, breeding, size kink, height kink (lets be honest, he's a foot and a half taller than her, he can manhandle her around like a doll), hair pulling, public sex (Mustn't be too loud in the library, darling!), squirting/cum, oral, blood drinking (she knows he's a vampire and doesn't care how much he marks her up), virgin (but mostly knows what she's doing), and morning after somno to wake her up for more~!

♡♡♡ Darling! Sweetheart! Babe! Your request was so long & detailed... I appreciate your enthusiasm, but I had to shorten this idea immensely... That being said, I LOVE YOU FOR IT.... SO YOU WIN!!!!! You are the greedy award winner & you get a certificate!!!!!! (see the bottom of this post for your reward) ~ XOXO ♡♡♡

3.1k words - Kinks: library sex, a tad bit meta, Kol being a mega flirt, overstim, size, breeding, hair pulling, public, squirting, blood drinking, inexperience...

The library was always your favorite place, especially the quiet corners where you could hide and read your books. You could easily get lost there for hours, curled up in an armchair by a window, just reading away your worries.

That was what you had intended to do this afternoon, but inspiration had struck and instead, you had opened your laptop and started writing. It was the perfect way to pass the time, letting your fingers fly across the keyboard as you created worlds and characters and scenarios, letting yourself escape reality.

There was this particular fantasy you liked to write, a series of one shots based on your biggest turn ons, and today you were writing about a vampire that had caught your eye at the Mystic Grill. He was tall and handsome and the thought of him pinning you against a wall was making heat pool between your legs.

You knew who he was, all dark and dangerous, a Mikaelson. But even though the Mikaelsons had a reputation for being trouble, you couldn't help the way your eyes would roam across his chest and down his arms whenever you saw him.

It wasn't like you were ever going to make a move, or even have a chance with someone like that. So instead you chose to channel all your pent up desires into a good story. Your thighs rubbed together as you imagined him kissing you, and you were so lost in the words and the fantasy that you didn't notice anyone approaching you until a shadow fell over your laptop.

"I... um..." you stuttered, not knowing what to say. You wanted to crawl into a hole and die, you were utterly mortified that someone had caught you. You had been so careful to keep it a secret, and now...

Your head snapped up, heart in your throat, and you found yourself staring up into the face of the very same vampire you had been writing about. Kol Mikaelson stood behind you, leaning in to read over your shoulder. "Interesting... 'his hands pinned my hips against the wall as his fangs dragged across my neck.' how very kinky of you," he chuckled, and you quickly shut your laptop, your cheeks burning bright red.

"Don't stop on my account, love. I was quite enjoying the story," he said, taking the seat across from yours. "What happens next?"

You gaped at him, mouth hanging open, trying to form a response. What the hell did he mean by that?

He grinned at your reaction, "You know, we could make that happen if you'd like."

"I... what? No! That's... that's ridiculous," you shook your head, unable to believe he was actually propositioning you. You must have been dreaming. There was no way Kol Mikaelson was flirting with you.

"Why is it ridiculous? Do you have a boyfriend or something?" he asked, grinning even wider when you shook your head. "So why not? It's just a bit of sex,"

You didn't know what to say, so you just sat there staring at him. After a minute he laughed and leaned forward. "Come on, don't tell me you've never had sex before, sweetheart."

Now you really wanted to crawl into a hole and never come out. Maybe there was a spell to make you invisible, so you could just disappear from this conversation.

"I, um, I mean, not... not exactly," you finally managed to stutter, cheeks burning even hotter.

He leaned back, raising his eyebrows in surprise. "Well now that is unexpected, considering the words you have flowing through that pretty little head of yours."

You blushed, unable to meet his gaze. This was so embarrassing, but it also felt strangely exciting. No one had ever talked to you like this, and the fact that it was Kol made it even better.

Kol watched your reactions, and decided he was going to have a bit of fun with you. He had seen you around town in the past few weeks, and he knew you were a witch, a very cute one at that. And he loved cute witches, they were always so much fun to tease.

"How about this then, since you're so innocent, let's play a little game," he said, smirking at the way you were fidgeting. "We can each tell each other a fantasy, and if we both like it, then we can act it out."

You swallowed, looking up at him, "please stop," you whispered, feeling nervous.

"What do you mean?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I... I mean I don't appreciate you making fun of me," you mumbled, looking down again.

Kol frowned, surprised. "I'm not making fun of you, love, I just want to get to know you a little better," he said, trying a different tactic.

You looked up at him, not sure what to say. He sounded sincere, and he was so attractive that it made you nervous. You wanted him to be sincere, to actually like you, but you couldn't stop the tiny voice inside you telling you that this was all just a joke.

He smiled softly, seeing the conflict in your eyes, "How about this, I'll tell you one of my fantasies, and if you like it, you can tell me one of yours."

You considered his offer for a moment, biting your lip as you looked up at him, trying to decide if he was being serious or not. Finally, you nodded, "Okay," you whispered, curious to hear what he would say.

He smirked, pleased that you had agreed, and leaned closer, "I love it when I have a pretty little thing in my lap... and she... makes a mess, if you know what I mean,"

You could feel your body responding, his words sending a rush of heat through you. You shifted in your seat, pressing your thighs together, unable to deny how aroused his words had made you.

Kol noticed the shift in your body, and he knew he was getting to you. "Come now, darling ... You write about these things, but can't speak them aloud?" he asked, smirking at the way you blushed.

You were growing tired of feeling so embarrassed, so you took a deep breath, willing yourself to be confident, to be the version of you that you wrote about. You met his gaze, "I've fantasized about... having sex in public," you said, voice shaking slightly.

He raised his eyebrows, a slow smile spreading across his lips. "Well now... that's a very naughty thing for such an innocent little girl," he teased, his words sending another wave of heat through you.

"I'm not that innocent," you retorted, trying to maintain eye contact, but it was hard when his eyes were so dark and intense.

He chuckled, "oh, I'm sure. You just need someone to teach you how to be a proper little slut," he purred, making your core clench.

"And you think you're up to the task?" you asked, surprising yourself with how bold the words sounded coming from your mouth.

"I think I can handle a pretty little thing like you," he grinned, watching as your cheeks turned pink.

You looked around the library, suddenly remembering that you were still in a very public place, and anyone could see you. Your gaze met his again, and you swallowed hard, "what if someone sees us?"

He leaned closer, his eyes burning into yours, "isn't that what makes it so hot?" he whispered, his voice low and seductive.

You bit your lip, your body aching with need. You were still a little hesitant, but there was no denying the way his words affected you, and you were tired of denying yourself what you wanted. This was an opportunity you couldn't let go to waste.

"Okay," you whispered, "let's do it."

His eyes lit up, genuinely surprised that he had convinced you. But he was not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. He stood up, taking your hand, and led you towards the stacks of bookshelves, further into the library.

There was a cozy little corner that had a couch, and he took a seat, patting his lap, and waited for you to join him. You hesitated for a moment, not sure if you could actually do this, but he was so sexy and confident and you wanted to be just like that. So you took a deep breath and climbed into his lap, straddling his hips.

His hands moved to your waist, holding you in place, and his gaze drifted over your body, taking in the sight of you. "At least tell me you've kissed someone before," he said, giving your hip a little squeeze.

"Of course I have," you replied, feeling a little offended by the question.

He grinned and pulled you closer, pressing his lips against yours, kissing you deeply. You moaned softly, your hands gripping his shoulders, feeling his muscles beneath the fabric of his shirt. His lips were so soft, and he kissed you with a passion that made your toes curl.

You had kissed guys before, but it had never felt like this. He knew what he was doing, and he certainly knew how to turn a girl on. He tasted like mint and spice, and you felt dizzy with desire.

He pulled away, leaving you breathless and wanting more. His lips trailed down your neck, nipping at your skin, and you could feel the slight graze of his fangs. The thought of him biting you was exciting, but also a little terrifying.

A small spark of your magic tingled on your fingertips, a natural reflex to danger, and the feeling made him pause. He lifted his head and looked at you, "do I make you nervous, love?" he asked, a grin spreading across his lips.

You took a shaky breath, trying to calm your racing heart, and shook your head, "No, I'm fine," you said, trying to sound confident, but your voice came out a little squeaky.

He smirked, knowing full well that he made you nervous. But instead of pushing the issue, he reached under your dress and ran his fingers up the inside of your thigh, teasing your warm skin.

"Now, if we were in a more private setting, I would strip you naked and worship every inch of you. But alas, we'll have to be a bit more subtle," he said, his fingers brushing across the front of your panties.

You gasped, and he grinned, knowing the effect his touch was having on you. His fingers continued to tease you, brushing over a damp spot, searching for your little nub, and when he found it, your hips jerked and you let out a moan.

He grinned, loving the way you responded to his touch, and pressed a little harder, making circles with his fingers. "You are such a pretty little thing," he whispered, his other hand moving to grip your hair, tugging slightly.

You moaned at his words, and the sensation of him playing with your hair, tugging on the strands as his fingers moved. It was intoxicating, and you found yourself rolling your hips, grinding against his hand.

"Ooh, she likes it a bit rough, does she?" he teased, his voice low and seductive, "what else do you like sweetheart?"

Your mind was spinning, overwhelmed with sensations, and you struggled to find words. But the way his fingers moved had you desperate for more. "I... I like... the idea of being filled with.. cum." Your cheeks burned with embarrassment, hoping he knew what you meant.

He chuckled, amused by your shyness, "I'm the perfect bloke to try it with then," he said, his words making your stomach flip, "Can't get you pregnant, being a vampire and all... but I sure do love to try…"

His words sent a rush of heat through you, and before you could stop yourself, you were nodding. You wanted him, desperately.

He grinned, pushing your panties to the side and pressing two fingers inside of you, making you gasp.

He worked them slowly, his thumb rubbing circles over your clit, and it was all too much. You had never been this turned on before, and the way he touched you made your whole body feel like it was on fire.

You leaned in and kissed him, desperate for more. He tasted so good, and his lips were so soft. His tongue danced with yours, and he sucked gently on your lower lip, making you whimper.

Your hands gripped his shoulders, and you ground down against his hand, wanting more.

"Eager little thing, seems you aren't quite so innocent after all," he murmured, grinning against your lips.

"I told you, I'm not," you breathed, moaning softly as his fingers moved faster.

He chuckled, enjoying the way you were squirming, your cheeks flushed, the sweet little moans escaping your lips.

He could feel your walls starting to tighten around his fingers, and he knew you were close. He pulled his fingers out, making you whimper in frustration, and quickly unzipped his jeans.

"Now, sweet thing, writing about riding a cock and actually doing it are two very different things," he teased, taking your hand and putting it on his warm length.

You could feel how hard he was, and it was thrilling. His skin was so smooth, and you wrapped your fingers around him, stroking gently. He groaned, his eyes fluttering shut, and you could feel his cock twitching.

"Good girl, keep doing that," he moaned, his hands gripping your thighs, helping you plant your feet on the sofa so that you could lift yourself up.

You positioned his cock at your entrance, feeling the head rubbing against your wet slit, and slowly started to sink down. The stretch was almost too much, and you gasped, feeling your walls stretch around him.

"Slow down," he growled, his fingers digging into your thighs, holding you in place, "You have to take it slow, or else it will hurt."

You stopped, taking a few deep breaths, and tried again. He held your hips steady, guiding you down, and you could feel the burn as he slid deeper. It was an intoxicating mix of pleasure and pain, and you could feel yourself stretching, taking him inch by inch.

When he was fully inside you, you let out a sigh, feeling so full.

"Far superior than any toy that you modern girls seem to favor," he said, chuckling at your expression.

"Shh... let me focus," you hissed, adjusting to the feeling of him.

"So bossy," he teased, but didn't say anything else, letting you take your time.

You moved your hips a little, testing the waters, and a soft moan escaped your lips. He felt so good inside you, filling you completely.

His hands gripped your hips, and he guided you into a slow, steady rhythm, helping you ride him. The muscles in your thighs immediately started to burn, and it was distracting you from your pleasure, so you put a hand on his shoulder and used him as leverage, grinding down harder.

"That's it," he murmured, his eyes glued to the point where you were joined, watching his cock disappear inside you, "you're a natural."

You moaned, feeling your body start to tingle, and knew that you were close. Your nails dug into his shoulders and he groaned, his hips jerking up, driving himself deeper. It didn't take long for you to completely unravel, falling over the edge with a cry, his name on your lips.

There was a sudden loud sound of a book dropping to the floor nearby, and you froze, wide-eyed, suddenly remembering that you were not alone.

Kol laughed, clearly amused by the situation and you pressed your face into the crook of his neck, trying to hide your embarrassment.

"Don't worry sweet girl, no one saw us," he whispered, his lips brushing against your ear.

He gently picked you up, keeping your bodies connected as he turned and laid you down on the sofa, his hips grinding against yours. He took your wrists and pinned them above your head, his fingers interlaced with yours.

"Now, let's see how quiet you can be, hmm?" he teased, his hips moving slowly, rocking against yours.

Your fingers dug into his hands, and he picked up the pace, his cock sliding in and out of you, his skin slapping against yours.

"I'm going to fill you up with my cum and make a proper mess of you," he whispered, his lips trailing over your neck, his fangs grazing the skin.

He reached between your bodies, his fingers finding your clit, rubbing circles over the sensitive nub, and you gasped, the pleasure building inside you again.

His fangs pierced your skin, the sharp pain mixing with the pleasure of his cock thrusting inside you, and it sent you over the edge again. Your thighs trembling, a gush of wetness rushing from your core. Your walls clenched around him, and he groaned, his hips jerking as he came, spilling himself deep inside you.

"That's a good girl, making a mess just like I requested," he teased, his breath hot against your neck.

Your face was flushed, your chest heaving as you tried to catch your breath. It had been the most intense orgasm of your life, and you were still struggling to wrap your mind around what had just happened.

He pulled back, grinning down at you, "See? Way better than fiction," he said, leaning down to kiss you softly.

Your heart was pounding, and you couldn't deny that he was right. Being with him was better than any fantasy.

He pulled back, giving you a wicked smirk. "Well, now that we've established how not very innocent you are, how about I take you home and we can try out all our fantasies on each other,"

You bit your lip and nodded, not able to deny how much you wanted him, again.

He stood, and helped you up, straightening your dress, and fixing his pants. He was surprisingly sweet with you, fixing your hair and leaving little kisses on your cheeks.

"I hope you know I don't want this to be a one time thing," he said, taking your hand and leading you to the exit.

"I wouldn't mind seeing where this could go," you replied, smiling shyly up at him.

He walked with you out of the library, and down the sidewalk, and the cool night air made you shiver. You were glad for the company, and you found yourself leaning into him, his arm around your waist.

"Now, where do you live, my little writer?"

You grinned, and gave him directions, excited for whatever he had in mind next.

After all, it would make a good story, wouldn't it?

~CONGRATULATIONS~

[tetsuissohot]

☆summary. an argument leads to a sloppy and wet apology.  

☆warning/tags: 18+, fem!reader, angst to smut, curse words, tittie sucking, fingering, penetration, ends with fluff, mention of cum, unprotected sex 

☆word count: 2.8k

☆a/n: please note that English is not my first language, and I am also dyslexic, so there may be some mistakes. However, I do my best to minimize them.

please support your creators! Reblogs and comments are really appreciated!

Shut Up, Darling.

It wasn’t typical for you and Kento to argue. In truth, he wasn’t home much anyway—most days you barely managed a quick "Good morning" before he left, so there wasn’t even time to pick a fight. But today—today your patience finally snapped. Like every other day, Kento had left for work before you woke up, and by the time he got home, you’d already eaten dinner and were lying in bed. He hadn’t even bothered to respond to your texts, where you simply asked if he was okay.  

That silence hurt. After all, he was your boyfriend of years, and yet he felt distant, like a stranger. You felt ignored and neglected. The pain of it all, especially coming from him, stung deeply. When you did talk to him, it was like speaking to a machine, one that repeated the same, emotionless phrases—"I’m sorry," "It’s my job," "You’re right." Yet nothing ever changed.  

“Why are you still awake, sweetie?” Kento asked as he stepped into the bedroom. His blonde hair was disheveled, his tie hanging loosely around his neck, and the first two buttons of his shirt undone. He lingered by the door, looking at you with mild curiosity—you were usually asleep by now.  

You set the novel you’d been reading down on the nightstand and glanced up at him. “I was waiting for you.”  

Kento raised an eyebrow, still standing by the door. “Waiting for me? You should’ve gone to sleep. I told you I’d be late again.”  

You sighed, sitting up in bed, your patience already thin. “That’s the thing, Kento. You’re always late. Every day, you leave before I wake up and come back when I’m already asleep. I don’t even know what’s going on with you anymore.”  

He ran a hand through his messy hair, a small frown forming. “You know it’s work. We’ve talked about this.”   

“Yeah, we have,” you shot back, voice sharper than you intended. “But talking doesn’t change anything. I feel like I don’t even exist to you anymore. You don’t answer my texts, you don’t check in—it's like you’re a ghost in your own home.”  

Kento's gaze dropped, his hands slipping into his pockets as he stepped further into the room. “That’s not fair. I’m doing everything I can for us. My job—”  

“Your job,” you interrupted, your frustration bubbling over, “isn't an excuse to completely shut me out. I’m not just some background noise you can tune out when it’s convenient. I’m your girlfriend, Kento. We’re supposed to be a team, and I feel like I’m in this alone.”  

He exhaled deeply, his shoulders sagging under the weight of the conversation. “You know I love you. I’m sorry, I just... I don’t know how to balance it all.”  

“You always say that,” you muttered, fighting to keep your voice steady. “But nothing ever changes. What are we even doing if we don’t make time for each other?”  

There was a long pause, the room heavy with unspoken words. Kento’s jaw tightened, and when he finally spoke, his voice was low but firm. “I don’t know what you want me to say. This is how things are right now. I’m doing the best I can.”  

You looked at him, your heart aching. “I don’t need perfect, Kento. I just need you. And lately, it feels like I’ve lost you.”  

Kento’s face hardened, his calm demeanor cracking as he stepped further into the room. "What exactly do you want from me?" he snapped, his voice rising in frustration. "I’m breaking my back out there every day for us, and all you do is sit here and complain about how I’m not around enough!"  

Your heart pounded in your chest, anger bubbling up. “Complain? Complain? You don’t get it, do you? I’m not asking for much—just for you to act like you care, to show me that I still matter!”  

His eyes narrowed. "You matter? You think I’m out there working insane hours because you don’t matter? This is what I’m talking about—you’re never satisfied!" His voice was sharper than you’d ever heard, each word like a blade. “I can’t be everything for you when I’m doing everything for you!”  

You stood up from the bed, your hands trembling as your voice broke. "And I didn’t ask you to do all of this at the cost of our relationship, Kento! I’m tired of feeling like I’m talking to a wall, like you’ve already checked out of us!"  

"Jesus Christ," Kento muttered under his breath, his fists clenching at his sides. "Can you just—" He suddenly stepped forward, his presence towering over you. His voice dropped, cold and cutting, he raised his hand and aggressively, but not in a hurtful way, he squeezed your cheeks. "Just shut your fucking mouth."  

The words hit you like a slap, and for a moment, you froze, stunned by his outburst. Before you could respond, he closed the distance between you in one swift movement, pulling your face with his hand and crashing his lips against yours in an aggressive, forceful kiss.  

His hand left your cheek, now both hands are sliding behind your neck, fingers tangling in your hair as he pulled you even closer, deepening the kiss. There was a desperate edge to the way held you, like he was trying to communicate something he couldn't put into words. His lips were demanding, a raw intensity that stole your breath.   

At first, you were too shocked to respond, but the heat between you grew undeniable, igniting something primal in the pit of your stomach. Slowly, your body responded on its own - your hands finding their way to his chest, feeling the tension beneath your fingertips. His kiss softened, shifting from anger to something more fervent, almost pleading. You could feel his heart pounding, his breath shaky as if he'd lost control for a moment and didn't know how to find it again.  

Your lips moved together now with more rhythm, the urgency still there but tempered by something deeper, more vulnerable. His thumb brushed over your jaw; a surprisingly gentle touch that made your knees feel weak.   

You leaned into him, letting the kiss consume you both, feeling the weight of everything unsaid between you. The world seemed to blur around you as the kiss deepened, his body pressing against yours, grounding you in the intensity of the moment.   

The anger that had been in his kiss moments ago was now replaced with something else desire, maybe. Or perhaps even an apology, though no words were spoken. Finally, when you both broke apart, gasping for air, his forehead rested against yours. The tension between you crackled in the air, but the anger had dissipated, leaving something raw and real behind. You could still taste the kiss on your lips, the weight of his emotions lingering in the space between you.  

Your heart raced, torn between anger and the raw intensity of his touch. He finally spoke, his breath hot against your face as his eyes bore into yours. “Kindly, shut up, darling,” he whispered, his voice laced with both anger and something deeper, something almost desperate.  

He didn’t wait for you to speak – he just told you to shut up after all; his hands grabbed your hips, and they traveled under your pajama pants, his fingers digging into your skin.  He guided your body closer to the bed – his breath was unsteady, just like yours “Shit-” he groaned in a low husky voice. He pushed you down on the bed, your body slightly jumping from the bounciness of the mattress – you gasp, you were mad at him, but your pussy apparently wasn’t, your clit was already on fire with just one fierce full kiss, and the girl wanted more than just a kiss, shit – you could already feel your heart beating in between your legs.   

Kento didn’t waste time and got on top of you, his knees trapping you beneath him, his hands next to your head, before he got closer, he looked you up and down – God, you looked so good in your pajamas. He leans down, his hot breath hitting your neck, one of his hands leaves the spot next to your head and moves under your shirt, traveling up and down your stomach; his lips meet your body again, and he leaves soft wet kisses in your neck as he hums. They’re low sexy hums, the sound of his voice almost makes your ears orgasm if they could. “Kento...” you softly huff his name.   

“Shh, darling,” he says against your neck, his breath tickling your skin, your body shivers and you can feel your panties slowly getting soaked. He kisses your neck again “I’m sorry sweetie-” he whispers in between the wet kisses. The hand on your stomach travels further up, and he takes hold of your boob and squeezes it, your nipple grinds in the middle of his fingers, and you gasp - “I didn't mean to be rude to you, I’m just tired.” he says before kissing your temple. The sound of your gasp and your heavy breathing, the feeling of your boob under his hand and your hard nipple between his fingers makes something inside of him grow – and in his pants too.   

He pulls away and once again, takes a good look at you, his gaze is full of hunger and desire, his right hand, the one that wasn’t touching your boob, leaves the side of your head and pulls your shirt up to your neck, exposing your naked torso and your hard nipples. His gaze drops from your face to the hand squeezing your tit, his other hand now traces the side of your stomach, and his fingertips gently brush your skin – it tickles, and you can't help but contract your body at his touch and let soft sounds escape your lips.   

“Let me show you how much I care, sweetheart," without a warning he gets closer and takes one of your nipples to his mouth – as instinct your hands that were grasping on the bed clothing, now grab the hair in the back of his head pulling him closer – he groans, the sound is muffled.  

He nibbles your hard nipple, his tongue contours the firm tip leaving a trail of saliva all over your breast, the hand on your stomach takes hold of your other tit, and he squeezes it and holds it firmly – you have to bite back a moan. He starts sucking on your nipple like his life depended on it. The only sounds in the room were his muffled groans, your soft moans, and the wet sound his mouth was making – the sound of the friction of his mouth sucking your peak was music to your ears. But he couldn’t leave your other boob untended, so he went from one to the other, a line of saliva following from one nipple to the other.  

While he starts working on your boob, one of his hands slides under your pants, and his finger teases your wet pussy through the fabric of your soaked undies. “Let me apologize to you~” he whispers. Your breath catches and before you know it his hand slides under your panties, his fingertips start playing around with your wetness, and they slide between your folds, your labia hugs his fingers “Sweetie you’re so wet, I didn’t mean to make your cute little cunt cry with my harsh words” he muttered, his hot breath against your areola.   

You bite your lower lip as you suck up the moan you were about to let go, your fingers interwinding with his hair even more.  

His middle finger starts sliding up and down your pussy, adding more sound to already wet noises coming from his mouth and tongue on your tits. After teasing you enough, he slowly slides his finger inside you as his thumb caresses your clit in soft circles “Oh, Kento~” he chuckled at your little moan as his tongue played with your nipple, his teeth brushing against it.   

The tent in his pants was big and tight, so tight that the zipper on his pants is screaming for help – he keeps his focus on you, on the way your vagina feels around his finger and how your wet clitoris contracted under his thumb, he presses the finger harder against you, in response, you squeeze your legs at his touch and trap his hand in between your thighs. He chuckles again and pulls away from you. Your legs loosen again.   

He makes eye contact as he pulls your pants down. The sight of you like that drives him insane, a small smile forms at the corner of his lips, and he takes a deep breath as he starts to unbutton and unzip his pants – his gaze never leaves your eyes, even when he pulls his cock out. His cock is so hard that slaps his stomach. Your eyes travel to his member – God, you really want his fat dick inside of you more than anything.   

Nanami holds his big balls with one hand and strokes his thick length with the other, the precum helps his strokes become smoother “Shit-” the word escapes his lips. He lets go of his members and gets down so he can kiss your neck again.   

“Can I fuck you? Let me fuck you, sweetheart. Please let me fuck you, baby.” he pleads as he gently bites your earlobe. “Please... let me show how sorry I am.” his tongue licks your ear in and out.  

“Please... fuck me, Kento” you beg. He doesn't waste any time in positioning himself between your legs, he pulls your thighs closer to him, the way he grabbed them was aggressive and a little painful – you like that. He strokes his dick again and slaps it on your wet panties, teasing you through the fabric. In other circumstances he would’ve taken his time with teasing you like that – sliding his tip up and down your soggy underwear, grinding you before he finally gets inside of you. But, right now, he didn’t have time, so with his wet fingers he slid your panties to the side and slowly made his way in. “You’re so tight and wet, sweetie. Fuck-” he groans.   

He places his hands next to your head and starts slowly thrusting you, his balls hitting you in the process and making a sloppy noise.   

Your hands move to his back, gripping the fabric of his blue button-up shirt. Your moans start coming out louder and with more frequency. The way his cock fills you up makes you ecstatic.   

His thrusts become faster, harder. “I’m so sorry sweetie.” he gulps and buries his face on your neck again, taking in your scent. “You were right- your pretty kitty feels so good, baby” he bites your neck.   

With each thrust you cry out a moan against his shoulder, with each thrust the loose ends of his jacket brush against your belly, with each thrust he kisses your neck or bites it, with each thrust he groans near your ear and his hot breath sends shivers down your spine, with each thrust his balls slap your skin, with each thrust your pussy get tighter around his fat big cock, with each thrust his movements become sloppier, the wet sounds louder – your back arched, your body grinding against his, the fire on your clit burning, the electricity in your body growing and your eyes rolling to the back of your head.  

“Do you forgive me?” he asks, his voice a low growl against your soft skin.  

“Yes- I forgive you, Kento” you cry out, and finally, your whole body shakes underneath him, at the same time all of your four senses come out more alive than ever you also lose them. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart” he apologizes, because he’s not stopping even if you're too sensitive.   

When your orgasm is over your body is so sensitive that his touch hurts. But soon enough he fills you up with his cum “Oh- that’s it, sweetheart, take every drop of my cum” he growls loudly. His thrusts become slower until he finally stops and, still inside you he collapses on top of you. The moans suddenly stop and the only sounds are your heavy breathing.   

“I love you so much, sweetie” he mutters.  

As you start to play with his hair you mumble “I love you too”   

“God... I missed you so much – I missed this so much”   

You sigh “Me too”  

Gently he pulls away and sits up in front of you, his dick leaving your cunt.   

He looks down at your pussy and watches his cum dripping down your pussy. With his fingers he starts pulling the hot liquid back inside of you – you gasp again.   

“Kento....”  

“Shh, this is my apology gift for you. Now take it, darling.” 

This was my first time writing smut like this! So please bear with me!!! Tips are accepted!

Masterlist

[sunderwight]

SV Mary Poppins-ish AU.

So lots of protagonists and antagonists and etc have tragic backstories. Turns out that this can present something of a logistical nightmare for systems in cases where the stories become "real", because there are many instances where an author overestimated how survivable certain angst-ridden circumstances actually were, and without some kind of intervention, a lot of characters actually don't make it anywhere near their intended power-up and revenge/villain/hero/etc arcs.

In cases where this is happening, the System deploys a special agent to go make sure that plot-crucial characters actually survive to the plot.

Enter Shen Yuan, case worker for tragic backstories. His job, basically, is to sweep in during the points of the backstory where the story isn't paying attention and provide actual care. Most of the time, the system ensures that his clients forget about him when he's no longer present, so he can't impact the plot or their character development. But that also means he gets to be as nice and supportive as he wants to be while he is there.

He hates it, though -- knowing that he has to leave his little charges behind to suffer, and that they'll all forget him, and that some of them will grow up and meet bad ends (because they're villains, or tragic heroes, or doomed mentors, or fridged love interests, or so on). However, he can't beat the system, so he just tries to compartmentalize it. Focus on the here-and-now, steadily accrue points, and get to where he can afford to buy a proper reincarnation.

He works in this fashion for a long time, although it's difficult to keep track of it when the System is constantly bouncing him from relevant backstory moments to pending non-canon catastrophes. Sometimes it's stories he knows, sometimes it's stories he doesn't, or is only peripherally aware of. The first time he arrives in PIDW, he doesn't even figure it out. Partly because it's not backstory info that actually made it into the novel, partly because he has by that point kind of stopped trying to figure out where he's going, and whether or not the cute little kid he's helping is going to get their limbs all chopped off someday.

He likes Xiao Jiu and Yue Qi, but given the sheer number of times he has to go save them from dying and try to comfort them in their misery, he doesn't foresee them meeting good ends.

And then there's Luo Binghe. Treating a baby for hypothermia, helping a lost little orphan reach a faraway mountain on his own, bringing him food and treating his wounds in the woodshed, whisking him away to brief (always so brief) magical escapes to just give his brain a chance to rest and recover from all the grief and struggle, even if he won't actually remember the reprieve. Shen Yuan can't pretend he doesn't know that Luo Binghe's story is going to take him to some rough places, can only console himself with the idea that he'll be able to intervene at the worst of times, and that in the end at least, Binghe will live.

At least, until Shen Yuan realizes who Binghe's scum shizun is after he accidentally crosses paths with Shen Qingqiu, and Xiao Jiu recognizes him. Remembers him.

Then he figures out just what exactly is going to happen, and who it is going to happen to, and suddenly all that compartmentalization fails him.

Nanny Shen goes rogue.

[ingravinoveritas]

Lovely new article about Michael in Paste magazine. Article is behind a paywall, so here is a transcription (with thanks to the person on FB who transcribed it, and the parts in bold are my own emphasis).

There’s so much to love about Prime Video’s Good Omens. A delightful adaptation of the popular Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett novel of the same name, the series is romantic, thoughtful, hilarious, and heartfelt by turns. The story of the almost-apocalypse and what comes afterward, it wrestles with big concepts like destiny, free will, and forgiveness, all framed through the lens of an unorthodox relationship between an angel and a demon whose love for one another is a key to saving the world.

As anyone who has watched Good Omens already knows, nothing about this series works without the pair of lead performances at its center. Stars David Tennant and Michael Sheen—who play the demon Crowley and the angel Aziraphale, respectively—have the kind of lighting-in-a-bottle chemistry that’s the stuff of legend, and their characters’ every interaction conveys both their deep affection for one another and the Earth they’ve made their home. Their romance is the emotional linchpin around which most of the series turns, and their heartbreaking separation in the Season 2 finale is so devastating precisely because we’ve seen how necessary the two are to each other’s lives.

But it’s Sheen’s performance in that final scene that really twists the knife. As Aziraphale’s face crumples following his and Crowley’s long-awaited kiss, the actor manages to convey what feels like every possible human emotion in the span of less than thirty seconds as the angel realizes what he has both had and just lost. The moment is emotionally brutal to watch, particularly after sitting through five and a half episodes of Aziraphale looking as lovestruck as the lead in any rom-com. Sheen makes it all look effortless, shifting from giddy joy to devastated longing and everything in between, and we really don’t talk enough about how powerful and underrated his work in this series truly is.

Though he’s half of the central duo that makes Good Omens tick, Sheen’s role often tends to get overshadowed by his co-star’s. It’s not difficult to see why, given that Tennant gets to spend most of the show swanning around in tight trousers looking like the Platonic ideal of the charming bad boy, complete with flaming red hair and dramatic eyewear. Tennant also benefits from Crowley’s much more sympathetic emotional arc. I mean, it’s hard not to love a cynical demon with a heart of gold who’s been pining after his angelic best friend for literal millennia even after being cast out from Heaven. Of course, viewers are drawn to that—likely a lot more easily than the story of an angel who’s simply trying the best he can to do the right thing as he wrestles with his role in God’s Ineffable Plan. Plus, let’s be real, Tennant’s sizeable Doctor Who fanbase certainly doesn’t hurt his character’s popularity.

As a performer, Sheen has a long history of playing both real people (Tony Blair, David Frost, Brian Clough) and offbeat villains (Prodigal Son’s Martin Whitly, Underworld’s Lucian, the Twilight Saga’s Aro). In some ways, the role of a fussy, bookish angel is playing more than a bit against type for him—Gaiman himself has said he originally intended for Sheen to be Crowley—but in his capable hands, Aziraphale becomes something much more than a simple avatar for the forces of Good (or even of God, for that matter). With a soft demeanor and a positively blinding smile, Sheen’s take on the character consistently radiates warmth and goodness, even as it contains surprisingly hidden depths. The former guardian of the Eastern Gate of Eden who gifted a fleeing Adam and Eve his flaming sword and befriended the Serpent who caused their Fall, Azirphale isn’t a particularly conventional angel. He enjoys all-too-human indulgences like food and wine, runs a Hoarders-esque bookshop that never seems to sell anything, and spends most of his time making heart eyes at the being that’s meant to be his hereditary adversary.

Given the much more difficult task of playing the literal angel to Tennant’s charming devil, Sheen must find a way to make ideas like goodness and forgiveness as interesting and fun to watch as their darker counterparts. It’s a generally thankless task, but one that Sheen tackles with gusto, particularly in the series’ second season, as Good Omens explores Aziraphale’s slowly evolving idea of what he can and cannot accept in terms of being a soldier of Heaven. His growing understanding that the truth of creation is colored in shades of grey and compromise is often conveyed through little more than Sheen’s deftly shifting expressions and body language.

Our pop culture consistently struggles to portray the idea of goodness as something compelling or worth watching. Explicitly “good” characters, particularly those who are religiously coded, are frequently treated as the butt of some sort of unspoken joke they aren’t in on, used to underline the idea that faith is a form of naivety or that kindness is somehow a weakness. For a lot of people, the entire concept of turning the other cheek is a sucker’s bet, and believing in something greater than oneself, be it a higher power or a sense of purpose, is a waste of time. But Good Omens is a story grounded in the idea that faith, hope, and love—for one another, God, and the entire world—are active verbs. And nowhere is that more apparent than in Sheen’s characterization of the soft angel whose old-fashioned waistcoats mask a spine of steel and who refuses to give up—on Crowley, on humanity, or on the idea that Heaven is still something that can be saved.

Though he and Tennant have pretty much become a matched set at this point (both on and off-screen), Sheen’s performance has rarely gotten the critical accolades it deserves. (Tennant alone was nominated for a BAFTA for Season 2, and Sheen was categorized as a supporting actor when the series’ competed in the 2019 Saturn Awards.) But it is his quiet strength that holds up so much of the rest of the show around him, and Sheen deserves to be more frequently recognized for it. That he makes it look so easy is just another sign of how good his performance really is.

I love this so much. The thoroughly well-deserved praise for Michael's incredible performance as Aziraphale, but also that Aziraphale and Crowley's relationship is specifically described as a "romance." And of course, the first sentence of the last paragraph that acknowledges how much Michael and David are indeed a "matched set" that cannot (and should not) be separated...

[kirain]

Sigh....Galemancers really love to move the goal post when it comes to the grooming accusations huh? You found out Gale was a fully grown MAN when Mystra slept with him so now you have to say, "Well then he was emotionally groomed and the power dynamic is too vast." Mystra is a neutral good goddess because she's Midnight, who was a neutral good human. She hates that her magic has to be used for good and evil. Ao makes her share it evenly but she'd rather not. She would never do anything to hurt Gale. The writers of the game even confirmed she's not a groomer. People like you also downplay the point of Gale's entire story arc, which is he should've listened to Mystra! The whole point of his personal quest is he needs to learn to humble himself and listen to his goddess! He has no one to blame for his downfall but himself.

There's no "post" to move, anon. The game and lore give us all the context we need. Grooming doesn't only apply to children, and people have proven right and left that Mystra is terrible at relationships. She's petty and abusive when she isn't obeyed by her partners, and that's been the case with all of her iterations. Even the narrator describes her as a "jealous goddess" when you visit her shrine. Plus, your information is wrong on many accounts; the most pertinent being that the Mystra of BG3/5E isn't technically Midnight. Cyric and Shar killed her, reducing her to her godly essence (lore-wise that means she died). The current Mystra is an amalgamation of the vestiges of Mystryl, Mystra, and Midnight, as told in the novel Elminster Enraged.

Now, this is about to get complicated, as it always does with Mystra, so from here on out I'll be referring to Mystra #1 as Mystryl, Mystra #2 as Mystra #2, Mystra #3 as Midnight, and Mystra #4 as 5E Mystra. Alright, let's get started.

Elminster had to reform the fallen goddess by giving her fragments of all three iterations of Mystra. Since all three iterations are combined, our current 5E Mystra embodies the good, the bad, the beautiful, and the ugly. There's even a conversation with The Simbul (one of the Seven Sisters and a Chosen of Mystra) where the newly reformed 5E Mystra speaks of Elminster as her "longest lover". This puzzles The Simbul because that was something of the old Mystra (Mystra #2), not Midnight. The new 5E Mystra replies that she has become a combination of the memories of Mystryl, Mystra #2, and Midnight. This is all in chapter 25-30 of Elminster Enraged. I know it's confusing, but in short: 5E Mystra is not Midnight anymore, and the leading mind is clearly that of Mystra #2, hence her extremely poor judgement—a recurring theme with her character.

Mystryl and Mystra #2 were originally lawful neutral. The alignment changed to neutral good when Midnight took up the mantle, because Midnight herself was a neutral good person. But now it seems 5E Mystra is true neutral, because you are right, anon; Ao won't allow her to do whatever she wants. Midnight tried and was forbidden. 5E Mystra absolutely does not have the same level of humanity or kindness as Midnight, and that may be because Mystryl had no human consciousness and Mystra #2 was a mess.

Regardless of her alignment, she must embody her domain by Ao's decree, which means she needs to spread magic across all Realmspace. Since she has to maintain the balance, she approaches good, neutral, and evil mages with potential opportunities. This isn't a criticism (that's just how godhood works), but rather proof that Mystra is absolutely capable of good and bad. I don't want to hear any more of this "she's a precious little bean and Gale's victim" nonsense. Even if she wants to be, she's not. As Kikitakite said in their post, she's done some fucked up things.

Whether or not the writers intended to make Mystra a groomer, that's exactly what they did. Sometimes writers don't realise they've written an abusive character until they're criticised. Take writer of The Notebook, Nicholas Sparks, for example. He didn't realise he'd written Noah to be an abusive piece of shit until Ryan Gosling pointed it out himself. Gosling has gone on record many times to say he hates Noah, and experts have labeled him an unrealistic and emotionally abusive/manipulative character. The same can be said for Stephenie Meyer, who wrote some of the most celebrated toxic relationships in recent media—with a dash of borderline pedophilia on the side. Therapists have weighed in extensively to tell people that Bella and Edward's relationship isn't healthy and shouldn't be emulated in real life. Indeed, perhaps the best thing to come out of the entire franchise is Robert Pattinson's hatred of Edward and the series as a whole. Jacob's actor, Taylor Lautner, even argued with Meyer's on set because of how weird the "imprinting" segment was and he didn't want to come off as predatory. Meyer argued it was "romantic". 😕

Even if you don't agree Gale was groomed, Mystra is flagrantly responsible for his insecurities and she never should've put her hands on him. The power dynamic is too vast, and even god Gale (conceited as he is) realises it by the end. He only stays in a relationship with Tav if they allow him to ascend them alongside him as his equal. He recognises that anything else would be unhealthy and unacceptable. Also, I researched high and low regarding your claim, but none of the devs have dispelled the idea that Mystra is a groomer. In fact, the most I could find was one dev simply saying, "To Gale it was love, but he didn't know any better." If anything, that only confirms he was confused and didn't know what to do. Their "relationship" was a stunningly horrible idea from the start and that's not on Gale, it's on the literal cosmic being who initiated it.

Moreover, Gale was very likely 17 when Mystra revealed herself to him. This perfectly fits into the 5E Forgotten Realms timeline. If so, no, he absolutely wasn't a grown man. He was a teenager. Mystra may not have slept with him until he was in his 20's, but that still makes it a disgusting teacher-turned-lover situation. Gale even tells us he was "young" when she took him into her fold, and he was only eight years old when Elminster started their lessons. Remember, Elminster is Mystra's biggest apologist. He would've taught Gale to revere her, which means there was almost never a point in his life when Mystra wasn't the main focus. You can tell by the way he speaks about her in Act 1. He's in awe, he's excited, he's proud she chose him. That does something to a child. Something irreversible. If anything, Elminster is complicit in what happened. I've said this before, but he couldn't even be bothered to visit Gale himself. He sent a simulacrum.

As for your accusation that I'm "downplaying" Gale's story arc—you're damn right I am, because the writers made me! Most D&D players I know aren't very happy with how Mystra is portrayed in the game, and that's probably because even they know she isn't presented in a very flattering light. If you really think about it, it's obvious what the writers were going for, but they failed. For example, you said Gale should've listened to Mystra, right? Well, in Act 1 he admits his ambition was his undoing, blames himself for his downfall, and by Act 2 he's literally ready to off himself for her. In fact, he's the only one who sees her ultimatum as justified. Every other companion says she's being cruel and unreasonable. If Gale actually blows himself up at the end of Act 2, the results are catastrophic. The brain is destroyed, yes, but the tadpoles, free of the Absolute's control, complete their transformation and infect/enslave the entire Sword Coast. Anon. She. Is. Stupid. Even the Narrator is like, "You wanna ... you wanna try that again?"

The entirety of Act 2 is Gale learning he shouldn't listen to Mystra. And then she has the audacity to lecture him in Act 3? If he'd listened, it would've been the end of everything. Maybe if Mystra was as infallible as she pretends to be, she would've put her three brains together and came up with a better, less vindictive plan. Because make no mistake, she wanted Gale to blow up in Act 2, which is ridiculous. I know this is an uncomfortable topic for some people, but gods aren't perfect, especially in fiction. They're flawed. They're selfish. Some of them are straight up assholes. The real irony of Gale's arc isn't that he has no one to blame but himself, it's that Mystra should blame herself. At no point does she even consider if she's being unreasonable or unfair. There's no self reflection whatsoever. And the writers expect me to think Gale's full of himself? I wonder where he got it.

Probably from his teacher. ✋🎤